Day by numbers

• 32-the cost of a bus ticket into town, (about $1.50) 
• 2-number of people dependent on my navigation abilities both on the subway and in the town 
• 1-dancing building, called the Fred and Ginger building. It is curved and wavy and resembles two dancers, hence the name 
• 3-number of bridges visible when crossing one near the National Theater 
• ~200-number of locks on a bar over the river. Couples put locks on the bars and throw the keys into the river below. 
• ~45-different colors spray painted on the John Lennon wall. People paint phrases or pictures on this wall. 
• 10-15-number of times I checked the map to find where we were going 
• ~50-number of stands set up at a popular Vietnamese market. 
•  0-total amount of money I spent at the market because I'm not very good at bartering. 
• 2-10-the score of our game vs. Czech. We made a lot of errors early on so today's game was definitely more disappointing. There are two games tomorrow (although I'll miss them) so hopefully we can pull out a win. 
• 3-the minimum number or relations I can say to describe my relation to one of the girls on the team: she is my Grandma's cousin's daughter's niece. Oops, guess it's 4. Small world! And she is a pitcher! My dad says she looks more like me than my real sister. 
• 6-the number of days I have to pack for in my backpack since I leave the team tomorrow for my Prague/Munich tourist trip! 
• 10-on a scale of 1-10, how much fun I've had since being here and how excited I am for the coming days!

P-R-A-G-U-E

Wanted to be a little creative so here's my acrostic.
P-Prague Castle: Diane, Jill, Alex and I navigated the public transportation system successfully to make it to the Prague Castle. There are several different buildings, but St. Vitus's Cathdral was the most amazing. You should google image search it. There were also great views of the city below.
R-Rough life...not. After the castle, we wandered around the city, across the bridge and back into Old Town to see the famous clock again. I have a feeling I'll see it several more times...
A-actual Czech food for lunch! I had a sausage with a piece of soda bread and a side of potatoes with cabbage and bacon. It was quite tasty! On our way back to the hotel we stopped for some more gelato at the place we went two nights ago.  
G-game day, game day! We were playing one of the American teams. We lost 0-7 but the score doesn't tell the whole story. I was proud of the team and the runs were spread throughout the game. We threatened several times and made some very good plays, and take away a few errors and it's a much closer game.
U-Unbelievable day. I got to see sites of such a beautiful city and watch my favorite sport.
E-eating late after the game, chicken and fries. Again, I felt like I had barely done anything but the sun had tired me out.

Softball Day 2

For the second morning in a row, I woke up around 5:30am to the bright Czech sunlight streaming through the window. I dozed comfortably for a few more hours--ah, the joys of summer. I got breakfast with my roommates, (basically the same as yesterday), read a little to kill time and then headed to the fields once more. We had a good first morning practice, starting with some hilarious team bonding activities and then working situations, first and third plays and bunting. After lunch, we watched some of the baseball game. The Sweden team did not fare so well in the tournament debut--17-3 was the final score I believe. It was fun to watch the game with the team because it felt like the team was getting a lot closer. Back to practice for us, and this time we worked some hitting stations followed by a scrimmage. Dinner followed, then the bus ride and then the coaches (including us) took the big Sweden bus to the grocery store. It was very fun to be on the other side and also bond with the coaches--they are all pretty fun. We all perused the chocolate aisle and got a lot of sweet treats. Love European chocolate! (or czech-olate, haha). I am especially tired tonight after a long day at the fields, although I feel wimpy because I hardly did anything! The Americans are having a movie night with our recently purchased snacks and we will be planning our trip into the city tomorrow morning since we are free until 3. First game tomorrow! I hope our team does well!

Softball and Sight Seeing

Brief update since I'm blogging from my phone.
9:00--hotel breakfast, very different from American breakfast but I wasn't complaining about the chocolate granola and chocolate breakfast pastry. :)
10:30--leave for the fields, started practice at 11:00. I helped run the defense station and it was awesome to see my input used as we ran some of my suggested drills. I think the girls really enjoyed them since they were new for them. I then had to pitch front toss in a cage--scariest thing ever. I got hit in the head when a pop fly came off the netting so I put on a helmet. Looked goofy but it worked the next time I got hit.
1:15--we took a break for lunch, spaghetti and meat sauce. We are still eating every meal at the cafe/restaurant near the fields, and it's fun to sit with the team.
2:00--back to practice. I had to throw live to the batters, 40 at bats to be exact. I was about to die at the end. It was a similar experience to before when almost no one could hit my rise ball and my speed was almost enough to get by alone. Diane was my catcher (despite having never caught before!) and she really held her own. It was a good bonding moment for us, haha. The team finished up with situations and we wrapped up around 5:00.
5:00--dinner time at the same place: chicken and mashed potatoes, not too bad with lots of ketchup. (The Swedes tend to put ketchup on everything!)
7:00--After showering and getting ready, a group of girls including the Americans and Swedes ventured into the heart of Prague. I really want to add photos but I can't from my phone. One quote sums it up though: "this looks like Disneyland!" Every building, and I mean EVERY building is gorgeous and the streets are amazing. We made it to the famous bridge just as the sun was setting and the sky was a beautiful soft pink and purple. The group stopped for gelato--very tasty and cheap! If we have more time off tomorrow, I hope to go exploring again. This just might be the most beautiful city I've ever seen. Can't wait to share photos in a week or so!

19 hours of travel

Well I've made it to Prague! The bus left yesterday at 6pm with around 40 softball and baseball players. Talk about a packed bus. We watched three movies until around midnight when we had to take a ferry from Sweden to Denmark. 2 hours later and we had to take another ferry, not exactly where from and to. We had to go up on the upper level and wait the hour and 45 minutes. It was now ~3:15 am and I had yet to sleep. I didn't even stay up this late on Midsummer! I thankfully was able to sleep until around 7:30 when we stopped for breakfast. We hit bad traffic in Berlin, but I was able to doze some more. We finally arrived in Prague around 1:30pm. And boy, was I happy to get off that bus! Definitely my longest day of travel ever. It was really pretty driving through the Czech countryside and through the streets of Prague and it made me really excited to site see around the city. We had practice for a few hours after lunch, checked into the hotel and went back to the fields for dinner. I am rooming with two American softball players who are playing this summer for Enkoping. I'm exhausted now, and have to get up for two practices tomorrow, but I think we will have the evening off to do some exploring!

Off to Prague and Munich

The past two days have been spent relaxing and getting ready for my upcoming trip to Prague and Munich to help coach the Swedish National team and site-see. Diane and I leave on a bus with the team tonight at 6pm and travel the 745 miles to Prague. While I'm not quite sure of the exact travel arrangements, I know it will take a while...not exactly the luxury of air travel I experienced in college. That being said, I got snacks, downloaded a new book for my Kindle, and found my sleep mask, so I should be ready to go!

Here is a brief run down of my itinerary:

Sunday, June 24--6pm bus to Prague
Monday, June 25--Arrive in Prague and begin practices
Tuesday, June 26--National team practices
Wednesday, June 27--National team practices
Thursday, June 28--National team games begin
Friday, June 29--National team games
Saturday, June 30--I explore/tour Prague with my friend from college, Claire
Sunday, July 1--Prague in the morning, bus to Munich in the afternoon
Monday, July 2--Explore Munich with Claire, possibly Neuschwanstein Castle!
Tuesday, July 3--I take on Munich alone, maybe the awesome Science Museum
Wednesday, July 4--The 4th of July in Munich--how do the Germans feel about fireworks? 
Thursday, July 5--Munich during the day and fly overnight back to Sweden
Friday, July 6--Arrive early in the morning, train from Stockholm back to Skovde and practice at 5
Saturday, July 7--Games vs. Soder at home!

Whew, that's a lot, but I am so excited!! Packing for 10 days has proven to be slightly challenging since I'll be backpacking the last 6 days and don't want to bring that much, but hopefully I can send some softball stuff home with Skovde teammates who are playing for the National Team. I may not blog as regularly, but I'll try to post updates when I get a chance. Pictures to follow in ~2 weeks.

Talk to you soon! 
Promluvte si se na Vás! (Czech)
Wir sprechen uns bald! (German)

Midsommarfest

The Midsummer party had finally arrived! Diane and I were ready with a change of clothes (in case it got cold), coffee (our party contribution), drinks and our cameras. When we first arrived, we were sent out with Lina to be on 'flower duty.' We drove down the road and picked a bunch of flowers that would be used to make the May Pole.

After meeting a lot of the guests while waiting for some food preparation, it was time for our late lunch. The spread of food was pretty amazing--Swedish meatballs, salmon, potatoes, scalloped potatoes, bread and cheeses, salmon cake (?), and something that everyone insisted we must try: pickled herring. Diane and I gulped it down and it was surprisingly not that bad.

Every place setting had a Midsommar program with all of the songs in it. Most of the songs were Swedish, but there were a few in English. I did my best to sing along. After every song we sang, we were supposed to take a shot of snaps (alcohol mixed with different flavorings). Being the Americans, we were given some pretty terrible snaps, haha, but we suffered through.

After the meal, Lina, Diane and I went out in search of flowers. Based on tradition, we had to find seven different types of flowers and then put them under our pillows when we sleep, and then we would dream of our future husbands. We also were looking for flowers and leaves for our head wreaths. Mission accomplished!

Priya and Anzo ended up making our head wreaths for us since we didn't know what we were doing. We decorated them with some of our flowers. Here is a picture of me by the Midsummer Pole with my wreath! I look so Swedish. :)

Then the games began. I was teamed up with Lina and we went around answering questions about people. The questions were pretty funny and included everyone at the party. The one that I was in was "Who has the best lips?" and pitted me against Diane. Every team filled out its choices, and then there were competitions to find out the answers. For the question "Who is Mr. Handyman?" the guys had to nail three nails into a piece of wood. For the questions "Who is the chatterbox?", Lina and Anzo had to play "Fluffy Bunny" on stage with marshmallows! For our question, Diane and I had to eat a long stringy candy without using our hands. It was pretty funny. I ended up winning, but Lina and I had listed Diane...oops, lost my team the point. The tally of correct guesses was later calculated, and Lina and I got second with 4 points.

It was at this point that I realized that Midsummer is definitely a marathon, not a sprint. We had some down time, but that was broken up with May Pole dancing. I followed along with the dances, and my favorite one was the little frog dance where we hopped around.

After another hour or so, (around 11pm), the guys grilled the meat we had brought and we had another meal with potato salad. It was pretty darn delicious. I was exhausted and we wrapped up the evening hanging out inside. I made sure to put the flowers under my pillow when I got home, but whether I dreamt of my future husband will remain a mystery...

It was a wonderful first Midsummer, and I just wish the US had a similar holiday. So much fun!

Marstrand, a city on an island

Since I will be gone for almost two weeks, I planned a visit to see Anders. I left yesterday morning around 9:30 and got to Alingsas at 10:30. Anders told me to eat breakfast before the trip since we had a busy day planned and we would go straight from the train station.

Our first stop after a half hour drive was the Koberg Castle in Vastergotland. It is the residence of Princess Désirée, Baroness Silfverschiöld, (the King's sister), and her husband Baron Nicklas Silfverschiöld. There was a sign that said something like "No entrance" in Swedish, but Anders was determined that I should see the castle, so we drove past it and I had enough time to step out and get a picture.

 Back to the car, a quick stop at a road side strawberry stand, and we were headed to Trollhattan.

In 1800, the Trollhattan Canal was opened which linked Lake Vanern and the North Sea, and Trollhatten became an industrial town. We stopped here to see the locks, and we were just in time to see the water filling in one of the locks for the boat pictured below. It was pretty incredible to see the lock technology.

The line at the sandwich place was too long, so we settled for ice cream for lunch. :)

On our way from Trollhatten to Marstrand, we stopped in Lödöse, a small town that is considered to be the precursor to modern day Gothenburg, the second largest city in Sweden. Lödöse was an important trading town in the 1100s, located at the mouth of the Gota river, and was Sweden's only port on the West Coast. It was moved to Gothenburg so as to avoid taxes levied on merchants since it was trapped between Norway and Denmark . The history of the medieval town is displayed in the Lödöse Museum, where Anders and I spent about an hour looking around.

After the museum trip, we were off to our final destination for the day: the town of Marstrand. I was dozing in the car, and Anders said "Marstrand is ahead." I opened my eyes and was astounded. It was gorgeous! We parked the car, and then we had to take a ferry a short ride across the water to the other side. The blue skies, blue water and colorful buildings were breathtaking. I was impressed with Mariestad and Hjo, but Marstrand outdid both of them! My guide book says "Sun, sailing and the smell of the sea are what Marstrand is all about." Another website said "Marstrand is one of the most famous towns on the Bohuslän coast, and is renowned for its intense boating culture, Carlsten’s Fortress and its history as a playground for royals." Check out the skyline below!

The town is right on the ocean, and the wooden buildings are all built in the same style--pastel colors, intricate details, and gorgeous gardens. Everywhere I turned was picture perfect. And if that isn't enough, overlooking the town is the Carlstens Fastning, a fortress built in 1666-73.

Walking along the boardwalk, there were beautiful buildings on my left (first picture below), and white houses and boats to my right (second picture). The third shows some of the intricacies of the buildings. 

In the picture below, the house just above the boat is supposedly the vacation home of the owner of Volvo, or so Anders told me.

This was by far the most impressive building. It is the "Society House" (Societetshuset), and it was absolutley stunning.

 Just another impressive building...

 

After walking around the town, we made our way to Carlstens Fastning. At one time, it was a notorious prison. To be sentenced to "Marstrand labor" was one of the severest punishments in the country as the prisoners were used for the heaviest tasks, and as many as half the prisoners died. The fortress switched nationalities several times, from Swedish to Danish, and it was used in the Second World War. In 1993, it was declared no longer part of Sweden's defense installations. It was a pretty impressive building to say the least.

 

We only had twenty minutes to walk around, but we sure saw a lot of it. We saw the rooms of the prisoners (pretty cramped!), the secret tunnels, and I concluded that it would be pretty awful to live here.

I was desperate to get a good view of the city, and I found a great view of the ocean on the back side of the fortress. Anders told me "This is the old country," and I knew what he meant. Just looking over the archipelago and seeing the sunlight glisten on the water was overwhelming.

I finally got my good view of the city as we were leaving the fortress. Imagine having lunch at that white table every day. I don't think I'd ever get sick of that view.

 We had dinner at a nice restaurant overlooking the canal so we could watch the boats. It was nice to have a good meal and nice to have a relaxed, knowledgeable and friendly tour guide with me. 

When we returned home around 7:30, we went for a ride on the boat. Anders showed me the rest of the lake. It was so peaceful riding on the boat and just thinking. Back in his house, he brought me more ice cream with hjorten berries. The best English translation is "cloud berries," and Diane had talked about these but didn't know the Swedish name. Anders put them on ice cream for me and they were SOOOO good! I am now on a mission to find some more of them, and I brought some back for Diane to try.

This picture was taken at 9:30 at night--I can't get used to the light!

My visit to see Anders wrapped up with breakfast outside. He made my favorite--rhubarb! I had it the Swedish way again with cream, sugar and cinnamon, and he let me keep the left overs. I definitely do not go hungry when I visit him. He also slipped me a bottle of fladersaft to take home.

It was an amazing day, and Anders is so eager to show me more of Sweden. Marstrand may be my new favorite city in the world--so gorgeous and amazing. I can see why the royals vacation there. :)

BYO...M?

Since I arrived in Sweden, I have been looking forward to the Midsummer holiday when it stays light all night. One teammate, Tess, made it sound really fun when I emailed her several months ago, and now the time has finally come! Diane and I are invited to our coach's house for a Midsummer party on Friday. We are learning that this is slightly different than a standard American BBQ--you bring your own meat. Lina took Diane and me shopping today to pick out what we're bringing, and we were also asked to bring coffee. Lina is bringing caviar and another teammate is bringing herring. Huh? I'm used to American side dishes: potato salad, chips, coleslaw, sodas and brownies! The stores are clearly ready for the celebration as well.

I got my own wine glass ($2!) at the store and decorated it for Midsummer. Not bad, eh? 

Practice was kind of relaxed today--hitting stations and minimal defense. We finished by playing some soccer, reminding me why it is that I play softball. I'm just not aggressive enough for that sport.

Tomorrow I go to visit my relative, Anders, again. He has quite the day planned, and I get back on Friday morning, just in time to get ready for the Midsummer party! I'll post updates when I get a chance.

Something Swedish #2

One word: Fika!!

Cited from Wikipedia...
"Fika is a social institution in Swden; it means having a break, most often a coffee break, with one's colleagues, friends, date, or family. The word "fika" can serve as both a verb and a noun. Swedes consider having a coffee an important part of the culture. You can fika at work by taking a “coffee break,” fika with someone like a “coffee date,” or just drink a cup of coffee. As such, the word has quite ambiguous connotations, but always including something to eat accompanied by a drink, such as cookies, cakes and even candy. This practice of taking a break, typically with a cinnamon roll or some biscuits or cookies, or sometimes a smorgas or a fruit on the side, is central to Swedish life, and is regularly enjoyed even by the government."

Lina invited Diane and me to fika with her and some friends in the afternoon. I indulged in a mug of hot chocolate and a delicious vanilla cupcake with fudge frosting. Yum. I could get used to this.

Enjoying coaching

Yesterday, our coach, Anzo, asked Diane and me to run practice since she wouldn't be there. We talked about what we wanted to cover and came up with our plan. I had a lot of fun running the practice! We started with basic warm ups, and then Diane walked us through base-running information for each of the bases. Next it was my turn to go through defense. We did a two line throwing drill followed by some run downs, and then we moved on to short hops. In groups of three, we worked on side to side grounders, and we finished with defensive reps and played several imaginary innings. We wrapped up practice with some front toss on the field. The practice made me realize that I like structuring drills and thinking about the plan, and I also know a lot of drills from my many years being involved in this sport! Makes me think that I'm not quite ready to give it up after this summer...

A Multicultural Affair

S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y NIGHT! Because of the off day, the softball girls were able to get together again for a fun night out. We all ventured over to a friend's place, and her boyfriend had Scottish friends visiting. This meant we spoke in English all night! Woo hoo! The Scottish boys were fully dressed up in their kilts, (they assured me that this is not normal attire), and it turned into a fun night. We learned Scottish Ceilidh dancing, we taught the "American" wobble dance, and we wrapped up with Swedish swing dancing.

This last picture just about sums it all up--everybody on their feet, united in the international language of dance.

Today was a lazy Sunday--morning trip to the gym, lunch, job applications, reading and Skype-ing some friends and family. Happy Father's Day, Dad!

I love Hjo!

Unfortunately, our games got canceled today against Gefle (the team we played last), because Gefle couldn't round up enough players...major bummer. With the unexpected day off, Lina, Lina's niece, Diane, Gabe and I ventured to the town of Hjo (pronounced "You"...now reread the title of the post!!)--a place that had been recommended to me at the Skovde tourist center. It is a harbor town near the biggest lake in Sweden, and after visiting, I must say that it is one of the most picturesque places I've ever been. Here are photos to prove it. We started by walking around the Stadspark, (the town's park), and it was so beautiful overlooking the water. 

This wooden house had to be my favorite building in the whole town. I'm not entirely sure what it is used for, but it is stunning.

Along the same stretch of road, there were around 5-6 other wooden houses that were so intricate and gorgeous. I had a field day taking photos of all of them.

Those small shacks pictured below are left over from older days when people used to vacation here (before it became more touristy), so people could rent these and hang out for the day on the shore.

I also wanted to visit Hjo because I had read about its famous ice cream restaurant, Moster Elin's. I chose to skip lunch and opted for ice cream instead. I chose the Vattersnipa which included a chocolate scoop, soft serve, chocolate sauce and sprinkles, all in a waffle bowl. SOOOO good!

This is Lina's niece below. She knows no English, but I still had fun playing with her. She got pancakes with ice cream on top but ate only the ice cream. I hope Lina doesn't get in trouble with her sister!

This flag showed the town's logo--a play on the pronunciation of the name. Very cute.

The harbor was absolutely stunning. Again, a photographer's dream. We also got to see the S/S Trafik--a steam boat built in 1892.

We wrapped up the day by walking into the main part of town. The buildings were so beautiful, and again, I was obsessed with the church.

The town was pretty busy today because it turned out that our trip coincided with a huge bicycle race. We looked it up later and found out it was the world's largest recreational bike ride, and Hjo is around the half way marker. The race attracts 23,000 people, and they release groups of about 60 people every two minutes starting at 9pm last night until 6:30 this morning. A few hours later, they start releasing the faster groups that are actually competing. Pretty cool!

Disappointing our games were canceled, but we turned it into a fun day nonetheless!