Äventyr i Sverige: del ett

These are two blog posts I wrote on MS Word because the Internet here isn't as accessible as it is at home. I'm at Lund Stadsbiblioteket (Public Library) and they registered me for internet use for the day (for free!!)

I am supposed to blog about my adventures in Sweden, but the internet connection is not always as reliable as I would like it to be. I landed in Stockholm at 7:30 am with little to no sleep (24+ hours). My hostel was pretty easy to find but I got lost trying to get back to Stockholm Central Station because I am moving to Lund a day early. It is very expensive to do anything here so I figure I’ll go to the smaller city and hope that prices are cheaper. The city itself is beautiful. I am across the river/bay from the Royal Palace and the Riksdag so my view is pretty sweet. I’ll try to post pictures.  I can barely understand anyone, but the Swedes’ English is generally perfect though. My train leaves in 11:00 hours and I am very tired. I think I will go to bed soon.

Anyone who has ridden on a bullet train (I think mine was kind of slow to be a called a bullet train) will likely have had a similar experience. I didn't realize it had started moving when I left Stockholm. My ticket only cost me 409 SEK ($50) which is good because I was expecting to pay over $100.

I have arrived in Lund. It is a very nice, old European town. It is not overwhelmingly busy unlike Stockholm. The hostel I am staying at is a decommissioned train. I have 2 days until I my program starts and I hope it comes soon. I am hoping the hostel has wi-fi so I can update this and figure out where I need to be Sunday night. Overall the weather has been great except it has rained everyday. The temperature is perfect though. I came across a collection of Runestones in my aimless wanderings today because I had 4 hours from when I got off the train to when I could check in to my hostel. I was allowed to drop my backpack off, but my computer and various other items are still quite heavy after the first hour.

In the future I will try to use a more interesting, readable, and chronologically correct writing style, but I wrote most of this either jet-lagged or when I was fighting my battery dying. Varsågod

Pictures will come due time

Mike

DC Trip

Hey everyone! For Memorial Day this year Karli and I decided to take advantage of my flight benefits and the long weekend and travel to Washington DC. We were only there for a day and a half but we were able to see the Natural History Museum, the American History Museum, the Air and Space Museum, the White House, the US Capitol, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and Arlington National Cemetery. It was a busy weekend but also a fun trip! Enjoy the pictures!

New Apartment and other Chicago News

Hi all! I've been living in Chicago since October and I bave really been enjoying it. Working with United Airlines is great and I work with some amazing people. I got a new apartment in the Fulton River district and it has been much better than living on the north side. It is now a short 20 minute walk to work instead of a 50 minute train ride, plus I have a great view of west Chicago. I have been waiting for my couch to arrive before taking pictures but now that it has I'll give you a quick tour:

Work accompolished thanks to Mike

 Dad/Grandpa cleaning eave troughs before Mike arrived.

 Washing the siding took 7 hours with time out for lunch.  Egg salad sandwiches, Mike's favorite.  The improvement is really noticeable.  Looks good.

Mowing during the 80*+ afternoon on Sunday.  It always looks so nice when it is done.  Laura will take over this job while Mike's in Sweden.  He plans to share his adventure in this space.

Spring in MI

 Grandpa finished planting vegetables, and a few flowers, in the back garden.

Hoeing in the front garden where he plans to plant sunflowers because birdseed is so expensive!

I've been watching for Jack-in-the-Pulpit to bloom and a few days ago I found several in our woods.

Pictures

Hope you enjoyed a picture update on my family!

First Hanukkristmas!

Aaron and I stayed in Vermont for the holidays and had a joint Hanukkah and Christmas celebration.  It was my first Hanukkah and his first Christmas.

On the first night of Hanukkah, I jumbled my way through the phonetic "translation" (there is a word for this which may be transcription or may be transliteration) of the prayers and lit the candle.  For the rest of Hanukkah, I had the tune of the prayer stuck in my head even though I only knew approximate sounds of how it is supposed to go.  We also made latkes, which were very tasty, and played dreidel (which I am great at and is 100% luck-based).  Aaron got me Rock Band 3, and it featured prominently in all our future celebrations.

On Christmas, Aaron was really excited and we woke up early.  I put the casserole in the oven and we played Rock Band while it baked.  Our tree looked like this:

It's hard to tell in this picture, but we had lots of presents and it looked very festive.  I made Aaron a stocking, and that was his first present.  I modeled it on the ones that my mom made for our family, and I'm super super happy with how it came out.

Here we are opening some gifts!

In the afternoon, we watched some NBA basketball and Skyped back to Michigan.  We loved watching Mckenna try to talk with a mouth full of candy.  Aaron's dad was in town for skiing, so he was able to join us for their Christmas Day tradition - getting Chinese food.  We still have not found a good Chinese place around here, and we tried a new one and had some pretty bad food.  But, they had maple walnut ice cream, so it all worked out okay in the end.  After dinner, we came home and lit the Hanukkah candles.  With Aaron's dad here, Aaron didn't have to sing the prayers solo.

On Monday we all went skiing, and had a fun time.  There was some new snow, which is nearly miraculous the way this winter has been going.

The first day of 2012 is going well so far.  We started it out at midnight, watching out the window as fireworks peeked over the roof of the houses across the street.  Now we just need to kick these foggy spring-like days and begin winter!