Happy Green and Gold Day Friends!
Today was a day filled with adventures, sun, and many pictures. We started the day as usual with our breakfast at the hostal. Jet lag hit a lot of us hard and we struggled a bit getting up for our 11:00am departure. This morning we tried a ginger shot (non-alcoholic of course), because we were told it is supposed to be immune boosting. After we ate breakfast and scared JJ that we were all taking a real shot that early, we made ourselves lunch to take on our adventure for the day.
Today we spent the majority of our day at Brännö Island. Brännö is an island in the southern part of Gothenburgs archipelago. We finally had the chance to try out the public transportation system, having to take 2 trams and a bus before getting to the ferry to take to the island. Luckily we all have a transportation pass so it was relatively easy to get through it all.
Once we got to the island we walked over to “Suzie’s Cove”, Suzie’s favorite place on the island, which soon became everyone’s favorite place on the island. The cove had beautiful views of the water and was perfect for some pictures with the sun. As we walked through the island, we realized how small all the houses are. One of my favorite things was how all of the houses weren’t your typical colors that you see in the U.S., a lot of them were yellow, blue, white, and the occasional blue.
Once we got to the cove we had a picnic lunch (in the middle of winter?) with what we had made before we left the hostal. We all spread out across the rocks and enjoyed the peaceful views. Lunch break was cut short once we all noticed our butts were freezing from sitting on the rocks in 40 degree weather.
After lunch we split into smaller groups and went on our own ways to explore. 5 Americans wandering around a new island that can’t read a map or talk to the locals, sounds like the perfect recipe, right? Luckily, we only had to ask for directions once! (We have yet to meet a bad Swede when asking for directions). To start we decided to take the road less traveled and scale the rocks instead of walking on the path. Let me tell you, the rocks looked much flatter than they ended up being, and it proved to be a good challenge for a sunny Sunday. After a few minor slips we were able to make it to the top of one of the taller rocks, and the views got even better. We thought getting up was the hard part, but then realized that the slippery rocks proved to be quite the challenge going back down. But no worries, we all made it down with all bones still together! Shoes now, those are a different story for a different time.
After the rock explorations we decided to stay to the mainland and check out the rest of the area. We had heard something about Nature Preserves somewhere on the island, so we decided that we were going to go try and find them. After walking around for about 25 minutes, we heard a Swede behind us speaking really good English, so we decided to ask her if she could help us with some directions. She continued to go right into directions, including Swedish words and all to describe where we should go. Bless Kendall for being a good listener, we were able to hear a few rights and lefts before she biked off with her cute doggy. We all made it down the road and to the sea before hitting an unpaved road and questioning our decision. After realizing we may be cutting it close on time to catch the ferry (if we missed it we were stuck on the island until tomorrow morning), half of us decided to walk back and half of them decided to continue forward. As we walked back the sun began to set and it finished the beautiful day on the island. Make sure to check out the camera roll tab to see more pictures from today!
All in all, it was a great day at the islands and we got a ton of great pictures ops. After the ferry, bus, and walk back to the hostal, we cleaned up and headed out for our group dinner. We went back to Karlson’s Garage, the same place we went for a drink the day we got here. JJ had instructed us to get Swedish meatballs as this was the only place we would be going where they were truly authentic. Most of us decided to stick with water and tea for dinner, but our bartender had different thoughts and bought us all a Swedish Licorice shot to try. Let’s just say that I will be sticking to American shots from now on. I decided to roll with the Swedish meatballs. After trying them, I can confidently say that meatballs are still not my favorite meal out there.
Tonight we are laying low and sitting in the “secret” lounge all updating our blogs. I’m hoping my jet lag can keep up for one more day so I can stay up for the big Packer game tonight at 12:40am! I must say, Swedish folks are a lot nicer about the Packers clothing than Chicago has ever been!
Go Pack Go!
Lyndsey
Top Takeaways of the Day:
- The Swedes like to have warm hard boiled eggs…a concept I’m still working to get used to at breakfast every day.
- Sweden may be the country that drinks more coffee than the United States, but their cafes definitely do not stay open as late as ours. We all are still searching to find some coffee.
- The public transportation system isn’t as hard as it is in the United States.
- Dogs are allowed in bars. That’s all I have to say about that one.
Lyndsey Learns Swedish 