I am finally in Sweden! After a long day of traveling, an enjoyable trip, Madagascar 3, and a quick stop in Amsterdam, Austin and I reached Stockholm. Emma and Hanna were waiting for us at the airport when we arrived and Ida arrived shortly after. It was so nice to see Ida and Hanna again after such a long time away and it was amazing to meet my first host sister Emma finally after many conversations via Facebook.
I left Austin and Ida in Stockholm and Emma, Hanna, Emma's dad Jonas Moen, and I traveled to Sala where Emma and Hanna live. Lotta Moen, Emma's mother, and Filippa Moen, Emma's younger sister, we're waiting at the house when we arrived and they had made an amazing dinner of Swedish meatballs (Svenska köttbullar), potatoes (potatis), and salad(sallad) with apple pie (äppelpaj) and caramel ice cream (karamellglass) for dinner. Hanna stayed for quite a while but eventually had to leave because she and her family were going on vacation the next day and their flight left at 3am that next day. Because of the long flight and the 6 hour time difference I was very tired and went to bed soon after Hanna left.
The next day, today, we took a historical/ghost tour of the Salva Silver mine (Silvergruva) in Sala, "everybody who visits Sala must visit the silver mine." it was both scary and interesting at the same time. Sonny, one of Lotta's students, Ida, and Marita came with us to visit the silver mine. I learned a lot about the mine and how it was built. Because we it is close to Halloween, it was a ghost tour. We were all terrified afterwards, especially me and Filippa.
They celebrate Halloween differently here in Sweden. Not many people go trick or treating, though they use to maybe 5 or so years ago. Instead Halloween is more about scaring other people than about the candy. People at both Hanna's school and Emma's school dressed up in costumes last Friday and at Emma's school their was a contest for best costume.
The rest of the day Emma and I walked around the center square of Sala and visited the mall and the park. Even though it was cold and rainy out there were many people walking around, going to the store for food or going shopping at the mall. Lotta explained to me that everybody walks everywhere because the price of gas is so high, they have to be very careful and make sure they do not use the car when it is not necessary. I feel kind of silly for driving all the time at home now.
Today there was the first snow fall (snö fall) of the year. It was gorgeous to wake up to a blanket of snow on the ground and fat white flakes in the air, though the snö had stopped by lunch and it was all gone by dinner time.
We are planning on going to Stockholm tomorrow by train and I can't wait! I can't wait to see more of this amazing and beautiful country! Tills imorgon.
Today I spent my second day in Stockholm before returning to Sala by train. Stockholm was so beautiful, and we spent today walking around the older parts with cobble stone streets. We even walked along a road that was only 90cm across! We spent the majority of our morning walking through the old part of Stockholm and visiting some of the small shops. One of the stores we went into had the largest collection of painted wooden horses. Tomorrow Emma and I are planning on visiting one of the largest of these painted wooden horses. They are incredibly beautiful!
We also saw the changing of the guard at the royal palace. The royal family no longer lives here but the royal guard is still posted outside and change shifts every day around noon. Today we got lucky. It was one of the few times each week when the royal guard is accompanied by the royal band who marched in along with the guard and after the changing of the guard they played a small concert. They we incredibly good and even had people playing the french horn and the bassoon, which are incredibly hard instruments to march with and still make them sound good!
After we watched the changing of the guard we visited a small museum that contained several royal artifacts from the palace throughout the ages, including many of the articles of clothing that the previous and current royal family had worn before. However we did not say long. Our stomachs, growling with hunger, soon led us to a small restaurant close by with delicious food. After lunch Ida headed off to pick up her younger brother and sister from the bus station, they would be traveling back to Sala with us that night, while Emma, Austin, and I visited the royal palace gift shop and the royal apartments within the palace. The apartments were huge, lavish rooms with extremely cool fern vases in each that looked like tall pillars made out of porcelain or clay covered in elaborate designs.
After visiting the royal apartments within the palace we went in search of the medieval museum where we were to meet Ida and her younger siblings, however we got desperately lost on the way and were only able to find the museum after we found Ida and asked a shop keeper for help. The medieval museum was extremely fun, mainly because it was a children's museum and contained life size replaces of the buildings that you might find in the real medieval Stockholm that you could climb around in. We were having so much fun in the museum that we lost track of time and had to rush to the train station in time to make our train, or try to at least. Austin, Ida, and her siblings already had their tickets and were able to make the train in time, however Emma and I, who did not have tickets yet, missed the train while trying to purchase tickets. However, there were several later trains that we could take and we made it home safe and sound with just a bit of excitement and adventure. Tack, tills imorgon!
