Having a Swede Time

So I went to Sweden at the end of the program. Ashley was cool enough to invite me out to her grandparents, which turned out to be a blast! Originally, I thought that they lived in a town outside of Stockholm, but eventually I found out that that was not the case. They actually live on an island in the Baltic Sea called Åland that sits right between Sweden and Norway. So what I thought was right outside of Stockholm was actually a bus ride, ferry ride, car ride, ferry ride and then one more car ride away… I guess it was still technically “outside” of Stockholm but just a little further outside than I imagined.

This was no problem though. The 15 hours of time spent on transportation went by relatively quickly and we had fun on the way. Well there was a bad part actually! At the very beginning when we were trying to get to the airport in Dusseldorf, we somehow got on a train that took 2 hours instead of the 1 hour that we needed to get there. This turned into us missing our first plane, having to pay 140 euro for the next plane that was then delayed another hour. So not the best morning… But things got better. We got to Stockholm eventually and had a nice break from traveling in the city.

Then it was time for the ferry, which was more like a cruise, so I enjoyed the journey across to Åland. Once there, Ashley’s grandparents picked us up and took us to their house where I stayed until Friday. This was a pretty awesome next few days, and really relaxing too. The first night we just slept in, catching up on sleep after finals and an early morning getting to the airport, but the next days were filled with fun and relaxing time on the island. Her grandmother (Mormor) and grandfather (Morfar) were a fun bunch! Mormor was really nice and talkative and also made lots of funny sound affects, which I am assuming are normal Swedish sounds or something. She fed me some amazing food too! Morfar on the other hand amazed me! He is 83 (I think) and he goes around fixing things up and helping set up games. He is probably the most active old person I know. While I was there, I played bool, badminton, hiked and biked around parts of the island, and did this thing people do there were they get in the sauna and then run jump in the Baltic and then get back in the sauna and then jump into the Baltic and so on. It was a really fun few days and I am super happy that Ashley invited me and her grandparents were generous enough to let me stay.