Not this past weekend, but the weekend before, J and I and some Swedish friends made a trip to Norway! A friend of their lives there with his Norwegian sambo and they invited a group of us to come stay for a weekend since they'd recently bought a house. It was lovely where they live, it's on an island outside of Kristiansand, Norway. Although, when you look at the map, it doesn't seem that far from here in Gothenburg, it took nearly 10 hours to travel there. First, we drove 2 hours up to Strömstad, then we had to wait a little over an hour for the ferry from Strömstad to Sandefjord, Norway. You have to get there at least an hour in advance, and you line up your car in the rows. The ferry ride itself takes about 2.5 hours, and then there are 3 more hours of driving, possibly 3.5, left in Norway to do until you get there. Phew!
The ferry ride on the way there made the 3 of us girls in the travelling group sick. It was so incredibly windy that day, and the boat was hitting the waves just in the wrong way that when you looked out the windows you saw water, briefly land, then high sky. Repeat. It made my stomach feel as if I'd eaten something rotten. Luckily one of the other girls had a stomach settling chew/gum type thing that numbs your mouth. It settles your stomach a bit while making you focus on the fact that you can't feel your tongue or cheeks anymore. Needless to say, I was very happy to get off the ferry.
The weekend was wonderful! There were a total of 9 of us and it was a perfectly sized group. Since they live on a little island, we went down to the water and fished a bit, grilled, played a game called kubb, watched a movie in a big school theater, and played sand volleyball. It was a blast! And something I definitely needed. It was good to see our Swedish friends that we rarely get to see, and also to get out somewhere new and out of my little hole of Gothenburg. It was beautiful and sunny all weekend too! J and I slept in a tent outside and as it got down to 9C or so (48F) at night it was a bit chilly! We had thermal sleeping bags, but I literally had to zip mine up to where only my face poked out. J made fun of me saying I slept like I was in a sarcaphogus. It's pretty true!
This past weekend we went to the big horse racing event outside of Skövde in Axevalla with J's dad, some relatives, and our friend O. I got a sunburn, but that can be expected. I'm happy to finally be getting some sun and not look like a phantom! We spent the evening at some friends' house in Tibro and spent the night with J's parents there as well. His sister's family was there, and his brother and sambo came over for lunch yesterday. It was nice to have a big family lunch. We drove home yesterday afternoon.
J and I have complained about not having a single whole weekend in Gbg since the beginning of May. We're hoping this upcoming weekend will finally be some total down time for us.
This morning I had an interview with Bring Citymail as a letter carrier. It went really well! Basically you're a mail person but riding a bike. You sort all the mail first for the morning and in the afternoon or starting late morning you go out and deliver the mail. It's not Posten, which is Sweden's equivalent of USPS. It's a smaller, more efficient (they cut out a middle process) way of doing mail. It's also less personal mail and more company/bills/advertisement mail. I will know by Wednesday if I'm hired, so I'll be sure to get back to you all!
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