Hey, I Just Met You, And This is Crazy, But Here's My Number, So Call Me, Maybe?

On Wednesday, I left work and immediately called my mom to tell her that I was free for two weeks. I would be headed to Sweden in the morning and then my parents and my brother would be visiting for a week. I got home and packed up all my stuff. Macka was moving back to Sweden so Jeff and I accompanied him home and helped him bring all of his luggage home, and man did he had a lot of luggage. On Thursday morning, we all got up at the crack of dawn and headed to the train station to take a bus to Beauvais to take another bus to the airport to take a plane to Sverige! We landed around noon and Macka's mom picked us up from the airport. She then bought us lunch and we headed to their house. Macka lives in Norrköping (pronounced Norshopping). Seeing as Jeff had been to Sweden earlier in the year, he already knew Macka's parents, but I meet them for the first time. They were so generous and accommodating and they spoke English. We also met his sister, Viktoria who just returned from being an au pair in Washington DC last year.

After Macka got all of his stuff situated, we all headed to the summer house on the Swedish archipelago. We stopped and got ice cream on the way to the summer house. It was such a cute place and they had the best ice cream. There was one that even had dry ice in it! The best part, if you're cold, they give you a blanket! Afterwards, we went to the grocery store and bought the most fantastic candy, kettle chips, and cider. All the main food groups! The summer house was the most adorable house ever. Not only do they own one summer house, but they also have two guest houses on their property along with two sailboats, a motor boat, and a fishing boat. It was pretty sweet. That night his parents made dinner for everyone and it was delicious. A real home cooked meal. We had some sort of mushrooms that are indigenous to Sweden and they were delicious. The next morning we woke up, ate breakfast, and headed out on the water. We took the bigger sailboat out and sailed to Harstena, an old fisherman's island. It was pretty windy and freezing so we were all bundled up. When we got to Harstena we pulled into one spot to anchor the boat and I jumped off with the main line. I didn't manage to jump out quite far enough and I ended up landing on some algae and sliped and fell face first into the water. Let me tell you, Swedish water is freezing! Jeff got off the boat to help me and he ended up doing the same thing, but he only got his feet wet. Me on the other hand, I was soaked from my waist down! After that, we pulled into a different spot and anchored the boat without any difficulties. Once everything was all set up, it started pouring so we made lunch on the boat and played some cards. At night though, it cleared up a little bit and we saw a beautiful sunset. Macka and I went skinny dipping later on, but Jeff didn't want to join us. The water so was cold that we only jumped in once and then immediately got out of the water. It literally took your breathe away!

Navigator Macka

Captain Jeff

Captain Nicole

Harstena

The next morning, both Jeff and I woke up from the sun thinking it was around 8:30 or so. Boy were we wrong. Turns out the sun rises in Sweden at 4am and it was only 4:30. It was hard to fall back asleep but we eventually did. A few hours later we got up and had breakfast. Macka gave both Jeff and I hard bread (a typical Swedish breakfast food) with ham and cheese from a tube and another one with caviar and cheese from a tube. Sounds gross right? Well, the ham and cheese one was delicious, but the caviar and cheese one, not so much. Jeff didn't like either. You should have seen his face when he tried it! Once we finished with that, we locked up the boat and headed into the old fisherman's village. It was about a 20 min hike from where our boat was anchored. We then met two of Macka's friends in town. They took the ferry over from the mainland. Hannah and Carl were both super nice. We were waiting for a couple of Macka's other friends to come over on their boat, but they got caught in fog and were delayed. While we waited, we walked around the village, which comprised of 40 houses, one small school, one restaurant, and one general store. Some of the people live there year round too; I don't know how they do it. As soon as we finished eating his other friends showed up, but we needed to head back to our boat and they wanted to eat so we never really got to hang out with them. Hannah and Carl came back with us to Macka's house though. The sail back was much smoother than the sail there. The sun made a few appearances and it was much warmer! Once we got back, we made dinner and then went in the sauna. Oh yeah, Macka has a whole sauna built into the basement of his house! We stayed in there for awhile before we all got too hot and then ran and jumped into the water. It was so cold, but the water wasn't really that salty so it didn't hurt your eyes. It was really weird. When we got out of the water, we headed straight for the sauna and then jumped in again a few more times.

We woke up on Sunday morning to pouring rain, so we packed up the car and headed back to the city. We stopped at a real candy store on the way home and got even more candy! It was so delicious. Typical Swedish candy is salty licorice, pretty gross, I know, but the store also had sweet and sour candies! Macka's parents had left earlier to go and pick up his brother from the airport because he was coming back from being in New Zealand for the past year, so we got to meet him when we got back to the apartment. Jeff and I felt a little weird because we were at their "family reunion" seeing as all three kids were in another country last year, but it was okay. They included us in everything which was really nice of them. That night, a few family friends and other family came over to welcome home everyone, so we got to meet some of the family. It was really nice because all of them spoke English so we could partake in the conversation. Unfortunately I had to leave early the next morning to go back to France. On Monday morning, I woke up and took the bus to the airport and 11 hours later, I got back to my room. It was quite a long day, but the trip was worth it. I had a great time in Sweden and I can't wait to go back.

Norrköping

Norrköping

PS - If you are wondering where the title came from, its Macka's favorite song and he sang it 24-7!