Sigrid Storråda

We also went to see the viking ship Sigrid Storråda. It's a full scale replica of the Norweigan Goksthaship from the 10th century, which is the largest viking ship known in the world. She is rather impressive.



Sigrid Storråda was launched for the first time in 1995, after two years of hard work constructing her. Today she sails every now and then to Medieval Days around the country, and you can also book her for different occasions.



The back of the boat:



Checking out the exhibition:



Another creative self portrait!

Good friends

Today we left Nyköping and reached the last stop on our trip, for this year - Mormor and Morfar's house.

It was really good to see the Dunlop family, and it was especially good to see how good friends our kids became. Maybe it was because they were made out of the same combo - Swedish mummy and Kiwi dad?? Well, either way, Maya and Lucas really found each other.

Svidish Husmanskost

For lunch today we went down to the harbour to have some traditional Swedish husmanskost (=everyday fare). The kids got pancakes and the rest of us had Wallenbergare (which is a giant veal patty in a pool of mashed potatoes; with olive oil, a smattering of peas and a bowl of lingonberry jam), and I enjoyed a pomegranate cider with that, mmm!

I'm busy enjoying all the yummy treats and foods here in Sweden, only two weeks to go until it's back to no-pork-or-alcohol-land.

Nyköping

The past few days in Nyköping we have enjoyed the simple pleasures of life; feeding ducks, going to the playground, visiting a market in the city center, swimming in the pool, enjoying the good company of the Dunlop family. Life is good.

Öppna landskap

This morning we left the landscape of Skåne, to drive up through Sweden and to "Stockholm Syd" - Nyköping (with the airport Skavsta), actually 80 km from Stockholm...

The first part of the trip, between Helsingborg and Jönköping, I kept having the classic "Jag trivs bäst i öppna landskap"-lyrics (=I like open fields the best) in my head...
It was sooo beautiful!! You could see so, so far - and it was almost breathtaking.

Enviable garden

Jens and Karin's house is an old villa from the 1920s. The garden is a dream, full of apple trees, and - check this out, a peach tree:



They also had a glass house full of ripe grapes, mmm... what a luxury!

Artistic photo

Viken:

Mölle m.m

Yesterday we took a drive up the coast, north of Helsingborg. It has been absolutely fantastic weather the last few days, fantastic! Super sunny and hot, we like!
We stopped in the old fishing town of Viken, had lunch and a browse around at an outlet center in Höganäs and then we went to Mölle for an ice cream and a swim. It was gorgeous!











Mölle:











It was cold in this pool too, but didn't seem to worry the kids too much, once they got playing around.







It was an absolutely great day!

In Helsingborg

I'm falling behind a bit with the blogging since I haven't been able to get on the net for the last few days.
We've been to see some more friends we got to know during our time in UK; Jens, Karin, Max and Tilde. Our kids are cool, they just become friends with anyone in no time (because I don't think they do remember each other):





We took a walk down to the beach for a bit of a swim... but it was rather cold, even for the eager kids..!

Åhus

The coastal town of Åhus is known for two things: the Absolut Vodka distillery and bottling facility is located here - and they serve super icecream here!
Eva & Fredrik have a summer house in Åhus and we passed it yesterday on the way home from Kristianstad, to check it out (they had done quite a lot of work since we saw it last). We also went down to the beach to have a huge ice cream.



The had the coolest statue on the beach, a granite pair of Ray-Ban Wayfarers. The kids thought they were fab too!



Self portrait: