Lulea, Sweden
Kalix & Haparanda, Sweden & Torneo, Sweden/Finland!
Today, Katarina picked me and Josh up at the hotel at 8:15 to head off to Finland! The stars have been stacked against us making this trip, as Katarina's personal car had something wrong with it yesterday. So she drove to Kalix to borrow her parents car which she used to pick us up. Then en route back to Kalix, we found that the check engine light was on, but we deduced that this was somehow related to some chronic problem that the car has which her father is aware of and says is basically unimportant, at least where we are concerned. Another road block was Katarina's bunny rabbit. The bunny developed a complication with it's pregnancy and had to be taken to the vet this morning for an ultrasound and what turned out to be a C-section and a hysterectomy.
While Katarina was getting this taken care of, Josh and I hung out at Katarina's parents' house for a fika. Her parents speak very little Swedish, but it was still a pleasant time. Her mom showed us some jewelry that she makes (which I'm going to try to make once Katarina takes me to a place that sells the materials sometime this week =). We also got to see some photos of some wood-working that her father does. We attempted to chat about family and whatnot, but I'm not really sure how effective we were as we don't speak Swedish.
We also hung out with Katarina's dog Nova. Josh and I are each not-so-secretly planning ways to smuggle this dog back to TN with us. She's a Siberian Huskey, and is B-E-A-Utiful!
Eventually, Katarina returned while her bunny underwent surgery, and we continued on our way to Finland. There were a lot of policemen on the roads as well, but luckily we seemed to be obeying the speed limits and didn't get pulled over. We kept our eyes peeled for reindeer, but never saw any =/
We made it to Finland and visited a few grocery stores to see the difference between Swedish and Finnish grocery stores. Then we went to a shopping mall that is actually on the border between Sweden and Finland. We were going to take a picture on the border but forgot to look for the line while we were in there =/ Ah well, on the next trip, I suppose.
We were all starving at this point, so we headed to IKEA for lunch. I had chicken. Josh had meatballs. Katarina had salmon. We all had dessert, then we headed through IKEA which is really huge and tough to find the way around in.
I really wanted to purchase an orchid, but there's no way I'd keep it alive on this trip, or on the plane, or once I got home...but I'll post the picture of my favorite one here, so you can see it too.At the end of the line, Katarina said she "needed" this ice cream cone. Josh and I decided we each needed one too. She was right, they were pretty awesome! Although considering that we were eating dinner in about an hour or so, we probably should have held off... =)
Then we took a walk around to the shopping center to see what else they had to offer, but we didn't make any purchases. Then we stopped to get gas and headed back to Kalix for an early dinner.
Katarina's mother cooked a really awesome meal for us.
The first course consisted of poached salmon, pickled herring, boiled eggs, and a salad. We ate the salmon on homemade thin Swedish bread (which was AWESOME--both the bread and the salmon. Yum!) Herring isn't my favorite, but this was better than the herring I had back on the Malardrottningen. The salad was amazing because Swedish people really know the value of feta cheese. I can't really express how much I love that about Greek salads in Sweden =)
The second course began with palt. We never made it to the Paltzerian because it was closed, so Katarina asked her mother to add this to our menu. Palt is basically a potato dumpling. It is like a dumpling, but thicker. A potato is filled with meat, in this case pork, and boiled. Josh and I split one, and I'm really glad we did because it was very filling.
The next course was my favorite and consisted of reindeer (sorry Rudolph-lovers =/ ) and mashed potatoes. Even though I was full, I had seconds of this because it was absolutely amazing. I'm hoping reindeer becomes popular in the US, although I doubt it it will.
For dessert, we had princess cakes! Yum! and some cloudberry jelly.
Nova wanted some food too =)
Then we made a beeline for the bus station. We finally got to ride on a double-decker bus, which I've been hoping for this entire trip! (It's really the simple things in life that make it worthwhile, you know?)
Like an idiot, I got excited about sitting in the very front seat on the top level. Alas, this is the sunniest/hottest spot on the bus when the afternoon sun shines from every angle.
Luckily, there was a shade to pull down which blocked a pretty good bit of the sun. Unfortunately, it also obscured the majority of the view.
This didn't matter so much to Josh because he took a snooze, but I watched the scenery as much as I could. Alas, I still saw no reindeer, but the countryside was pretty.PS. and in case you're following me very closely, I've added pictures to the past several days while my computer was cooperating just in case you care to revisit those. I find visual aids helpful, personally =)
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