Posts Tagged ‘stockholm’

Sailing Away To Lake Vattern

Sunday, June 21st, 2009

volvoraces

Saturday morning found us checking out the waterfront in Stockholm one last time before heading to Lake Vattern and our quaint pension in Huskvarna.

Volvo is sponsoring an around-the-world sailing race (ie Americas’ Cup size ship).  It started last October in Spain, then Boston, Rio, China, Singapore,.. etc…Stockholm!  All the ships raced in on Thursday- past ,and will take off on their brief, final leg to St.Petersburg in a few days. We got to see the ships, the sponsor tents, and many in-route videos. Amazing, and we were there!

Now we are in this little town, on a lovely lake (second biggest in sweden) in this little hotel run by this cute couple (early 30’s) who met in Australia, she is Korean, but both raised in sweden. They have converted this home on main street into a 20 room inn by themselves with lots of sweat equity and talent. Glad we could be here 2 nights and get to meet them.

They steered us to a great place to eat (they called several restaurants to see if they were open with the holiday)   TwinCities Restaurant“.  This restaurant has a story too.  Twin boys born in Minneapolis in 1981, one is kidnapped by the nurse but declared dead to the mom.  They run into each other 23 years later and the nurse is sent to jail, Mom goes into a mental hospital, and the boys start restaurants in cities that are twins.  Also Dallas/Fort Worth.etc they have 12 now. weird

Mid-Summer Holiday

Sunday, June 21st, 2009

dieterandgunnel

We sure manage to hit the festivals, holidays, and celebrations.  This weekend is Mid-Summer! The Longest day of the year, and as big an occasion as Christmas! Everyone goes to the country and gets together with family and friends, and everything is closed.

We traversed all of Sweden, to get to the island of Oland, off the southeast corner of the country and sitting in the Baltic. We were soooooo fortunate to enjoy the hospitality of Dieter and Gunnel Schoenherr (in the home where she was born!),  They  also own a home in Rancho Bernardo, and live there 8 months of the year.  He and son Klaus are the major fellas at RB Hair team!

What a lovely, quiet, historic (vikings),and delightful place to start the midsummersunsetanticipation of the holiday. Their holiday planning involved errecting tents for the outdoor meals and celebrating the Mid-Summer Eve as well as Day.  With lots of family leaving the cities and heading to Oland (two dots over the “O” sounding like “ewe-land”) we left the family to be together and headed to Stockholm.  Sunset was at 10:30pm and sunrise at 3:30am.  It never really was dark.