A Turkish visa lasts 90 days. Not 3 months, but 90 days exactly. Dad and I were supposed to be leaving Turkey to go on the EMYR and then when those plans fell through to go into the Black Sea… well that didn’t happen either. So we counted and found out we would be about a week or two shy of being legal in Turkey and have heard horror stories about the fines placed on people when their paper work isn’t up to date.
I had been talking to Karyn Kiser about her recent engagement and was inquiring about what their wedding plans were. She fell in love with a wonderful Swedish man in Colorado and they were going to tie the knot in Sweden at the end of June. I looked at where we would be at the end of June and it looked like a Greek island that may or may not have an airport so I wrote off the chance to actually attend her wedding. After we chatted a little bit more she mentioned how she would be in Sweden the entire month of June and how it would be great for me to visit without all of the pressures of a wedding in the way of actually catching up.
To bring you up to date, Karyn Kiser is my BFF, literally best friend forever. I’ve known her since elementary school and we became very close during the turbulent junior high years that are hard on everybody. Her Dad got stationed in Guam and they moved the summer between 8th and 9th grade. We kept in touch through letters and eventually through Facebook. My sophomore year of college I took a trip to Searcey, Arkansas to visit Karyn who was attending Harding University. We hadn’t seen each other since junior high. Here it is 6 years later and I was planning a trip to Sweden to visit Karyn and meet her new husband to be.
After I had decided I was going Dad and I sat down and picked out some dates. We had to get out of the country by the 12th of June and Mom was arriving on the 13th to be our third crew member. We decided it would be best if I went before Mom arrived and then we could see Istanbul together and everyone could travel back to the boat at the same time. Dad had inquired about a bus ride into Bulgaria which shares a border with Turkey and worked out the overnight bus into Sofia, the capital.
My flight left at 5:40am and the shuttle to the airport left the hostel at 3:10am. It was an early morning with an hour layover in Frankfurt that I remember as a rush through customs into the EU and a quick hop onto a bus that took me to a plane that I was hoping would land in Gothenburg, Sweden at 10:10am. Sure enough I lucked out and me and my baggage made it right on time.
So I basically ate my way through the country. This is Swedish kebab pizza and it’s delicious. It’s a pizza crust with a red sauce and then kebab meat completely covering it. The swirl was the mild kebab sauce and I wish I could describe it, but wouldn’t even know where to begin. Pizza is generally eaten with a fork and knife which took some getting used to and I could only finish about 3 pieces of mine.
After a nice big lunch we decided to go on a hike. Well we were sort of tricked into hiking up to this castle, but we managed. It had a great view of the city and a wonderful story. I am going to paraphrase because I only remember bits and pieces, but a wealthy man married a German woman. They moved to Gothenburg and she got very homesick. So to try and make her feel more at home the man built a tower that resembled one of the castles that are sprinkled throughout Germany and they lived happily ever after. This is Karyn and David at the castle and I predict that they will live happily ever after too.
We visited the Gothenburg Natural History Museum which was super interesting. Everything pictured here was alive at one point and is now stuffed and displayed in the museum. I am pretty sure they have every type of animal present at the museum and in every stage of life.
Karyn had literally just made a comment about not seeing any owls. Here is an owl’s life from beginning to end. Most of the animals had been found or killed 100+ years ago when it was still ok to hunt entire families down and take them out.
This is something that would NEVER be in an American museum – actual Siamese twins. In 1863 the twins died and the doctor essentially pickled them for all of eternity. The museum began as a sort of Ripley’s Believe it or Not and turned into a more educational – family friendly environment but there is still an entire display case of the weird.
This is an actual blue whale. It used to be a small café and place where people could go inside and say “I’ve been inside a whale” but some people were taking advantage of the novelty and were saying they did other things inside of a whale too. It’s really weird because you can see the nails where they cut the guy open. The whale beached itself and back in the good old days instead of trying to push it back into the water a group of villagers stabbed and killed it. Its bones are to the right and they have the bones of a sperm whale hanging above. It was pretty awe inspiring.
After leaving the museum we went on another hike into the live animal area of the museum where I got to see a giant heard of deer and a couple of moose. It was a really pretty walk and we rewarded ourselves with an ice cream afterwards which is always good.
It was still pretty early when we were done with the museum and Karyn and David had recently heard about a movie they wanted to see so we went to a theater to see if it was playing. The first theater we went to didn’t have it, but there was a list outside of the theater saying it was showing at the other theater in town. So we went for a great walk through Gothenburg and I got to see parks and building and take in just how different Sweden was from Turkey.
We saw the movie “Melancholia”. It was directed by Lars von Trier a Swedish director and was filmed about 20 minutes from Gotheburg, but was in English and starred Kirsten Dunst. My first reaction was that the movie was interesting. Maybe not something I would run out and see again, but after we all sat on it for a day we all agreed that it was good and I left liking it more and more.
This is the time of year where the sun doesn’t set until around 10:30pm and rises again at 3:00am. I thought it would affect me, but I was so tired from traveling and having fun that I managed to get to sleep without any problem.
Day two of my Swedish adventure was another fun filled day. Karyn asked if I would assist with a “wedding chore” and I of course said yes. They are expecting 20 people at their backyard wedding and instead of renting plates for the reception, David had the idea of going to a thrift store and getting 20 different plates. I love the idea personally and had a blast going through the plates at a huge warehouse like thrift store up the street from the house. I personally couldn’t decide if I liked the Christopher Columbus plate better or the clear glass plate with a cartoon shrimp in the center. They were both fantastic.
We were meeting some of David’s friends to go play pinball (a passion of David and Karyn’s) and stopped for a cup of coffee and a snack while waiting for one to finish an errand. I got to try a piece of Princess Cake which is what Karyn and David will have at their wedding. It’s custard inside with a small layer of flavored jam and then is covered with lime green marzipan. It was good, but very sweet.
The ride to Boras was interesting. I sat in the very back of a car the size of a Ford Focus. It was a Toyota with an extra row of pop up seats in the trunk. My legs were the smallest so I volunteered but was ready to get out and walk around once we reached Boras. This is the “round table” chairs in the center of town. There is no table, but the chairs are set up like the knights. Left to right is David, Karyn, Me, “Y”, and Ida. Victor was taking the photo. I think the buildings in the background are almost as picturesque as the people.
I want to say the man who wrote Pinocchio was born in Boras? Either way there is a giant Pinocchio statue in town. Mow and I thought this was pretty awesome.
More food pictures. This is a Gothenburg specialty: the Halv Special. It’s a hotdog on a bun with ketchup and mustard on top. On top of that is a layer of mashed potatoes and then a salad of some sort – seafood salad or shrimp salad (I vetoed the salad) and then a layer of fried onions goes on top of that. It is a ton of food and when first presented with this delicacy I wasn’t quite sure I would be able to handle it, but it too was delicious. I could only finish about half of it, but I was proud of even accomplishing that.
Bryan this one’s for you. I went to my first pinball arcade! We went down a shady service elevator and into a basement full of pinball machines. There is a small entrance fee of 150 kroner which is about $25 which allows anyone unlimited play on any machine that is working. I learned how to turn a machine on, I learned what the insides of machines look like, and I learned that each machine has specific goals to meet. We played pinball for about 5 hours and I got a little bit better as the time went on, but will never be on the same level as David.
People can purchase sodas, candy, and alcoholic beverages. I had my first Swedish cider which has about the same alcohol content as a beer, but is super fruity and delicious. Did you know that it is totally ok to have open containers of alcohol in the car as long as it’s the passenger drinking and not the driver, but it’s not ok to turn right on red?
That night we got back and went for a walk through a cemetery which may sound odd, but was actually a really nice park. I got to try a Swedish beer which has a moose on the can and thought it tasted much better than Efes.
My final full day in Sweden was spent doing what everyone associates with Sweden, visiting a castle and IKEA.
This is Tjolöholms Slott (Slott means castle). It is where the movie “Melancholia” was filmed and it was awesome to be able to go and see it right after seeing the movie. Naturally we ran around where we could quoting parts of the movie and figuring out where certain things were filmed.
This is our best attempt at being melancholy. The castle itself was really impressive. It was on the water and there were a lot of people there flying kites and having picnics. We chose not to do the interior tour because we were on a bit of a time limit, but walking around the vast grounds was pretty cool.
This is Karyn peeking out of a stone gate. What is really cool about this photo (aside from Karyn of course) is a Rumba like grass mower in the background. It was awesome. There was a little charging station and it just went around cutting the grass.
It wouldn’t be a trip to Sweden without visiting an IKEA. They are all over and this isn’t the original, but it’s a real Swedish IKEA! I had a lunch of Swedish meatballs, potatoes, and Swedish cakes (I can’t remember the name… it begins with an M). Then we walked around and window shopped. I bought a frame as a souvenir that I will put a photo of Karyn and I in.
When we got back to David’s Dad’s house he had made us fish soup for dinner. It’s a fish soup with saffron that is served with boiled potatoes and a garlic spread. It was good and I thought it was really nice of David’s Dad to go through all the trouble of making us a nice dinner. I was also very grateful that he let me stay at his house and use his washer and dryer while I was there.
My flight from Sweden left at 11:55am and I arrived in Munich for a 6 hour layover. I didn’t go straight to my gate since I would’ve had to go through passport control and wasn’t sure what goodness awaited me on the other side so I stopped at a restaurant in the central part of the second terminal for a good German meal.
I didn’t think to take this photo until I had already consumed half of the delicious meal. I got two veal sausages, a pretzel, sweet mustard, and the Hofbrahaus Original Helles beer. I wanted more beer, but I was already feeling tired after only one (I haven’t been drinking much at all) so decided to limit it to one. I spent the rest of the time walking around the secure terminal and did you know there was a sex shop in the airport that sold Swarovski crystal butt plugs? I had no idea (and no I didn’t purchase one).
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