🇸🇪Hej Svergie🇸🇪🥌

Our first international trip while on location in Europe is complete! We traveled to Sweden to watch Vicky, and Team USA, at the Women's World Curling Championships and take in some of the sites of rural and urban Sweden.

First, being amongst curlers again was an incredible heart lifting and morale booster that I didn't even know I needed. They are our people. We speak the same language even if in different dialects. When a sudden gasp comes from a group of curlers we all know an unexpected miss just happened. Or cheers and claps for an awesome shot even if it wasn't for our flag and colours. Curling has given me a lot over the years but the curling community in general is the biggest gift. I loved sitting amongst curling parents, who are all the same: nervous, chatty, and proud. Curling parents are hilarious - in one breath they're commenting on a call or a strategy decision and the next leading team cheers and highfiving strangers. I love it and we joined in.

We felt like celebrities when we first arrived as we were introduced as "Vicky's friends from Alaska who just moved to Italy." It's really the first time we've heard other people talk about us living in Italy and it was a bit surreal. We quickly became a part of the USA contingent. Strange, since we've followed most of these players through their competitive careers, and often feel like we know them, but we just met for the first time. Curling is curling and we saw some incredible shots and some heartbreaking misses. USA finished just outside of medal contention but our persona goals were to see Vicky and experience Sweden.

My favourite part of the week was "Brekky with Vicky" and not just because of the badass juice kegorator! Breakfast felt just like sitting down for a drink after a Tuesday league night game! I was soaking up stories from home, clean gossip, life updates, and laughter just as we often did well after everyone else at the Curling Club had left and we were left to lock the place up. What an incredible juxtaposition that world class athletes can just shoot the breeze hours before big games on the big stage. I'm super grateful for Corey, Tabitha and Tara who all joined in our conversations and shared Vicky with us for a few days!

When the red, white, and blue were no longer on the ice we decided to leave the tiny towns of Gävle and Sandviken to spend a few days in Stockholm. The entire touristy part of our trip was coincidental to the results on the ice as Gävle and Sandviken are rural Sweden with little to no attractions to visit. Some quick replanning, and Brian's willingness to drive on foreign roads in winter conditions, and we found ourselves in the heart of Stockholm.

Drying out my shoes from the wet snow!

I consider myself pretty geographically aware but I did NOT know that Stockholm is actually composed of 14 islands! All that water makes a very humid environment and, just like Alaska, March is still winter. The snow was wet - perfect snowman snow - and reminded me of Anchorage. Coupled with the constant breeze coming off the Baltic Sea and my new found Mediterranean mindset I was very grateful to have packed my winter coat, hat, and gloves! I did end up buying Swedish made wool socks because my hole riddled tennis shoes were not the best choice for the snowy North! Although I got a bout of the neausea that has plagued me for a few years we were able to squeeze in a lot of food, culture, and museums! The most interesting food we encountered was moose carpaccio! Being Alaskan, the idea of eating moose, seemed perfectly normal to us. But unlike Alaska, moose is commercialized and on nearly all restaurant menus!

Swedish whisky and Swedish Swedish fish!

Chocolate coconut chokladbollar to stay warm!

Icecream flights should be more common!

The Vasa Museum was INCREDIBLE and the story is nearly unbelievable! In an attempt to ramp up war efforts against Poland, the Swedish King ordered a new war ship called Vasa. It was to be a massive, intimidating, and game changing warship that would be the heart of the massive Swedish Navy. However, the ship was too top heavy, too narrow, and too unstable. On her maiden voyage she sank after less than a mile! 333 years later, she was rediscovered! While the original ship was an engineer disaster, three centuries later, thanks to engineering genius, they were able to raise the Vasa nearly fully intact! Today, about 97% of Vasa is original! There was no way to photo capture how massive Vasa still is today!

Vasa looks like a toy ship or a green screen but it is not!

Before heading out we stopped at the Paradox Museum which was a highlight for me even if not Sweden specific. We spent hours trying different exhibits, reading about how the illusion worked, taking photos for others, and just laughing a lot!

🇸🇪 Introductory Swedish🇸🇪

Gävle is pronounced "yah-v-la" like "la la la" singing
The accents aren't just for pronunciation! Flader = sheets but fläder = elder
Glacerie means icecream. This is so amusing to me, makes total sense, and I love it!
Utfart means exit. This was the first word I learned 😂
Hej is pronounced like "hey" and means "hello"

Fika is like a Swedish coffee break or snack time!
It's enjoyed several times a day with a sweet and hot drink

🇸🇪 Swedish Morsels to Share🇸🇪

Unlike Italy, water comes to your table at dinner (thank goodness! I miss this!)
There is no standardization if doors swing out or in. In several shops the door to get out swung in which seems like a huge safety issue but also makes for awkward social moments when you can't read Swedish

Swedes eat dinner early. In Italy restaurants don't even open until 730 but in Sweden 530 seems to be prime meal time. This led to hotel snacks for dinner one night!
Nearly everyone is bilingual. When our hotel clerk told us the "bathwater is good to drink" we quickly realized he meant tap water and the mix up is likely a results of speaking so many languages.
Parking garages close?! Like you can't get your car in or out from 10p-6a!

😬😱

Sweden is in the EU but still use the Swedish Krona. 200 Krona is about $20
Swedish gnomes are called "Tomten" and are believed to watch over the land and help people in mysterious ways. They're always watching and helping the humans but never seen