that my little Honda Jazz started to wobble on the highway. My heart kind of jumped into my mouth and at first I though I was not concentrating so the car skimmed allover the line, but then I realized there was heavy winds. Yesterday it rained 60mm in the Stockholm area and today this......well at least "vi had i alla fall tur med vädret" during the vacation. Two more days and then back to work :=(
But we are having fresh Swedish crawfish for dinner tonight. Swindling expensive, but I hope they are worth it = yummy
Vi hade i alla fall tur med vädret ;-) PART 2
Thursday, July 29, 2010
| | | 4 commentsDon't ask me why there is a big space showing up here in the browser, since I have absolutely no clue at all.
You know - following the coastal line, first of lake Vättern and then Halland and Skåne along the Atlantic and Östersjön, kind of connect you with the roots of Sweden's history, from the middle ages and forward. The DH and I have always kind of envied the great national pride that Americans have, since it's something that we Swedes lack in spades. But this road trip of ours, made me sort of feel with a something I never had before - a feeling of belonging.
In lack of available lots at the camping grounds, we went to Simrishamn and checked out the harbor parking space for opportunity to "free camp" there and even though I kind os sweet talked the harbor master into using one electricity outlet, we decided to try our luck someplace else. Not that there is anything wrong with Simrishamn, quite the opposite - it's such a charming and cute town and has such a nice feeling to it, that we started to contemplate to move there after retirement LOL. But after much more phoning around I found this small family owned campingsite Landön, which is situated in the only archipelago there is in Skåne. On our way there we passed Kivik and Brösarps kullar - places I only read about and utterly fell in love with the area.
You know - following the coastal line, first of lake Vättern and then Halland and Skåne along the Atlantic and Östersjön, kind of connect you with the roots of Sweden's history, from the middle ages and forward. The DH and I have always kind of envied the great national pride that Americans have, since it's something that we Swedes lack in spades. But this road trip of ours, made me sort of feel with a something I never had before - a feeling of belonging.
In lack of available lots at the camping grounds, we went to Simrishamn and checked out the harbor parking space for opportunity to "free camp" there and even though I kind os sweet talked the harbor master into using one electricity outlet, we decided to try our luck someplace else. Not that there is anything wrong with Simrishamn, quite the opposite - it's such a charming and cute town and has such a nice feeling to it, that we started to contemplate to move there after retirement LOL. But after much more phoning around I found this small family owned campingsite Landön, which is situated in the only archipelago there is in Skåne. On our way there we passed Kivik and Brösarps kullar - places I only read about and utterly fell in love with the area.
Sadly they don't clear up and maintain the beaches at Landön, if they did this place would turn into a small paradise and as it is now, it's kind of uninviting to put your toes into all that slimy, green goo.
Anyhow - we stayed there a couple of nights and believe it or not - even had some visitors. Two of the members of the DH's motorcycle club came by for a chat and told us a lot of local gossip ;D
Our plan with this trip was to follow the coastline from the southern parts of the west coast to the east. So after leaving Landön we set our sights for Kristianopel. We passed this amazing place - Trollehus - home of the Trolle noble family on the way.
We have been to Kristianopel once before when we sailed with Maggie from Stockholm to Bornholm and it's such an amazing place that I would easily say - if you ever visit the Nordic countries, this is a "must" place to go.
Once again we struck lucky lot wise and this is the view from my bed window. We had very nice neighbors, the beach was wonderful and the restaurant served up a delish barbecue buffet - what more could you ask for? The place was so tranquil and restful that we ended up staying for four nights before we went north to Kalmar and over the bridge that leads to Öland. We had called round at most of the camping sites on Öland, but since it was the "Victoria day" that week, they all where booked solid. Finally I got lucky and caught the very last free lot at Haga Park and we stayed there for four days. But believe it or not, I never got around to take any pics :-8 Haga Park is not a bad place and the lot we got was in the outmost corner, but the people living in the trailer right behind us....well to put it mildly - their behavior left a lot to be desired for. Not toward us thank heavens, but lordy me the way they treated each other...... I confess, there was times while we sat outside having dinner, when I had to cover my ears cause listening to them was way too disturbing and if you think I can be a bitch, oh my - that girl beat me to the post umpteenth times over LOL.
The beach attracted the male parts of my family, but for me it was so and so. There was grass, then pebbles both on land and in the water before you hit the sand and with my wayward sense of coordination and balance, I simply didn't want to take the risk. Plus - after my horrible swimming experience when I grow up (try learning to swim in +13C water!!) I have this rule not to bath in any less temps in the water than +26C :-O. The guys also took bicycle trips in the area while I relaxed with a nice novel...I think I had come to the newest Trudy Canavan "The Ambasador's Mission" by then. I have all her earlier novels and have loved each and everyone of them and this one really lived up to my expectations.
Since we all missed our furry babies, we decided to pick them up a few days earlier and heaven above how happy, no correct that, ecstatic they got. Fionas breeder and her husband is the nicest people ever and even though they had plans to go out, they had stayed at home for an extra hour just to be able to meet us again. After much hugging and kissing, the girls practically rushed into the RV (in case anyone would change their minds into leaving them there again LOL) and we started a long haul to Jogersö camping just outside of Oxölösund. We had stayed there for a weekend of-season last fall, but now they was packed solid and once again we got lucky and got hold of the last available plot. The girls was (true to Birgitta's word) absolutely exhausted
and the kids was ecstatic to have them back.
You can never imagine what difference there is (or maybe you can) between staying there of season and in full blown season.....Many of the people around us was soooooo rude - one guy sat outside his RV staring at us all the time and the family next to us was extremely loud mouthed. There was even one guy who just passed close to our dinner table while we where having dinner and smoked close to our bedroom window during the night. So at breakfast next morning the DH asked us if we really wanted to stay another day and the anonymous vote was - NO!!! So in a hurry we washed up and packed everything and - went back home.
It was good but strange to be back home, I don't think we ever been away from here for such a long time ever and the house felt a bit unfamiliar. The kids was so good helping out to empty the RV and putting everything away and I couldn't help but compare how easy-peasy it is to pack and unpack a RV compared to the yacht :-)
There are good things and bad for just about every issue on this planet and when it comes to spend your vacation in a RV (or any other confined spaces) so far I have found that:
With four people living in a cramped (well not so when you look at the size of our RV, but compared to home it is so) spaced is deemed to get the tempers rising. But on the other hand it is damned cosy.
You have to plan your meals cause the fridge only hold stuff for 2 or 3 dinners, depending on how many bottles of chilled beer the DH felt he need ROFLMAO. And after two weeks you are so fed up with grilled meat that you consider going on a starvation diet ;-)
The beds are semi good, but a long way from home....I don't know the last time when I slept that badly. But when I got home I almost fell out of bed when I turned cause my bed was "the wrong way" LOL.
It costs a fortune to use the washing machine at campsites!! And it cost a fortune to do any shopping at their service shops. A piece of bread cost round 1USD!
I just loooooove our table and glass ware!!! Thanks to my very generous Wisconsin friend (thankyouthankyouthankyou!!!), who helped us to get Corelle tableware and rainbow acrylic glass ware and I promise you, we are alone in the entire Kingdom of Sweden to own such wonderful things. Call me immature, but I get happy every time we use them :-D
So yes, we did have tremendous luck with the weather for most of our 19 days and believe it or not, the day after we got home, it turned chilly and grey. We have had some days of sun but not enough to open the pool and, during last the night we had thunder and now it's grey and rainy again. My oldest has asked me to take him to a mall today, have no clue what he want to get, but it will be nice spending some time alone with him. Three more days and then it's back to work :-(
Anyhow - we stayed there a couple of nights and believe it or not - even had some visitors. Two of the members of the DH's motorcycle club came by for a chat and told us a lot of local gossip ;D
Our plan with this trip was to follow the coastline from the southern parts of the west coast to the east. So after leaving Landön we set our sights for Kristianopel. We passed this amazing place - Trollehus - home of the Trolle noble family on the way.
We have been to Kristianopel once before when we sailed with Maggie from Stockholm to Bornholm and it's such an amazing place that I would easily say - if you ever visit the Nordic countries, this is a "must" place to go.
The beach attracted the male parts of my family, but for me it was so and so. There was grass, then pebbles both on land and in the water before you hit the sand and with my wayward sense of coordination and balance, I simply didn't want to take the risk. Plus - after my horrible swimming experience when I grow up (try learning to swim in +13C water!!) I have this rule not to bath in any less temps in the water than +26C :-O. The guys also took bicycle trips in the area while I relaxed with a nice novel...I think I had come to the newest Trudy Canavan "The Ambasador's Mission" by then. I have all her earlier novels and have loved each and everyone of them and this one really lived up to my expectations.
Since we all missed our furry babies, we decided to pick them up a few days earlier and heaven above how happy, no correct that, ecstatic they got. Fionas breeder and her husband is the nicest people ever and even though they had plans to go out, they had stayed at home for an extra hour just to be able to meet us again. After much hugging and kissing, the girls practically rushed into the RV (in case anyone would change their minds into leaving them there again LOL) and we started a long haul to Jogersö camping just outside of Oxölösund. We had stayed there for a weekend of-season last fall, but now they was packed solid and once again we got lucky and got hold of the last available plot. The girls was (true to Birgitta's word) absolutely exhausted
and the kids was ecstatic to have them back.
You can never imagine what difference there is (or maybe you can) between staying there of season and in full blown season.....Many of the people around us was soooooo rude - one guy sat outside his RV staring at us all the time and the family next to us was extremely loud mouthed. There was even one guy who just passed close to our dinner table while we where having dinner and smoked close to our bedroom window during the night. So at breakfast next morning the DH asked us if we really wanted to stay another day and the anonymous vote was - NO!!! So in a hurry we washed up and packed everything and - went back home.
It was good but strange to be back home, I don't think we ever been away from here for such a long time ever and the house felt a bit unfamiliar. The kids was so good helping out to empty the RV and putting everything away and I couldn't help but compare how easy-peasy it is to pack and unpack a RV compared to the yacht :-)
There are good things and bad for just about every issue on this planet and when it comes to spend your vacation in a RV (or any other confined spaces) so far I have found that:
With four people living in a cramped (well not so when you look at the size of our RV, but compared to home it is so) spaced is deemed to get the tempers rising. But on the other hand it is damned cosy.
You have to plan your meals cause the fridge only hold stuff for 2 or 3 dinners, depending on how many bottles of chilled beer the DH felt he need ROFLMAO. And after two weeks you are so fed up with grilled meat that you consider going on a starvation diet ;-)
The beds are semi good, but a long way from home....I don't know the last time when I slept that badly. But when I got home I almost fell out of bed when I turned cause my bed was "the wrong way" LOL.
It costs a fortune to use the washing machine at campsites!! And it cost a fortune to do any shopping at their service shops. A piece of bread cost round 1USD!
I just loooooove our table and glass ware!!! Thanks to my very generous Wisconsin friend (thankyouthankyouthankyou!!!), who helped us to get Corelle tableware and rainbow acrylic glass ware and I promise you, we are alone in the entire Kingdom of Sweden to own such wonderful things. Call me immature, but I get happy every time we use them :-D
So yes, we did have tremendous luck with the weather for most of our 19 days and believe it or not, the day after we got home, it turned chilly and grey. We have had some days of sun but not enough to open the pool and, during last the night we had thunder and now it's grey and rainy again. My oldest has asked me to take him to a mall today, have no clue what he want to get, but it will be nice spending some time alone with him. Three more days and then it's back to work :-(
Vi hade i alla fall tur med vädret ;-) PART 1
Monday, July 26, 2010
| | | 4 comments
Translation: At least we where in luck with the weather. It's a hilarious Swedsh movie from 1980 about a family going on vacation in their caravan.
I have included a lot of mouse over links, but even though they show in the editor, they don' t show up when I view the blog in a browser and I have noooo idea why. So if you can't see the links and are interested, mouse over each row and hopefully you find them.
And we did....had tremendous luck with the weather - round+30C in the shades for almost three weeks.
Background: I married into a sail yacht of substantial measures (41ft) that the DH and his brother build from scratch. Yup . they even molded the plastic hull all by themselves. All things comes to and end and we decided to sell it in and a new life with two kids and two RR girls began and all our vacations was spent at home. We got kind of laid back and satisfied with having everything we needed here - like the swimming pool and an icemaker LOL.
Last year the DH opened up for the idea of getting an RV and after spending quite of several days going here and there to check out all the different brands that was within our budgetrange, we found a one year used car - a Bürstner Elegance and bought it right away. The pictures in the link are from the seller, but it's not our car. Ours looks a bit different when it comes to upholstery and stuff.
We had two of-season weekends out (and we all loved it) before the harshest winter in a long time struck and during the winter we did a lot of modifications - the DH did all the technical improvements and I placed my butt in front of the sewing machine every opportunity I had and sewed; two bedspreads, curtains for 4 windows, two seat covers and a heck of a lot pillow covers. I tried umpteenth of times to take pictures inside the RV to no avail, so this is the only one I managed to far that is true:
So on July 5th we was packed and ready to go. After much discussions we had decided to kennel the girls (for the first time ever in their entire lives) at Fiona's breeder outside of Huskvarna. Oh my, you should have seen the look at their pretty faces when we closed the door to the box and said our by-byes.....Never though eyes could grow that big in a dog ;-P I swear - they look like that big eyed animal in Madagascar LOL. I promise you this, when we left Arwen told Fiona of in a big way: "why did you have to go and bite daddy like you did, now we both are locked up here in Dog -Sing and I didn't even do anything!!" Well it turned out that Arwen had the highttime of her life while Fiona sulked during their stay.
Of we went to Gränna, the Polka Pig capital of the world LOL. Gränna is famous for their Polkagris candy (Polka pig if you do an exact translation). We had booked two nights at Grännastrandens camping area. The beach was nice , but nothing fancy - it certainly do not look like in the pictures but the kids bathed nevertheless. Our plot was ok, the service houses great and even though our neighbors did a bit of partying, all was quiet round 10.30pm and there was nice selection of restaurants in the harbor to choose from.
Next step went from Gränna over to Mölndal and south via lunch at an IKEA and stocking up with stuff that was needed - like a teapot LOL and then on to Åsa Camping and Havsbad. The interesting thing about this trip was that all camping grounds had their good and bad sides. This one offered us a plot next to the service house (= a lot of people went closely our lot), there was some sort single mom convention with hoards of kids who lacked a lot in their upbringing. The great thing was closeness to a bakery and a grocery store.
Just look at this beach:
You would think you are at the Mediterranean.
Two nights was enough, so we steered our home away from home to the fancy resort of Torekov at a great campingsite where we ended up on a wonderful large plot under high pines with the neighbors at a distance. The immediate beach wasn't as great as we hoped for, but 5-10 minutes or so away on a bike was the real McCoy ;-) The kids had a blast bicycling around, John bought himself a landing net and fished for crabs. He actually got quite a few of them, but animal friend as he is, he did put them all back into the sea.
Since we really loved this place, we stayed on for a couple more day's than planned. Good thing since we hadn't booked anyplace ahead in advance . But with the with the (in) famous "Båstad Week" (where the Brats are partying in a rather discusting way) coming up, we decided to continue our trip along the coast of Skåne.
It turned out to be a very long day trip since we 1) had to shop for more supplies and 2) most camping sites we checked out was fully booked.
TBC.
I have included a lot of mouse over links, but even though they show in the editor, they don' t show up when I view the blog in a browser and I have noooo idea why. So if you can't see the links and are interested, mouse over each row and hopefully you find them.
And we did....had tremendous luck with the weather - round+30C in the shades for almost three weeks.
Background: I married into a sail yacht of substantial measures (41ft) that the DH and his brother build from scratch. Yup . they even molded the plastic hull all by themselves. All things comes to and end and we decided to sell it in and a new life with two kids and two RR girls began and all our vacations was spent at home. We got kind of laid back and satisfied with having everything we needed here - like the swimming pool and an icemaker LOL.
Last year the DH opened up for the idea of getting an RV and after spending quite of several days going here and there to check out all the different brands that was within our budgetrange, we found a one year used car - a Bürstner Elegance and bought it right away. The pictures in the link are from the seller, but it's not our car. Ours looks a bit different when it comes to upholstery and stuff.
We had two of-season weekends out (and we all loved it) before the harshest winter in a long time struck and during the winter we did a lot of modifications - the DH did all the technical improvements and I placed my butt in front of the sewing machine every opportunity I had and sewed; two bedspreads, curtains for 4 windows, two seat covers and a heck of a lot pillow covers. I tried umpteenth of times to take pictures inside the RV to no avail, so this is the only one I managed to far that is true:
So on July 5th we was packed and ready to go. After much discussions we had decided to kennel the girls (for the first time ever in their entire lives) at Fiona's breeder outside of Huskvarna. Oh my, you should have seen the look at their pretty faces when we closed the door to the box and said our by-byes.....Never though eyes could grow that big in a dog ;-P I swear - they look like that big eyed animal in Madagascar LOL. I promise you this, when we left Arwen told Fiona of in a big way: "why did you have to go and bite daddy like you did, now we both are locked up here in Dog -Sing and I didn't even do anything!!" Well it turned out that Arwen had the highttime of her life while Fiona sulked during their stay.
Of we went to Gränna, the Polka Pig capital of the world LOL. Gränna is famous for their Polkagris candy (Polka pig if you do an exact translation). We had booked two nights at Grännastrandens camping area. The beach was nice , but nothing fancy - it certainly do not look like in the pictures but the kids bathed nevertheless. Our plot was ok, the service houses great and even though our neighbors did a bit of partying, all was quiet round 10.30pm and there was nice selection of restaurants in the harbor to choose from.
Next step went from Gränna over to Mölndal and south via lunch at an IKEA and stocking up with stuff that was needed - like a teapot LOL and then on to Åsa Camping and Havsbad. The interesting thing about this trip was that all camping grounds had their good and bad sides. This one offered us a plot next to the service house (= a lot of people went closely our lot), there was some sort single mom convention with hoards of kids who lacked a lot in their upbringing. The great thing was closeness to a bakery and a grocery store.
Just look at this beach:
Two nights was enough, so we steered our home away from home to the fancy resort of Torekov at a great campingsite where we ended up on a wonderful large plot under high pines with the neighbors at a distance. The immediate beach wasn't as great as we hoped for, but 5-10 minutes or so away on a bike was the real McCoy ;-) The kids had a blast bicycling around, John bought himself a landing net and fished for crabs. He actually got quite a few of them, but animal friend as he is, he did put them all back into the sea.
TBC.
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