And Even More

Preem is a gas station chain in Sweden. All the stations display this innocuous and sweet yellow bear. When I was in a bad state of mind, Peter would remind me to think of "Peach Birds, Yellow Bears, and Daisy Dogs". The peach birds part came about via an experience in the Ugglarp cabin. One night as we were falling asleep there was a flapping noise around the ceiling. I asked Peter what it was and he nonchalantly said "Oh, probably just a bat" Not being of hearty Swedish extraction, my response was something like "NOOOOOOOOOOO!" I decided the only way I could deal with it was to pretend it was something else. I put both Peter and I to sleep with my story of a fat, peach-colored, adorable Disney-esque bird who spread joy and good cheer across the land.

Women in Sweden ride their bikes at 90 miles an hour on icy streets even when they are 9 months pregnant. Am I exaggerating? Only slightly.
When I was posting my blog from Sweden, I was going to do a whole post on "Fart Signs of Scandinavia". There are a whole bunch of Swedish and Danish words that end in 'fart'. In this case the Preem bear is directing us to an exit.

This is the logo for the government of Halmstad. Since Peter works for them, he has a jacket with this logo on it. I have a tote bag I brought home with this logo on it too.

More Photos

This was my farewell lunch at the Copenhagen airport. Pretty traditional Scandinavian fare. It was really good, although I only ate the middle one and the one on the right. I gave my shrimp and egg one to Peter (not because I'm nice, but because I hate shrimp and hard boiled eggs).

Other than perhaps Manhattan, the walk-up news stand seems like something you see almost everywhere except the US.
This is a very candid picture (my favorite kind). As I started to take this picture Erik, Peter's 17 year old son, was telling me it was going to suck. I don't think I have any other pictures of him in this blog, so I wanted to include one. He's a really nice kid, smart and good looking.

Yes, I know my last (melodramatic and whiney) post proclaimed it would be my last. However, a friend of Norweigan extraction revisited this blog recently and told me how much he enjoyed the photos- and that he wished there were more. So...since I miss Sweden and since I was born to blog, I thought I'd throw on a few more.