>From izzy@izzy.com Sun Jul  5 08:36:59 1998
Date: Sat, 20 Jun 1998 23:03:17 +0200
From: Michael Israeli <izzy@izzy.com>
Subject: June 20: slipping into Sweden

Hi!

Last night in Oslo we decided we'd had it with cream sauce and dill and
weird pickled things and we headed out to the "Gate to India" restaurant a
few blocks up the street from our hotel. This turned out to be a very cozy
and beautifully decorated Indian place on the second floor of #66
Bogstadveien. We had a very good meal of chicken and lamb and bread and we
even indulged in a couple of those notoriously expensive scandinavian
beers. Then we headed back to the hotel, packed up, and slept.

We got up outrageously early again today so that we could have breakfast,
check out, and catch our train to Sweden. We chatted briefly with this
woman we met yesterday, who is an Afghan Hound breeder from Columbus,
Ohio.
She was in need of a plastic surgeon so we referred her to Bob Ruberg -
Mila, you might mention that to Cindy and Bob :). The woman, btw,
videotaped us yesterday - it was kind of weird but she pulled out her
camera and started asking us questions. Strange.

We got to the train station in time and we hopped on the 9:30 train. It
proceeded to go east, as we'd hoped that it would. The first leg of our
trip, we travelled first class. The ride was smooth and quiet, and the
scenery was really very beautiful. We went through kilometers and
kilometers of scenic green countryside - farmlands with cows and sheep and
quaint Norwegian barns and homes, all painted red and yellow and made of
wood. We also of course passed through a few towns and a couple of cities,
and sometimes instead of farmland we went through wooded areas that were
also very beautiful. There were lakes and things sometimes, too. It is at
this point very difficult to describe the natural beauty of this place -
we feel that we have already used up all the good descriptions.


At one point, we saw another Norwegian Forest Cat on someone's property :)
As we travelled into Sweden, it was really just more of the same. No one
checked our passports or anything so we got no stamp. We transferred to a
new train at one point and continued on through more beautiful country.
The
buildings in Sweden did seem a bit more modern, and less likely to be
wooden, and less likely to be painted yellow or red, but otherwise things
were very similar to Norway.

The weather was bright and sunny until we neared Stockholm - we headed
into
an overcast area and as we arrived at station it looked like it would rain
soon.
The Central Station in Stockholm was very very large and we were tired
from
our trip and in a hurry to get to our hotel so we didn't really take much
of a look around. We did make our reservation for our train to Vaxjo on
the
23rd before we left - we figured at this point, as much advance planning
as
possible would be a good idea.

During the cab ride to our hotel we saw some of beautiful Stockholm.
Stockholm has some buildings that remind us of the ones in Madrid, and
some
similar to those in Norway, and some that are completely different. The
really interesting thing about Stockholm is that it is really a bunch of
islands hooked up by bridges - but we haven't really looked around much
yet, so more on that later.

We got to our hotel and checked in and headed up to our room - but when we
went into it we saw that there were two twin beds pushed together instead
of the queen sized bed we had reserved. This was troubling as the two
nights in Oslo had been spent trying to sleep in beds like that and we
kept
falling through the crack between the beds :). So Hillary went and asked
about it and the concierge said "oh, no problem" and moved us into a room
with one big bed instead of two smaller beds shoved together. It is a
smaller room but we don't care about that.

We put our stuff away and then we called our friends Ingvar and Jenny, the
Swedish BOFHs (Bastard Operators from Hell, it's an Internet/computer
thing, don't ask if you don't know) we met on the Internet. We arranged to
meet them on one of the smaller islands of Stockholm - Langholmen. We took
the T (the tube, the underground, that's what they call it) and then had a
bit of a walk onto this island and up a large hill, where we found them
looking up to see if it was going to rain or not. Finally we decided the
weather was too sketchy and so we headed off to a pub instead of having a
barbecue.

There were five or six of us all told, and everyone was very friendly. We
talked about various things, traded stupid customer stories and so forth,
while we ate some good food (various preparations of steak and potatoes)
and had some beer and cider. After a while we broke up the party because
Hillary was very very tired and most people had things to do. But it was
fun while it lasted, we got to geek around about internet things and
cellphones and stuff :)

We made plans for tomorrow, too - we're going to take a commuter train to
Jenny's house about an hour away to meet up with the crowd for lunch. She
works for an ISP here of course, so we will have internet access from
there, so Michael can do some work he needs to do without paying
outrageous
rates for it :) After we're done there, who knows. Maybe some sightseeing,
maybe another party. We know we can always save the big sightseeing tour
for Monday, though. Really, we just need to catch up on our sleep. This
travelling is tiring stuff sometimes!

To sum it up - the little bit we've seen of Stockholm is very pretty and
very inviting. The public transportation system is pretty easy to use and
oh! Almost forgot - the tube stations are decorated with artwork - they
call it an underground art gallery or something like that - and so far
what
we've seen is pretty unique and interesting stuff. It's nice.

That's it for today; our bed built for two is calling us!

Love,
Hillary and Michael

>From izzy@izzy.com Sun Jul  5 08:36:59 1998
Date: Sun, 21 Jun 1998 21:41:09 +0200
From: Michael Israeli <izzy@izzy.com>
Subject: June 21: R&R :)

Hi everyone,

We got a very good night's sleep last night, it was wonderful :)
Today when we got up we'd missed the hotel breakfast but we weren't
worried
about that. The hotel leaves little coffeepot things in the rooms, with
teabags and coffee and milk and sugar, so we had some coffee in our room
while we prepared for the day's adventures.

Michael thought we should call the Citroms (his relatives in Vaxjo) to let
them know when we would be arriving. So, he tried to call them - this
didn't meet with immediate success and resulted in one wrong number (they
hung up on him), but eventually he figured out that you have to add a zero
before the city code when calling from within Sweden (you don't do that
when calling from outside the country), and so he completed the call. It's
all arranged - they will pick us up at the station when we arrive in Vaxjo
on Tuesday.

We gathered our things and set out for a nice walk through damp, chilly,
overcast Stockholm to the Central Station, where we caught the
"Pendeltag,"
(commuter train) to Nymashamn at 12:39. When we bought tickets, we
purchased a "Rabatt-Kuponger" (rebate coupon) instead of paying for the
fares separately for the two of us. This saved us a bit of money and
worked
just as well. We took this train to Nynas Harsbad, where Jenny lives, to
meet our friends for lunch. The train ride took us through more very
beautiful countryside - wooded areas, farm areas, lakes, and everything.
We
were headed south of Stockholm on this trip which took about one hour.
"Not
Calle," one of our friends (they call him "not Calle" because he is always
hanging around with a guy named Calle, it's kind of an in joke, but he
didn't offer us his real name so that's what we call him too) was on the
train with us and we chatted a bit about various geek stuff.

Jenny and Ingvar met us at the station and we had a nice walk to her
apartment. In her apartment we made the acquaintance of her cats, Pixel, a
domestic shorthair, and Tusse, a Birman, who were very cute and friendly.
We sat and chatted about all kinds of geeky stuff, internet stuff, stupid
luser tricks, cell phones, and various things. We got to use the internet
from her house (she works for a large Stockholm ISP) so Michael got to fix
the problem on his server for his customer with the mailing list. Ingvar
cooked us an amazing lunch of curried fish over rice with salad with
garlic
dressing and also stir fried vegetables. Then he prepared a dessert of
poached pears with After Eight dinner mints melted onto them, and made a
sauce of melted chocolate and liqueur and stuff to pour over vanilla ice
cream. Yumm.

Over lunch, all of us discussed politics and the global economy, the
introduction of the Euro, etc. Since we were three Swedes, a Dutchman, and
two Americans, it was an interesting discussion :) It was ironic that
Brom,
the Dutchman, and a very friendly chap (he gave us a ride to our hotel
from
the pub the other day), who also lives in the Netherlands like Lisa's
friend Josh, is *also* going to be out of town and therefore unavailable
to
show us around when we get to Amsterdam. But he did say that we're welcome
any other time :)

After a relaxing afternoon hanging around and talking and stuff (and
making
plans to see Jenny's office tomorrow evening) we caught the train back to
Stockholm, with not Calle and Ingvar. We had some extra time so we took
"the scenic route" back to the train station. We walked through a very
nice
area of exclusive, expensive homes on the waterfront of the Baltic Sea. We
saw a lot of beautiful lilac shrubs and many other flowering plants in
nice
large, well-maintained gardens. Hillary had hopes of being able to
photograph some of the lovely homes, but unfortunately Michael had the
camera stowed in his backpack for the train ride, and we didn't really
have
time to stop and unpack it if we were going to catch our train, since we'd
taken the longer walk. But we will have our memories... :)

On the train ride back, we passed all the same stuff - Hillary noticed
some
ponies she hadn't seen before - they looked like the Icelandic ponies she
has pictures of in her horse book. We talked with Ingvar and Not Calle
about crime in the USA and Sweden and stuff - the topic had come up
because
of something that happened at one of the first stops the train made. The
train stopped and a woman walked onto the train, looked around, got off,
got back on, then got off and started yelling in Swedish and waving her
arms around....then another woman got on, and grabbed yet another woman
out
of her seat. She was yelling in Swedish and the other woman was yelling
back, while the first woman was on the platform getting the conductor, who
came over and watched this all take place. Eventually the woman who came
on
and grabbed the seated woman managed to drag her off the train, and the
train left. Ingvar translated for us - the woman who did the dragging was
a
shopkeeper, and the woman who got dragged had shoplifted some tobacco from
her shop - so the shopkeeper was making a citizen's arrest and holding her
in the shop til the police came! Very exciting :) And it led to an
interesting discussion of gun control and crime...Ingvar told us that in
Sweden there has been a resurgence of neo-Nazis who have been committing
hate crimes :(, and Hillary noticed some anti-semitic graffiti under a
bridge at one point - but someone had painted big black Xes over the
swastikas and nasty slogans, so at least not everyone agrees with it, even
among the graffiti artists.

When we got back to Central Station, we picked up some info about a bus
tour we plan to take tomorrow at one of the very convenient and useful
Tourist Information Offices they have here. We then used our railroad
ticket to transfer onto the tube, to get back to the hotel - and here we
are, pondering the day's activity and figuring out where to get our next
meal :)

One funny thing we saw today was in the tube station close to our hotel,
when we took the escalators up from the platform, there was a series of
sex
education posters advocating condom use. There were stylized penises,
vaginas, butts, and mouths in various combinations, with 0 symbols over
the
penises to symbolize condoms. There was also a poster which explained (in
Swedish) that condoms are good against sexually transmitted disease, and
they referred the reader to www.kondoms.nu for more information - perhaps
some of you will check that out :). We snapped a photo of them because
they
amused us.

It's a bit chilly here today, and it has been drizzling off and on, so it
was really wonderful that we had a nice warm apartment to hang out in and
friends to talk to. It wouldn't have been a wonderful day for sightseeing.
We're hopeful that tomorrow will be a bit nicer and we can go out and do
all the tourist stuff then. Also, all this travelling does take a bit of
energy out of you, and it was very nice to relax in a homey environment
for
a few hours.

Love,

Michael and Hillary

>From izzy@izzy.com Sun Jul  5 08:36:59 1998
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 18:37:33 +0200
From: Michael Israeli <izzy@izzy.com>
Subject: June 22: Stockholm in a Nutshell

Last night we went out to dinner at a little Italian place near our hotel,
called Capri.  This restaurant was listed in one of the guidebooks we
brought from home, and also in the Stockholm Restaurant Guide provided by
the hotel. Also, the concierge recommended it to us when we asked for a
good Italian place, so we figured it would be good - and it was :)

The place was narrow and set up as sort of a stylized cave. They played
Italian music during most of our meal (near the end, they started playing
the theme song from the movie: Lambada - the Forbidden Dance). It was one
of those dark, romantic places. We had a good bottle of Orvieto and some
very good Italian food. The waiter was very attentive and nice. There was
another waiter who kept coming out to reset the other tables as people
left
(we were pretty much closing the place, they closed after we left) and
when
the Lambada music came on he was dancing around. It was funny. Also the
people in the kitchen started chatting in Italian to each other. Before we
left, our waiter took a photo of us together in front of a nice window.

Today, we got up early to go on our tour of Stockholm. First we had a nice
breakfast at the hotel, then we walked down to the Royal Opera House to
get
our tour bus.
The tour we booked, Stockholm in a Nutshell, was a 1.5 hr bus tour and a 1
hr boat tour. We really liked it!

One thing that was different about today is, it was a real business day
for
the city, and there were many people around. You see, when we arrived, it
was Midsommer's Day, a national holiday here, and the evening before had
been Midsommer's Eve, also a National Holiday, so most people had left
town
for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to go celebrate at the beach or whatever.
Today was the first time we saw all the shops open and all the people
around, and it really made a difference - it cast things in a whole new
light. Stockholm has a lot of old world charm, if you will, but it's
really
a hustle-bustle place like Madrid, too.

Stockholm is made up of a number of islands and part of the mainland. Our
hotel is on
the mainland in the Ostermalm area, which also includes the Royal Library,
some exclusive shopping areas, the Opera House, some theaters, and such.
On
our way down to the Opera House we passed a building called the Sula Hall
-
it's a nice building which we'd photographed before. Today it was open so
we went in - it turned out to be Stockholm's version of the Reading
Terminal Market. It was very nice. We didn't have time to linger too long,
though.

We continued along and made our way to the Opera House, passing the quay
where the sightseeing boats hang out, which is the Baltic Sea waterfront.
At 10 am, we got on the bus. The tour started with a discussion of the
area
around the Opera House. Apparently the building across the plaza, a lovely
yellow building with a woman's name on it, was originally built by a king
as a home for his sister, and a twin building which was identical was
built
where the opera house now stands, and it was the opera house, at the time.
It turned out that the second building was too small for modern
operagoers,
so the new Opera House was built in the 19th century.

It may be worth noting that early on in the tour, the Italian folks in
front of us were talking back and forth to each other (there were 6 or 8
of
them) very very loudly. This was annoying many people and finally Hillary
couldn't take it and she leaned forward and said, "excuse me - I'm sorry,
but we're trying to listen to the guide." That shut them up and things
went
well from that point.

Of course, they were probably chatting with each other because they
couldn't follow the guide that well (not that this is an excuse for
talking
over the guide!) When the tour started, as the bus was pulling away, the
guide announced that the headset system (which was supposed to provide a
guided tour in seven languages) was broken, and that therefore this tour
would be given only in English and Swedish. The Germans on the bus didn't
seem thrilled by that either, but we didn't mind it at all. ;)

In any case, we then drove across to Gamla Stan, an island that is rich
with history. This is the island that used to be the whole of Stockholm.
Here we saw the Royal Palace, which is currently the building in which the
King and Queen conduct their official business (but is not their
residence). Also here we saw what they call the "old town" like
Philadelphia's Old City - the buildings here are narrower than the newer
ones, and many of them are painted pastel colors.  There are a lot of
cobblestoned streets here. Also on this island are the Royal Treasury, the
winter residence of the royal family, and a 700 year old cathedral.

Then we crossed over onto Sodermalm, the southern island. This island was
not originally part of the city - rather, it was where people who weren't
allowed to (for criminal reasons) or couldn't afford to live in Stockholm
would live.  It was finally incorporated into the city in 1570. To reach
this island from Gamla Stan as we did, you cross over a sluice or lock,
called the Slussen, which separates the brackish water of the Baltic Sea
from the fresh water of Lake Malar which is about 1/2 to 1 meter above sea
level. This is a rocky island and the street layout is specially adapted
for that. The main things to see on this island are the many cafes and
artist hangouts (a former queen got "nice people" to move here by lowering
taxes for artisans) and the gay nightlife scene (which we didn't check out
from our tour bus, sorry.) By the way, although the Lake is obviously
smaller than the Sea, from looking at it you wouldn't really know. This is
a very large lake, and there are swans and geese and ducks in it, and
there
are other cities besides Stockholm which make up the shore of it.

Other things we saw include:

back in the Ostermalm area - the Nobel Foundation, established in 1900 by
Alfred Nobel, the chemist. We also saw a park of his which contains
representative specimens of all the plants and trees that grow in Sweden
(except the mountain birch which won't grow here in Stockholm).

On the island Djurgarden, the former Royal Hunting Ground, there is an
amusement park called Gronelund, which has a sign over it that says Tivoli
which amused us :)
This was a very beautiful island which also contains the Skanset open air
museum which contains many many examples of buildings from all over the
country from many years ago; also here is the biology museum, the Nordic
museum, a whole lot of museums :). This island is owned by the royal
family
so if one wants to buy/sell or build a home here, one must get the
permission of the king. We saw some lovely homes here. The Vasa Museum is
also here - this museum contains the Vasa war ship which sank on its
maiden
voyage in the 1600s.

Not sure which part of the city we were in, but at one point we saw a
bunch
of embassies - we think this was near Nobel Park. We also saw the
residences of the ambassadors - these were very large, very beautiful
homes
with big gardens, on the waterfront. They were built as private residences
for "regular" people, but they were so expensive no one could buy them, so
they are now rented out as ambassadors' residences.

The Stockholm City Hall is a beautiful building, dark brick with gold
trim,
built in the National Romantic Style. Sadly, we probably didn't get a good
photo of it. This is the building where the Nobel Prizes are presented
(except the Peace prize which is presented in Oslo.) The Stadion, a large
sports/concert arena built for the 1912 Olympics, is also built in this
same style - kind of fortress like and archaic looking.

Stockholm is 1/3 water, and 1/3 green open spaces. One of the green open
spaces we saw was a huge park which used to be a hops garden in the 17th
century, when they apparently drank a lot of beer. In today's times, lots
of beer is also consumed in the Stureplan - a large, exclusive shopping
area where there are pubs that stay open until 5 am. In this area we saw a
building that looks like a ship - we took a photo of it - there were
mermaids on the front and a clock with astrological signs on it. Very
pretty building, seemed to house just shops and stuff.

While on our boating tour (the "Royal Canal Tour" because it took us
through the canal separating the Royal Hunting Ground island from the
other
island) we saw a lot of the same stuff from different angles. We saw
(again) some geese with their babies - these were similar in shape to
Canada Geese, but prettier with a different coloring - they were Siberian
Geese which have escaped from the Skansen Zoo :) and our guide said that
they were sort of becoming pests, as they are non-native and have no
predators around here. From the boat we were able to get a photo of Gamla
Stan, and a photo of a nursing home that looks like a palace - once, a
Russian War ship came to Stockholm and fired a canon in honor of the King
and Queen in front of the "palace," and really scared the old people in
the
nursing home!

It was mostly drizzly and a bit rainy today, so it is just as well we were
in a bus and in a boat, it wouldn't have been too much fun walking around
in the drizzle. After the tour we did walk around, the drizzle stopped,
and
we did some shopping in a couple of stores, bought a gift for Michael's
relatives in Vaxjo so we don't show up there empty handed, and eventually
wound up back here at our hotel, where we stopped in the bar for a couple
of hard ciders. When we tried to get back in our room, we hit a small
snag.

The rooms in this hotel use Ving cards, those magnetic cards, you know...
Well, ours wouldn't work in our room door, but they did work in the hall
door. No lights on the room door came on so we knew the door batteries had
died. We went and told reception - they said ok and reprogrammed our
cards.
We said that wouldn't work and they said it would so we tried it but it
didn't work...and we came back and told them. The very surprised woman at
the desk then called a colleague over to help us. We told him the story so
he came up with us to "let us in." But, he'd only brought the master key
card, not the actual key. So he couldn't get in either. He said he'd get
maintenance to let us in. We waited...in 10 minutes the guy shows up and
tries HIS key card...10 or 15 times. Then he tells us it isn't working
(duh.)

Finally, they got the batteries changed and reprogrammed the door and it
was all fine. Hillary was really happy because she'd been anxious to write
this email :)

That's all for now!
----

At about 4:30 PM we left to go meet Jenny at her office near the Hotorget
plaza. This plaza is a large open air flower market and fruit and
vegetable
market - really nice, and fragrant! Nearby was a very large blue concert
hall with greek style columns. We went in to Jenny's office building and
got a quick look at the inside of algonet.se where there were many boxes
from Sun microsystems. Hillary and Michael were both offered jobs by
Algonet, but we declined. Jenny took us out to her favorite coffee place,
Robert's Coffee, which was in a nearby food court type of thing. We had
really good mochas. Then we walked out onto the Drottningatan, another one
of those pedestrian walkway things, where we bought a couple of trinkets.

After we said goodbye to Jenny and thanked her profusely for everything
(she had also printed out some stuff for us at her office, that'd we had
forgotten to print out, that we need for the Paris leg of our trip) and
invited her and Ingvar to visit us in Philadelphia, we turned around to
head back to the hotel. On the way, we passed a really weird place - there
is this hotel on the corner of Sturegatan and Humlegardsgaten that has a
restaurant downstairs called the Lydman Restaurant - on the sign it says
"restaurant - jazz - soul - art." From the sidewalk where we stood we
could
see poetry written on the large windows in very large letters. Of course,
from the outside, it was backwards, but we could figure it out. Here is a
sample verse:

        Boring Virgins
        Men impotent and seduced
        Lustful foxes
        Foul acts performed for delectation

There were other, equally bizarre verses, all involving sex in some way,
but you get the point. The other interesting thing we saw on our way back
to the hotel was what appeared to be a dry cleaning shop. The name of the
place was "Tvatt Master." Finding the humor in this is left as an exercise
for the (immature) reader, who understands how the Swedes pronounce the
letter V.

We also passed a clothing store that looked like something Emily Israeli
would have enjoyed shopping in...but of course, we weren't able to do any
shopping for her. Oh well.

Tonight we're going to turn in early, because tomorrow is another travel
day. We'll be in touch again from Vaxjo!

Love,
Michael and Hillary

>From izzy@izzy.com Sun Jul  5 08:36:59 1998
Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 18:36:21 +0200
From: Michael Israeli <izzy@izzy.com>
Subject: June 23: the best laid plans...

Hoo boy. Where should we begin? Um. How about last night?

Ok. Last night, Hillary had some kind of misunderstanding with her brother
and she got very very upset. This is a good opportunity for us to say that
we both apologize profusely if we have offended any fathers out there (and
you know who you are) by failing to send timely Fathers' Day greetings. We
hope you realize that the lack of crass commercialism here in Sweden
caused
us to get confused about the timing of the Hallmark Holiday. Thank you for
your understanding! Anyway, it took a while to calm her down but finally
we
got it together and we went out for Chinese food across the street from
the
hotel. The food was kind of mediocre, but not terrible or anything. We've
since been told that Sweden is not the place to get a good Chinese meal.
But, this reminds us - while in Stockholm, we saw a really unique Chinese
restaurant - it was on a viking type ship all made up to look like a
dragon
but also with all the typical Chinese lanterns and other Chinese
restaurant
stuff on it - painted red and gold, just floating there in the harbor. It
was pretty funny :)

We then returned to the hotel and thought we'd get a head start on the
rest
of our travel plans. We pulled out our European railway timetables and
started figuring out how we would get from Vaxjo to Amsterdam. We'd been
told it was a 13 hour train ride from Copenhagen to Amsterdam, so we knew
we were in for a long haul, but we hadn't fully realized the extent of the
problem....

After an hour or two poring over all of the information, we realized this
would be trouble. There are about 4 or 5 different ways to do the trip,
but
all of them are at least 19 1/2 hours (some of them are more) and involve
at least 3 different trains (some of them more) and 2 or more border
crossings. This was bad. We were scheduled by our travel agent to leave
Vaxjo on the 25th and arrive at our hotel in Amsterdam on the 25th. The
only way we'd do that is if we left Michael's relatives' home at 3 am on
the 25th - and then we'd have one of those long-ass, convoluted train
rides. PLUS - one of the connections had only 7 minutes between arrival
and
departure, and no one would guarantee that the connecting train would wait
if they didn't end up being on nearby platforms. And if we did miss the
connection, we would have to wait 8 hours for the next train! You see the
problem, we're sure.

We started to get moderately upset about this but then we hit on the idea
of checking with SAS for flight information from Vaxjo to Amsterdam. This
was at about 10:15 PM. Hillary called SAS and found out that we could do
the trip for about $300 each if we split it 50-50. This involved some
creative ticketing - Michael gets a "youth" fare because he's under 26,
and
Hillary had to get a round trip "weekend excursion" ticket to bring the
cost of her "adult" fare to a reasonable amount. But, we did it. They told
us we'd have to pick up the tickets on the 23rd, so we figured we'd stop
at
the Airport in Vaxjo, since the SAS office in Stockholm wouldn't reopen
before our 9:30 AM train out of Center Station.
Feeling more relaxed, we finished up our packing and went to bed.
In the morning we got up, had breakfast, and were about to head to the
checkout counter, when we hit another snag. Michael pulled out the train
tickets to double check them, and noticed that the departure time was 8:12
am, not 9:30! This wouldn't have been so bad if not for the one little
detail that it was already 8:30. With heavy hearts, we checked out, and
caught a cab  to the train station to see what we could do about this
developement. (BTW: why did we miss the train? because we got confused! it
was the train from Oslo to Stockholm that had been at 9:30. Oops.)

We got to Central Station, took a number, and were quickly helped. We told
the guy we'd missed our train and that we wanted to book the next one.
Sure, no problem - uh, um, except - the computer was down again. Now it
was
about 9 am. Michael decided he would head to the Stockholm SAS office,
about 10 minutes away, to pick up our plane tickets so we wouldn't have to
get them at the Vaxjo airport, which would have been a pain in the butt.
Meanwhile, Hillary waited at the window for the computer system to come
up.

Hillary had a nice long chat with the guy about crime in the US and
Sweden.
He was shocked by our story of the shoplifter on the train the other day -
he called it unheard of!

About 5 minutes before Michael came back from the SAS office (at about
9:45), the system came back and we got tickets for the 10:12 train out of
Stockholm, which in fact we are now actually ON.

We are in first class, of course, due to our first class Eurorail things.
Shortly after the conductor checked our tickets, Michael took some fruit
out of the basket of fruit made available to first class passengers, which
was sitting on the table in front of some french dude. The french dude
said
"I'm sorry, those are only for this table." Hillary said, "oh? the
conductor said they are for all first class passengers!" The man said "oh.
YOU are in first class??" and Hillary said "well, why would we be sitting
here if we weren't??" He said "the train is overbooked." Michael said
"well, we have first class tickets," and he took the fruit and sat back
down. Hillary wanted to bust the guy for using his cellphone in a
"cellphone forbidden" car, but Michael told her not to :)

That's all for now.

----

We're back! Hillary couldn't deal with using the computer on the train
anymore before. You see, the train we were on was an X-2000, one of
Sweden's high speed trains (similar to the kind that crashed in Germany
not
long ago.) These trains give a very smooth ride, but they bank the turns
in
a way that feels similar to a ship rolling side to side in the waves...and
you all know what that means. Georg (Michael's uncle here in Vaxjo)
confirmed for us later that Hillary is not alone in feeling uncomfortable
on these trains - he too feels kind of "seasick" on them.

In any case, the ride to Vaxjo (including the transfer at Alvesta, 10
minutes outside of Vaxjo) was uneventful. We arrived and were immediately
picked up and taken home to the lovely home of the Citrom family (for
those
who do not know - Georg Citrom is Suzie Ressler's [Michael's
grandmother's]
brother). We got a quick tour of the home, which is full of artwork and
flowers, and the garden, which is also full of flowers and herbs and some
wild strawberries. Then we sat down for some fresh swedish strawberries
and
home made sugar cookies.

After we'd fully recovered from the train ride, we were given a
sightseeing
tour of Vaxjo. Vaxjo was originally a series of little villages, and now
they are all incorporated together into the city of Vaxjo, but Vaxjo
remains very "small town"ish.
BTW, Vaxjo isn't pronounced the way it is spelled. Think Vex + chutzpah,
without the tzpah part. :)

We saw that there are "suburban" parts of the town, as well as an
industrial area, a shopping area with one of those pedestrian walkways we
love (where we were taken into a gift shop and given a gift!) and lots of
park area and many lakes - huge lakes - with forests around them. There is
also a university with a castle on the campus, where we took some photos.

We have learned from Elizabeth that crime is not necessarily as rare here
in Sweden as some of the other people we've spoken to say it is. She says
that crime has been increasing lately, and in fact her car is missing the
radio to prove it :(. She also mentioned a problem with neo-Nazis - the
second time someone here has told us about this problem.

Still, Vaxjo appears on the surface to be a beautiful peaceful town. We
saw
a really lovely very very old church - it looked very similar to the old
Norwegian churches we have seen - but we were taken inside this time,
where
we saw an amazing old pipe organ, and some unique sculpture, and a macabre
stained glass window of a prince and a skeleton dining together at a
table.
This church is situated at the edge of Linne park - which we also took a
quick look at.

Linne park is a memorial to the great swedish scientist Karl Linne, who
created the Linnean system of classifying biological organisms. In this
park is a special area which is planted yearly with special plants to
create a picture and a caption - this year it was made of various types of
different colored cactuses - really, we can't describe this for you - we
just have to hope that the photos come out very well. It was as if the
scene of a man and a woman and the caption and everything had been painted
on the ground, but intsead of paint they used these tiny cactuses!

We're now back at the Citrom home, putting in a load of laundry. As you
can
imagine, it is about time for us to run our underwear through a real wash
cycle. :)
Tomorrow we plan to check out the local crystal industry. More on that
later.

Love,
Michael and Hillary

>From izzy@izzy.com Sun Jul  5 08:36:59 1998
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 00:09:28 +0200
From: Michael Israeli <izzy@izzy.com>
Subject: June 24: Valking in a Vaxjo Vonderland

Ok, so we didn't do so much walking. It's a joke! :)

Last night after we sent our email to you, we had dinner here at the
Citrom's. This was no ordinary dinner - Elisabeth is a gourmet cook! She
prepared us some wonderful meat and tiny new potatoes, with wild mushrooms
(porcinis) that she picked herself here in the Swedish countryside, and a
great green salad with homemade dressing to die for. She also served her
version of sushi - fresh raw salmon with lemon squeezed over it, served
with a special kind of pesto type sauce she makes - and also another kind
of fresh salmon, a sort of marinated/lightly pickled type, that was also
delicious. As if this all were not enough, she also served us some home
made vanilla ice cream! They also served us a wonderful Brunello di
Montalcino and some after-dinner Limoncello, so after that, we were ready
for bed :)

Today after a wonderful breakfast featuring Elisabeth's home-made bread,
home-made cheese, and fresh berries, we were taken by car to the nearby
glass factory area. To get there, we had to drive through some very
beautiful, heavily forested area. It was overcast again today, but we had
ample opportunity to see the forests and also some farming and lake areas.
In the countryside here, the barns and homes are generally wooden
buildings
painted red, or occasionally yellow, with tiled roofs.

We got to the glass factory area and while we were there, we purchased a
small glass factory. OK, OK, we didn't buy the whole thing, but you know
how it is when you go shopping in a place where everything is
incredible...plus, Elisabeth had a friend working there who helped us to
find the best pieces and also to get good prices!

After our buying spree, we went into the Kosta Boda glass museum where
there were many many pieces from the early years of this company, which
you
needed to see to believe. We also were able to go into the actual work
area, where they were making the glasses and vases and candlesticks and so
forth - and we saw them making some pieces similar to the ones we had
purchased. We took a couple of photos in the factory so we can show you
how
incredible it was. One particular thing that struck Hillary as amusing was
a young man, perhaps about 25 yrs old, wearing a tie-dyed Smashing
Pumpkins
(that's a band) T-shirt, working intently to make very special martini
glasses :). Another really cool thing is that one of the famous artists
who
designs for this company was present in the factory, directing some young
glassblowers who were working on implementing one of her designs.

Following this educational experience, we went out to lunch with
Elisabeth's friend from Kosta Boda (her name was Marny). We went to a
small, very charming place, housed within an old farmhouse of the style
typical for the area (red and white, you'll see it in a photo we took :)).
Here we saw (but didn't eat) the infamous swedish smorgasbord in action -
too much pickled herring involved in that for the likes of us! We stuck
with the "normal food" again :)

Then we went on (after a quick stop to see the *real live moose* behind a
nearby gift shop, as well as a bunch of bunny rabbits, baby bunny rabbits,
guinea hens, potbellied pigs, and goats) to another glass place - the
Kosta
Boda glass exhibit hall where they have some new work by an artist named
Kjell something. This stuff was amazing. Michael's grandmother has one (or
more?) of his pieces. We looked around in there for a long time - these
were fantastic pieces involving faces, birds, other animals...according to
the book about the exhibit, the artist had a vision of a mystical forest
and this work came out of that. The glass was multicolored and really
didn't look like glass at all in some of the pieces!

After we were all done with the glass stuff, we headed east to an island
called Oland. During the ride, we napped, because we were very sleepy!
When
we got to where we were going, we sat up, looked around, and were amazed!
It had been overcast and drizzly before, now it was almost sunny! Plus, we
were at the site of a huge castle on a very scenic island. Borgholm Castle
is at the top of the Landborg cliffs, and is one of Sweden's most
important
pieces of history. It was built during the 12th century and was in
continuous use as the Royal Palace (of various kings) until 1772. Now, it
is pretty much a ruin because of a fire that occurred at the site in 1806.

The castle is built of the local rock - the island, you see, is made of
limestone. Red and blue limestone, which makes up most of the land mass
and
in many areas isn't covered by any soil, in others only by very little.
This makes for a very unique landscape. There are plants unique to this
island - we saw a wonderful plant with tiny purple flowers, called Blue
Flame, that only grows here. We also saw some really pretty pink rock
roses
and red poppies, that are not unique but are still nice!

>From the castle area we drove to Borgholm and parked near the marina
after
a quick drive through the center of town, where there are yet more
pedestrian walkways! This is the main town on the island. We took a short
walk around past a number of tourist shops and a miniature golf course,
and
then we got to the Hotell Borgholm, where Marny had told Elisabeth there
is
a good restaurant.

Boy was she right!! The restaurant is apparently run by a Swedish chef (no
jokes, please) who has a weekly radio show, and is famous for her
imaginative use of herbs and spices and for growing all of her own
vegetables and herbs. The food was AMAZING! It sure didn't seem like your
standard Swedish food to us.

After dinner we walked back to the car, which we'd left near the marina -
where we saw the sun starting to set over the water (at about 10 PM). The
sky was orange and pink and red - we hope that the photos do it justice!
The reflection of the different colors from the water onto the nearby
white
buildings was really something. Georg was kind enough to take a photo of
us
standing in front of the marina.

Then we had a beautiful drive home - we got to see the whole length of the
island (Oland is very long and narrow) which we'd slept through before. We
passed some really pretty cows that were close to the road, and also some
horses and foals and riding stables. Hillary noticed a 4H club and got all
excited about that because she used to belong to 4H :)

When we crossed the bridge to the mainland we were reminded of the bridge
to the Outer Banks of North Carolina - same kind of bridge. There were a
number of very small islands in the water nearby, and as we passed near
one
of them we could see that it was covered with many birds. Earlier in the
day we had seen a grey crane standing in a field - these weren't cranes,
we
don't know what they were, but it was nice to see them anyway.

The rest of the ride was mostly forested area as before. We kept seeing
those "moose crossing" signs, but thank god we didn't see any actual moose
because apparently they cause bad traffic accidents.  We talked with the
Citroms about this and that - they told us interesting stories about some
of their previous house guests, in particular some people from East
Germany
before the wall came down. Apparently they had some "guards" with them,
Communist Party officials, and it wasn't until after the wine with dinner
and the after dinner drinks that the guards started to act like real
people.

We finally got back to Vaxjo at about 11:30 PM, to a more overcast sky and
a very dusky light (there are still white patches of sky in areas where
the
clouds separate, though). Our laundry is almost dry! Tomorrow, we leave
for
Amsterdam, where we hope to enjoy some sunny weather.

That's all for now,
Love,

Michael and Hillary