Tanum in Blue

Today, our last day in the Tanum area, we woke up to snow! Well, the picture about is actually from the marine biology center, but it was still quite a beautiful sight (vacker utsikt) even if we weren’t quite expecting it. Apparently anxiously waiting for Spring is something we Minnesotans have in common with the Swedes!
I was fortunate to stay on a dairy farm for this part of the trip with a wonderful family, and it reminded me a lot of my grandparents’ farm in Illinois. In the evenings I took long walks on the farm and played with Elvira, the family dog. One night Britt took me to look at a very interesting and energy-efficient house that reminded me of a lighthouse. I especially enjoyed the breakfasts with the family in the morning (yummy porridge!) and the long conversations over dinner with Britt and Tomas (yummy glögg!). Britt even took me to do “Friskis & Svettis” (like Kara did in Trollhättan), which was really fun! You really haven’t exercised until you’ve done an aerobics class in Swedish. :)
Like all of our trips, this trip to Tanum has been great on so many levels – we had wonderful hosts, saw beautiful scenery, and were able to learn so many interesting things. I was really impressed with the use of renewable energy in many homes in this area – Strömstad was awarded the title of “the heat pump city” (over 50% of homes use some type of heat pump), and my host family used wood from their own forest to heat their home. I’m also impressed with how the community here is working together to preserve cultural heritage and also enhance local economic development at the same time. I excited by how much we’re learning and hope we can somehow apply it in Minnesota!
Today we presented at the Tanums Rotary Klubb, where we tried a traditional Swedish dish we hadn’t tried before - kåldolmar, which is minced meat and rice wrapped in cabbage – very interesting! After the meeting we went to Britt’s store, which sells arts and handmade crafts – none of us could resist buying at least something, no matter how ridiculously gigantic our luggage is growing! :) Thank you so much to everyone in Tanum; we hope to see you again soon! Here are some more pictures... Alison

March 26 - Strömstad to Tanum and Fjällbacka and back

We left our host family's house in Strömstad and drove south to Alison's host family's house near Tanum. After indulging in a mini-course of archeology of rock carvings, we continued on to a small fishing village.

Today we visited the small village of Fjällbacka along the Bohuslan coastline. Map of the village. We learned about the area's history and economy. Fishing dominated the economy, mainly during the herring periods. We learned about Ingred Bergman, too, and her history in Fjällbacka. Other communities in the area built an economy around coastal freight and stone quarrying in the late 19th century and into the 20th century.

We ended at Blomsholm, where there is a funeral site with vertical stones mounted in an oval shape. The graves are from the iron age and from King Carl the 12th.


Thank you to Madeleine and Torgny for the delicious dinner with salmon, champagne and a fine dessert!

Rachel

Talkin' Trash in Göteborg

What can tire recycling teach me? How does a urine separating toilet work? Could the sorting of trash reflect a society's values about the environment? These are questions that I thought of yesterday while touring Ekocentrum and Scandia Enviro Systems.

I enjoyed the Monday evening dinner with Rotarians from the Göteborg-Långedrag Club. I sat at a table with six interesting and friendly members. After they learned of my interest in recycling during the my team's Group Study Exchange presentation, our table's conversation naturally drifted to practices about recycling and environmental regulations. I learned that residents pay extra for each meter that their garbage can is located away from the street. Also, in speaking with a printing company owner, I heard that companies that wish to obtain contracts with the city government must complete certification through ISO 14000.

Rotarians at my dinner table

Rachel, aka The Garbage Queen

Göteborg, March 24th

March 24th, 2009

As Steph said, we have done so many great things in Göteborg so far!! Yesterday the visit to Ekocentrum was especially interesting! My host family, Anni and Jan, have been very nice, and we’ve had some great conversations about traveling and sailing. I think their cat Nelson likes me too.

The district conference here was great – we made connections with so many great people and danced the night away. I had the privilege of sitting next to a very talented musician and kind-hearted person Magnus Rosén at the District dinner. (You may remember him from when he played for the band Hammerfall). Magnus played a very special musical show at the district conference and spoke about one of his many projects. He has been playing shows in South Africa and charging 2 kilos of food for admission, and then he distributes the food to the poor in the area. Because of the program’s success, he has expanded this to other parts of the world as well. I found this incredibly inspiring and hope to be involved in something like some day. And because Rotary is about making connections, let me just mention here my friends’ band So It Goes, who also volunteer their music for a good cause called Rock the Cause. The proceeds go to charities, often ones that are AIDS-related. I really liked the idea of working directly with the communities that are benefited, so if there’s anyone reading this that might like to partner in something like that, please let me know!

We had another presentation last night, and I think that it went really well. I’m really proud of our group for doing such a great job on every presentation so far! It’s been really fun to speak a little bit of Swedish with our clubs and learn more about what they’re doing.

So today we leave for Tanum, and I think we are all very excited to take the train and see the beautiful landscape! We may not have internet up there, so it may be a while before we post again.

We’ll be back in the Göteborg soon! Vi Ses - Alison

March 23 - Vi ses Goteborg -- We'll be back soon!

Monday, March 23 – We woke up to a BEAUTIFUL sunny day on the island and throughout Göteborg!! After getting through the first week and a half of rainy, cloudy weather with a little snow - - it has been wonderful throughout Sweden!

We started our day a little later than normal at about 11 AM with an organization called Ekocentrum. They are a non-profit foundation that specializes in helping businesses train their entire staff about environmentally friendly behaviors and practices. They were the first to promote the use of urine separating toilets which are flushed with rain water collected from the roof of the building. We received some very interesting brochures from this visit that we can’t wait to read!

After lunch in a sleepy little café with really good (but the typical American) hamburgers, we had a few minutes to spare and were driven up to a lookout point called Ramberget (I hope I spelled it correctly) and enjoyed the panoramic view of Göteborg while capturing it on our cameras.

Later, we met with two gentlemen who have been working on an exciting recycling project – one has dedicated the past 15 years to making it work. Their venture is called Enviro System and they have created equipment to recycle rubber tires which is unique and really interesting. Their special equipment converts the rubber tire pieces into gas (which is used to power the unit), carbon black (which is completely 100% returned to its original state), heavy oil, light oil and some metal scraps. Every one of these by-products can be reutilized in another process. They are in the process of building the first production plant just north of Vanersborg and it should be operational later this year.

After a few minutes to relax at Christina and Lars’ house, it was off to another Rotary meeting. Towards the end of dinner, we were able to witness one of the incredible sunsets that we had heard so much about. Tonight is our last night in Göteborg with our current host families. We will be back here in about a week but will be staying with different families - - so, once again, it is time to pack up our things and move on. Tomorrow is a train ride north to Tanum.

Steph

March 20, 21 & 22 - Memories of Goteborg

Friday, March 20 – We “moved” to the Göteborg Rotary Club today. We really didn’t leave the area that we’ve been in but we moved to a new host family. But, the first thing on the program in Göteborg is a Rotary meeting and a very nice restaurant by the water - - once again, we met a ton of wonderful people and even saw a couple of familiar faces (Per from the Port and Peter from the bed and breakfast near Borås on our first night in Sweden).

Kara and I will be staying together for the next four nights with Lennart and Lotta Källfelt on a small island near Göteborg. One of the strangest things to me about this area is how narrow the roads are… in many cases, two cars cannot pass one another yet it really doesn’t seem to be an issue, even in a metropolitan area like this. Anyway, their house was built in 1880 and has a fantastic view from EVERY window of the water – there are only 21 houses on the island and we can’t wait to explore it a bit more!

Tonight, we were treated to a night at the Concert Hall for a little Mozart & Bruckner classical music and then a late dinner for Jennifer, Kara and I at Christina and Lar’s house. Christina is the GSE Coordinator in Sweden for District 2360 that we are visiting. She made a fantastic meal but the thing I like most was desert - - sliced up kiwi, bananas and strawberries with small pieces of white chocolate baked in the oven for a few minutes and served with ice cream!!! (That is ONE desert that I will DEFINITELY be making at home!)

Saturday, March 21 – Today is District Conference Day and supposedly a REALLY big presentation day. I was really excited because we are scheduled to meet with the Outbound Swedish Team who will be visiting Minnesota in April. After listening to a presentation from a gentleman from Uganda Rotary and hearing the India’s team presentation, it was our turn and, once again, everything went very smoothly. We had the opportunity to sit with the Sweden team during lunch; followed by a short visit to the Museum of World Culture and then it was off to Christina’s house for fika (coffee break) and some more chatting. We enjoyed talking with them and helping them get a better understanding of what to expect from their upcoming trip and how they could be more prepared than we were. That’s one thing we all sort of wished we’d have had more of an opportunity to do before we left for Sweden.

Oh, my…. I almost forgot one of the best parts of the day! Kara and I had a bit of time so we decided to go for a walk around the island. Lennart’s neighbor gave us some pointers for finding our way and off we went down the road for about a block or two before it ended (I thought it went the whole way around – boy, was I wrong!) and we followed a small path down to the water. There we could see another harbor and some ferry boats taking passengers to destinations unknown to us. To the right, we could see rocks and boulders of all sizes – we suddenly figured out why Lennart had told Kara she couldn’t go jogging on the island. We took some AWESOME pictures, stopped occasionally just to look and found some quartz crystals as well as shells before finding our way up the boulders to the flagpole we were told to find. There we found another small path down to the road that would return us home. As we were sitting by the water, enjoying the scenery, we saw a car with a ski rack cross the narrow bridge and thought that it might be Lennart’s wife Lotta returning home after a week of skiing. So, we went up and introduced ourselves and helped her unpack the car before we had to quickly change for our evening on the town.

We rounded out the evening with the District Conference Dinner back at Kviberg’s Kantin. They had a band and after they got through the first 4 or 5 slow songs, they finally picked up the pace so we could dance together and relax for awhile….

Sunday, March 22 – Last day of the District Conference. After a brief intro at a local hotel, we all walked up to an old church on a hillside by the water for a gospel choir concert. The man who directs the choir was one of the members of the band from last night. He turned out to be an incredible piano player and we’ve been told that he’s pretty famous in Sweden. The choir was terrific to listen to and the time went by very quickly.

After finding a small little café for lunch, we went to the Univer seum which is near the Museum of World Culture and is intended to show the environment from the North to the South of Sweden as well as the rest of the world. The largest portion of the museum was a rainforest. When we arrived and looked through the glass, we saw some monkeys roaming freely but, when we got there, it was one of the “rain periods” and we found out that the monkeys do not like the rain. It was fun and interesting - - I mostly enjoyed watching the kids reactions to many of the exhibits. At the very end, we were taken into a little room where they have a couple of animals for us to hold. The only thing we could hold or pet today was a little bearded dragon named Oliver. He was very calm and just looked at us like we were insane for being so interested in him.

We were a little late getting out of the Universeum so we didn’t have much time before we walked back out the door for dinner at the Royal Sailing Club near our “home” for the week. Dinner was really relaxing and the food was, once again, amazing.

This is a picture of Kara and I with our hosts in Goteborg.

God natt! Steph

One man's trash is another man's treasure - Red and green bags in Sweden

Hej, everyone!

Just a quick note - one thing people keep asking us about is what is so memorable in Sweden - and among the many answers is usually how the Swedes deal with their trash.

I've written here about the "red bag" plant in Uddevalla and here about the "green bag" plant in Vänersborg if you'd like to see how two communities we've visited turn their trash into energy. We feel very lucky that we had the opportunity to learn about them (and are excited to see what Rachel is going to do with this information when we get back home!).
:)

Vi ses! - Alison