So much to do and see...

Wow – it’s been another week and I have yet to make another post! Time sure does fly by me here! Ok, backing up to where I left off….Saturday we won the game against Sandviken – 2 -0. We had this weekend “off” as far as games go, then we head to Tranas to play our last season game this coming Saturday. I can’t believe the season is coming to an end already.

So, after the game on Saturday, Sunday we went to the Globen Arena to watch Team Sweden play hockey against Team Finland in front of a sold out crowd. The Globen Arena is pretty cool looking, but has some design flaws on the inside --- like if you are sitting up in the nose bleed section like we were, if you go up the wrong side, you can’t just walk around to get to your seats, no…you have to go back down the 5 flights of stairs to go back up on the right side. Oh well…as we were correcting our wrong of going up on the wrong side, we ran across someone I knew --- yep – I’m far away from home, but run into someone I know in a city where I know maybe 30 people of 3 million! It was one of my co-workers and his son. That took me by surprise! The game was really good – very close until the end and Sweden won 4-0. The week days were more of the same with work and then training, including a training run on my own on Wednesday where I ran my “typical” 4 miles through Haga Park. What wasn’t typical about the run this week was that my legs were dead from the training we did on Tuesday, including hill sprints running, drills on the ice, then sprints on the ice! Oy vey! That was awesome and tiring. Thursday and Friday I did take ½ days from work so we could go and see a few things. Thursday we didn’t do anything exciting as we had training that night, but Friday we decided to walk around Sodermalm and hang out a bit there. That was kinda neat to see some different parts and walk randomly without a place to go or something holding us to a time table. Saturday was Valentine’s day, and we didn’t really have anything particular up our sleeves, other than enjoying time with eachother more. So, we headed to Drottningham Palace to see if I could meet Prince Carl Phillip and see if Thom could meet Crown Princess Victoria – we figure that if we are going to stay in this country, we have to try to hook up with those who can make it happen. While we didn’t get a good chance to meet them, we did wander the palace grounds and that was interesting. Reminded me of the White House combined with Versailles in France. Quite the combination, but pretty cool overall. As you can see in the picture - I could hold it in the palm of my hand ;)



We headed to a Thai place for ‘dinner’ – Thom enjoyed it, I didn’t as much. Oh well, it was a great experience. Saturday night our neighbor was having a party and had slipped a note through our mail slot earlier in the week (we came home and thought that it was going to be a note about how our dog was causing noise again! Whew!) We headed to her apartment for what we thought would be “one drink”. Everyone there was SO incredibly nice, it was easy to just hang out and talk with everyone. It was funny to see some of them ready to go out to the club and some were not so ready. We were flexible and enjoyed the fact that we “closed it down” next door with some very nice people. Sunday I needed to get a training run in for my marathon training, so I ran 9.5 miles through Solna and Stockholm combined. Very enjoyable I have to say! Monday was Presidents day, so Thom and I decided to do something “American” and find a good place for a good American brunch. We found this place called “Sirip Café”, and it was marvelous! They had “American” pancakes! Ok, doesn’t seem like a big deal when you have Perkins or Denny’s at every corner, but the pancakes normally are very thin here --- unless you find some American Pancakes! I highly recommend this place. Although, like anywhere else, this restaurant is quite pricey. I don’t think I’ve ever spent $45 on brunch before now. Oh well – it was definitely worth it!

Tuesday, back to work for the week and ready for the big week of training – not a night will go by this week without intense training. We are ramping up for the finals that we will be getting ready to play. Amazing….still can’t believe that “the end is near”. Like “All good things must come to an end” --- so must this edition of my blog! Cheers!



Oh - and Reese celebrated turning 2 on the 7th!! Our little girl - she's all grown up!!! She even sports hats for fashion here. She must realize that she needs to keep her ears warm!!





In case my email didn't reach you, I also entered a contest this past week - Bjorn Borg (the famous tennis player) has an underwear line that I really like...so, why not try to win a whole wardrobe of it?? If you haven't done so, check it out (and for those of you who have - thanks for the comments - I should find out from them next month if I am a winner ;) ) Enjoy!
http://www.bjornborg.com/en/SwedishExports/Kristy-Powell-USA/