Tuesday, June 13, 2017

The Long Trip Home to Upplands-Väsby


Monday, 12 June, 2017:

Just another day in beautiful Finja . . .

Karolin and Johan Hammarqvist

Our wonderful hosts for our weekend in the greater Hässleholm megalopolis. They live in the village of Finja, a splendid little slice of farmland heaven, if you ask me.

For the past two weeks Aiki Parts has been helping me form an exit strategy after the conclusion of our coaching duties with the Wäsby Warriors.

Laurie and I have ten days between our last commitment with the Warriors this coming Sunday and our flight home to Los Angeles.

This morning Johan helped us close one of the deals that Aiki had found for us on a Swedish travel website that has no English translation icon to help us foreigners.

 Eight days/seven nights in
Palma Nova on the Spanish island
of Mallorca

The Palma Nova beach looks . . .

. . . AMAZING!

So was the price for two round-trip air fares from Stockholm to Spain, transfers to and from the airport in Palma and our apartment for the week! Many pictures to following, I'm sure.

After Johan helped us on the internet, I decided to go for a walk in Finja to celebrate.

There are cows in the area

 Finja Kyrka

Although the date on the tower says 1664, that is only stating the date of a renovation to the tower. This church actually dates from circa 1130 A.D.

In 1805,
another tower renovation

Horses are also big in Finja

Finja continues to strike me as a great place for Karolin and Johan to live and raise their three children Henning, Hilma and Signe.

Lunch at Hassleholm's
Graffiti Café

When I coached the Hässleholm Hurricanes back in 2010, this restaurant was part of my five restaurant meal plan.

They specialize in stuffed baked potatoes which Laurie and I both loved.

The shrimp salad stuffed baked potatoes today were as good as we remembered!

 Skylight outside of the Graffiti Café

Hassleholm's District Court Building

I always liked this goofy
art work near Hässleholm
Central train station

 In Hässleholm's Stortorget a
poster from last Saturday's game

At 2:40 p.m., we boarded the train bound for Stockholm on time. Delays along the route would make our arrival in Stockholm be 40 minutes later than planned.

Oh well, the ride was still pleasant.

A random manor house about half
way between Hässleholm
and Stockholm

UPDATE: In a comment to this post, Johan Hammarqvist noted that this manor house "Belongs to Swedish royal court and is located just outside the small city of Flen."

As it turns out Flen is the city where Johan grew up as a boy.

A lucky photo op if you ask me.

Laurie was pensive on the
train ride home

Again, a fun weekend visiting with many good friends from our memorable 2010 season with the Hurricanes!

Reading Is FUNdamental

Six Chapters,
six different crimes to solve

I got this from the Upplands-Väsby Public Library's collection. It was not up to Nordic Noir standards but what could you expect, after all, it was British.

Mallorca . . .

1 comment:

Johan said...

Great time having you guys in Finja/Hässleholm.

That random house you took a picture of going back to Stockholm is not just any random house. Belongs to the Swedish royal court and is located just outside the small city of Flen. Accidently the city I grew up in. Small world! :-)