honeymoon's over

...because as far as the stewardess was concerned, we flew back from our honeymoon last night.. long story, I'll tell you later.

Saturday we arrived Copenhagen airport with a 30 min. delay. Fine, we first thought, picked up our bags, got our train tickets and was on the train speeding over the bridge between Denmark and Sweden; excited and a bit tired from the journey; looking forward to arrive at the house. While gazing out over the water beneath us, Vincent realizes he left his game boy on the air plane. So, only one thing to do, get off at the next stop, go back and get the game or at least file a report for items left on board. After one hour of endless waiting for me and an hour of shaking information and assistance out of people for Vincent, he showed up; crossing the terminal hall with a relieved smile on his face and a thumbs-up. So we continued our journey towards vacation; a week on Österlen/Skåne, Sweden.

Saturday night, mom's cooking and dad's snaps (of the latter I had none; you take it easy at the start). A small stroll out the meadows with a striking view of the ocean, the beach and Hanö bay. Next morning was an early rise and shine, getting up at 8 for breakfast and after a short drive we reached our goal for our sunday activity:

My parents

Vincent

Biking along an old railway through meadows and forests, with views as such above and with picnic before heading back.

Parents' place

Later during the day, we paid a quick visit to my parents' house. Back at the summer house we did the first swim of the year (for Vincent's part - 10 years??) in the sea. It was cold. Very cold. It was 10 degrees. According to the local weather/fisher man. I believe him. But once you have ignored all your survival instincts and actually dived into the freezing cold water; hitting your skin and your skull with a thousand knives, you feel extremely refreshed and against all odds - alive. This is my fountain of youth ;)


In the evening we had reservations at this lovely place, Vitemölla Badhotell (Bad is Swedish for Bath - it's just by the beach). Worked here during the summer some years ago. It's a great restaurant, very beautiful interior as well as exterior (as you can see) and the ocean view is stunning. So are the prices; we spent about 70 Euros together on main course and wine!! Almost our entire food allowance for the holiday ;) We tried making it up by eating a lot of bread. I definitely wanna go there again, but then perhaps only for a coffee... Just to inhale the view and the atmosphere.

Kiviks Marknad - an annual fun fair, the biggest in Scandinavia, took place from Monday afternoon to Wednesday afternoon. I have only missed one of these in my entire life. This was the biggest event of my childhood summers, and therefore I'm rather sad to admit that it's not what it once was. Gone is all the gypsies that handled their business of sales and fortune telling in their mystical trailers, gone is the true craftsmanships that never stopped to amaze you and triggered your spending nerve, gone is all the wonderful characters you'd meet along your stroll through this magical place. The rides are still there, the candy is still the good ol' home made kind, and the food types keep expanding and every time you can try something new. How about Moose Kebab, Hungarian Langos or a Deer hamburger? The sweet side is even more exploited; frozen banana on a stick with chocolate and sprinkles, waffles with cream and jam, fried Camembert with cloud berries, donuts of all kind, cotton candy, cherries and Toblerone the size of your leg!

Below you see two pieces of beautiful(!?) fun fair artwork. Characters as you never have seen them before..

This is my alias and myself;
happy to have found a real Powerpuff-Bubbles doll; the official kind.

Worth to mention is also the adventure of my dear father. Every year, at the time of this event, he eats herring breakfast at a friends house, enjoying far more snaps than harring. Usually he comes strolling the street back to our house in the afternoon, only to fall asleep flat on the porch before crawling on his hands and feet inside and into the bedroom where he will sleep until the end of the evening.

Wednesday we escaped the loud fair and the questionable festival food - we took the car and drove to Sweden's only wine castle - Kronovall, to try the Swedish stone oven baked pizza and expensive wine. Delicious! However, since I was the driver, I took the child approach and enjoyed my raspberry soda.. another childhood nostalgia.

Thursday we climbed the spectacular 100m high mountain of this area - Stenshuvud or in english Stone's Head. It's a national park with stunning nature and flora. After a pretty descent ascent you reach views like this:

it was quite a wind that day..

It's not for nothing they call this province; the place where you're a bit closer to heaven.

We headed down again towards the popular cake buffet of Coffeehouse Annorlunda (Annorlunda means Different) - a café with ancestry from the mid 19th century. You pay about 6 Euro, you get coffee (meaning; a whole coffee pot) or chocolate milk or whatever you want, then you help yourself to the delicious cake buffet.


Friday night we went to Simrishamn, a town close by, and enjoyed eating a shrimp boat on a shrimp boat; "Glada räkan" or The Happy Shrimp. It craves a bit of time and patience, but with practice...


With KLM connections, we were registered to be on our honeymoon.. (old colleagues' joke) and got upgraded to business class on our flight back to Amsterdam. With this service came better leg space, better food and a box with champagne and snacks to take home. The stewardesses were very sweet and also very curious (I can imagine..) and it was a bit difficult for us to stick to our story. They asked us where we lived, I just said Amsterdam and Vincent followed with "Haarlem for me!". I tried to hide my laugh, and when the stewardess had left us, and I asked him; "So we're married, but we don't live together??" It was a fun experience! But now - honeymoon's over. The end of an excellent vacation.