Well, Guillermo and I are back in Spain, we got back last night.  There must have been terrible winds when we were gone, because things were a mess outside the house.  Pots on the ground, plants on the ground, heavy lawn chairs in the driveway, pine branches everywhere, and stuff like that.  We spent time today cleaning up all that mess.

We don´t have internet at the house for these last 3 days before we fly back to the states, so we'll go to internet cafes twice a day.  I had written something for this blog at home and copied it to a flash drive so I could copy it here to this blog, but there doesn't seem to be a way to copy text.  It was a summary of what we have done since leaving Sweden.  Whenever we get a chance, I'll try to get that on here.  But we had a great time in Tallinn, Estonia.  It sure was weird being in a place where we couldn´t understand anything the people were saying.  Fortunately, most people spoke a little bit of English.
Here are some pictures of our trip to Tallinn.  If you like, just click on a picture if the slideshow goes too fast, to see them one by one.

We really liked Tallinn and are so glad we were able to visit that city.  So much history, and many nice little cafes where the only lighting was candles and were underground in cave-like settings, making them so cozy.

The day after Christmas Day

Eva's grandmother, and uncle and aunt came over today for dinner.  We enjoyed meeting them and spending a little time with them.  After dinner they opened a few presents from family.

Eva made a cake for this day that was delicious!

Eva's grandmother getting ready to enjoy a piece of cake.

Our Christmas in Risvattnet

On the morning of December 23, we drove to some nearby towns looking at possible wedding venues.  It was a cold morning with a snow/rain mix falling.  But you take what you get, and today was our chance to go around looking at places.  This is an old mill that can host events for people now.

Meeting with the guy who opened up the mill for us to look around.

This is a nice little bridge by the mill over a river.  It's beautiful now, and it must be beautiful also in the summer.

Fernando and Eva, trying to visualize how this will all look in the summer when things will be green.

Heading back to the car.  You really can't tell, but a snow/rain mix is falling and was falling the whole time.

Planning their wedding.  Wedding planning can be fun even though there is SO much to think about.

In the evening, a Christmas tree was brought into the house!  We spent part of the evening decorating it!  The tree really turned out beautiful!

December 24th
This morning we took a walk in the snow to a lake that is near their house.  Whoever knew it'd be so hard to walk in snow!!  Sometimes we would sink into the snow up to our calves, so it took some work to walk. And we were going downhill!  So, we just took it slower on the way back.
Here are some pictures of our walk.  Our first stop was at the little house that's across the way from their house.  We just peered around in the inside.

Now we're heading down to the lake.

A little storage cabin by the lake

The lake is covered with snow.

Fernando and Eva along the shore of the lake.

 It's interesting how the snow can just hang there like that.

Heading back up to the house

We got to try this little thing called a Spark, which helps people glide along ice.

Taking the Spark to a little higher ground for a longer ride.

Fernando making sure I stayed upright!

After all that, we took a short walk along the road to see if we could see the sun.  With the hills around here, you can't see the sun too easily, the little that it is out, because it kind of just goes horizontal across the sky.

Then we went back inside, had a special lunch, watched a Disney Christmas special on TV (which is a tradition of theirs) and then we opened presents.  It was a very nice Christmas Eve.  Here we all are before opening presents.

Okay, on to opening presents!

Looking at the locket that Fernando gave Eva.

In my new Christmas sweater that Fernando gave me!

After opening presents, it was time for Christmas Eve dinner!  4 different kinds of pickled herring, some reindeer meat, ham, Jamon Iberico from Spain, smoked salmon, potatoes, salad, cheeses and bread.

After dinner, we worked on a puzzle in the living room and just relaxed in the nice warm house.

December 25th

Merry Christmas!!  Wow!  When we woke up in the morning, it was snowing!  It was so beautiful and so perfect for the day.  It was amazing, because by mid-morning, the snow had stopped and the sky turned clear.

After breakfast, we took a short walk and then we drove around in the area a little bit.  Eva's dad had seen Reindeer tracks on the road, so he figured they must be along it somewhere.  After driving a little while, we found them!

So, it was a very nice morning, first there was a snowfall, and then we see reindeer.

Beautiful Risvattnet

The morning of Dec. 22, after we had our breakfast, we took a walk down the road by the house.  It was a scenery straight out of a Christmas card and just so stunningly beautiful.  Again, quite a few pictures were taken, so I made a slide show.  Remember, you can always click on a picture, and that will take you to Picasa where you can view the albums at leisure, if the slideshow goes too fast.  There still is not a way (that I know of) to make the slideshow go slower.


It was quite cold on the walk, and if you took your hands out of your gloves, it could get painful.  The temperature was probably in the teens.  Here in Risvattnet it starts getting light around 8am and starts getting dark at 1:30pm.  By 3pm, it is totally dark.

In Hörnefors, Sweden

Our last full day in Stockholm was December 18th and the next day we caught a flight in the late afternoon to the town that is close to where Eva's parent's live - Umea.  Of course here in Sweden at this time of year, it starts getting light at about 8am and it starts getting dark around 2pm.  So, by the time we got to the parent's house it was already dark. Here we are all together having dinner.

And sitting in the living room after dinner.

The next day, December 20th, we all took a walk to the shore of the Baltic Sea, which is fairly close to their house.  Here we are on our way.

Now we have just gotten to the shore.

After standing by the Baltic Sea for a while, we walked back and then did a little stroll through the town of Hörnefors.

The view from the bridge we were crossing.

The next morning, when we woke up, we saw that it had snowed during the night and everything was covered so beautifully in white.  Fernando and Eva left right after breakfast to take a bus to the city of Umea, so when they went out, I went out also to take some pictures of how beautiful everything was.

This is how it looked as we walked out the door of the house.

The view to the left of their house.

The view to the right of their house.

Down the road a little from the house.

That is Eva's parent's house there on the left.

A closer view of their house.

Fernando and Eva waiting for the bus.

How it looked on the road close to where they waited for the bus.

At around noon, Eva's dad drove us to the city of Umea, where we were going to meet Fernando, and later Eva.  We met up with Fernando at a bookstore and then went to go get some lunch at a good Italian restaurant.   After lunch, by then it was dark and it was time for some Christmas shopping.  We did a lot of walking around downtown Umea, going in and out of stores until we finally found what we wanted.  It was cold out on the streets, but inside the stores it was hot, so it was a lot of taking coats, gloves and hats off and then putting them back on.  Then we saved about 45 minutes to do some grocery shopping before Eva's dad picked us up again to take us to their other house in Risvattnet, Sweden.

Loving it in Stockholm

Well, there were so many pictures from our visit to Stockholm that I decided to put them all in this slideshow. Haven't done that in quite a while. Hope you enjoy this slideshow.

Stockholm!

I guess the weather wasn't very good when we were there - it was cold and rainy, but we did have one very good snowy day with big snowflakes which were just beautiful.  And even when it was raining, sometimes you could see snow mixed in with the rain.  We just loved it and it was all part of how we thought Stockholm was going to be anyway, so it fit perfectly.
Guillermo and I arrived in Stockholm around 3 in the afternoon on December 16th and we hung around the airport waiting for Fernando's flight which was due to arrive at 6:05.  We got a little something to eat in a cafe, visited the information center and got maps.  When Fernando's flight finally appeared on the arrivals board, it showed that it wouldn't be arriving until 6:50 pm.  It was starting to get worrisome because we had planned ahead of time with Fernando to leave the airport at 7 so that we could get to the apartment we were renting during the agreed-upon time with the landlord of between 7 and 8.
Guillermo at one point thought that he had seen on the board a change in the arrival terminal so I walked all the way over to that terminal to check on it while he stayed with our stuff.  Turned out to not be true.  We decided it'd be good if we could talk to someone in customs or immigration about our visas so we asked a policeman where that would be.  While talking with him, he told us that all flights into and out of Stockholm had either been cancelled or delayed because the runway lights had gone out, which explained why there was so much red on the arrival board of each flight.  So, we got even MORE concerned about Fernando's flight.  But then we noticed that his flight was still active, but that it was going to arrive even later - 7:25.  So, we decided we'd best get on our way to the apartment.  We started getting ready to go and checked the board one more time before heading to a taxi.  We could not believe that the board now said his plane would be arriving at 6:55!  We were starting to wonder if the board was going crazy, but we thought we'd take a chance and wait.  When we looked at it just a few minutes later, the board said his plane was approaching the airport!!!  This was right at about 6:55.  So we for sure now wanted to take the chance that he'd land and get out of that plane and get his luggage by 7:30 and that would give us enough time to get to the apartment.
It was a big chance we were taking and we were just on pins and needles waiting at the exit for him to come a round the corner.  But sure enough, at about 7:24, he appeared and he was shocked to see us still there.  We gave quick hugs and then raced to get a taxi.  The taxi got us to the apartment at about 8:02.
There was no one there at the apartment so we placed all our luggage along the sidewalk and wondered what to do.  We asked the taxi driver if he had a cell phone to call the landlord and he did so he called the number we gave him.  Strangely enough, the landlord was just pulling up as the taxi driver was talking to him.
So absolutely everything worked out.  We got into the nice warm apartment, Fernando was with us and everything was just fine.  The next post is when I started taking pictures, so no pictures on this day.

Sweden bound tomorrow!

Packing up tonight for our trip to Stockholm tomorrow!  We are getting up at 4am, leaving at 4:30 to be at the airport by 5.  Our flight to Stockholm leaves at 7am.  So tonight it's getting our suitcases ready, listening to our Christmas CD's one last time, looking at the lights on our little "tree" one last time, hoping our Pointsettia is still alive when we get back in 16 days (ha- what are the chances) and feeling excited to be on our way to see Fernando and Eva.
As soon as I'm finished with this blog post, we have to call our internet provider and suspend our account until February.  So, as soon as Guillermo makes the call, we'll be without internet the rest of the evening.  But hopefully we'll be in places where there's wireless during this trip.

Elche and the Palms

We drove to the city of Elche today.   After finding a place to park, we walked through nice palms on our way to the Museum of Archeology which was full of the history of Elche.

This is the view from  the castle wall that is part of the museum.

A view of the Basilica from up on the castle wall.

After the museum, we walked over to the Basilica which was nearby.  We walked in and looked around the inside which was very beautiful.  From there we wanted to go to the Huerto del Cura, which is a park dedicated to palms and we were going to go back to the car to drive to the park, but we decided to walk through the town instead.  It was a little farther than we thought, but not too bad.  The Palm Park was beautiful and it was so interesting seeing all the different plants.

That's me way back there!

How do you like this palm?  It's one plant and is the jewel of the park.

There were a few orange trees in the park, too.