I can't remember whether I wrote about this fountain when I was in Visby, but as you can see, it is a girl holding a seashell, which is spurting water. As we walked past this fountain one of the first few times, I imagined her saying, "I can hear the ocean... Hey- I can feel the ocean!"

Anyway, I just found these pictures on my computer and I thought I would tell that little story. 

In recent news, I have been riding the bike I got for Christmas everywhere and will post pictures of it soon. I rode it to church yesterday, which was an adventure. My skirt kept scooting up my legs. Mom thinks maybe I could get weights for my skirt, like the ones you put on a tablecloth. Also, as I was crossing Monterey, my shoe fell off, so I had to pick it up, turn around, and start across the intersection all over again. Phew!

I have to go clean so I can go to the movies with Madelyn, but I will write a new post as soon as I think of something interesting to write about!

S, A, T-U-R, D-A-Y (beat) Post!

Okay, Saturday, I think, is fairly easily summed up.
On Saturday morning, for the first, and very unfortunate, instance, I woke at around three in the morning and could not fall back asleep. I laid in my bed, in the dark, and thought about leaving Gotland.
I really wish that I had written this in the moment; I could remember the feeling better then, but all I could think of was that I didn't want to leave. It made me sick, anxious, apprehensive, even to think about going away from Gotland. I thought about me, on a map, situated safely here on this tiny island off of mainland Sweden; how I'd planned to be here since we'd bought our plane tickets at the beginning of the year, and how, now, it was over. I was still there, on the island, and already, I wanted to turn my future self around and stay on the island for ever.
The next morning, after a minimal amount of sleep, I woke up. The feeling wasn't as bad anymore; it had turned tepid and I could forget it whilst I was occupied with packing my bags, shaking rugs, sweeping, and cleaning up the house we had for the week. The Hummer we had borrowed from Alec couldn't hold us and our bags all in one trip, so Dad made two trips to Visby and back. The boys went first, while the girls stayed at home and finished everything off. When the house was essentially done, Mom sent Melissa and I off to look for wildflowers for a little vase in the house, so we walked down this road and picked some along the walk. When everything was finished with, we sat down, turned the T.V. on, and waited.
When Dad arrived to ferry us over to Visby, we got all the other bags and backpacks still at the house and piled them into the car. Mom and Dad said goodbye to the family that rented us the house, and we drove away. I waved at the lady, who was waving at us, and laughed at her dog, who was barking us off.
We went to the hotel and sometime we met Alec and we decided that, as a last hurrah, we would go see a few more things a little ways away. Alec took us to these hight cliffs where we could look out and see Visby, and if we looked over, on our knees, we could peek over the edge of the cliff to the ocean and rocks below. After that, we drove to this place called Sommarland, where Pippi Longstocking's house is, and we saw her house through this window; not very well, of course, but it was better than having to go through all that commercialized park stuff.
We wanted to get ice cream after that, so Alec and Dad went to get the bags from the Gotlan d Ring office, where we'd dropped them off, and they left us at this ice cream place. We wanted to get something, but the line was really long and our other option was soft serve, which kind of took the fun out of it. We decided to bag the ice cream idea and just meet them at the front of the boat terminal which would take us away.
The feeling came back as we were walking along the harbor. I got this idea that I wanted, needed, to stop, to hold still and stand on the ground, and, literally, grow roots into the ground. It was depressing to leave. So I plan on being back.
We got on the boat, found our seats, and sat around for a while. Some of them went up to the upper level to watch us moving away, and I went up after a while with Melissa when I realized where they had gone. I stayed up there by myself for a while after everyone was gone, which was nice, to see Visby getting smaller; like a goodbye.
The boat ride was long; they showed a movie, which was okay, and eventually (I keep using that word) we were there. We took a bus to Stockholm after getting our luggage, and there, after some confusion, we took the subway to a station near our hotel. After we got of the station, we got lost for a while until we found a sort of bridge across the railroad and towards our hotel. When we got there, Mom and Dad checked in, we settled into our rooms (one of which is this awesome big suite with big windows (you can see the bay from all the windows on our side of the hotel), and then we went down to the hotel restaurant and ate ridiculously expensive meals because we couldn't think of what else to do for dinner. Later we went up to our rooms, read scriptures, had family prayer, and eventually split off to separate rooms, watched T.V. for a while, and went to bed.

The Rest of Friday... these titles are getting repetitive

Okay. After we goofed around in the church for a while, we met up with Dad and Alec at that same restaurant and then we walked to the hotel. We decided to go home after that, where we hung around for a while and then ate dinner. We wanted to see the sunset at least once while we were on Gotland, so we all piled in the car at around 9:30 (no joke, the sun really sets that late) and drove to a beach a mile or two away. We'd actually been there before; it was the beach near the pizza place we ate at with Alec, Sari, and the girls around a week ago. It was really pretty, but it had rained that day, so it was really cloudy and already looked like twilight; we couldn't see the sun. :( We started on our way home, and we stopped by this cool looking cave and took some pictures. When we got home, we ate ice cream and cookies and then went to sleep.
Again, another post for Saturday!

Thank Goodness it's Friday!

On Friday we got up and drove to the hotel and all that stuff that I'm tired of saying. :) Dad and Mom and Alec needed to make reservations for Stockholm and Finland (which is later this week), so they gave us kids some money and told us to go spend it. The two boys had about 300 kronor and us girls had 500 (300 is about 50 dollars and 500 is about 80 something). So we ran off to the shopping part of the town and looked around. We split up, girls and boys, because, of course, we wanted to go clothes shopping and the boys- I don't really know.
First we hunted around inside the wall, in little boutiques and stores that we'd passed before while window shopping and stuff. We couldn't find anything we really liked, and a lot of it was way out of our price range, so I elected that we go outside the wall to these other, bigger stores, that I'd seen before, which would probably be cheaper.
We went into a couple stores; I bought a shirt at this store called Ahlens. We found an H&M and we looked around there for a while. I saw this elephant necklace that I really liked, but we kept looking because Melissa and Madelyn hadn't bought anything. We went to another store, called (ha ha) Lindex, and eventually Melissa bought some shoes, Madelyn bought a white shirt, and we had extra money, so we got Melissa a purple shirt and we all bought a necklace. Plus I went back to H&M and bought that elephant necklace :).
We came back to the hotel later than we were supposed to and the boys, who had returned early, had been sent back out until 2:30. So we waited for them with Mom. When they got back, we saw their spoils: Spencer had bought a Swedish soccer uniform, and they each bought some old coins for their coin collections. (Don't worry, Leslie, I'll bring you some Swedish kronor.)
We met up with Dad and Alec at some restaurant and, since we hadn't bought lunch, Mom took us to this hamburger joint where we ate while we, yet again, sent the boys off to go shop more. When they returned, we were almost done, so they helped us finish off our fries and whatever and then we all set off for this ice cream place they'd been to. We bought some ice cream (I had two scoops- some Italian mandarin thing and Violet! flavored ice cream, which was, unfortunately, weird.) and then we went and hung out at this big ruined church, where we climbed around and took some pictures.
Okay, Madelyn and I are going to breakfast now, so I'm going to sign off and write more when I get back.

More of Thursday!

Okay, so while Alec and his racing people taught all the newbs how to drive, I read Jane Eyre and played UNO and stuff with the other kids; I also blogged some and worked on some homework stuff for school. That's basically what I did the whole time we were there; near the end, we Skyped Grandma and Grandpa Brown (we have yet to talk to our Shill Grandparents). :) For those of you who don't know, Skype is a kind of instant messaging software; it enables you to make international calls for free; we used it to make a video call. We talked to them for a while and showed them the ring and everything, which was fun.
I figured I was going to drive the next day, so eventually we drove home and I guess we fell asleep or something. I'm so sorry! It's already Sunday! We're in Stockholm now and my memory's kind of blurred.
Coming up next... Friday!

AND NOW... THE FABULOUS WEDNESDAY!

Okay, so I'm really really behind. Forgive me. I'm having a good time and not enough time to blog all the time. :( Sorry!
On Wednesday we didn't meet at the hotel. We planned to go to this island off the North coast called Faro(except the "O" has two dots over it and the "A" has a circle over it and I'm too lazy to add special characters), so we bought some food for breakfast or lunch or whatever it was and we picked up Alec at his apartment on Visby(Sari took the car with her, so he's sometimes at a loss for transportation- it's really ironic). After that we drove to the ferry that would take us to Fårö(there, I did it!). We stopped at this military fort turned fancy hotel for a while; that was cool.
Then we drove around to our destination, which was this beach covered with all these weird rock formations. You can see a picture on my family's blog, which I listed somewhere on here. The beach was pretty cool; we climbed around on a bunch of rocks and romped around for a while.
After that, we drove to a different beach so we could actually go swimming. We sat around and ate for a while and then Madelyn and I put on our swimsuits. When we came back everyone but Mom was playing soccer, so we decided to play too. I got tired after a while, so I went and laid in the sun for a long time with Mom. When it was almost time to leave, I went out to the shore; I knew I would regret it hugely if I never actually swam in the Baltic Sea when I was so close. So I waded in. It was freezing! Madelyn and Spencer were there, and they tried to hug me (they were wet), but I wouldn't let them. I waded out to about waist level and then Madelyn told me I would want to make sure I went under. So we counted to three and then we dunked under the black water together. It was so cold! We "swam" a little, though the water was really too shallow to swim in, and later we left.
After that we went to a grocery store and bought some popsicles or something and ate them. Then we all piled back into the car and we drove to this place with sand dunes in the forest(weird, huh?). We jumped off dunes for a while and took pictures and stuff and then we went back to the car.
Next, Mom and Dad drove us to the cabin and dropped us off; I was under the impression that they were going to drop Alec off and come home with dinner. BUT they actually returned about four hours later at 11 at night, after we watched the Simpsons and whatever "football" match was on for most of that time (Of course, I was placidly reading Jane Eyre for a substantial portion of that in the next room). It turns out Mom and Dad and Alec went out to eat at a super fancy restaurant and hung around for a while, which I'm sure was fun for them. After they came home, we fell asleep or something. I can never remember.
And that's Wednesday!

More Tuesday, Anyone?

After we all met up at the hotel, we went to this restaurant for pizza together with this friend of Alec's named Gustav. He was some kind of driver or something; I really have no idea.
Mom, Dad, Alec, and Gustav all sat at one table at the restaurant while all of the kids sat at a separate one. That was kind of fun; Spencer blew out our candle, which was pretty goofy; we had to relight it. We talked a lot and joked around, which, as most of you know, is inevitable when you put my family together. Especially when we're stuck with each other. (Just kidding; I love them)
We went back to the hotel and hung around the lobby for a while until we decided to go home. I can't really remember what happened then; I assume we ate and watched T.V. or something. I probably read Jane Eyre and eventually fell asleep.
And that's Tuesday! I guess I'll start a new post to talk about Wednesday.

Monday...what I wrote yesterday!

Today we woke up pretty late. I had this oatmeal stuff for breakfast. It's called Oatibix and we got it in London and like to make fun of its name a lot. I didn't have time to shower, so I got dressed and we sat around for awhile until we drove to Visby.
Alec was in a meeting with some Gotland Ring people, so we had to wait for him before Dad could go play tennis and all that. We went to the hotel for a while and I blogged and Madelyn checked her e-mail. Mom wanted to go souvenir shopping, but I wanted to wait and finish e-mailing and blogging and everything and so did Madelyn. So we stayed behind at the hotel and I e-mailed pictures to a bunch of people whose e-mails I had handy. Yay!
When Mom and everyone got back, they had bought lunch, too, so we decided to walk down the coast again and have a picnic, like yesterday. First we were thinking of eating on that walk where those people talked to Madelyn and I, but it was really cold and windy, so we decided to go to the park again. We ate our picnic under a tree, and sampled the Swedish versions of tortilla chips and salsa (you'll think that's funny, huh, Leslie?). Yup. The salsa was pretty pathetic. It was medium hot and was about as spicy as ketchup.
At some point Alec texted us (Collin finally unlocked his phone, so we have communication!- but ONLY within Sweden, so don't- DON'T- call us) and we met up by the hotel, piled into the cars, and drove to these tennis courts outside of Visby that they were going to play tennis on. While Dad, Alec, and this other girl (and whoever wanted to play) hit on the courts, I played UNO and read my book and laid around in the grass nearby. It was nice. Sari and the girls were there too. They're so cute. :)
Near the end, Alec, Sari, and the girls had to leave back for Visby (Alec had a meeting and Sari and the girls were heading back to Finland- where we'll see them later). We said goodbye, and Dad, Collin, and that girl hit some more until she had to leave, and then Collin and Dad hit some more, cleaned up the court, and then we all piled into the car and went home after grocery shopping again at the same big store.
We rambled home, singing all the way, as usual, and ate curry with rice and vegetables and some kind of Barbeque pork we got at the store. We had ice cream bars for dessert. Yum! We also bought this really good swedish chocolate (toblerone- they have it in the US, too).
We watched this English program on T.V. for a while, and the Simpsons, and I recorded this fun song I've been working on with just my voice, and now it's time to go to sleep! Post this in the morning!
Love, Emily

Sunday- a day of rest

I am finally caught up in blogging! I wrote this last night, so I am just posting it while we have Wi-Fi. More tomorrow!
Today we woke up very very very late, which was great. I had some toast with jam for breakfast, and I spent a lot of the morning looking for an iron so I could iron my very wrinkly dress. Later we all piled into the car (church was supposed to start at twelve) and drove to the location of the branch.
According to the Swedish church website, the branch was held in an apartment complex at number 22, which Dad, when looking for it while we waited for him, could not find. We decided to drive to Visby and look for the other address we found, on the English church site, which was to start at one.
We looked up the branch on the Wi-Fi from the hotel, and then walked out to where we thought it would be, but it didn't appear to be the right place, so we went back to the hotel. While Collin worked on unlocking his phone in the Gotland Ring office, Dad decided to take a walk in this park down by a park on the coast and make a picnic of it, so we took our food we brought for lunch.
We walked along for a while, and Madelyn and I wanted to eat by these trees a little ways down, so we walked ahead that way and sat down on a bench. But Melissa and Spencer wanted to eat by a park, and Spencer had to go to the bathroom, so Mom and Dad went with them to the park by the library.
We weren't sure if they were going to come back for us or what, so we just sat on the bench together and talked for a while, which was nice, because we'd been feeling really crowded. It's easy when you're part of a family of seven.
A guy and a girl came up to us while we were sitting on the bench. The guy said something to me in Swedish; I told him I only spoke English, and he asked if I had a cigarette. i said no, sorry and he asked, jokingly, if I had anything else he might smoke. Then the girl asked if I liked Gotland and I said yes, I did. She asked if I had been over this part of the wall nearby; she was looking for a word or something, what it was called. I said I'd been over the wall. She told me that if a man carried you over that part of the wall, that was the man you were going to marry. She told me, "So next time you want to marry, have the man carry you over." I said okay and they smiled and walked away; I assume, through the gate, though I forgot to look and see if he carried her over. That would have been cute.
Madelyn and I talked some more about that and other things, and then we figured Mom and Dad weren't coming back, so we decided to walk around and look for them. We saw Sari and Ada and Vivian in the park and said hello to them. They were going to get ice cream and Sari told us they had seen our family and she said they were eating lunch at the playground. We walked over and found them and ate lunch.
After lunch, Dad let Madelyn and I walk back to the hotel by ourselves, which was nice. We decided to sit in the library in the hotel while we waited for them. I found a book about J.M. Barrie's life and I read it for a long time, curled up in this library armchair. Madelyn was looking up Swedish words in this swedish book I found about English grammar. We were there for maybe an hour and then Mom and Dad got back. Dad saw me in the chair and thought it was pretty, so Mom took a picture of me.
After that we decided to drive home to the cabin. We talked in the car for a while, which was fun, and Madelyn and I sang a lot of goofy songs. We were going to explore the forest around the cabin, but then I didn't want to go because it was cold and Mom didn't want to let the younger kids go without Collin or me. I went back to the house, ate some oatmeal, and took a nap for a long time, until dinner, when I woke, typed blogs for a while, and then ate rice and vegetables. Right now everyone but Collin and me is off on an excursion in the woods with the GPS so they don't get lost. They should be back soon. Then maybe we'll eat ice cream or something for dessert.
It's about 7 or 8 at night right now, I think. I can never really tell, because it's always light outside. I can't believe I'm finally caught up. Yesss! I'll post this tomorrow when I have Wi-Fi at the hotel.

Saturday- at the racetrack!!!!

On Saturday we got up kind of later than yesterday and got dressed. I didn't have time to shower, so I just brushed my hair and threw some clothes together and later we left. We got to the hotel, and we went in and Alec had left us a note at the desk telling us to go to this nearby church where he was married. Dad figured he was late and called the hotel to give them something for us to do. We walked over there and explored the church for a bit.
We looked around there for a while and then Alec got there and we talked about what we wanted to do today.
where we went in and Collin spent some time trying to unlock his phone some more, which is starting to seem futile. Then Mom checked her e-mail and I blogged for a while. We were waiting for Sari and their girls, Ada and Vivian (who, by the way, have been with us on most of our Gotland trip too). When they got to the hotel, we got into the cars and drove out to a beach, where we walked around and skipped rocks and stuff for a while and then ate pizza at a restaurant (which wasn't technically open because of Midsummer, but Alec kind of knew the owner).
After that we drove to Gotland Ring! At last! Gotland Ring is Alec's project he's been working on since around 2000; a racetrack he built on Gotland. He holds events there and drives cars and does all kinds of cool things there.
I have to remind you all that the reason we are going on this trip is not because we wanted to find our roots, not because we wanted to experience foreign countries, but because Alec has been inviting Dad to visit him almost since they first met at BYU-Hawaii over twenty years ago. Gotland Ring is, basically, what we are here for.
We began our adventure in a building that Alec converts into a restaurant and showroom for every event he holds. It was less dressed up just then, and while we were there, Alec gave us the rundown on racing and how it works and stuff. Then he started taking everyone around the track in turns in one of the cars. I stayed in for a while with everyone else while Dad and Collin took their turns. Eventually, after everyone else, it was my turn, and then Alec decided to switch cars for this way faster, bright yellow, ZO6 Chevy Corvette. 512 horsepower. Let me reiterate: very fast.
I got in the car and first we had to do extra laps to warm up the tires. It was kind of jerky because it wasn't a true racecar, but it was so fast. I kept straining to keep from being thrown around. Need I mention why we all wore helmets? I felt like I was holding my breath the whole time. It was amazing. Such an awesome experience. :)
For dinner, we stopped at one of Alec's friends houses and had swedish sausages and fruit and this great shrimp salad. The quy's wife was a chef or a caterer, and she was really good. She made these amazingly delicious pastries for dessert; they were just sweet enough to be sweet, but they didn't give you a sugar buzz or anything. Plus they were crispy and glazed on the outside. Really good.
On our way home, we stopped by some houses Alec was thinking of buying, one on the coast, which we walked along and took pictures by for a while. We decided to go to a grocery store to get more food for Sunday, and we stopped on the way in this gorgeous field of poppies to take some family pictures. Like I said, Gotland is covered in flowers, and in some spots, they are concentrated so much that they make Mom and I freak out. We had to get a picture in them.
After that, we went to the grocery store, bought a whole bunch of food, and came home, read scriptures, blogged, blah blah blah, and went to sleep.
I am finding that I seem to be exhausting my vocabulary when I am so frequently blogging. As I reminder, I am still sincere when I say "beautiful" or "gorgeous" or "amazing," and I am simply at a loss for a better adjective.

Friday: Day of Root-Finding (sort of)

Friday Friday Friday... what did we do on Friday?
On Friday we got up early and Mom had us shower, so I went in, but the water got cold really fast, which sucked. After I showered, I just put my pajamas back on and I just fell back asleep. When it was time to go, I woke up and pulled on some clothes; I couldn't even brush my hair because Madelyn accidentally left her bag in Alec's car, and it had the brush in it. After that, we all squished into the five seater impossibly and drove to the hotel in Visby by Alec's office. See, for some reason, Alec leaves the key to his office in the lobby of the hotel, so the hotel has become a sort of waypoint for us where we meet pretty much every day. Dad and Alec went off to play tennis, so we decided to go geocaching.
While we were walking, we went through a beautiful botanical garden, which we had passed through the day before. It's not as big as the parks we went to in England, but it was really cute and pretty; more landscaped. We walked forever to this castle ruin, which happened to be near the tennis courts where Dad was playing. Dad and Alec go off and play with this almost-pro girl every morning, and they switch off playing with her.
I searched with everyone else for the geocache for a while, but then I got bored, so I walked off into this nearby field and read for a while. Then Mom told me to come back, so I said I would meet them near the tennis courts. I was up there in about a minute, and I sat around waiting for them to get there for about ten minutes. I could hear them and everything, so I decided to go look around and find out what they were doing.
They hadn't found the geocache, but they were goofing around and exploring in this big castle ruin right by where the cache was supposed to have been. Spencer climbed up in this window and Mom took a picture of him. After a while, we walked back to the courts and waited for Dad and Alec to finish their game. I got kind of impatient and I wanted to leave and walk to the hotel with Madelyn, but Mom wouldn't let me.
Eventually Dad and Alec finished, and we walked back to the hotel. I think at some point Sari and Alec's girls, Vivian and Ada, got there, and we hopped in the car and drove out to the southern part of the island to have a picnic on a beach out there. On the way, we recorded this funny song I made up a capella. We showed it to Collin when we got there. It was really fun.
Once we were there, we all decided to sit on this rock thing, so we spread out two blankets. For lunch, we ate these Swedish things like egg burritos, chicken, salad with tomatoes and feta cheese, a long baguette, and for dessert, chocolate muffins and doughnuts. After we ate, we walked around on the beach for a while. Everyone else skipped rocks, because the rocks on that beach were so perfect, but I'm not the best rock skipper yet, so I just picked up rocks and gave them to Collin. We waded out into the water for fun for a while and then we eventually walked back to the car.
After that, we drove to a church in the South where one of my ancestors, Annie Peterson, was baptized, although I was totally unaware of this until after we visited the church. We walked around in there for a while, and took a family picture by the font. Dad asked me if I wanted to sing something, but I was too embarrased(don't tell me how bogus that is), so Mom and I waited till everyone had left and then we sang "Brightly Beams our Father's Mercy" and then I sang Gounod's "Ave Maria." It was very very cool. Everyone should be able to have that experience.
We left the church and drove to another place in the south, with some kind of landmark rock formation that looks like an old man. Its name is just "old man" in Swedish. We hiked up around that it and walked around. We also took some pictures in the flowers on the ground. Madelyn was wearing my purple shirt that day, and it matched the flowers perfectly, which made a cool picture.
After that we drove home and ate noodles with cheese and watched T.V.; the Simpsons with Swedish subtitles. Later we read scriptures (we usually do that, i just forget to write about it) and then we went to bed.

Thursday: Our First Real Day on Gotland

On Thursday morning, I woke up pretty late. Well- actually I don't really have any idea what time it was. But I know I was completely knocked out until Mom called my room and told me to wake up and come to breakfast. So I got up and got dressed and went down and ate with everyone.
There were all these weird things at the breakfast buffet; pickled herring, these funny crackers and cheese and crunchy breadstick things; then there were all the normal things like oatmeal and corn flakes and fruit and toast. I got corn flakes and these orange slices and apple juice. It was pretty good. This guy saw Spencer's BYU shirt and he came up and said "Is that a BYU shirt I see?" and told us he and his wife were from Orem. It was pretty cool and kind of comforting to see an American; everyone is Swedish her and we all feel a little lost.
After breakfast I went back to my room and showered and got ready and then Melissa came and told me that Alec and his family were here and that they were talking in the lobby with Dad. So I went down after a little and blogged for a while. Alec decided to go get some breakfast (or brunch, since it was elevenish) at this little restaurant close by.
It was modern, but it also looked sort of quaint like everything else around. Everything was white, the chairs and all, but the gate was this old iron one and we ate outside, so we could see the roses and flowers growing all over everything. There was a pretty fountain with some kind of cherub in the middle; really pretty. Some of us ordered mango sorbet, mostly for something to do; that was delicious and had all this fruit on it, blueberries, strawberries, lingonberries(I think?), and this other berry that's orange and I don't know what it is.
Once we left the restaurant, Dad and Alec decided to go play tennis, so we thought we'd go GeoCaching while they were gone. Alec has this office literally right next to the hotel, so we stayed in there and looked up geocaches for a while. Then we walked to this part of the wall on the edge of the city (which is called Visby, by the way- it's the city on Gotland) It took us a while to find the cache, because there were so many deceiving cracks in the wall where it could have been hidden, but we finally found the right spot and logged in on the cache. Then we decided to search for another cache, even though we weren't sure if we would be back on time; then again, we figured Dad and Alec would be late back too). Ha ha.
We found the cache; it was at this mass grave where they buried a bunch of farmer soldiers after a battle a long time ago; very historic. It was pretty cool. After that, we walked back to the office, where I blogged for a while, and Mom and Melissa had to go back and get Melissa's backpack.
When Alec and Dad got back, we walked around for a while and looked at this bike rental place where we could rent for a week, but we decided to wait until later to rent. Then we walked up this hill and walked around by the city wall while Alec told us all this interesting stuff about Gotland. We visited Alec's friend, Mary, who was this old woman who lived in one of these cute dollhouses that everyone in Visby has. She was really nice. We sat in her garden and talked for a while.
After that we all piled into two cars with Alec (a five seater and a two seater) and went grocery shopping for dinner. We bought a bunch of food, and then Alec drove us to a cabin that he found for us with one of Mary's friends. It's about forty-five minutes away from Visby, in a part of Gotland that reminds us of Southern Utah. It's very pretty. One thing I have to tell you that is very important about Gotland is how amazingly gorgeous it is. Roses and poppies and these beautiful lavender blue colored flowers like lupines grow wild all over the place, in fields and forest. Almost everything is at least two hundred years old, so it all looks very historical and adorably picturesque.
Once we got to the cabin, we looked around and the family that is renting it to us helped us out and showed us around a little. We cooked dinner, which was spaghetti with pesto sauce and these long baguettes, with these little chocolate cookies for dessert. Later we went to sleep, and I read Jane Eyre for a while before I knocked out.

The Great Exodus (Wednesday)

Okay. Then on Wednesday we had a big travel fest where we took, I think, seven modes of transportation in one day. Let's count and see:
-walking
-subway
-airplane
-bus
-boat
-car
Oh, whoops. Six. We got up really early, walked to the subway and took that to Heathrow Airport, where we flew to Sweden; I slept most of the flight. Then, when we had arrived, we went through customs and took a bus to Stockholm, where we waited for another bus at this train and bus station forever. It was really boring, so I decided to look for hot guys. Then I decided to count the hot guys; there were about 37 in two hours, if I remember right. But I was lenient. Ha ha ha! Just kidding; there were some pretty cute ones.
When we had all eaten burgers from McDonalds, switched our money, gotten information, and had some Swedish ice cream and popsicles, we got in this big long line of people who were taking a bus to Nynashamn, where our boat was to leave from. On our way to the line, I saw this really really really hot guy who was buying tickets and then he came and got in line for the bus. I was asking Dad a whole bunch of questions because I had no idea what was going on and then he said something about how everyone who was in line was waiting for the boat to Gotland. This made be very happy. :)
We rode a bus for about an hour or two (after we got stuck between some automatic doors for a while) and then we boarded the boat after some struggle with our tickets, which were supposed to be waiting for us there. Madelyn and I saw the hot guy and Madelyn named him Edward after our nation's favorite literary vampire (from the very corny, cheesy Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer)
The ride was about three hours, during which I slept, played UNO with Madelyn, and read my book. We got to Gotland, and Dad's friend Alec picked us up in a Gotland Ring car and took us to a hotel, where we took our bags up to three rooms. It was really quaint and cute and reminded us of Grandma Nora's beach house. I got my own room, amazingly, so I changed, read my book, ate some cheesy crackers and looked around, and eventually fell asleep.

I just realized that a bunch of people are going to be reading this and seeing all my goofy comments about boys. Sorry about my hormonal interests... ah, well; you're probably cracking up anyway. I just feel sort of superficial and silly. :) Whatever.