We are in Örebro

We are back to where we started our great Sweden trip -- Örebro. It is a city of about 130,000 people and is the home of Peter Larne (Rotary District 2340 GSE Chair), Sven-Erik Paul Sahlén (Swedish GSE Team Leader that visited Nebraska in April), and Magnus Petersson (Swedish GSE Team Member). It has been nice to meet new friends while seeing old ones.

The official transfer from the Arvika to Örebro hosts took place at Karlskoga, home of Alfred Nobel. Nobel is famous for his work with dynamite and the majority of his estate was left to fund the Nobel Prizes. We were able to tour his home and workshop to learn more about the final years of his life. One interesting thing that happened at the end of this tour was our Arvika host, Fredrik Ekman, pulled two letters out of his coat pocket and showed it to the museum staff. These were original letters from Nobel to Fredrik's relatives that he has had in his possession for over 30 years. The museum staff was amazed at this rare find.

Friday, May 25, the team had vocational days. It has been nice to meet professionals who have similar jobs to us and learn how they manage their work. The evening was spent at one of our host families home and then we attended a theatrical production at the Hjalmar Bergman Theater. Even though the entire program was in Swedish, it was a great opportunity to see and experience something different.

Saturday morning was spent with our host families. In the afternoon, we met with the District 2340 GSE Team who was in Nebraska in April at Magnus Petersson's home. We played Kupp (a traditional Swedish lawn game), enjoyed a fine dinner and time with our new friends.

Cassie meets Alfred Nobel. This was our tour guide at the Nobel museum

Joe shows off the variety of lapel pins he has collected on our trip to our Arvika hosts. From left to right: Fredrik Ekman, Roland Flack and Joe.


The Örebro Castle.

We attended a theater performance. Left to right: Kristi, Magnus Petersson (Swedish GSE Team Member and Pete's host), Pete, Joe, and Cassie.

Cassie with her host. I ran into them when I was walking around the city center with my hosts.

Örebro's Saturday morning farmer's market.

Cassie, Kristi and Susanne Nordberg (Swedish GSE Team Member) at Magnus Petersson' home.

This is the victory photo of Kubb. The piece of wood in the foreground is the king figure that the Swedish team (in the background) accidentally knocked over. This caused the American team to win (it's like they knocked the 8 ball in, in pool--otherwise we would have more than likely lost). Kupp is not an easy game to describe in a few words, but I will try -- basically, each team has knight figures separated by a king that are about 20 foot apart. You take turns throwing an object at each others knights with the goal of knocking the other teams down. At the end, you knock down the king. The team that knocks down the other teams figures first wins. It was a lot of fun to play.

We had time to visit with the GSE Sweden team and their family members. It was nice to meet everyone. Left to right: Torbjörn Nilsson (Swedish GSE Team member), Torbjörn's daughter, Myla, and wife, Marie, Joe and Kristi.

District 2340 (Sweden) and 5650 (Nebraska/Iowa) Teams. Front row (L to R): Eric, Torbjörn Nilsson, Cassie; back row: Magnus Petersson, Susanne Nordberg, Pete, Kristi, and Joe. Lotta Sylvén was not able to join us (we spent lots of time with Lotta and her family in Arvika) and Sven-Erik Paul Sahlén had already left.