Shopping and Per and Aså's dinner party

Today was our first day shopping (I know it’s hard to believe it’s taken me this long to go shopping here). Susie had been scoping out all the good places to go for the past four days, so she took Megan, Alycia, and I to a few stores across from the mall that were in an outdoor shopping area. Then we went to the mall—it was like heaven! I couldn’t shop fast enough. Since we were in a bit of a time crunch, we left the mall and went to the custom handmade leather store we went to earlier in the week. As we were walking through the square that it’s located in, I was faced with my worst nightmare…a park full of dogs that are being trained. I conquered my fear and walked through the sea of dogs just to get to the store so Megan could pick up a gift. Then we went to Flower Bar to pick up flowers for the dinner party tonight as a house warming gift.

After, we met up with the whole group to go out to Per Norlin’s house (the Product Development Director from Getinge that we met with yesterday) for dinner. He and his wife, Aså, graciously invited us over for dinner. Their home was decorated with Christmas lights and is located right on the ocean—it was absolutely BEAUTIFUL! The views were breathtaking! I felt so honored to be invited in to such a beautiful home. We had such a warm welcoming from them. They served us an authentic Swedish meal—tons of crayfish, crab, shrimp, lobster, pea soup, potatoes, salad, smoked fish, a potato salad with anchovies, cake, and surstromming. It felt like I was at a Thanksgiving feast! The surstromming was one of the most awful smelling things in the world, but somehow Per and Aså got some people to try it. It’s a soured herring that is very popular among the Swede’s. Then after eating surstromming people took a shot of homemade schnapps. I did NOT eat the surstromming--the smell was horrific.

After all the food, we went upstairs and Aså and Per shared stories with us—we talked for hours. There was dancing, laughing, and more food and drinks. We were there for about eight hours and loved every minute of it! I can’t thank Per and Aså enough for the wonderful time, meal, and memories I made there.

Per and Aså