(written by Nancy)

We have had a couple of nice relaxing days here in Ystad, courtesy of our great hosts Oskar and Julia.  Yesterday Julia’s mother Liselotte took us for a nice drive out in the countryside to the PGA of Sweden National golf club (http://www.pgaswedennational.se/en/), where Julia’s dad John is the golf pro.  It is a relatively new course with a fancy clubhouse and we were treated to a very nice lunch by Julia’s parents at the club restaurant.  John showed us the very high-tech golf studios where he teaches – Dave said he felt like a dinosaur as the technology has changed so much since the last time he played golf.

We have been trying to take full advantage of the berry season here and yesterday had bowls of fresh strawberries, raspberries and blueberries for dinner.  It’s hard to pass up a nice bowl of fresh Swedish strawberries!

Today we had another wander through town in the warm sunshine.  We have been very lucky with the weather as it has been warm and sunny most of the days we have been here.  This morning I braved a Swedish hair salon to get my hair cut.  Actually it was quite easy as everyone speaks English here but it was a bit tamer than the dancing Turkish hairdresser I had the last time I got my hair cut.

Our visit to Ystad was time just right to coincide with the Ystad Jazz Festival (though not through any planning on our part!).  Tonight we went with Julia and Oskar to see a jazz group led by Rebecka Larsdotter (http://rebeckalarsdotter.com/index.php?p=1_1_About) in one of the old cinemas in Ystad – a great night out.

In between the fun events we spent some time trying to clean out our panniers, not a fun chore but good to do every once in awhile.  It’s amazing the things work their way to the bottom of the bags, where we don’t reach too often!  We are always on a mission to reduce the amount of stuff we are carrying so have tried to do a bit of rationalizing.  I think we made a bit of headway though we are probably still carrying too much.

Early tomorrow morning we are off to Stockholm on the train to meet up with my sisters for the next leg of our Swedish adventure.  We have had such a nice time in Ystad and could not have asked for nicer hosts.  It has been the perfect way to relax a bit and have a chance to interact with the ‘real’ Sweden and some really great folks.  We will see them again as we make our way back down south and across to Denmark after our family visit up north.

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