Vaxjo is Ede's hometown, which is located on the southern part of Sweden (it's about 5 1/2 hrs south of Stockholm). A little history about Vaxjo is that in Swedish it means "road by the lake". "'Vag' means road and 'sjo" means lake, and then later on it was combined to one word and the spelling changed to "Vaxjo". The city received this name because when people would give directions to the marketplace, what the area was formly known for, they would say 'follow the road by the lake'. Later the official name was given, and now the city is approximately 700 years old. On Wednesday we actually went to their town market and shopped. The market occurs every Wednesday and Saturday, and sells just about everything you might expect from clothes, to meat (primarily fresh fish), to cute trinkets, and actually a wide variety of kid stuff. Here are a couple of pictures taken at the market. I've realized after looking back at these pictures that I could have done a better job taking them-sorry!
We ate Swedish style pizza for lunch. They always eat pizza with a knife and a fork. Also, traditionally in Sweden everyone gets their own pizza to eat! Definitely a lot of food, but the pizza was really good.
That afternoon we went to a local historical state church, which I've heard many stories about through Ede regarding Sankta Lucia. Her high school professor gave Ede an extra copy of a Sankta Lucia ceremony a few years ago that Ede gave to me, so it was neat seeing the church "in person" that I've been seeing in the video all this time.
That night we had dinner with Ede's aunt and uncle at their house. They served a traditional swedish meal and dessert, which were both delicious! If I was thinking about my blog instead of thinking how hungry I was at the time, I would have taken a picture of it for you. The dinner was a meat and vegetable dish, and the dessert was Swedish cheesecake. It's not what we think of as cheesecake, the main ingredient is made from curds. I probably wouldn't have tried it if I knew that ahead of time, but I'm so glad that I did. They served it with strawberry or blueberry sauce and ice cream. My favorite part of the dinner was before they started eating the uncle began singing a Swedish prayer, and the rest of the family joined in singing. It was really beautiful.
After dinner Ede, Carmen, and I took a walk around the city lake (the lake that I was referring to earlier). The lake isn't that big, maybe 4 miles? There were several joggers, bikers, and fellow walkers that were going around the lake that night too.
I don't think I've mentioned yet that in the summer Sweden mostly has daylight. So it's like an Alaskan summer. It was nice getting to enjoy more of the evening outside without having to worry about it getting too dark.
This was the end to the first full day in Sweden. Tomorrow includes glass shopping, a moose safari, a castle, and celebrating the Fourth of July!
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