The past week, and Stockholm!

Hey All!

So it's been awhile since I updated, my apologies, but I've been settling into life here and am trying to get myself back into game pitching shape, which is proving more difficult than I'd hoped. We played this weekend on Saturday and split with Karlslund, they had a DI American pitcher and shortstop from UNBC (who plays in the same conference as UMaine and UVM), they both were excellent hitters, and the pitcher was also good. We lost that game, but walked all over them the second game. My pitching left something to be desired, but I went 5 for 8 and drove in a few runs, so that was good at least. This weekend we play the best team in the league, the one who's going to the European tournament in September, so those should be some good games.

Prior to Saturday, I had a pretty relaxing week. Practice Monday Wednesday and Friday, pitching lessons on Tuesday and Thursday. Thursday Ingrid had a business meeting in Stockholm until late in the day, so I dropped off Vidar at school and Freja at daycare, and picked them up in the afternoon. Vidar wanted me to stay and watch his classes in the morning- which is pretty common here, parents are allowed to sit in on classes whenever they want- so I watched his gym class and smiled a lot at the children running around all over the place. Vidar told his gym teacher who I was at least four times, and told him a lot of other things about me in Swedish, I have no idea what. The teacher didn't give me any wierd looks though, so I assume it wasn't too bad. I watched the kids until Ingrid came home at 7 or so, and everyone was still alive and happy when she got here, so I considered my first Swedish babysitting endeavor a success.

Wednesday I went to Stockholm with Cissi and Erik, the same people who showed me around Enköping my second day here. They're both a little younger than me and have been great about inviting me out places. We went to see the changing of the guard at the Swedish Palace, which was exceptionally cool for multiple reasons: Once every two weeks or so they have a guard change that's more ceremonial, and involves horses and bands, etc. (see video).

On last Wednesday the new militia trainees were performing with the horses for the first time, which was slightly nerve-wracking (they came REALLY close to us and some of them didn't have complete control). Another cool thing about it was the fact that Erik, who's in the military, served a year with his regiment as palace guards, so he knew all the inside info on the routine, the officers, when they were messing up, etc. It was funny to hear his commentary, and some of his stories about being a guard.

For those of you who've been to London, you've seen guards at posts like this:

In Sweden most of the commanding officers don't require that their soldiers be quite as stoic as the London guards (though some do), so if you needed directions or had a simple question then you can ask, as long as you stay outside of the painted semicircle around their little box. If you step inside that then apparently things can get a little nasty, though according to Erik no one's really tested this in awhile. He did say, however, that not once but multiple times he's been flashed by girls walking by- all he would say about that is that it helped break up the boredom (though maybe that's because Cissi was right there).

Anyway, so the guard change was cool, the band was really interesting- I felt bad for the horses, particularly those who had to carry the percussion section, but apparently they're treated like kings and have earplugs (those must be interesting to see). Here's a couple more cool pictures from the guard change:

I couldn't resist this one- c'mon, it's a guy on horse playing a tuba! How often do you see that? I have to admire the guy, I'd be terrified- he's barely hanging on with his fingers to the reins.

After the palace we went to the old part of the city. It's very European-looking, I suppose- lots of narrow streets broken up by the occasional breathtaking cathedral. The picture at the top of me with that really attractive troll was taken there- Cissi insisted I needed a picture with him.

After the old city we went along the harbor and around the front of the palace towards the new part of the city. We got lunch as a Chinese place and then had to head out so I could make it back for practice. For more pictures you can go to http://picasaweb.google.com/Jen.Williams.21 to find ones I don't post here. The album is Sweden Additional photos, the other album with the orange blog symbol is an album of pictures posted here (ps I love google, they make anything possible- this is all done using their blog, e-mail, and picture programs).

Well, other than that not much is going on! I worked with pitchers for most of the afternoon today, and we have practice tomorrow,and I'm babysitting for Agnes for an hour or so while Maria gets her hair cut. Thursday I'm going to Vestarås to throw and hit with one of our players, Jonna, then watch her sister graduate (apparently it's a very entertaining ceremony) and spending the night at her house. She and her mom are super excited to have me over- that's basically the reception I've been getting everywhere, and I'm invited to hang out, have dinner, spend the night, etc. at more places than I would have believed possible considering I've only been here three weeks! Ah, the benefits of being a novelty... so much for the Swedes being standoffish! Hope everyone's doing well, the weather here has been beautiful the past two weeks- I hope you all can say the same!

I'll update again soon,

jen

By the way, if anyone wants to send me mail (which I would of course love, but no pressure, since I'm told it's pretty expensive to mail things here) here's the contact info:

Jen Williams c/o Ingrid Törnberg

Jordhumlagatan 17

SE-745 44 Enköping

Sweden