(2005) Phweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew

ie-yiy-yiy. An entire 8 days without internet... Here goes nothin...
Don't even know where to begin. Hmm, how about the beginning? That sounds normal. Day 1: We had a fancy 15 passenger Mercedes Vus (it wasn't quite a bus, but it was more than a van. Vus is all I got) and a cool dude driver to be our taxi service until we got to Stockholm. We started out at a little tiny (and I mean TINY) rural town in southern Sweden called Nybro where we checked into a quaint little hostel where we stayed for 3 nights. Then we walked to a glass studio workshop called Pukeberg Glassworks. After Micke (the master glass blower at the age of 32-- that's incredible to me) did his demo (this picture)

of the real thing, he took a sketch from one of the girls in my class and made an exact glass replica of her drawing. It was one of the coolest things I had seen so far. I have a very long video of it, which I will show at a later date. THEN, this where the picture comes in, they actually let US experiment and blow some bubbles on our own!! It was SOOOOO intense, so awesome.

I kept my first bubble ball. It's bad but meaningful to me. It fits in my hand. So after all of that excitement, they made dinner for us at the workshop while we listened to a guitar-and-harmonica-playing gentleman sing old Swedish dinner songs. It reminded me very much of Norwegian camp, kinda funny. Day 2: A full day of museums and workshops in a town called Vaxjo. Later we ate at a restaurant that had some of the best Scandinavian food I've ever eaten.

(Ole likes to goof off a lot. He's fun) It was called Fiskesjo Restaurang. Very delicious. Day 3: We visited the design school in Pukeberg where one of our chapperones (Ole) teaches glass. He gave us a tour and I set off the alarm (I'll refrain from detail). Then we went to the Pukeberg museum and saw some more glass work. We later departed on the vus for the island called Oland too see the Global Art Glass exhibition at the Borgholm Castle. This place was amazing. It was an old castle from the 12th century which has been through a series of extentions and additions, primarily in the late 1500s where it was transformed into a renaissance castle. Since then it has suffered severe damage from fire and decay through the years and now is pretty much a standing ruin. But it's still a beautiful place to visit, very touristy I guess. The exhibition was held in all different rooms all over the castle, so we got to see every part of it. We went on to other museums the rest of the day. One of the museums held the glass work of the famous designer Monica Backstrom, who even came all the way out in the boondocks to give us a tour of her own work! It was incredible and so was she. A fantastic and very interesting lady. Day 4: We departed for Kosta Boda Glassworks in the morning where tourists come into the workshop and watch men at work while a lady does commentary as they work. Very touristy as well. But cool nonetheless. After that, we went to Orrefors. Ole has actually done work for them in the past so he had connections to get us in for a V.I.P. tour of the factory by himself. We watched as the workers did their thing from up above the factory. It was really cool. Unfortunately, time was of the essence and we didn't have any to shop around in the warehouse. We ate lunch there and it was exactly like eating at IKEA, very good. We left for Stockholm after lunch and arrived at our hostel later that evening. Ole gave us a walking tour of the city after dinner, as he has an apartment there and is very familiar with the city. I need to finish the rest of this tomorrow. I'm exhausted. Ciao