Trip to Söderköping

The first three days of last week my mother and I were in Söderköping, a small summer town in Östergötland. It was on my sister's recommendation and if it hadn't rained 80% of the time, it would have been even better. We got a room in a large villa, just by Göta Canal. We did a lunch cruise on a canal boat, and it only rained the last half of the trip. Very nice food, several kinds of salmon and a chocolate dessert. The area is very picturesque with high cliffs and green forest along the waterfront. It was the first time we have been in a boat that passed by locks, where the water level is adjusted, so the boat can climb/sink down to the level of the next section. Göta Canal is a constructed waterway of 190 kilometers and 58 locks. It's very crowded in the summer time, lots of people travel on it (or beside it). It's a major tourist attraction. Söderköping has an ice-cream place that is known for its fantastic creations and large portions. We made two visits there, both very worth while. The last day we went earlier to Norrköping and spent a few hours in a shopping mall. It was now raining very heavily and we couldn't do anything else, really. We took the train back home late afternoon.

This past weekend we got a visit from some relatives on the Mattisson side. The weather was a lot better, we sat out on the porch and talked a lot. We also went on a trip to a local outdoor museum with old buildings from the area. We had lunch (great pizza) in Åhus Sunday and then we ended in Kristianstad, where there is a biosphere reserve right by the center of town. We looked at the exhibit of local flora and fauna of the wetlands. We parted ways there, and my mother and I took the bus back to the summer house. I have been in my apartment for a few days (had to do laundry), but I'm going back again tomorrow. I am at work right now to get some minor issues out of the way. I was told that one of my colleagues managed to avoid a disaster, when he saw that the book movers had forgotten an entire section (again)..... It's not going to make me less worried when I'm away from the library the next few weeks.