Here’s us, Joanne, Charmaine and Liane, blogging after a lovely day out in Uppsala, Sweden!
We’ve just ended DAY ONE of our training here in Sweden, and we’ve had an AWESOME time. This entry promises a blow by blow account of our day, armed with pictures of all the places we’ve visited, the house we’re staying in, and of course, our friendly grass-chewing neighbours out in the fields.
So, here goes!
The first thing that struck us when we touched down at Arlanda Airport in Stockholm was how everything looked like it was from IKEA!
And then the chill autumn wind set in, which made us thank God we were armed with enough sweaters for the whole trip. We were soon picked up by two of the teamers, and began our long car ride to our lodging place at Ribbingeback (rib-bing-a-back), a short distance from Uppsala city.
As we drove to our destination, we were amazed at just how much sparse land there is in the country! There were empty fields, sign posts scattered along the sides of the roads reminding drivers to be wary of the occasional moose, horses and cows in the fields…it was a beautiful sight to behold. The houses in Sweden are vastly different from those in Singapore; most of them are out in the fields, located a substantial distance from one another, and many are self-sustaining with their own farms with cows and horses. We drove past IKEA (this is the real deal!), Subway, McDonalds and other small shops too, but no shopping malls! I found my right arm aching a little after a while, which could be attributed to Joanne’s very frequent lunging across me to snap random shots of cows, horses and grass.
Swedish architecture!
After a long drive, we finally arrived at Ribbingeback, where we will be lodging for the next couple of weeks. This place is absolutely gorgeous; we’ll let the photos speak for themselves. There’s one big house where we eat and have our sessions, and two separate ones for the guys and the girls to sleep in separately. We were introduced to all the teamers in the house, both Swedish and international teamers, then ushered to our bedrooms. After which, we had a short prayer and worship session at the chapel within the compounds of the house.
We had our first formal session with Brad Hawkes and Sarah short after, which really served to introduce us to the work and life of a typical New Gen teamer. This really gave us some insight to what is would be like to travel from school to school, bringing all the different denominations together for a single purpose – to reach out to youths!
The next part of the day was probably the highlight – a ride downtown with Pastor Joakim!
Streets of Uppsala City
Outside the church
Beautiful ain't it?
Hallway of the church
Martyrs
We trekked up a hill to take a look at the library, which also overlooked the castle where the King of Sweden used to live. It was a lovely sight, and whilst we were looking at all the buildings across Sweden, Pastor Joakim told us that no building was above 5 stories high! Unheard of in Singapore.
View from the hill!
Pastor Joakim then drove us to the main shopping area, where we sat down for a cup of coffee and some more snacks. What really struck us was the culture of the place; most people would be cycling around rather than taking public transport, and everything was very quiet, even if there were many people around. It’s almost like we were in the outskirts of the country again, only this time, there were more buildings and people.
The three of us have already been stuffed with food by then, but guess what? By the time we headed back, it was time for fikka again! It was then that we realised that we are definitely not going to lose any pounds in Sweden. Well, we had some good fellowship with the teamers, and then the last bomb fell on us. It was time for the much-awaited Swedish delight...
Surströmming [aka Rotten Fish].
With much apprehension on our side, and lots of cheering on the end of the Swedish teamers, we ventured outside for our dessert. One brave Taiwanese teamer took on the task of opening the can of rotten fish. When it was open, the smell that emerged from that tiny can was enough to rocket us a good 3 metres away! It was absolutely unbearable; a fridgeful of durians would have smelt like a bed of roses at that point in time. Unfortunately, no amount of screams and cries of despair could free us from the ominous prospect of having to actually eat the rotten fish. So, in the noble spirit of unity and good sportsmanship, the three of us swallowed a piece of that rotten fish precariously wrapped in pita bread.
It wasn’t too bad actually. You see, the trick is to quickly chew on it and let all the bad smell out, then quickly chew on it again. Chew for dear life and imagine sashimi. It was very smelly, and very salty. But trust me, you DO NOT want to have to repeat this experience. It was hilarious watching everyone’s reaction to the rotten fish; some chewed them down like champs (ahem), while others spat the rest out into a specially-prepared empty bucket. No one can blame them, the smell speaks for itself. Made all of us, Swedish teamers included, wonder how people up in the north of Sweden actually LIKE eating rotten fish, so much so that they have a day dedicated to eating rotten fish!
Apprehensive crowd.
Well, the excitement died down a little from there, and we all proceeded to the main hall, where we sang songs and worshipped together for a while. It was so cool seeing how all of us can come together, in spite of our backgrounds and cultural differences, to worship one God. It was so powerful; really reminding us that God is doing a work in every corner of this earth, that we can all come and worship together because we are worshipping the same God. After some time, we headed back into the chapel, where two people read from the bible and the rest of us could listen and gain revelation from the word of God.
Today was great, and no matter how tired our bodies are due to uncomfortable seats on the plane and jet lag (we are 6 hours behind Singapore, so it would be 6 am in Singapore and 12am in Sweden), we are totally looking forward to tomorrow.
Apparently, the above ending was not to be.
Just as we were about to get some shut-eye, teamers were streaming into our rooms, yelling to wake everyone up. For some bizarre reason, we were told to gather outside, cold, freezing and terribly jet-lagged (body aching, eyes begging for mercy…). It was rather hilarious actually, because we all knew what was going to happen next…
Charmaine and I were put in the same team, and our team was the first to embark on a lovely trek into the forest. Please note that in Sweden, forests are really forests, not a piece of empty land that CapitaLand has set her eyes on for her next condominium project.
Our first task was to follow a length of rope and remembering the items which hung on it, some of which were liver, bacon, kidney…you get the idea. After that very disturbing trek, we ventured further in for our second task. This time, we had to sink our hands into 4 buckets filled with what looked like yesterday’s leftovers to find 5 (very small) stones in each bucket. I don’t know about the rest, but my fingers were so numb, I couldn’t differentiate stone from pear. It was disgusting, but really funny to watch! The third and last task was a lot simpler; we had to get each group member across a tangled web of twice (or rope).
If anything, that very unexpected activity taught us all a lot more about Swedish forests and embraced us into Swedish culture like never before. We might want to bring a little of this Swedish flavour back to Singapore…you never know…
Atta Sweden.
Hejdå [bye!]
Joann, Charmaine & Liane
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