Day trip to Jönköping

David and I took the bus from Mullsjo Folkhogskola to Jönköping yesterday.  Jönköping is about 25 or 30 miles from here.  David has explored this small city before so he showed me what he had found from earlier trips.  The town has a very nice, big shopping area with lots of coffee shops, clothing stores, and housewares type stores.  It is a good walking area with lots of benches and even public toilets.I was thinking that we tend not to have toilets for the public in the U.S. unless there's event, probably because we don't want the homless to have any place to go to the bathroom but here in Sweden it doesn't seem like there are any homeless people.

Once we scoped out the shopping area, we visited a very large church with huge steeples.  The best part was the organist was practicing so we stayed and listened and just looked around for quite some time until practice was over.

The next stop was a beautiful, quiet cemetery.  I guess they are all quiet, aren't they?  It was very well maintained and had a lovely spot with a semi-circle of trees that were trimmed to make a canopy.  There was a water feature and lots of flowers as well as some benches.  We spent a lot of time there as well since I like to get as much rest between walks as I can. 

At the town square or town park, not sure which, a crowd of college students were marching to the beat of some drums, carrying flags, and then they presented a program featuring a choir that sang several songs and a speech by one of the students, it appeared.  The speaker received an enthusiastic response from the crowd.  We had no idea what the occasion was or what they were speaking and singing about but it was enjoyable just the same.

This small city sits on a huge lake which was quite foggy that day.  It made the air nice and cool while we walked and toured.

Jöngköping used to have a match factory which has now been turned into little shops, restaurants, bars, and coffee shops.  We shopped at the Red Cross second hand store where there was lots of great stuff including clothing, furniture, books, glassware, etc.  Another stop was in an antique store crammed with bric-a-brac, pictures, lamps, jewelry,  and chandeliers.

We ate lunch at a little restaurant in the match factory area.  I asked for enough pizza for two people and we received two probably 12 inch pizzas each, way more than we could eat.  We were eating outside and I noticed some people walking by looking at our enormous pizzas and laughing.  I think they were saying, "those Americans, they eat so much, no wonder they're so fat." 

We visited a radio museum with two rooms chock full of radios from the 1920s through 1980s and televisions from the 1950s on.  David got more from that museum that I did because he knows more about old radios than I do.

We were able to run a bit and catch the 2:00 pm train back to Mullsjo.  It stops in Mullsjo and then we caught the but back to Folkhogskola which is actually walkable but taking the bus left me with more energy for the rest of the day.

A return trip to Jonkoping is planned for this Saturday because they have a farmers market then and we didn't visit the historical museums yet.

Tomorrow (Friday, June 10) we go on a day trip with the students to Kalmar Castle in southeast Sweden, south of Stockholm, plus a stop at the Orrefors glass factory. Our wonderful driver, Bernt Svensson, will be ferrying us around again.  It is so good to have him as he knows about every place we visit, can get us there and back, and answer all of our questions.  Plus he patiently waited at the grocery store the last time, while we supplied ourselves for several days of no meals being served at Folkhogskola.  He also let me know via e-mail the very next day after we returned from our last trip, to let me know he had my purse, etc. that I had left in the van by mistake.  Reminded me of losing my purse in northern California a couple of years ago.

More after we return from our trip to Kalmar Castle.