Ostad Trip (Sweden) - People!

Although the field trip involved plenty of beautiful scenery it was also an opportunity to get to know some of my colleagues and professors better. The group is very international and we celebrated our course's diversity at an International Dinner in the middle of the trip.

Each country group had a $30-40 budget to make a typical dish from their country to bring to the dinner. These events are always hard for me. The last dinner like this I made pasta salad and no one ate it, even though it was yummy. Compared to Indian curry and African fried plantains I think pasta salad looks a bit boring. So this time I just decided to make a veggie dish I liked, assuming there would be a lot of potatoes and meaty things (since most of our group is from Eastern Europe, Russia, and the Baltic States).
















After eating dinner our host at this forest estate asked each country group to sing a song from their country. The pressure was on for me, not only would I have to sing alone (though all those karaoke nights in Japan were good preparation) but everyone would UNDERSTAND my song. I decided to sing "I'm Gonna Wash that Man Right Out of My Hair" from the 1950s musical South Pacific. Its a very American song and much more fun than something like America the Beautiful. This is a photo (above) is of the Swedish profs singing a forestry related song. They took a short break in the middle of the song to take a sip of their snaps (schnapps) a typical forestry drinking song I guess :-). Gotta keep warm in the forest after all!

Here is a photo of mainly my German colleagues at the International Dinner party.















This is a photo of a German friend Anni and I. On the last day of the trip our group took a detour on our way to meet for a tour at a huge paper mill in Sweden. Instead of eating lunch on the way in the car we stopped at our colleague Carl's house (near the paper mill). His mom made us pea soup for lunch which is typically served with this Swedish alcohol that you heat and drink in the small silver cups that Anni and I are holding in this photo. It tasted a bit medicinal to me, but overall ok.

















Carl's mom was really sweet. She made the pea soup with the ham on the side for me the vegetarian in the group. So kind. Here is a last look at her waving goodbye as we took off (late) for the paper mill tour. Unfortunately, we arrived too late to join the rest of the group - so we just went home early. In a way too bad but the meal was certainly worth it!