05 easy day chief, easy day...

It happened a while back now... but is well worth telling you all about! Yeh I'm a little behind with my blog updates... hmmm I guess you kinda figured that though... Just a tad perhaps... Anyway! I got the opportunity to drive to a place called Rolfstorp located near Varberg on the west coast of Sweden. You can look at the map here. Yes!!! I've finally driven a car!!! On the wrong side of the road!!! A friend of mine - Lena - hired a car to visit her brother Pär and his family; his wife Irina and children Erika and Jim (Jim är bäst!) and she invited me to come along. I drove the whole way from Stockholm to Rolfstorp and it took about 5½ hours to get there. It feels a bit strange being on the other side of the car and with the manual gearstick in the other hand, but wasn't nearly as difficult as I thought it might be.

brmmm, brmmm...

I'm telling you no lie when I say that there were constant and never ending forests, lakes, rivers, fields and rock formations the whole journey across the entire width of Sweden. Absolutely amazing! I've never seen anything quite like it... See for yourself:






Ok so there weren't any fields or rock formations in those pics but you get the idea. Trust me they are all over the place! When we arrived at their home, everyone was waiting for us to have dinner. The food was awesome the entire time (Irina's a great cook!) and I'm pleased to say I've finally eaten some authentic Swedish food. I've now had the infamous "Sill" or pickled herring - actually quite nice and spicy thought the texture was... interesting... I've also had rhubarb pie which was kinda like apple crumble but obviously with rhubarb instead and is served with ice cream and cream mmmmmmm... so tangy... All the food was great (tack för maten Irina!) Here's a pic of the family:

From the left; Jim, Lena, Erika, Pär and Irina

On Saturday Irina, Lena and I headed into Varberg to visit the Länsmuseet and check out the Bockstensmannen (let's just call him the 'bogman'). This is some 800 year old dude that was murdered and much much later found preserved in a bog. Hang on, maybe I should say that he was some dude who was murdered 800 years ago and recently found preserved in a bog. Anyway, you get the idea... I wasn't supposed to take any pics inside the museum but you know what they say about rules... First up there's a couple of pics of a really old building on the way to the Länsmuseet. It was built in 1650!

The entrance to the Länsmuseet Varberg
Are you sure you want to go in there...?

Well, here he is... The Bockstensmannen!
One can only hope to look this good when 800 years old...
The wooden stake is one of 3 that were used in those days
to pin the body to the ground,
to stop the corpse from getting up and walking around and...
Why don't we have these kinds of problems these days...?

Bockstensmannen fashion
Pretty cool hood with a tail thingy
I want one!!!

More Bockstensmannen fashion... He wore a dress? wtf?
The hood and these garmets are all the original clothing items
found and are amazingly well preserved!

This is a reconstruction of what the actual Bockstensmannen
looked like using modern reconstructive techniques
(No not me! Look at the pic above!!!)

Yeh that's me dressed up as the Bockstensmannen
I look pretty happy wearing this itchy woollen cloak and hood don't I?
The white bit in the middle of my forhead is actually
the tag used to hang up the hood
Couldn't they have found a better place for that...?

Who would have thought that the Bockstensmannen
had webcam and internet access 800 years ago...
They really were way ahead of their time...

Be afraid, very afraid...

An external wall of the Länsmuseet
(which is actually a very old fort btw)
If you look slightly to the left of the two windows in the centre,
you'll see a filled in space
where a little external wooden hut used to be.
Yes! It was the dunny!

I love this pic...

"My name is Master Chief Guttierez and I will be your class proctor for the length of time you wish to remain under my torture. When you decide to quit, you will ring my bell 3 times like this... You will ring it loudly and clearly so that all your classmates can bear witness to your deficiency of character. Helmets down... Hit the surf!!!"
Hoo-Ya Master Chief!!!
-quote from Silver Strand (see further below)

A comic of some Swedish King
(sorry I can't remember his name - can someone help me out?)
who liked starting wars all the time
but wasn't very good at fighting them...
Dags igen? translates to Time again?

Some old building in Varberg
Has a cool pointy roof!

Here's a couple of pics of the Grimeton VLF transmitter near Grimeton (duh!) and close to Varberg. It was built in 1923 and is the only working machine transmitter in the world today. In case you're wondering what the heck it does (or rather did) there's more info here. The location was specifically chosen because of the level landscape and the fact there is only the open sea between the transmission towers and New York. It was used to keep in touch with the USA in the 1920's and 1930's and whilst capable of sending speech and music was strictly used to send transatlantic radio telegraphic communications. Still used to send orders to submarines up until 1996, this technology is now obsolete and has been decommissioned. On July 2, 2004 the Grimeton VLF transmitter was declared a World Cultural Heritage site by UNESCO.



In the afternoon we all headed out to the local lake named Skällingesjön for some sun baking, swimming, dive bombing and just generally running amok! The water in the lake was a bit chilly but if you kept moving around it was ok for a while... check out some pics!

Me standing in front of a cool stone wall
I don't look too happy because Jim and Erika are laughing at me
for wearing the towel like that...
I've got no idea why...?

The cool stone wall

In the evening we all went for a short hike 'up the hill' near the family house and checked out this rather scenic tjärn (small forest lake/pond) or what we Aussies would call a billabong.








On Sunday I agreed to go on an MTB (mountain bike) ride through the hills of Rolfstorp with Pär and the MTB club he's a member of. He let me borrow his old Specialized MTB and a pair of clipless pedal shoes (actually the first time I've used them). Let's keep in mind a few important facts; Pär is an Ironman Triathlete. For those fortunate souls who know nothing of this kind of thing I shall explain. A 'normal' or Olympic triathlon consists of a 1.5km swim, 40km bike ride and then a 10km run one straight after the other. An awesome feat in almost anyones eyes. However, an Ironman Triathlon consists of a 3.8km swim, 180km bike ride and then you get to run a marathon - 42kms. If that sounds crazy, impossible, ludicrous to you then you aren't alone!

Before MTB ride

Anyway, I let Pär know that I didn't want to know how far we'd travelled until the end of the ride (good thinking Ty...) Needless to say I hadn't ridden a bike in months... and my training regime here... well, let's just say that it's not as regular as it should be... yeh... (I'm glad to say that I've taken steps to rectify this now!) We rendezvoused with the other club members and it should be noted that we RODE the 9kms to the RV point whilst some others drove (wtf?) We all headed off for an awesome trek through the most beautiful, lush, scenic forest I've ever seen. Hill climbs, steep downhill sections, bogs, mud ruts, undulating bits, logs you name it I rode over, in, down or through them. So, so sorry but the cracking pace set by the group meant that stopping to take pics was out of the question. A real shame, however I hope you're all enjoying all the ones I did manage to take = )

Bloomin' heck it was bloody hard work - and I loved every minute... well maybe most minutes... yeh... sore ass, lungs and legs killing me... I'm used to using toe clips so I found the clipless pedals took some getting used to. I only fell over once due to the fact I couldn't unclip my foot from the pedal quickly enough when I got stuck in a bog. The ground was nice and soft anyway even if wet and muddy!

When we made it back to the RV point, Pär and I took an extra ride through a short section of forest (a couple of clicks worth) which was agony but the view was soo nice I just had to see it, no matter how much it hurt. We also rode past the spot where the Bockstensmannen was found, well actually Pär told me it was about 200-300 metres 'over there' but at this point I was far too buggered to be bothered checking it out! Managed to make it back to their place (somehow... let's call it 'sheer willpower') and the final tally? - 42kms of some of the most scenic, action packed MTBing I've ever done. Absolutely awesome... Tack Pär!

After MTB ride

This brings us to the title for this blog post. It's a quote taken from the movie Silver Strand and was repeatedly said to US Navy SEAL Master Chief Guttierez by Lance Surrey one of the trainee 'BUD/S' (Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL) at times of extreme physical hardship during PT as a method of coping with the stress. It actually comes from the famous BUD/S motto, "The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday" but when used in this manner stating that today is an 'easy day' is therefore throwing this motto back in Master Chiefs' face (not a recommended course of action for anyone to undertake...) Hoo-Ya Master Chief!!! If you have absolutely no idea what the heck I'm going on about then I suggest you watch the movie so you do have an idea! Hoo-Ya!!! You'll learn about such interesting subjects as 'hell week' and 'drown proofing'. I bet you're all just dying to get your hands on a copy now, aren't you...?

That afternoon we all headed out to Skällingesjön again for a swim and later I somehow managed to play fotboll (soccer to us Aussies) 'penalty shootouts' with Erika and Jim (Jim är bäst!) btw Pär went for a 'short' 10km run that evening and was kind enough to invite me along but unfortunately I didn't have my running shoes with me... such a shame... Thanks anyway Pär! You enjoy it bro! And he did...

The family are from Skåne which is a region
in the very south of Sweden
Swedes from Skåne have their own dialect - Skånska,
dictionary (!) and flag! (see above)
Svensk (Swedish) flag on the left and Skånsk flag on the right

The weather the entire time was amazing. It was nice and warm and I mostly wore a t-shirt and shorts and don't think I even needed a jumper! I had heard Sweden could be this warm and I'm looking forward to much much more of it!!! Lena and I were up early the next day for the trip back to Stockholm as the car needed to be returned. I decided Lena should at least do some of the driving and we swapped about half way so I took the home stretch. What an absolutely fantastic trip!