Falsterbo

Chris' friend Matt from Swedish class and his wife Catrin invited us down to her parents' summer house in Falsterbo near the sea.  Matt was kind enough to pick us up at the train station in Malmö to make the trip a little easier.

We stopped at a small place right on the water owned by some Danes. They serve open faced sandwiches: smørrebrød in Danish, smørbrød in Norwegian, and smörgås in Swedish. These are a Scandinavian must.  The Swedish word smörgås is the same word that starts smorgasbord.  We tend to use smorgasbord as a word describing a really good spread of food.  Technically its a cold dish buffet and is very common in Scandinavia.  Smör means butter and most sandwiches here have butter on them.  These were really good.  Chris had pate, shrimp salad with hard boiled eggs, and fried fish.  The best part is that they were only about $2.50 each!

After lunch we headed to the beach.  It was an overcast day so we didn't sit on the sand, but we walked along the shore for quite a while.

Our walk took us past the church that Matt and Catrin had their wedding in.  While we were there we heard some people with very American English.  It's certainly something you tend to hone in on when you don't hear it often.

There are tiny little houses all along the beach that people can store beach supplies in.  Often when you buy a house in this area, it comes with a house.  They looked like dollhouses, and some of them were quite fancy.

Catrin really wanted us to try some Swedish crayfish, which most likely come from Japan, but it's how they prepare them that matters.  We walked back through the woods, to the car, and over to a harbor and different beach.

After the trip to the harbor we played a Swedish yard game called Kubb, aka Viking chess.  We had an awesome dinner of homemade salsa, fish tacos, and roasted peaches and ice cream for dessert.

When the crayfish came out, I said that's no crayfish, that's a lobster!!  It was huge!  We were instructed to jab our forks behind it's head and suck all the juice out; then flip it over and suck all the juice out of it's belly.  It was pickled, so the juice was kind of like pickle juice from the sea.  Next you take of the tail, get rid of the poop vein, and eat that meat.  They are so big you can even eat the claw meat.  I asked if she had some crackers for the claws, she said, "Just bite it with your teeth."  So I did!  It was good.

After an awesome day of new things, good food, and great company, we caught a ride to the bus and headed home.