Saturday, it was time to leave Djurby! We had such a good time with Tim, Annalena and the whole family! We worried that we were keeping them from doing their normal things, but Annalena insisted that they enjoyed doing the activities with us that they otherwise may not have gotten around to.

We took off a little after 10 AM and for the first time, we were on our own in Sweden. We would have to figure things out ourselves and hope that the GPS was up to the task! Janie can no longer drive a stick shift, so unlike the days that I shared the driving with Tim, I was doing all the driving, and we didn’t want to push it. We drove about 350 km
(210 miles) on each of the next two days, so it was not overly taxing. It is a different experience to be on our own. We had it easy with someone giving us driving directions and translating for us. Now we had to rely on the GPS and hope the people we came in contact with could help us translate. (Most people in Sweden speak English very well, though.)

View of our hotel from the pedestrian street

When we arrived in Trollhätten, we couldn’t find our hotel! The GPS was leading us to a street that was pedestrian only. (Many cities in Sweden have converted some of their streets to pedestrian only.) In addition, there was a huge market (street fair) going on along this street. We finally stopped and called the hotel and they explained that we had to
drive about 1/2 block up the pedestrian-only street to the entrance of their parking lot! We had to drive very carefully, because the street was packed!

The hotel was quaint, built in the 1930’s with a tiny antique elevator. The room was small but comfortable enough. We got settled and then went down to enjoy the street fair.

The street fair was bigger, but not as nice as the one in Pajala. This one had block after block of the same imported T-shirts, jewelry and cell phone cases. In Pajala, there was authentic food and crafts (in addition to the cheap, imported goods).

There was also a live concert going on that night. Although it was quite noisy with the sound of people and music, the babble of people sounded like a river. We had no trouble sleeping and were all ready to go in the morning.

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