Sigtuna with some new friends

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I met a young man named Henri at a book discussion group last week. As we were talking afterwards, he invited me/us on a short road trip with him and his fiance to a nearby town called Sigtuna. Of course, we accepted and yesterday we made the trip.

Henri is here in Sweden working for the government of Wallonia, the French-speaking part of Belgium. His fiance, Vase, is from Macedonia and works in international finance and aid development. They picked us up around 16:30 and we hopped in Henri's Peugeot and drove off. It felt a little strange since I hadn't been in a car for over four weeks. (Also it felt weird because the car's GPS was speaking French.)

We had a wonderful time talking with them about... well, just about everything: Swedish culture (they have been here for about five years), life in Belgium and Macedonia and some of the political issues in both, life in the U.S., books, culture, etc, etc. They are very good company and I only wish we didn't live 5000 miles apart! Of course, we invited them to come and visit us at home and tempted them with some photos of Northwest scenery on my smartphone.

Sigtuna is a quiet and very old town on the shores of Lake Mäleran. Here are a few pictures:

The Sigtuna City Hall

Many boats in this lakeside town

Lots of nice houses in Sigtuna, many on the waterfront

A street scene. The town seemed nearly deserted, probably because this is the eve of the biggest holiday in Sweden, Midsummer Eve (Midsommarafton, so, the eve of the eve).

We saw many of these apparently ancient stone fenceposts

As you can see, the weather was gray and rainy, so we didn't walk around too much. We went to dinner at Båthuset Krog & Bar (translation: Boathouse Pub & Bar) which, as the name suggests, is actually a floating restaurant. I had my first seafood in years which was in an excellent curry sauce. Henri insisted on paying for our dinner in spite of our protestations. I even tried to slip a few hundred crowns to Vase on the sly but she wouldn't take it.

Båthuset Krog & Bar

A very excellent evening.