Hogsmeade

During my recent visit to the US, I took a quick side trip down to Florida and somehow wound up back in Europe (all I know is that we traveled through the 1950s). It was magical. There was snow on the roofs, even though it was 86°F. I knew, generally, that Florida was warm, but didn't check the weather before we left.

First off, BIG THANKS to pops for being a sport and driving all the way while listening to an HP audio book.

The vintage-style hotel we stayed in was part of the resort and was really cool. Multiple pools, a lazy river, a gym, a shuttle bus we never had to wait for long, discounts at Margaritaville and most importantly the privilege of entering the park an hour early. (Only problem is that the walls are a little thin - I sneezed and the neighbor said, "Bless you!")

First stop: the goblin run bank! These guys are animatronic and move (someone I showed this photo to thought that they were real people in costume). This was also the first stop of almost everyone else who was allowed into the park at 7AM.

The goblin robots aren't so great at posing.

Such detail! This was a house-elf dealer storefront (wasn't actually a store). 

Pretending to go into Order HQ.

After exploring Diagon Alley a bit, we had some time to kill before the train to Hogsmeade departed, so we rode the Transformers ride - I'm pretty sure I saved the world during it. The Shrek 4D experience was okay, but the room they have you wait in was pretty entertaining.

If they have magic, why do they need all that coal? It seemed like the line for the Hogwarts express was the longest/slowest one we waited in all day. 

Sipping on some butterbeer (very vanilla-y) with an early lunch at the Three Broomsticks .
There is no way I could have drunk a full serving of this.

Such a dramatic looking school.

A pensive for your thoughts.

After riding the rides and checking out the shops in Hogsmeade, we took a lap around the rest of the park. I really liked the "The Hulk" ride, so many twists, accelerations, loops, and just upside downs! And pretty much no line! Then it was back to Diagon Alley for dinner and shopping; we had hoped to ride the Gringotts ride again, but there was something wrong... maybe they realized what had escaped from it earlier...

Beard bags for sale!

This was not on the menu, but my peanut butter-strawberry ice cream was delish!

Captured the dragon breathing fire on digital film!

I thought this shirt from the Magical Menagerie was perfect for my lil'sis, but dad said no :(

Overall, the trip was great! I can imagine going in the summer! It was hot and (the HP parts) were kind of crowded as it was. Since traffic was lower, we had time to look at other parts of the parks and take an afternoon nap a break to watch Champions League.

I prefer the old-school roller coasters to the ones where you wear 3-D glasses and are surrounded by screens as you are moving.

It was a really neat experience- walking around a few blocks that have been fairly carefully curated to be a world that only exists in books or on the screen. I made my coffee this morning in my souvenir beer mug from the Hog's Head and have my a quddich club pennant hanging on my wall. They had a lot of cool merchandise, but nothing as awesome as the Ravenclaw quiddich hoodies a friend and I made in high school (I do not have a digital image, but will scan it once I am home again for Christmas).

Stockholm & Godegård, Sweden + London & Manchester, GB

This past Spring my dad came to visit me in Sweden. The true purpose of the visit was to watch Premier League games in the UK, but he flew in and out of Stockholm, so we also got to take in a Swedish league game, sight see in Stockholm and visit the town that our ancestors emigrated from in the nineteenth century. A lot of planning and research went in to figuring out this trip: we tried to find a weekend where there were games on Saturday, Sunday and a weekday for which we could get tickets.

Stockholm
Dad was with me in Sthlm for a day before we went to England for our soccer-vacation. It was rainy, but I tried to squeeze some Swedish things in: a bus ride around Gammla stan and Södermalm, a tour of Systembolaget, a tour of KTH (well the library and quad... no hiking up to my office in the M building). The sun came out and we walked around Stureplan/Nybroplan on our way to Stadion, the 1912 Olympic stadium to watch Djurgården IF play. The stadium is brick and beautiful, but the team is moving to a stadium in the outskirts because the field doesn't comply with FIFA regulations.

Fika. Swedish afternoon coffee break.

One of the quads at KTH.

GB

Peter Crouch: awkward looking in real life, too.

We flew to London the next morning where we were graciously hosted by Kathryn (our families go way back) and her husband, Richie, a wine writer. We "went for a curry" for dinner then turned in. The following day, Dad and I walked around South Bank (and got some Krispy Kreme... they are fancy in England) before heading to Loftis Road to watch QPR play against Stoke. This wasn't an ideal game, but tickets were available and there were two Americans on Stoke's roster at the time (Shea and Cameron - I'm pretty sure I was the only person in the stadium who cheered when Cameron was subbed in late in the game).

"Enjoying" a pint at the local...
my super smokey microbrew was a bad choice. 

Hanging out with the (replica) dinos at the Natural History museum... well worth the visit just for the architecture
 + PROTIP: they have eduroam wifi.

We spent the next day in London, we couldn't get tickets to the Tottenham game that I was targeting (I'll have to go to an MLS game, if I want to see Dempsey play), but we watched it in a pub. Dad loves talking to strangers about soccer. I don't remember the chronology, but we also went to the Natural History Museum to check out the dinos and the British Museum to look at the stolen artifacts. Richie roasted chicken and vegetables and picked out a with a nice dessert wine, which he needed to taste for a certification he is doing, to pair with the strawberry trifle dad and I picked up at the grocery store (that seemed so casual in comparison).

I went into the ManU supporters only Trafford Pub,
but now they are making me accessorize!

We then headed north to Manchester to see Man U play Aston Villa. We had to join the supporters' club in order to get tickets. One of my dad's teammates and a lifetime ManU fan was also at the match, so we met up with him and his girlfriend before the match to talk soccer. We are not really Man U fans: in England, I like certain players and tend to follow them as they move around Europe (especially the few Americans who make it over there) and don't like the big money clubs and I'm not sure, but I think dad just likes football. Nevertheless, dad bought a scarf and I did not appreciate getting draped with it. Van Persie had a beautiful hat trick (including the "EPL goal of the year" according to my dad) against (american) keeper Brad Guzan. Man U clenched the League title by winning the match, so the crowd was really happy. They sang and chanted all game long. It was a crazy fan experience - very different than that at QPR! We caught a flight back to Sweden the next morning.

The view from our seats.

Godegård

After our UK soccer extravaganza, we returned to Sweden for 36 hours before dad flew home. We watched Bayern trounce Barcelona in my local pub, then work up early the next morning to road trip 3 hours to Godegård, the town where my dad's great-grandparents emigrated from. Armed with some cursory genealogy research (thanks LDS church), we hit up the cute old church and cemetery. We knew the names' of parents of the relatives who settled in Pennsylvania, but could not find their headstones. There were lots of Karlssons and Perssons, but we were looking for Larssons and Jonssons. We found a few potential relatives, but no one whose names we had. It was really fun searching for our roots; it felt so detective-y.

The town had several informational placards posted (all but one were in Swedish), so we were able to gather a little bit of history of the town. It was big in iron/steel and the smelter shut down about the time that the family came to the US, so we think they may have left because there were no jobs, especially since they settled in a metal smelting area of PA. We also saw the old festival place (now a field) and missed the annual festival by a week (it was May 1).

The sole restaurant/gas station/store.

Cute little church. We couldn't go inside, because as far as I could tell,
the guy with the keys would be there tomorrow. 

Some history in English, so I could confirm what
 I "understood" in Swedish

The manor house.