Rotary Club and a Drive Through Skåne

My good friend Henning Hammarqvist's father, Johan, is a member of the Rotary Club here in Hässleholm which meets for lunch in a building about 100 yards from Icelandia. Johan invited to speak for 30 minutes to the club today on my experiences in Sweden, the status of the Hurricanes and the nature of the mysterious ways American football.

Especially since my father-in-law, Bill, is a 50+ year member of the Crescenta-Cañada Rotary Club, I gladly accepted Johan's offer.

Mike and Vanessa were of great help

They got my business card and a game program at each place setting as well as getting a display of 'Canes paraphernalia set up.

Urban Widmark

Hässleholm Kommun's Kommunalråd

I got a chance to meet Urban at the luncheon. If I understand it correctly, he is second in power in this area only to the God Father, Jonas Grip.

In Da Vinci Code fashion, I am holding up one finger to, make no mistake, show that I am JGFG's corner should a power struggle erupt at any time soon.

I put together a Power Point

presentation for the occasion

It seemed to go well and we actually got three sponsorship offers from the people assembled! A huge part of this credit goes to Johan's ability to persuade people.

Raffle

We collected business cards from the Rotarians to be able to follow up with our contacts and raffle off five 'Canes collared shirts and a sweatshirt.

Score!!!

The winner of our last shirt was excited to say the least.

After a fine lunch, a good session interacting with the Rotarians and a quick clothes change, we were off to rent a car for the day and tour Skåne.

Can he play on Special Teams?

We stopped by the library to get Vanessa another book to read during the game Saturday, it takes her mind off of the violence.

A Field of Raps

Raps, according to Google, translates into the word rape.

I don't think that is correct.

A Bottle of Raps Oil

Raps is used in Sweden to make a cooking oil akin to olive oil.

Ancient Harley-Davidson in Kivik

We opted for a drive along the East coast and headed to Kivik at Johan Hammarqvist's suggestion.

DANGER!!!

Kivik's harbor area proved to be potentially treacherous, especially since I have only driven for about two hours total since arriving in Hässleholm three months ago.

Security

This barrier ought to keep the crowds at a safe distance from Kivik's L.R. Station.

What's an "L.R. Station" anyway?

It was a good day to get this boat

out of the harbor

Kivik sits on the Baltic Sea

Michael stands on the Baltic Sea Wall

Cattle near Vik

These were normal sized, but we did see some enormous cows on our drive that could take part in a Swedish Wrestlemania.

Simrishamn

Another peaceful fishing village that is now famous in Contreras family lore for its Swedish "glass", i.e., ice cream.

Simrishamn is apparently Sweden's

"Sin City"

I did not get any Las Vegas feel whatsoever.

Traditional Swedish Farm Methods

Walking through Lund University's Campus

Dinner at Lund's Gattostretto

A very outgoing Italian waiter and GREAT pasta dishes made for an excellent dining experience at this nice little Italian ristorante.

Mike and Vanessa on the shore of Lake Finja

The sun was finally setting, at 10:00 p.m., on a wonderful day of sightseeing and fun.

Saturday we play our fifth game of the season vs. the 0-4 Oskarshamn Dockers at home.

It should be a beautiful day to play American football!

Scott Fujita Website

Scott Fujita, NFL Linebacker

and our God Son

Scott is entering his ninth season in the NFL. He has played three seasons with the Kansas City Chiefs, one with the Dallas Cowboys and four with the Super Bowl Champion New Orleans Saints.

This season he will be #99 for your Cleveland Browns.

Check out his new website at: http://www.scottfujita.com/

Mike and Vanessa Arrive in Hässleholm

Today's blog is sponsored by . . .

Havana Club Rum

"El Ron de Cuba"

How else to explain this picture!

Canes' LB Filip Sundgren

Filip will be enrolling at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas this Fall. He is planning to continue his football career on the Ravens' Division III team.

Today, NorreSkåne ran a full page article on his exciting upcoming adventure which you can access at:

http://www.nsk.se/article/20100602/SPORT/706029757/1125/*/fran-vittsjo-till-varlden

COPENHAGEN

Up EARLY to catch the 6:16 a.m. train to Copenhagen but it was worth it, Mike and Vanessa were there having arrived in Denmark the day before!

Hans Christian Andersen, Tivoli Gardens

and the kids

The main hall in Copenhagen's Rådhus

A fountain, coffee and a muffin

start a great day

Interesting . . .

GAME ON!!!

EERIE

Bishop Absalon rides again!

Mike needed to use the "Pissoir"

The mandatory Nyhavn photo op

The more mandatory

Vanessa "Mickey Moment"

HÄSSLEHOLM

After touring Copenhagen in the morning, we decided to check them out of their hotel to catch the 11:03 a.m. train to Hässleholm. After 16 days of traveling to London, Berlin, Prague and Copenhagen, they were more than ready to enjoy a little slower paced life style.

Mike and I entered the "Dark Underworld"
of World Cup card collecting

TEAM SWEDEN

I just had to buy the kids an appropriate bed spread.

Vanessa LOVED it!

Who is that next to the goalie?

The Red Wings want YOU!

The Red Wings were Hässleholm's first American football team having played from 1986-1995. When Mike saw this helmet, he had thoughts of suiting up for practice tonight.

Cooler heads prevailed.

Mike holding for Pär Danielsson

It was a well attended but rocky practice tonight where I lost all semblance of composure a few times and raised my voice more than a few times. We need more offensive focus and drive to compete against our strong defense.

Pride is a good word.

Preparing their first Swedish meal

Meatballs are mixed in amongst the veggies.

DIG IN!!!

A relaxing dinner, good conversation and daylight until 10:45 p.m.

What a great day, it is so nice to see family again in person after being in Sweden for 93 days.

Swedish Summer

It happened today.

At presicely 5:47 a.m., Summer arrived in Skåne!

I think.

Blue sky, warm temperatures

The Hässleholm Stortorget was buzzing!

Most of my day was taken up with the purging of Icelandia's bachelor-like ambiance. It was time to really clean and get everything in order as our son Mike and his bride Vanessa will spend the weekend in Hässleholm.

I will take the 6:16 train to Copenhagen tomorrow morning to meet them at their hotel and tour the city a bit with them before returning for our 5:30 p.m. Junior and Senior practices.

Through a local scalper, I was able to score them two 50 yard line seats for Saturday's Hässleholm-Oskarshamn game at Göingevallen Stadium!

Swing Time

Just as I finished toiling, I got a call from Hurricane Christian Boesgaard asking me to join him and the girls for a romp in the park

GAME ON!

Christian and Matilda

Jasmine

Warm weather, cool shaded grass, an ice cream and your bike, CAN LIFE GET ANY BETTER THAN THIS???

A Tuesday in a Rural Setting

WR/DB Andreas Nilsson

A piece of bad news preceeded our game last Sunday as Andreas informed us that he just found employment as an electrician in Kristiansand, Norway. Unfortunately this meant that his 2010 season with the 'Canes would be over after the Ystad game.

Andreas has been a quiet leader for the team, always at practice, always giving an honest day's work to the team. We'll miss him.

I promised to see if I could find him a team in Norway to continue playing with if they were near his new hometown. It turns out that that Kristiansand has a team, the Gladiators.

Kristiansand Gladiators in Red and Black

THANK GOD!

The team that they are playing in the pink jerseys is the AFC Show from Stavanger, Norway.

According to their website, AFC Show is giving 1/3 of their season ticket money to cancer research. I'm hoping that is the reason for opting for pink as a team color.

The Gladiators won this season opening contest 29-24.

GOOGLE ANALYTICS FOR MAY

Blog readership was down 2% this past month but we still had 6,572 visitors from 95 different countries.

The more exotic visitors this month were from Armenia, Azerbajian, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Iceland, Ivory Coast, Kuwait, Macedonia, San Marino, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

Finally, we had visitors from two combo named nations, Bosnia and Herzegoina as well as Trinidad and Tobago.

This morning I rode the bus out to Finja to have coffee and a sweet treat with my good friend . . .

Henning Hammarqvist

We had a great time talking about 'Canes football, world politics, the proper use of eating utensils and NorreSkåne sportswriter Tomas Gustavsson's new baby.

CONGRATULATIONS TOMAS!!!

Rural Finja

Lots of forests means lots of logs

The end of the day saw us enjoying a very good practice. Our receiving corps made good strides tonight and the offensive line had a very competitive night with our defense as well.