Friday, June 11, 2010

Sweden: Solleftia! The First Days..



We gathered the remainder of our crew at the Stockholm airport yesterday afternoon and began the beautiful drive north along the Baltic Sea towards Solleftia, the site of the Swedish junior camp our athletes are participating in. We rolled into town around 9:30pm and found a pizza joint that was still barely open, so we grabbed a bunch of pies and headed up to the top of the Ski Jumping hill where we are staying for the week. We ate some very Scandinavian Bacon and Egg pizza while we watched the sunset around 11pm, then headed to bed; exausted, but still somewhat disoriented from the time change and daylight.
This morning we headed back over to the Baltic coast where we went on a run/hike for most of the day. We were expecting some rain but instead we got pleasantly warm weather and sun the whole way around and plenty of awesome views! The receding glaciers left some really cool geology in the area, including a chasm 100m long and 9m across that the trail passes through. It is pretty dramatic, and pretty daunting when you are above it looking down the cliff! Towards the end of the hike the trail comes out at a beach at the end of a long inlet on the Baltic Sea that almost everyone had the courage to swim in.. even Yannick eventually took the plunge after the girls all jumped in ahead of him. Tomorrow the Swedes arrive and the camp officially begins. The kids are excited, but a little nervous about the swedish kids moving into their rooms- there is a rumor going around that Scandinavians aren't immediately the most outgoing people in the world!







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