Honeymoon
We went to our honeymoon trip 11 month after our wedding, as we planned from the beginning. It did not suit us to do it right after the wedding, and more over we received the trip as a wedding gift from Dave. It was a stay and dancing in the Bödabaden Dance Resort, and because we wanted to dance C3A and C3B, the date was clearly given.After our English-Danish trip it was clear that we would go to Sweden by car also. The only question was, whether we would do it by car all the way or use a ferry. At the end the best choice was the trip from Polish Świnoujście by ferry to Swedish Ystad. The trip was really good. It goes through Germany almost all the way, only for the last 70 km you move over to Poland.
We got unnecessarily delayed right after the Polish border, since there where signs everywhere that highway stickers were sold there, but it did not say that they were mandatory for trucks only. That I found out after standing in a huge line. After this we drove without interruption, and very well for Polish conditions, since they newly built at least a third of the freeway using EU money.
The port in Poland could not be compared with the ones in France or England at all. Facilities near to zero (we could not even find restrooms) and space for few ships only. Luckily, we did not wait in line too long. The photos show that the port is connected to a railway station. So people can travel overseas in other ways than just by a car.
The ferry took eight hours to cross, and our selection of route and time had the advantage of traveling overnight. And since we took a cabin, we slept nicely in bed, and were rested and bushy tailed in the morning. We of course walked around the ship, and this time even on the top, open deck that was accessible. Unfortunately Lenka caught a cold before the trip, so she jumped into the bed slightly after eleven, and did not even want to go to the bar for a nightcap. There was nothing I could do, but tuck her in and go for a night adventure by myself. The adventure did not materialize though, since prices did not correspond to the offered (non)quality. I really did not want to pay 90 CZK for a shot of miserable whisky. So I took some pictures of departure from a pier and getting out of the port and went to read a book.
They woke us up at six by a loudspeaker. We had just enough time to wake up, pack, and go to the car. The Swedish port of Ystad was similarly large (or small) as the Polish one. There was no freeway in sight, and little after leaving the ship we were in town. This is a good time to talk about traffic situation in Sweden. There is very low crime rate in Sweden, and as the locals say, the police has to do something. So they got in cahoots with the government and road builders, and together they harass drivers. That is why huge proportion of roads in Sweden look like our county roads, and each village has a lot of functioning radars. But the most interesting are their freeways. They have three lanes, but not with three lanes in each direction, but in total. Each direction has one, and they alternate the middle one regularly. The speed limit is 110 km/h, but just in theory. In practice is more like 90 km/h. And to add insult to injury, you get fined for speeding by just one km per hour. So the locals drive 10 km/h slower than the limit, just to make sure. Now imagine that you have some 500 kilometers ahead of you and drive along a straight and empty, well... freeway, and drag along doing 80 km/h behind someone. I wanted to commit suicide three times during this trip.
Then we checked in, went to lunch, and after it ran to the sea right away. It was beautiful on sight, cold on touch. What could we expect from the Baltic Sea, right? And this is in spite of Öland Island’s advantage that its lower part is washed by the Gulf Stream, which makes it Swedish tourist paradise. You can swim at sea for fourteen days a year, no problem! The fact is, however, that the island is pretty. It is a north-south oriented noodle. It is connected to the mainland by one bridge on the south, where also is the most of hotels, camps, and tourists. Habitation decreases to the north. We were lucky that Bödabaden is almost at the northern tip, and additionally we were there in June, before the main tourist season peaks, so we enjoyed great peace and calm. We nicely calmed down within two days, forgot about civilization, and enjoyed ourselves.We took the first week primarily like a vacation; there was no dancing for us yet. That started the second week. The first week program had Plus and C4. We participated in the Plus about three times. It was kind of boring, the dance set was not great at all – and our arms and backs suffered. We mostly had our own program during the day (learning C3B, inline skating, walks along the sea, shopping in the Blue Corner western store, and so on), and we attended common gatherings in the evenings. During those everybody meets in the saloon and there is a program on top of food and drinks. One evening we had a fashion show by Blue Corner, and Peter Douglas, who played guitar, sang, and told stories and jokes for two evenings. One evening was taken by Dave’s singing concert, and one evening there was a BBQ.
Evenings in the saloon ended around midnight, and it was always very nice, when we went outside afterwards. Öland is far enough north to have white nights, so even around midnight you could see a lot. It is hard to describe. It was not like daytime, but it was not like dusk, where in our conditions you can hardly see, either. Common name “white nights” probably describes it the best. It was romantic, and twice we went for a walk along the sea after midnight.
We went to Blue Corner several times. First time we just wanted to check it out on our way to get food there, second and third time we really wanted to pick some things to buy. We bought a beautiful skirt for Lenka, and also a becoming petticoat, and a blouse. She looks glamorous in it, check the pictures. I picked a shirt, and had also one tailored to go with Lenka’s skirt in order for us to look like a pair.
One day we went to the island’s northern tip. It was really close, only about 15 minutes by car. There was a small town with a small local port along the way, where we stopped for a while. At the very tip there is only a lighthouse, nothing else.
Our first week also fell to equinox festivities that they call Midsummer celebrations in Sweden. There was no celebration in Bödabaden directly, however, there was one nearby. Everybody told us to go and see it, that we should see it at least once in a lifetime, so we went. Unfortunately, it was not anything amazing. The celebration can be likened to our May Day. First Swedes build a May pole for a long, long time. They refresh themselves during that time. Then they dance folk dances around it, sing, and then there is an end. We left before it.
Tours were changing on Saturday and we had to move, since the Hehleins had our cabin booked, and we were starting a busy week. Originally this should be C3A and C3B dancing, but since there was only us and the Fagerbergs for C3A, and all four of us wanted to learn B anyway, Dave asked all the C3B dancers, whether they would not mind accelerated instruction of C3B for four of us. They answered that they would be happy to do it for us. It warms your heart, when people give up a week of dancing in lieu of teaching. The C3A dancing was cancelled, so nobody would feel cheated, and there was a block of full C3B dancing, where we were, of course, heartily invited. So we had nine hours of dancing a day in total. We lasted until Tuesday, then we modified the program, so the instruction was only in the mornings, we would subtract an hour in the afternoons, and skip Wednesday afternoon completely. This was manageable without dying from exhaustion. We had gone and modestly danced through all the routines by the end of the week.
