Scuba duba de do!

Our friends back home in Colorado have been pressuring us to get Scuba Certified for quite some time and the other weekend we finally put aside some time and got 'er done. We did a PADI Open Water Diver Certification Course at Fantasea in Stockholm. 

We just did the referral program which means we did the book work and the pool work and to finish the certification we will have to do a 2 day dive course in open water, but we wanted to do that somewhere more tropical than the chilly Baltic.

They held the course in English for us and it was just Dale, me, and a very sweet Scottish girl. I had been weary to try scuba diving because relying on the tank seemed scary to me but after enough pressure I decided to give it a try and decide. Growing up, I spent weeks every summer snorkeling around the lake my family had a cottage on so I am very comfortable in the water, with the mask, and breathing through the snorkel. Once I got the gear on and realized how similar scuba diving is to snorkeling the course was a breeze. 

We had to do our pool work in a local community outdoor pool which was really cold, even with the wet suit. And seeing just how dirty the water is through the mask I was pretty grossed out about community pools.

At the end of the course as we were packing up, our instructor pointed out a hedgehog in the grass nearby. I was so excited about it he excused me from cleanup to let me look at the little guy. I didn't even know hedgehogs lived in the wild in Europe and now I want one as a pet. How cute are hedgehogs?! 

I can't wait to scuba again and I'm already dreaming of scuba vacations and of what to name my pet hedgehog! I hope Dale isn't allergic to hedgehogs.

Love Always,

Matilda

Hammarby Bandy

This past weekend Dale and I finally made it to our first Bandy game. What you all had told me was correct, it's more or less soccer on ice with short little hockey sticks.

Here's our team in the goal to prevent the other team from scoring on a "corner kick". We don't know what it's called in bandy but that's what they call it in soccer.

The crowd was mostly men and everyone had "coffee" cups if you catch my drift! While there is no doubt everyone is there for the game, it seemed like singing was the second highest reason everyone was there. I kid you not! This crowd loved singing! I found this video on youtube and it's the opening song the home team sings, I guess in lieu of the national anthem.

Then the game began. It was the semifinals game for a local bandy team near our house. The team started out strong and scored a goal in the first minute.

Unfortunately they did not score again until 80 minutes later.

The game is played in 2 halves each 45 minutes long. At half time it was 2-1, Hammarby was losing. But this didn't keep the crowd from singing! When it was all said and done Hammarby lost 4-2. We had a good time figuring the game out and singing with the guys.
Love Always,
Matilda

Bandy

On our way to a meet up event in Södermalm Dale and I walked past a small stadium and noticed two Zamboni's at the stadium grooming the ice. 

We poked our heads in to this outdoor stadium, which had no doors or anything closing it off from the public. The stadium was covered with posters for Hammarby Bandy.

Intrigued by this new sport Dale and I had never heard of that's played outdoors on a rink which looks like hockey, we made a mental note to look into it and proceeded to our meet up event. While at the meet up, we made friends with a man from Switzerland who is living in Stockholm to play bandy for the semi-pros. Now we really need to go to a game! Can't wait to check that out! Here's a link to the wiki page explaining Bandy if any of you out there want to know more about the sport:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandy

Oh, and by the way Meet Up is a website which, "helps groups of people with shared interests plan meetings and form offline clubs in local communities around the world" and I joined the Stockholm Expat Meetup Group to help meet people here. We've only been to one event so far but it was fun!

Love Always,

Matilda