Day 6.5

I'm not sure what time it is in the states right now, maybe around noon. In Åre, Sweden it's nearly 23:00. We use 24 hour clocks on the side of the Atlantic Ocean.

Without going in to detail, we had a blast sneaking in a few winks during our 33 hours of consecutive travel. We took 4 flights, 2 trains and landed in 3 countries. One of our stops was in Chicago and with a 4 hour layover my wonderful sister and brother in love (or law, as some say it) came to the airport just to see me for a short visit! I called when we landed and they made a detour in their day, brought along two new friends for me, and prayed for me too. I can't even begin to describe how blessed I am to have Taylor and Jake. I always feel so appreciated and hugely valued with them.

We saw some beautiful sights and I am thrilled to be in a new country and surrounded by another language and enveloped in the culture. We are staying in a house, literally in the middle of everything. We can walk to every place we might want to go. Swedish schools start teaching English from grade 3, so most people switch when our response to their questions consist of confused looks and, "sorry...English?"

Our snowboard board bags got left behind in Chicago so they are being delivered here, to Åre, as soon as possible. I'm really excited to check out the Scandinavian slopes and spend time out there with family. We got the warmest welcome as soon as our train stopped. They made us traditional Swedish meatballs with potatoes and gravy for dinner and took us to the local indoor skatepark which has a giant trampoline. It's mostly used by athletes perfecting their rotations or body movements before throwing their new tricks on the jumps. We had a blast connecting with the youth of the town, then came home for cake. It's been a whirlwind of a day and a half, and it's only going to get more wonderful. I'll have pictures of the adventure when I get home and I'm sure I'll post a few, but of you want to have a look along the way, check out the Mammoth Lakes Blog tab on the global lighthouse website. www.globallighthouse.org There will likely be pictures from both my trip, as well as the other half of my schools trip. I'm sorry, I don't have pictures for you now since the majority of my time has been in airports but here is how we deal with moving walk ways.