Those who have followed along for the last year or so
know that I traveled to Sweden directly after racing
IMFL in 2005. 2006 was no different, but this year my
brother and mother joined me. It has been six years
since all three of us have been in Sweden at the same
time.

As a child I spent quite a bit of time in Sweden;
sometimes upwards of 6+ weeks during the summer
months. As I grew older my trips became more sporadic
as I pursued various interests in the U.S. I know I
will eventually get back to Sverige for an extended
period of time, but for now my trips are limited to
short adventures in the offseason.

I did manage to come home with a few interesting
stories from this trip including a night out on the
town over the weekend. I always like going out in
Europe and I'll tell you why:

I highly doubt there is a place in the US where you
can: go to a fashion show, play blackjack, get kicked
out of the VIP area, and drink Jager all in the same
place. You could probably combine three of those over
and over again in the States, but getting four of four
would be a tough one. Vegas would obviously be an
exception, but I'm sure the list would grow as well if
I were in, say, Monaco or the like.

The daytime hours had its highlights as well. The
local paper interviewed me about triathlon and such.
The paper features various folks connected to the
Halmstad area and I spent a couple hours answering
question for my new friend, Jonas, on Monday. I'll
post a link when it comes out, but you might need to
use google to help read it since it will be in
svenska.

Another highlight: My brother and I attending my
cousin's engligh class (She is the equivalent of a
junior in high school in the U.S.). The class was
split into two groups and each group asked Jason and I
questions for an hour about any topic they decided to
address. You might think that the topics would be
limited with a language barrier, but there is no
language barrier for the Swedes at that age. They had
no problems grasping international (as it relates to
the U.S.) issues including North Korea, Iraq, the
death penalty, etc. This hour was probably the
highlight of the trip outside of visiting family. Very
interesting young adults.

And now I'm back in the states. I finally got some
sleep after rolling on coffee for 30 hours straight. I
am going to pay for that some time in the next week.

I will be heading up to Crested Butte this week and
will begin to start training for the next triathlon
season on Dec 4. After 3 weeks in CO I'll return to
warmer weather as I begin preparations for Ironman
Arizona. This will be the first spring Ironman I have
done and I am certainly looking forward to it.

All for now. Happy Thanksgiving,