A Quick Glance

I went out for a walk this morning and remembered to bring my camera along finally, so I took a couple pictures of the area surrounding the hotel. Here you see the hotel I'm staying in from across the street. My room is on the 2nd floor, 5th window from the right.

I'm still getting settled into my little space here, so I'll have to include pictures of my room and the hotel's interior a little later.

If I turned around from where I took the last picture you'd see this building. This is basically the view from my window. It's the local train station that officially put Vingaker on the map not too many years ago.

The train comes by probably every hour or two. It's fast, it's loud, and I'm slowly getting used to waking up throughout the night to what I could swear was a 3.4 earthquake. The station doubles as a the local hangout for the "cool" highschool kids.

I followed this road along the railroad tracks. It's obviously a very quiet community. I love it. It was a cold morning with a frost covering most of the grasses and fallen leaves. The countryside is beautiful. The trees offer their own fireworks display of color as the leaves are turning and beginning to fall. Apparently we won't get very much snow around here, but the winter will be cold. It's currently 3pm and my digital thermostat says 45 degrees. Not too bad. I was able to tolerate the cold this morning for about 45 minutes wearing a light jacket. A beanie, or "winter hat" as they say here, would have been a good idea.

I took a bunch of random pictures I'll post below, some of the natural environment of the area - my "artistic" touch, but also some shots of typical Swedish sights.

There are lots of watertowers and sights like this across the country. Simplistic. No tall buildings. You can actually see a clear sky!

There are small houses like this everywhere. Most of the country houses are barn-red, though this one is made of brick. They're all small, usually two-storied, with more than one group or family living in them.

This is outside the local school - like a Junior High I think. The school grounds are where we practice and play our matches. I still need to take pictures of the gym and whatnot.

Like I said the trees are changing. There is open space everywhere. No two houses are too close together. This is basically someone's backyard.

Hello Vontrap Family! They call this one of the "castles" in the area. It appears to be a big house with its own lake in front. It's some sort of museum now I gathered, but it's quite the estate.