stockholm: people

Meet Lars. Well, meet Lars and what looks like a big jug of hooch but is a generations old jug filled with one of his recipes for punch. And not the fruity party kind either.

One terrific thing about the Internet is that you get to connect with people. So, there are friends of mine far away, whom I have met but do not see often: Greer and Jeph have recently commented on this blog. And there are those whom I've not met but now hear from regularly and happily: Steven, for example. And then there are those you make contact with and do meet. So it is with the Stockholm Dolphins swimmers.

Conrad and I like to eat, as you may be aware. A lot. And good food (but that's another blog entry). So when we travel, we try to get some swimming in. In advance of this trip we contacted the Dolphins. Could we swim with them while in Stockholm, and please forgive our lack of Swedish.

Mats responded.



Mats is sort of the coach/coordinator for the small Stockholm team. All told, there are fewer than 20 members, no women, one straight man. Lars and Mats have been married ten years, by the way.

Anyway, yes, we were welcome to swim. Did we also want to come for dinner with the team on Saturday night. We told Mats we'd be glad to, if we weren't meeting up with Conrad's cousin Kersti who was in town for a seminar. Kersti, however, was busy, and we'll see her later in the week anyway. Off to Gamla Stan it was last night, then, meeting some unknown gay men for dinner at a place called Mandus.



Not a very big group, but a pleasant one - utterly - and a good meal. Lars and Mats are next tome, then on the other side it's Cristen (I hope I have that right), Timo, and Kevin. Kevin was a swimmer visiting from Belgium; I was delighted to learn that though he lives there, he's reallyl from Victoria. We talked Canadian a bunch.



Also there was Fredrik. He got missed in the previous shot.

After dinner, we went to a bar called Torget, had a drink with them, then made it home by midnight. And let me tell you, we slept well last night: 9 hours!

Mats and Lars also invited us to come dine with them tonight at their home in the lovely suburb of Alvik. Why are Swedish suburbs so nice and non-suburban? It seemed like a handsome neighbourhood. We rode out there after swimming and enjoyed a dinner of chicken and broccoli pie, a spice cake and ice cream for dessert, and plenty of wine. Very good company, and we'd be glad to meet up again. Their three Airedales are magnificent, spirited dogs as well.



We stayed about 4 hours or so and had a terrific evening of food, drink, and conversation. Much nicer than finding any old restaurant in town, really. Any of the Dolphins we met are utterly welcome to come visit us in Chicago; we rather hope they might!