I Love Hjo!!!

Today, Lina, Elise, and I decided to take a day trip to a town not too far away to visit the pool there. I know it sounds kind of silly, but they wanted to go to a pool other than the one in Skövde, and I wanted to see a new place, so it worked out just fine :). Hjo (pronounced 'you' hence the I LOVE HJO title... ok I'm not that creative haha it's the town's slogan) is only about 25 minutes away by car. It's a small harbour town that sits on Sweden's second largest lake, Lake Vättern. It was absolutely beautiful here. The scenery is unreal! As you look out over the lake, you can see some small mountains off in the distance. It's like something out of a story book! Not to mention that the pol is right there in the harbour next to the lake. So as you swim in a pool, you can enjoy the amazing scenery around you.. look at me sounding like a tourist book now... sheesh.

So while Lina and Elise sunbathed by the pool, I took my camera and went for a walk around town. The town square was much smaller than that of Skövde. There was a small place for folks to sit in front of the church (which was beautiful, by the way) and some shops and restaurants around the square. I took some time to walk up and down some of the streets adjacent to the square as well. The houses were so colorful! It really did remind me of some of the bungalows I might see back in Virginia Beach. While the colors may be reminiscent of the beach, the styles were something entirely different. Some of them were so quaint and quiet while others were enormous! I guess that's to be expected in a scenic town haha! After I had done some adventuring, I wandered back to the pool. I wanted to see what the lake was all about though. So I took my camera with me and walked down to the beach that was right next to the pool. THAT REI MINDED ME OF HOME! The small waves lapping up on the beach was just so relaxing... I ended up just laying on my towl and taking a nap :) Not before taking some pictures, of course. I made sure to take pictures of my feet in the lake and pictures of me standing in the water... Sounds pretty easy, right? WRONG! That water was frigid!!! This lake is a bit deeper than Vänern and so the water temperature never gets warm. The water was around 15 degrees Celcius, which is COLD! Maybe in the mid 50s Fahrenheit? So yeh getting in the water waaaaas rough! But I did it! Anything for a good photo, right? haha! I took a number of them... on self timer of course... the poor man on his towel next to me must've thought I was crazy running in the water smiling, running out of the water, looking at my camera only to do it all again... SEVERAL TIMES! At any rate, it was an incredibly relaxing day on the sand next to Lake Vättern! :)