today in Skövde :)

Today was such a great day! Now that softball is over, I have to find things to fill my days. In order to do that, I'm having to discover this town all over again. I'm finding things I didn't know existed and appreciating Skövde as a tourist once again.

Even though ball is over, I still get a taste of it here and there. This morning, I woke up and headed to the field to help Eddie, Jimmy, Juha, and Richard (some of the guys from our baseball team) with teaching some local students how to play softball. When I got there, I realized that these students were all a bit older and in the sports program at one of the local schools. I was running a bit late so by the time I got there, the students had already been broken into two groups. One group went to hit on the baseball field and one group stayed at the softball field to work on fielding. I stayed at the field to help with fielding and was actually kind of surprised at how quickly these students picked up on fielding and where to throw. After about 20 minutes, we switched to hitting. Here, Juha did front toss, Eddie caught, and I coached the students on how to improve their swings before they went up to bat. I was, again, pleasantly surprised at how well the students did and how quickly they picked up on my tips. After this, we brought both teams back together for a brief scrimmage. I think the guy were more into it than the students, haha! It was pretty funny to see them miss ground balls as the pitcher so their team could keep running haha!!! It was just a great way to start the day: Beautiful weather and softball :)

After a brief nap, I wandered into town to have a look around before meeting up with Kristian to get some last things sorted out. Next I walked across town to a thrift store Maria had told me about. My family and friends know how in love with thrift stores I am. Heck, one of my roommates senior year and I went to nearly all of the thrift stores in Fredericksburg and decorated our house. If I do say so myself, we did an AWESOME job! Also, I love collected strange and eclectic glasses and there is no better place to find them affordably than at a thrift shop. As I was picking through the shelves and racks, I ran into Eddie again who was at the grocery store that was attached. I love that feeling of being able to run into people I know in town. It makes me feel like a true Skövde resident. While I had hoped to find a teapot for my mother, which I did not find, what I DID find was a great souvenir for myself. I found two traditional snaps glasses with a Dalahäst painted on them. Given my love of strange glasses, I had to get them! :) Now just to figure out how to get tem home haha! Something that struck me as exremely different in this thrift store came on the back wall of the shop.. While most US thrift stores have a sports section complete with baseball mitts, cleats, maybe some old footballs and basketballs, the sports section in this thrift store was nothing but hockey and ice skates and hockey sticks. THAT'S IT! It just really drives home the differences in athletic preferences here in Sweden versus those back home.

After leaving the thrift store I had hoped to go for a run, but since my right leg and ankle were still swollen from London, I opted to just walked around town. As I was on my way home, a car honked at me and to my surprise I look over to see one of my teammates waving at me. Like I said, I just love being able to recognize people and being recognized by people in a town so far away from home. Thank you guys for making me feel so at home these past 5 months! :)