KK's Victory Lap: First Week in Ljusne, Sweden

Heike told me I could not work the first two days that I am here! I spent a lot of time watching what goes on, playing with the kids, reading and enjoying the beautiful weather, 60's!! It is warmer here than in Richmond (57), but the day I left, it was in the 80's in Washington, D.C, and HOT! We had a big thunderstorm in Ljusne on Tuesday and it was a lot cooler afterwards.

My duties include serving guests in the restaurant, cleaning cottages after check-out and cleaning the common areas in the Reception area. There are several common places for the campers; restrooms and showers, communal kitchen. We don't have breakfast until 9:30 and work doesn't start until 10:00-11:00. Sometime around 1:00 we have lunch prepared by Martin and/or Heike and complete any work that remains after lunch. The kids come home from school around 2:30. Dinner is around 7:00-8:00, working around guests in the restaurant. Martin is an excellent chef and I drool over his creations for guests! Last night, salmon, rice, salad, carrots with a mustard sauce for one couple and tenderloin pieces with béarnaise (I think), rice, salad and carrots for another couple. The salmon was fresh and huge....we got to sample the leftovers and all was delicious. They eat a lot of bread and I had sworn off bread at home, so I'm sure I will wear the results!!

I hope to work with the kids to teach them English when they are out of school. Hopefully I can come up with a fun way to teach young children ESL. They have had some English in school since 1st grade, but only Alisha has the courage to speak it! They speak German at home, so I probably won't learn a lot of Swedish. I used to have a friend from Mannheim, Germany that I carpooled with to work in the 70's. Her name was Petra Schmidt. She married an American GI named Woody, and she called him Voody! She was so much fun and became a good friend and taught me many German words and they are coming back to me.

Marion and I walked to the village of Ljusne. It is a locality situated in the Söderhamn municipality, Gävleborg County, with a population of 1, 917 in 2010. Ljusne and Ljusnefors Camping are on the Ljusnan River. The river is 273 miles long and starts in Northwestern Sweden and continues Southeastern through Halsingland Province into the Bothnian Sea, where Ljusne is! It is heavily used for hydropower and very popular for Salmon fishing.