Road Trip Sweden

My friend Alaina's brother came to visit this month and they planned a trip to Sweden and invited me along.  It was mostly to the same area I visited a couple of years ago, but I loved it there and was super excited to go back!

 Varberg Fortress.  This was build in 1287-1300, wow, so old!  It was hard to get any really great pictures of the entire fortification.  But, we enjoyed walking around it.

 This statue was quite life-like looking until you got around 15 feet away.  Not even sure why it was there or what it's story was.

 It's a hobbit hole!

 Riding the ferry to Marstrand.  Very crowded.

 The view from Carlsten Fortress is so amazing!  I never imagined that there were a series of archipelago's like this in Sweden.  So picturesque!  The fortress dates back to 1658 and was a very important location because of the ice-free port.  It was used mainly as a prison and actually remained in military use until the 1990's! 

 The fortress is not a ruin, but also not furnished.  You can tell there are a lot of areas that are unsafe and they continue to fix things up to make it so that you can walk through the halls and corridors. Seriously, such an awesome place!  There are all kinds of winding stairs, narrow hallways, windowless rooms, etc. 

  Some of the history here is pretty dark, it was a prison!  We read about 3 prisoners that were kept in solitary confinement for 5 years!  They only had 1 visitor, once a year from a priest.  Two of the men died before their time was up and the 3rd went insane.  Apparently he clawed his fingers bloody on the window frame and then drew on the walls with the blood and you can still see it.  We were pretty creeped out being in that particular room!  It's so sad, the things people have done to other people through the ages. 

 This was a secret passageway under the grounds all the way to the opposite tower.  It was so fun to walk through, we went twice! 

 Arrow slits to shoot right down on anyone coming up the stairs.

 We came across this baby bird in one of the rooms.  It really startled us.  We hope it made it's way back to it's mommy.

 The fortress had all kinds of awesome, old doors.

 Drawbridge!

 After touring the fortress, we decided to walk down to the sea.  Wow, what a beautiful walk.  We didn't do this last time I was there and I'm so glad we got to do it this time.  It was so amazing! 

 I could have explored this area all day!

 We decided to end the day by visiting Bohus Fortress, built in 1308.  We spent a lot of time here when I came a couple of years ago and to this day, it remains one of my most favorite spots in Europe.  I love ruins and this one was just so picturesque.  I didn't think I would get the chance to visit here again, so  you can imagine my disappointment when we got there and they were closed!!!!  They were doing a summer play and closed early.  We had checked the closing time and everything, so it was pretty disappointing.  We walked around the outside for a little while.  It's very beautiful driving into the area and seeing it sitting there on the hill.  But, as they say, the beauty lies within.  Maybe someday I'll get to go there again.  Who knows.

 So, we headed out for one more stop along the way home.  We stopped by Tjolöholm castle.  It's really just a large country manor house, built in 1898, but very beautiful nonetheless.  I could totally live here! =)

 It was such a fun trip!  I was so glad Alaina invited me! 

The Corpse Flower

At the Copenhagen Botanical Gardens, they have an Amorphophallus titanum flower, also known as a Corpse Flower.  Chad had heard that it was blooming, so we decided to go check it out.  The flowers are from Sumatra and can go up to 15 years between blooms.  The one here in Denmark didn't bloom for 9 years and then bloomed for the first time in 2012.  They were really surprised and excited to have it bloom again only 2 years later. 
We started out the day with a picnic at Rosenborg Castle.  I just love that I can have a picnic with a 400 year old castle in the background! 

 This bird hung out with us the whole time, getting exceptionally close.  The kids wanted to take it home. 

We then walked around the botanical gardens.  They are so pretty right now.  We had to wait in a long line to go in and see the flower.  It was quite popular.  We were a little disappointed with the smell.  The reason they are called Corpse Flowers is because they let off the smell of rotting meat.  We thought it would be overpowering, but mostly we just got a sniff of it every once in a while.  It was pretty cool though.  We finished up our trip with just walking through some more of the gardens, where we found this really beautiful butterfly.  It was a fun outing.

I can See!

For nearly as long as I can remember, I have worn first glasses and then contacts.  I really don't like glasses, they have always given me headaches and so I started wearing contacts when I was 12!  As the years have gone on, my eyesight has gotten worse and worse.  This past year, I have had a lot of problems with my eyes, including completely red eyes for nearly 6 months.  After going to several doctors and specialists, they finally determined that I had dry eyes from wearing contacts for so long and that I should go without wearing them.  This is just something I couldn't do. I can't function very well wearing just glasses.  So, the doctor suggested I see if I could qualify for lasik surgery.  After going through the assessment process, I was approved for the SMILE procedure (similar to lasik, but less invasive) and scheduled for surgery July 2nd!  The last assessment put my eyesight at -8.50 and -8.75, which is pretty bad.  I did a search on the internet for examples of what this eyesight would look like, so you can see how bad it was.  The top picture gives you an idea of how bad my eyesight is, but I would say these aren't as bad. Yikes! 

So, on the 2nd I went in for surgery.  It was definitely not the most pleasant experience.  They gave me a sedative to help me relax, which I can't say worked that well.  Then they cleaned my eyes and put anesthetic eye drops in.  The doctor then taped my top eyelashes up and then put this thing in my eye to keep it open.  He then attached my eye to the laser, which felt like it was going to pop my eyeball.  The laser made a cut and after that I couldn't really see much.  The doctor then used his tools to go into the cut and pull out and flatten the extra tissue that distorted my eyesight.  Gross, yeah.  Not necessarily painful, but such a yucky feeling!  The right eye went really quickly.  The left eye, he had a hard time getting it hooked up to the laser and also had a difficult time with the rest of the procedure.  It was pretty uncomfortable feeling and kind of painful toward the end.  It probably took at least twice as long to get the 2nd eye done. 
After that, they had me rest with my eyes closed for a few minutes and then sent me home to sleep.  By that night, I could already start to see out of my right eye, but my left eye was just a big massive blur.  I was a little concerned, but it wasn't until the next morning when i could see really well out of my right eye and still nothing out of my left, and my left eye hurt.  I really panicked for a few minutes.  I went to the doctor that morning where he diagnosed a complication dealing with fluid under the top layer of my eye, which was distorting the sight.  He put a contact on my eye to help with the pain and basically said to just wait.  So for several days, I felt pretty icky and worried about my eye, but it eventually cleared up and now I can see! 
I would say my eyesight is nearly perfect.  Maybe not quite as sharp at times as I would like, but pretty darn good!  I do feel like my night vision is a little rough, car lights have big halo's around them and when I go into big stores, maybe it's the lighting, but i feel like things are a little more blurry.  But overall, it's really great!  I can see!  I still can't get over the feeling of not having to take contacts out at night and I still reach for my glasses in the morning.  I panic a little when I realize they aren't there, but when I open my eyes, I can see! 

 I'm pretty embarrassed posting these pictures, but oh well.  I wore an eye patch for just 1 day.  It was hard to keep my left eye open when I couldn't see out of it and it was painful.  The contact helped so much, that I really didn't need the eye patch more than the first couple of days. 
Then at night, I had to wear these patches taped over my eyes, so that I wouldn't rub or touch my eyes at night. Scary!