Sweden...
I spent two weeks in Sweden after being in Scotland. I've been once before, years ago, but this time I was in the country to visit a friend for his 30th. Arriving in Stockholm, the weather was much better than in Scotland. Sun! I spent a few days there before heading west.
Sweden is a really beautiful country, full of red and white barns, lakes, and lots of coffee. Swedes consume one of the highest rates of coffee in the world; clearly this is a country that I like. There's even a verb in Swedish 'fika', which means something like "to chat with friends over coffee and pastries".
I spent a few days on the west coast of Sweden too, visiting a beautiful island as well as Gothenburg and
Liseberg (a large amusement parks).
After Sweden, I headed to Devon the Southwest of England (of Devon cream tea and clotted cream fame). It's a really beautiful part of England, with lots of green fields, and huge hedges that grow so tall you can't see anything while driving the one lane roads in the countryside. Got to spend a bit of time too seeing some other villages, and the seaside resort town of Dawlish before heading to London to visit another friend from China and fly back to Canada.
I was there visiting my friend Kim who taught in the same city as me in China. So, of course, one of the things we had to do was make 'jiaozi' (Chinese dumplings) with pork and green onion. Surprisingly, or not, they actually turned out really well and tasted like the ones we had in China!
