Elk Farm

On Saturday, Nikole and I went to the Elk Farm or Ålgens Hus in Bjurholm. We were able to go with the Umeå Exchange student group, which is awesome because we originally planned to rent a car and drive ourselves. There was a bus that picked us up on campus at 10:30 and drove the hour ride to Bjurholm. Along the way we looked out the window enjoying the beautiful scenery. It had been awhile since we've seen anything besides the city of Umeå. The countryside was very picturesque with all the farms and snow. However, it was not terribly different from the farms and rural areas in Wisconsin, aside from the hills/mountains in the background. The houses all also have the same texture on the outside. This link shows it up close and emphasizes that almost all houses are red, with a few yellow and other warms colors. http://www.sweden.se/eng/Home/Lifestyle/Art-architecture/Reading/Home-Swedes-Home/

Anyways...once we got to the Elk farm, we took pictures of the scenery and interesting fencing system surrounding the wire fences. We had a meal consisting of elk stew, potatoes, lingonberries, Wasa (hard bread), salad and lingonberry juice. After the meal we watched a film strip on elks had a nice tour of the 'museum'. The owner/guide had a lot of information on elks and taught me everything I ever wanted to know about them. Here are my highlights: there is evidence of elk in Sweden dating back to 2-3000BC, moose and elk are cousins - not the same, bull elks get new antlers every year, the Swedish record for biggest antler spread is 42pts., the wolf population of Sweden is kept around 200 for the Reindeer population, but the low number also helps elk. Once we finished the tour, it was finally time to go see the elks. They were huge, but very good around people, the only time they got spooked is when some of the girls were screaming/giggling. We got lots of fun pictures and it was a great day.

Sunday, Nikole's parents and sister came to visit. We showed them around town a bit and had an early dinner. I don't think they were expecting it to be so cold!

This week will be hard because of Thanksgiving coming up. It is difficult to be away when I know everyone back home is getting together. It does help a little that Thanksgiving is not celebrated over here, so it doesn't feel like something is happening as much. Nikole's family has been nice enough to invite me to dinners with them, including one on Thursday where we plan to have a nice dinner, maybe something close to turkey?