Date Night

It isn't often that we get to go out, just Madeleine and I.  We have three young children and no family where we live.  On the odd occasion a neighbor "wants" to watch our little ones we may get out and do something.  Usually something we needed to do anyway...usually grocery shopping that is easier to do without the kids.

An unrecognized, yet fully amazing benefit from being in Sweden is that we have babysitters.  Loads of them, and because they don't see our kids as much as they would like, many of them are itching to take them for some quality time.  This opens my wife and I up to going on a date.  As with other things, going out on the town is not as easy as jumping in the car and driving somewhere.

You first need to check the ferry schedule, from the small island, usually about an hour apart.  If you don't have a car, which we don't, you need to check the bus schedule to the second ferry. And finely you need to see if there is a second boat going when you want it to.  You also have to make sure there are boats and busses that go when you want to come home.  

From the island transit times about 1 1/2 hours if everything works out, if not it can be as much as 3 hours.  That means any soul will to take on our monsters would be watching them a minimum of 3 hours, and thats not including the actual "date" time.

We would never wish that kind of torture on anyone, we decided to go on a date to the only "nice" restaurant on the island.  Ten minute walk and 1 1/2 hour meal and ten minutes back is much more acceptable to everyone.

It is very nice to have some time alone, all be it not much.  The Brygghuset is a small restaurant/bar attached to a hotel that is mostly active only during the summer.  It is surrounded by boats in the harbor and has a beautiful view of the water.

Depending on the whether, the cliental can vary from mostly visiting boaters to a mixture of locals and boaters.  Generally speaking the prices in the restaurant limit the locals from going there too often.

As we casually walk to harbor, there was a small concern in my mind that there might not be any seats for us or we might have to wait.  Early in the day there was a fishing contest,  there was a nice breeze which meant no mosquitos, and it was a Saturday night all of which might have increased the number of people going to the restaurant.  Luckily when we got there, it was empty.   We took a table by the window and ordered our drinks...A Czech beer, I ordered the dark draft and my wife ordered the light...she tasted mine and kept it...so it goes.

The menu came in both swedish and english...even on the english version I didn't understand all the words.   Our choices were limited, there were four appetizers, entrees, "small" dishes.  To play it safe I ordered a hamburger and Madeleine ordered a shrimp sandwich (a swedish classic).  The food wasn't bad, but probably not worth what we paid for it.

Its funny, I actually ate my burger with a knife and fork, like a swedish person.  This becomes even more interesting when you consider that there was no one else in the restaurant to watch me.   I guess its rubbing off on me.

It was nice to go out and have a short break...upon our return we were confronted with two screaming kids, one was the baby and they just do that, and the other was Vincent, his ear was hurting.   Our dear Elsa was dancing around, singing Bon Jovi songs...I guess it doesn't take a cultural difference to produce utter confusion.