After a train ride from Stockholm and a wild bus ride, we arrived in the teeny town of Kosta, Sweden. There, we had a brief lecture on the history of the
Kosta Boda glass facilities, and got to watch the factory workers blow glass for about half an hour before their work day ended. We then went over to the school for glassblowing. We each got to try our hand at blowing glass - so much harder than it looks.

The glass blowers use these specialized rods that are hollow. They dip the molten glass out of the furnace, and set the rod to spinning, and blow a good sized amount of air down the tube (blocking the open end) to create a hollow inside the glass. From there they use molds and more molten glass, among other things, to form the glass into the various shapes they make - goblets, vases, etc.

We just got to blow a basic bubble - mine was quite ugly, hehe - they were too fragile to keep, they were broken to be reused right away. We also had the opportunity to etch glass, and make a spiraled stick out of glass.

Our group spent the night in a cute, cabin-style hotel. During the night, we heard a loud noise, and the walls shook - at first, we thought the guys were horsing around next door, but it kept happening, and was really, much noisier than the guys could have been. We found out in the morning that there was a Swedish Air Force Base about 2 kilometers from Kosta, and that they were doing bomb/explosive tests that night, and they had never been that loud/powerful before. There were a total of 5 times, 3 of which I heard, and 2 of which I slept through... heh.

Before we had to catch the train to Copenhagen, we went to see the local Moose Park tourist trap. It was pretty amusing - there was a gift shop that contained about every single moose product ever made. There was a short hike through the park, and we only saw about 3-4 moose sleeping in a smaller pasture/corral. By the time we finished the hike, they had gotten up, and we were able to feed them some grass. We also saw some morbidly hilarious taxidermied panoramas involving different types of moose death. Death by wolves, by hunters, by bear, and by car.

We caught the train to Copenhagen, and walked the pedestrian shopping district before eating dinner.