A Nice Outing!

Yesterday I met Annika in Halmstad, which was a nice outing and a great change from everyday-routine! The trip there was rather uneventful and I had to wait about 20 minutes for Annika's train to arrive.
None of us had ever been to Halmstad before, Annika was more prepared than I was - she at least had some kind of map *lol*! - but we figured we'd be spontaneous and pretty much see what happened. In retrospect, we had a really nice day together, but spontaneity might not be our "thing" ... really ...

At first we walked along the big river Nissan, saw Halmstad's Castle and walked around there, photographing a bit. We also went into the centre of town, having lunch and McDonald's and just checking things out. So far so good ...
We really did want to see the ocean though, as Halmstad is a costal town, so we decided to follow the river, as we figured we'd eventually reach the ocean. Well ... we figured wrong!!
Instead we ended up in this huge industrial area, with factories and gates everywhere ... not exactly what we had in mind. No choice but to turn around and go back, and at this point we were both quite tired of walking (it was a fair bit to walk from the centre to the industrial area!)! We ended up at the railway station, but realized we had over 3 hours until our trains were due, and we couldn't very well spend 3 hours on the railway station! :)

So we started walking again!! :) This time, after consulting Annika's map, we figured we'd reach the ocean if we followed a path on the other side of the river (no industries there, hopefully!). So we crossed the river and started walking! Until we came upon a sign showing us a temporary reroute of the path ... and we must have interpreted that sign wrong because we ended up in a real residential area with huge villas all around. We continued walking and basically ended up in a forest ... but when we got out of the forest - FINALLY the ocean was there! LOL!
It was nice walking around on the beach - even though the weather wasn't great - and we did find a quicker way back through the forest!

The whole day of walking had its consequences though! I've been having some problems with my feet lately, and let's just say they didn't agree with the treatment I gave them yesterday! When we managed to get back to the railway station I was in serious pain, and even though we had about an hour until the trains were leaving, we spent the hour talking - and sitting!! - at the station!
The train trip home was okay, but I kind of busted my knee when walking off the train - so I ended up waiting for a city bus for nearly half an hour, as I didn't feel up to walking at all.

There was a lot of pain involved yesterday, but despite that, it was a really nice day filled with laughter! :)
Some photos: