April 25th

The team leaves early for a visit to Chicago. The trip took approximatley 4 hours! Upon arrival the team gets a guided tour of Rotary International World Headquarters.

Inside Rotary International World Headquarters.

The history behind Rotary International and its founder Paul P. Harris becomes very clear to the team during the tour of the headquarters.

The founder of Rotary International Mr. Paul P. Harris 1868 - 1947.

To the teams great honor and fortune the current president of Rotary International Mr. Kalyan Banerjee receives the team in his office for a brief introduction.

The Swedish GSE team along with rotarian Roger Dornaus from Peoria posing together with Rotary International current president Kalyan Banerjee in the Rotary International presidential office in Chicago.  

After having lunch at the headquarters the team leaves for a visit to Willis Tower (former Sears Tower) in downtown Chicago. The tower is an astonishingly 1,450 feet tall and has 110 stories! It is the tallest building in the western hemisphere.

The sky deck of Willis Tower offers a magnificent view of Chicago in every possible direction, even straight down to the streets just below the Tower. The horizon beyond the city is dominated by one of the Great Lakes of North America: Lake Michigan.

After visiting Willis Tower the team returns to the GSE van for the return trip to Galesburg. Good bye for now Windy City, we'll be back some day to visit again!

April 24th

The team gets up eraly in the morning to attend the Galesburg Sunrise Rotary club meeting.

The team attending the Galesburg Sunrise Rotary club meeting.

After having breakfast at the Sunrise club and giving a presentation the team is transported to Galesburg City Hall for a guided tour. The tour included visits to several different departments, a tour of the Emergency Dispatch Unit and the city fire department.

One of the fire trucks at the city fire department.

Next the team is transported to Kewanee to attend the Kewanee Rotary club meeting and to have lunch.

After lunch the team makes a short stop at a local Harley Davidson dealer! The store had some really nice bikes.

The team is ready to ride!

Before going home the team tours Black Hawk College a couple of miles south of Kewanee. The college keeps approximately 50 horses on campus and the team visited a few of them in their stables.

Team member Maria gets aquainted with one of the horses at Black Hawk College. 

After the visit to Black Hawk College the team returns to Galesburg for a relaxing dinner with some rotarians in their home located near a golf course. After dinner the team is taken for a ride around the golf course in a golfcart.

Team leader Mari and team member Maria posing next to the golfcart that took the team around the golf course.

April 23rd

The team tours Big River Resources ethanol facility in Galva. The nameplate capacity of the facility is around 100 million gallons of ethanol per year!

The Big River Resources ethanol facility in Galva.

The team and tour guide tour the facility in the GSE van.

Once the starch has been extracted the solid residue can be processed into animal feed or Destillers Dried Grains (DDGS).

The DDGS is transported to a storage facility at the ethanol plant after being dried.

The team then tours a wind park under construction near Galva with guides from Invenergy who manages the project. A total of 266 wind mills will make up the wind park when it is completed and the total effect is expected to be around 300 MW.

The team visits a site where a wind mill is awaiting assembly.

The team gets a view of the interior of a wind mill.

The team then attends the Galva Rotary club lunch meeting and gives a presentation.

The Galva Rotary club banner.

After lunch the team tours the Swedish colony of Bishop Hill. In 1846, a group of Swedish immigrants seeking religious freedom left Sweden under the guidance of their charismatic spiritual leader, Erik Jansson and finally settled in a place they came to call Bishop Hill. The colony grew and flourished for fifteen years before disbanding in 1861.

A map of Sweden and rate of emigration to America during 1850 - 1900.

The Colony Hotel in Bishop Hill

April 22nd

The team visits the pastures and cattle on the farm in the morning. The team had to watch their step when getting out of the car to avoid getting their feet dirty!

The team surrounded by cattle. The pastures were very nice and green.

Later during the day the team went to the city for some coffee and a visit to the Antiques mall. The mall had three stories filled with all kinds of things, one week would still not be enough to see all the things on display in that building.

Inside the Antiques amll in Galesburg.

The team also visited a glass studio in Galesburg before going back for dinner and a relaxing evening.

April 21st

After a relaxing morning the team is transferred to Galesburg. The team whises to thank their hosts in Peoria for their generous hospitality!

The team is now going to stay together at the same host family in Galesburg. The host family has a farm so there is plenty of space for the entire team. During the day the team gets a quick tour of the land owned by the host family where corn is currently beeing planted. The team is later on given the opportunity to enter the cockpit of a the host family's combine harvester, a John Deere 9570 STS.

The host family's John Deere 9570 STS combine harvester.

Team member Maria sitting comfortably in the cockpit of the combine harvester.

April 20th

Team members Anna-Karin and Patrik leave for extra vocational visit in the morning after special request by the team members themselves.

The team later attends the Peoria Rotary club meeting at lunch and gives a presentation. After lunch the team leaves for a guided tour of the Cancer Research Center at the University of Illinois College of Medicine. The visit was very interesting. The team joined by their host families finally had dinner in the evening at a restaurant called Seven.

The team together with Susie (the host of Maria and Anna-Karin) at Seven restaurant in Peoria.

April 19th

The team visits Maui Jim Sunglasses Company in Peoria. The company started in 1980 selling sunglasses on the beach in Lahaina, Hawaii. The 24,000 sq ft facility in Peoria features a state-of-the-art direct surfacing lab and the team was very impressed by the modern facility.

Outside the front entrance to Maui Jim Sunglasses Company.

At noon the team attended the Peoria North club meeting and was briefly introduced to the members of the club before going on a guided bus tour around the city. The tour took the team past Grand View Drive which offers a nice view of the Illinois River and also holds some of the largest and most expensive mansions in the city! The tour also passed by the Caterpillar international headquarters located in the city center.


A large house in Peoria, typical for Grand View Drive.



April 18th - Peoria

The team is split up for vocational visits in the morning. Later in the day the team is allowed some free time in Forest Park, a very beautiful place to take a walk and some fresh air.

Forest Park in Peoria.

Some flowers in Forest Park.

April 17th

The team visits the Old State Capitol and the Abraham Lincoln National Survey Museum after having breakfast at a place called Incredibly Delicious.

The Old State Capitol in Springfield.

The Abraham Lincoln National Survey Museum featured NOAA's Science on a Sphere. Science on a Sphere is a room sized, global display system that uses computers and video projectors to display planetary data onto a six foot diameter sphere, analogous to a giant animated globe. The photograph below was taken during the display of Facebook friends around the world and how the users on Facebook are connected around the globe via their friends, both national and international. The system was also capable of showing global air traffic during a 24h period and the effects on the Tsunami that hit Japan!

Inside the Abraham Lincoln National Survey Museum, Science on a Sphere showing Facebook friends around the globe.

Later the team had lunch at Maldaners in Springfield. The team was recomended to try the famous dish called Horse Shoe. And of course the team followed the recomendations.

The perfect Horse Shoe: Some bread, a hamburger, fries and cheese.

After lunch the team was transfered to Peoria. The team whises to thank the host families in Springfield for their tremendous hospitality!

April 16th

The team is split up for vocational visits during the morning. In the afternoon the team visited the State Museum.

Inside The State Museum.

The team later gave a presentation during a dinner meeting with the Downtown Rotary club in Springfield.

April 15th

The team whises to apologize for the late update. During this our final week in the US we will make an effort to keep the blog a little more up to date.

During sunday on the 15th the team visited some important Abramham Lincoln sites in Springfield. The visits included The Lincoln museum, The Lincoln Residence and The Lincoln Tomb.

The Lincoln Residence in Springfield

The team outside The Lincoln Residence

The Lincoln Tomb in Springfield

Since Abe Lincoln was murdered April 15th 1865 the city of Springfield had a ceremony at the Lincoln Tomb during the day to honor the memory of Lincoln. During the day the team also got to meet the 16th president in person. To the team's surprise a person dressed up to impersonate Lincoln showed up outside the Lincoln museum. He had participated in the ceremony earlier during the day.

Team member Patrik Andersson shakes the hand of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of The United States

14 April District Assembly



District Governor Gordon Jumper speaking with our team



Saturday in Springfield we went to Crowne Plaza for the District Assembly. When we arrived we had a little time to ourselves so we did some work on our presentation to improve it. We are now half way in to our 4 weeks here and we have done several presentations and are getting a feel for what to improve.

We also had some time to meet the GSE team that is coming to us in Sweden I May. They wanted some “inside information” about the weather, shoes on or off inside houses, what “fika” is and some more things about our district in Sweden. And we are happy to help! We want them to have as wonderful time in Sweden as we are having here.

At the Assembly we did our presentation, listen to the American team presentation and other Rotarians and also had a very nice lunch. After the assembly we went shopping at the mall and a nice dinner with host families at the Texas steakhouse.

Do I have to say that we slept really well that night!



The Swedish team and the team from Illinois in a private meeting at the assembly.



13 april

We are in the newspaper today:

Rotary group from Sweden enjoying west-central Illinois tour

Today we had our presentation at the Jacksonville Noon Rotary Club and then we had to leave our dear host families to go to Springfield. This is the sad part about GSE, to have to leave people when you are just starting to know them.

Lee and Barb picked us up (and our GSE van) to go to Springfield. When we arrived we had a tour at the Dana Thomas House. And what a house! Designed by the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

The moment I went in there I felt history in the walls and strong “want to have” feeling. If you ever are going to Springfield you have to see it! We were not alowed to take pictures so follow the link to their website if you want to know more.Did I also mention that they have beautiful glass art in the house…

After that we went to our new host families for dinner.

12 april

Today was another exciting day! Patrik and Anna-Karin visited Benton & Associates, a consultant firm who worked with the cleaning up after the flood last summer when the water treatment plant in Jacksonville almost was washed away. Two lessons from the flood experience were to keep important manuals in a safe place and to keep a copy of the security plan not only in that building. They were lucky to rescue all old manuals and repair all machinery again.

Maria visited The Nursery School and Mari visited Jacksonville Art Glass and had a really happy smile when we met up in the car again!

After our vocational visits Helen fulfilled our desire to go to the Amish people in the area of Arthur. It was very interesting to see all the carriages that rolled on the road. With the camera ready we toured around in the area. Many were on their way to a wedding, which we unfortunately did not manage to find. The Amish people still live like in the 1800's even though some of them had their own Phone booth in their garden. They do not own cars but it is ok to get a ride in your neighbor’s car. Thank you Helen for the adventure!

11 april. Hospital, college and ferris wheels!

Helen was the driver for todays tours. We started with a guided tour at the
Passavant hospital Through the x-ray, the surgeon, aboratory and more before we were invited to lunch. We must say that they have a very big hospital ,with high expertise, where they can do a lot for (in our eyes) a not so big area of people.

At the Illinois college after lunch we met the President Axel who showed us his Swedish medal which he was honored by our Swedish King Carl Gustav.

Melissa gave us an excellent tour and Patrik (and off course the rest of us) got to se ethe orchid collection, the new sport hall was also outstanding.

After that an unusual factory, the Eli Bridge company. Now we know where the ferris wheels are made! Or like we say in Sweden: Pariser hjul.They make ferris wheels (and other things not that unusual). Evening where spent in our different hostfamilies. It was warm outside so I hade a nice BBQ outside by the fire.