The Aliens Visit the Old Country, Part One

       Spurning all advice from people who had actually visited the country, we spent the last days of October and first days of November in Sweden. Turns out, our advisors were right. The country is cold and dark this time of year, even though we confined ourselves to the southern 20 percent. The truth is, we just couldn't manage a summer trip, and as it turns out, the purpose of the trip wasn't really sightseeing, anyway.
        For those of you who may not know, my mother's parents are both from Sweden, having moved to the U.S. as adults and met and married there. Many members of both families stayed in Sweden, meaning that I have a host of relatives there, mostly of the second-cousin-once-removed variety. I've met many of them at reunions in the U.S., and I was in Sweden as a 7-year-old, but Eric and the kids hadn't met most of the family. We're a 2-hour, 35-Euro plane flight away, and clearly, it was time to go.
        Because of the time of year and because we are not entirely loony, we decided to focus on my grandfather's family, who mostly live in southern Sweden. My grandfather Martin spent the last years of his life in Göteborg, which is Sweden's second-largest city (about the size of the greater Geneva area). He apparently shared my enthusiasm for public transportation, spending his days riding the tram from one end of the line to the other with stops for lunch and coffee. We planned a tour that began with a flight into Copenhagen and a train ride across one of the longest bridges in the world (16k from the Danish coast to Malmö, Sweden, where a cousin lives with her family). We were then going to take the train to the other side of the country (a ride of only 1 1/2 hours, as opposed to something like 24 hours from top to bottom, which, if you haven't seen a map lately, gives you a good idea of Sweden's shape). My mom's cousin, Tonnie, lives in Sölvesborg on what has to be one of the world's loveliest properties, sitting on about 3 miles of Baltic coastline. Then we would take the train to Göteborg to visit the trams and some other cousins there.

At Nyhaven in Copenhagen. We actually had sunny weather the first few days,
and Copenhagen is well worth seeing, even in the cold. 

Nyhaven again.

The Little Mermaid of Hans Christian Andersen fame. She sits in the harbor in Copenhagen, and is the city's most famous landmark. She's also one of the world's most disappointing landmarks, because she is really unexpectedly little. We were saved from devastation by the fact that my dad had forewarned us.

       My initial impression of Sweden is that it is much more like America than Switzerland. First of all, nearly everyone speaks English. My cousin Lotta said that Swedes like Americans, like America, and like to practice their English with Americans. My young cousins told us that they speak such good English because they watch a lot of YouTube and play a lot of video games. Hmmm. When I mentioned that in Geneva one kind of has to know a little French to get around, one young cousin was shocked, telling me that in Sweden, if you are making a doctor appointment, you can talk in Swedish, English, or even Italian if you want. In addition to the language, Sweden has adopted some parts of America about which I am not so crazy . . . there seem to be McDonald's and Burger King restaurants on every corner, and shopping malls and traffic abound. Convenient for sure, but I have to say that I like the quaint bakeries and narrow streets in Switzerland and France. Nonetheless, I do appreciate the larger cups of coffee up north, but I think the Americans probably adopted that from the Swedes, and not the other way around. It's a chilly place.

       The Swedes, or my relatives at least, are also outstandingly hospitable. One cousin made wonderful dinners every night, then invariably apologized for them, saying, "I hope you can eat this."  Another cousin insisted on driving us the four hours from Sölvesborg to Göteborg, even though we had planned to take the train. Everywhere we went, people opened their homes and took time to visit with us. We weren't allowed to pay for anything -- not even our toothpaste and shampoo at the grocery store. Strangers were friendly, too, asking where we were from, offering directions, and generally being far more open and smiling than the Swiss (which, okay, isn't difficult).

Tonnie's place on the Baltic. It's called Bjorkelund, though I'm not sure I have the spelling right.

Lucas braving the rocks at Bjorkelund.

Our guesthouse. The hot tub on the porch was a highlight for the kids, especially Lucas.

While we were in Sölvesborg, Tonnie took us on a tour of Småland, which is famous for glass factories. This was taken in the Kosta Boda factory, which also has an outlet mall. He's making wine glasses, I think.

The Småland tour included some family history, as that is where my grandfather (and his brother, Erik, who was Tonnie's dad) grew up. Anne Svensson was Martin and Erik's sister, who died quite young. Their father is also buried in this cemetery, but we didn't know where to find his grave.

          In Sweden, we also realized how much French we actually know. While we can conduct daily business in French, our Swedish is sorely lacking. Despite the fact that most people there speak English, a few of my older relatives do not. I had foolishly underestimated what a barrier this would be. We spent one whole morning driving around with Tonnie, and about all we understood was "titta," which means "look." I, and I think the rest of the family, too, felt bad that we couldn't communicate to Tonnie (and a few others) how much we appreciated their hospitality and how interested we were in them. A few of the younger members of the family plan to remedy this problem at some point in their lives. Until then, a big "Tack så mycket" (our other useful phrase) to all the wonderful people who made the trip one of our favorites.

Johanna, typically, found little friends everywhere, from Isa in Malmö . . . 

       

. . . to Esther, whose family (nobly representing my grandmother's side) traveled 12 hours
from Umeå to see us in Göteborg.

The boys made friends, too. Drew is way happier to be eating Swedish pizza with
 his third cousins than he looks . . . really.