Sitting in the Gothenburg Airport, I am waiting for my flight to board and the beginning of my Swedish adventures to end. The past five weeks have been unforgettable.
Thank you for opening your homes, sharing your food and your families. Thank you for picking me up, driving me around, dropping me off at train, and plane, and subway stations. Thank you for all of the delicious cups of coffee and fabulous meals. Thank you for telling me stories and showing me pictures of my family from years past. Thank you, above all, for the love and time your gave me as I sought to visit a country I have always dreamt about visiting, meet a family I have always eagerly hoped to meet, will now forever leave a piece of my heart in another part of the world.
To everyone I have met, for an hour or a week, it has been an honor and a pleasure.
Susan's Summer in Sweden
16 June 2012
14 June 2012
stories...
there are two stories I have heard most often from relatives anywhere I go in Sweden.
1. When my great-grandmother Linnea was around my age, she left her family and small town in Hannabad, Sweden to go to America. Like so many immigrants of that era, she was leaving poverty to seek opportunity. She arrived and lived subsequent years in New York City, always remembering to send back money and boxes of gifts and treats to her family back in Sweden. It is this money and these gifts that are still mentioned by so many family members here that I meet while traveling around Sweden. The money 'Aunt Linnea' sent back to her family helped pay for and was the reason her brother Yngve was able to go to school. The boxes 'Aunt Linnea' would send around Christmas always had treats and clothing that her nieces would love and appreciate. Whenever I hear this story of my great-grandmother Linnea I am proud and amazed to be related to someone so brave and loving, and also reminded of so many friends I have now who are living the same life that she did. They've just come from a different part of the world.
2. In 1957 my grandfather, Lennart, and my grandmother, Carol, were newly married, and they made a trip back to Hannabad to visit. Being newlyweds, this was the first time many of Lennart's family in Sweden had met Carol. This visit always evokes two major threads from any of the family still here in Sweden. Everyone remembers Lennart during this visit having a very large, very full beard; a beard that his mother distinctly disliked. Everyone here also, always remember how beautiful Carol was and is. I have always thought of my grandma as a very beautiful, very classy lady, but I was a little surprised the first time (of many) during this trip around Sweden to hear how people--Birgit, Evelyn, Anita, Irene...--everyone loved Carol when she first came to Hannabad. She was 'beautiful like Grace Kelly.' She was 'a princess.' She was 'so classy' and someone that these girls 'looked up to and wanted to be just like.' My grandma was/is one stylish (foxy) lady. [As a side note, whenever I show anyone here pictures of my family now, everyone begins to say the same thing about my mother, Linnea. I'm just hoping this particular trait of beauty and class will continue to pass itself on in the family... :)
1. When my great-grandmother Linnea was around my age, she left her family and small town in Hannabad, Sweden to go to America. Like so many immigrants of that era, she was leaving poverty to seek opportunity. She arrived and lived subsequent years in New York City, always remembering to send back money and boxes of gifts and treats to her family back in Sweden. It is this money and these gifts that are still mentioned by so many family members here that I meet while traveling around Sweden. The money 'Aunt Linnea' sent back to her family helped pay for and was the reason her brother Yngve was able to go to school. The boxes 'Aunt Linnea' would send around Christmas always had treats and clothing that her nieces would love and appreciate. Whenever I hear this story of my great-grandmother Linnea I am proud and amazed to be related to someone so brave and loving, and also reminded of so many friends I have now who are living the same life that she did. They've just come from a different part of the world.
2. In 1957 my grandfather, Lennart, and my grandmother, Carol, were newly married, and they made a trip back to Hannabad to visit. Being newlyweds, this was the first time many of Lennart's family in Sweden had met Carol. This visit always evokes two major threads from any of the family still here in Sweden. Everyone remembers Lennart during this visit having a very large, very full beard; a beard that his mother distinctly disliked. Everyone here also, always remember how beautiful Carol was and is. I have always thought of my grandma as a very beautiful, very classy lady, but I was a little surprised the first time (of many) during this trip around Sweden to hear how people--Birgit, Evelyn, Anita, Irene...--everyone loved Carol when she first came to Hannabad. She was 'beautiful like Grace Kelly.' She was 'a princess.' She was 'so classy' and someone that these girls 'looked up to and wanted to be just like.' My grandma was/is one stylish (foxy) lady. [As a side note, whenever I show anyone here pictures of my family now, everyone begins to say the same thing about my mother, Linnea. I'm just hoping this particular trait of beauty and class will continue to pass itself on in the family... :)
fourth cousins...
well, yesterday was fun. I was able to meet my cousin Allan and his wife Berit for the first time. We enjoyed a wonderfully delicious lunch, one that reminded me of thanksgiving. Then I promptly had a bit of a breakdown. Fatigue + being an introvert who has met around 10 new people a week for the past five weeks = overload.
I'm sorry Allan and Berit! I am so glad to have met you both and you were so kind to open up your home to me yesterday. Lunch was absolutely delicious. And you probably thought you had welcomed a crazy person into your home.
Afterwards I was also able to meet my second-cousin-twice-removed Ingegard, her husband Inge, and two of my fourth-cousins, their granddaughter and grandson. Ingegard has a gift for beautiful gardens. Seriously, her backyard was literally bursting with color. Plus, I'm pretty excited to have met some fourth cousins! How often have you gotten together with your fourth cousins? Do you even know who they are? I didn't until yesterday. Visiting with them, and especially looking at photos of when Lennart and Carol and then my mother, Linnea, and Uncle Andrew traveled to their home in Halmstad, was well-worth the trip. I think the old photos of my grandparents and my mom have been one of the many highlights of this trip!
Today we drive back to Gothenburg. And, sooner than I could have imagined, I leave Sweden on saturday.
I'm sorry Allan and Berit! I am so glad to have met you both and you were so kind to open up your home to me yesterday. Lunch was absolutely delicious. And you probably thought you had welcomed a crazy person into your home.
Afterwards I was also able to meet my second-cousin-twice-removed Ingegard, her husband Inge, and two of my fourth-cousins, their granddaughter and grandson. Ingegard has a gift for beautiful gardens. Seriously, her backyard was literally bursting with color. Plus, I'm pretty excited to have met some fourth cousins! How often have you gotten together with your fourth cousins? Do you even know who they are? I didn't until yesterday. Visiting with them, and especially looking at photos of when Lennart and Carol and then my mother, Linnea, and Uncle Andrew traveled to their home in Halmstad, was well-worth the trip. I think the old photos of my grandparents and my mom have been one of the many highlights of this trip!
Today we drive back to Gothenburg. And, sooner than I could have imagined, I leave Sweden on saturday.
12 June 2012
shrimps...
In general I really love being around other languages and especially being in countries where people speak other languages. One drawback, however, to not being able to fully express myself in Swedish (somehow "Happy MidSummer" or "Can I please have a cup of coffee?" just don't sum up the spectrum of human emotion and experience) is the myriad thoughts that I spontaneously have relating to brief, but memorable moments throughout the day. And although traveling can have so much to do with the major sights one sees while abroad, for me, traveling is defined by the moments with people I meet along the way that become moments I will remember long after hundreds of other details fade. It is also these moments, and conversations, images, and experiences that are the hardest but most important to explain after returning home; that which, if I could, would be my response to the inevitable question, "how was your trip?" But in an attempt to share the thousands of thoughts I had just today, and really wanted to share with someone, here you go...
-Thank you, Stellan, for the absolutely delicious grilled dinner!
-Thank you, Irene, for the baby turtle. No worries, I could never forget you both.
-Just talking about the U.S.A, I know I have planted the inevitable idea in Anita and Birgit's mind that they now have to come visit!! Anita, you are a pensioner now...enjoy it! (aka, travel!!)
-I can't believe it is 11 o'clock at night and it is still light outside. Love it.
-Because, while discussing the upcoming November elections, we decided there may not be the candidate available that we'd prefer, this evenings' consensus decided that Stellan will win the presidential election, I (Susan) will be the Secretary of Horticulture. Birgit wants to be the Secretary of State. Ingemar will be the head of the military. Irene wants to be some sort of Secretary of Husbandry, and Anita shall be the Secretary of all Social Services. Look out world, you may be ending the day after the elections!
-Does Sweden ever have lightening bugs?
-I love when Swedes mispronounce 'moose' as 'mouse,' and multiple 'shrimp' as 'shrimps.'
-I also love that these same Swedes can utilize the word 'procurement' in the same conversation. Seriously second-cousin-once-removed!? Why must you have a more advanced grasp of the english language that I do!??
baby, you move me...
I don't really know what I want to do, but I know the woman I want to become.
Eat well, Travel often.
It is a risk to love.
But what if it doesn't work out?
Ah, but what if it does.
Unless it is mad, passionate, extraordinary love, it is a waste of time. There are too many mediocre things in life. Love should not be one of them.
wanderlust: a desire to travel, to understand one's very existence.
Be adventurous.
One can never be over-dressed or over-educated.
Eat well, Travel often.
It is a risk to love.
But what if it doesn't work out?
Ah, but what if it does.
Unless it is mad, passionate, extraordinary love, it is a waste of time. There are too many mediocre things in life. Love should not be one of them.
wanderlust: a desire to travel, to understand one's very existence.
Be adventurous.
One can never be over-dressed or over-educated.
11 June 2012
my grandfather's cousin's step-daughter's daughter...
Today I had coffee with my step-third-cousin. I'm getting really good at figuring out titles for distant relatives. Danielle, my grandfather's cousin's step-daughter's daughter, was born in and grew up in Naperville, Il until she was around 10 when her family moved back to Gothenburg, Sweden. Last year she spent her first year of NYU at their campus in Paris. Knowing Chicago, studying in Paris, being both Swedish and American, needless to say, I enjoyed talking with her. I also enjoyed that we had the same taste is stores for shopping (H&M) and I appreciate that it seems just as normal for her as me to have 5 cups of coffee before 1 o'clock in the afternoon on any given day. So, you might say we're not technically related. Psh...I say we most definitely are.
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