Long lost Swedish relatives

Where do I begin? There is so much I want to say. Get ready for a couple of really long posts. All of my life my mom has talked about the old country and how we still have relatives in Sweden with a farm that has been in the family since the mid-1800's. She has carried on Swedish Christmas traditions and taught us the tiny bit of Swedish that her mother taught her. Somehow it was always very magical, almost mythical, to me and I had vague, far-away dreams of someday going there and meeting them. When we decided to go to Scandinavia, I took out our family history book and looked for a way to contact them. I found my answer in the first pages of the book....an email address for my distant cousin Bertil. I composed an email and fired it off into the abyss. I received a notification that this address was no longer valid. Disappointed, I dug deeper with Google and eventually found a match in Stockholm that looked like it could be him. I gathered my thoughts and picked up the phone. A foreign voice answered and after asking if he spoke English, I introduced myself and how I came to know of him. He was surprised and excited to hear from a long lost relative on the phone. We exchanged email addresses and made plans from there. He put me in touch with Beret who owns the family farm in Västbyn, but lives in nearby Östersund. Beret made big plans for us and arranged meetings with relatives over the course of a weekend. And this is how we found ourselves in northern Sweden.

Words cannot express my gratitude to my new found Swedish family. Upon learning that a strange relative was coming to visit from the US, they opened up their hearts and homes to my family and I. The amount of kindness and generosity that they shared with us was so overwhelming and touching. Bertil's sister (my second-cousin, once-removed), Anita, invited us to stay in her home and when we arrived Friday evening in Östersund, she borrowed her ex-husband's car to greet us with hugs at the train station and bring us to her home where we would spend the next four nights. In her cozy apartment we worked on dinner together as we began to get to know each other. We sat down around the kitchen table and shared the first of many meals together, moose tacos, Swedish style. Late in the evening, her daughter Maria took the time to walk over to meet us even though she had just finished a long work week. We were so happy she did.

The next morning, after Jason made egg pancakes, Beret, showed up at the door with grand plans for the day! We piled into her car and headed towards the family farm where my great-grandmother Märit was born and raised. Along the way she showed me the house where my great-grandfather Eric was born and grew up. She showed us the school he attended, the store where they shopped and the mill where they ground their flour. She showed us the Good Templar house that my great-great-grandfather Anders built and then the family farm in the village of Västbyn. I can't really describe what it feels like to return to where my family comes from other than that it was deeply meaningful and magical to drive up under gently falling snow to the family farm. It looks the same as it did in all the old photos I had seen. It was a lot to take in. At the farm, Beret's sister Bodil was waiting for us. She had lunch and warm glögg waiting for us. Beret showed us through the farmhouse where she and Bodil were born and raised. The farm had remained unchanged from the 1850s until her parents renovated in 1958, adding running water, indoor bathrooms, a modern kitchen and electricity. Beret remembers lugging buckets of water into the house and going out into the cold to use the outhouse. After wandering through the farm house that has been home to four generations of my family, we sat down at the table for more conversation, sipped glögg, ate lunch, ginger cookies and homemade saffron rolls. The light began to fade so we bundled up and headed out into the snow for the outdoor tour before sunset at 2:30. Beret showed us the summer home where the family spent summers and had their baking stove. She showed us a small cabin they had moved onto the land that she calls her museum, where she keeps antiques and treasures she has found from around the farm. We saw an old hand-scythe with the initials MAD which was either my great-grandmother's or her sister's. We saw old chairs that have been there since the farm was bought in the mid 1850's. While we were outside Bodil was busy in the kitchen, preparing a wonderful dinner. When we got back, delicious smells greeted us from the kitchen and Bodil handed us big wool socks knitted by her grandma to put on our cold feet. As we waited for dinner, Beret and Bodil pulled out old family documents. They showed us the original document for the purchase of the farm and documents that laid out how the new generation planned to take care of the old generation including how many pounds of potatoes, flour and provisions they would buy each year to make sure that their parents were comfortable. We looked at old photos. The boys made a fire and Aaron snuggled with the gnome, Tomté, who lives in barns to make sure that animals are treated correctly, otherwise causing mischief. Finally we sat down to the meal Bodil had prepared. We ate the most amazing moose stew from meat her husband had hunted topped with lingonberries she had picked and frozen, boiled potatoes from her own garden, Swedish meatballs and homemade organic beer that Beret's husband Torsten had brewed. The food was delicious and the conversation lively. When Beret asked if I knew any Swedish I repeated a Swedish nursery rhyme that my mom had taught all my siblings and I, and I had taught my own boys. Beret and Bodil's eyes lit up! This game is something my family in Sweden still plays with their babies. It was such a cool discovery to find that this nursery rhyme, split by half a world, a language barrier and three generations, was finally reunited here at the farm. The fire and evening wound down, and we headed back to Beret's house where we met her daughter, Kristina, and her husband, Torsten. She showed us a Swedish TV show where U.S. descendants of Swedish emigrants compete to be reunited with their families. It was remarkable how similar the stories were to ours and how important these stories are to the Swedish people. After a long day, Beret returned us to Anita's and we all collapsed into bed around midnight.

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Thanksgiving in Sweden

We spent our Thanksgiving riding a train from Copenhagen to Uppsala, a small city located just north of Stockholm. When we arrived, we had some confusion about how to get to our hostel and the restaurant where we had dinner reservations. After a bit of bumbling we were late for our reservations so we gave up and hopped into a taxi. We rolled into the fishy smelling restaurant, piled our luggage in a corner and took our seats. We ordered a fishy appetizer plate followed by delicious fishy entrees. We all left full, happy and fishy....Thanksgiving, Swedish style.

Oh...and we visited the biggest cathedral in Sweden while we were there....

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Copenhagen

We arrived in bustling Copenhagen exhausted and with each member of our family in various stages of sickness. We were ready to take a break from the fast pace of our trip and hang out a little while. We checked into our comfy, Indonesian-style hotel Sunday and Jason left on a plane for Brussels Monday morning to attend meetings. The boys and I took this opportunity to rest and recover a bit. After a lazy and delicious organic breakfast we spent the entire day playing games, drinking tea and relaxing. The next day I coaxed my coughing kids out of the hotel to explore the city streets and visit the Rosenburg Castle built by King Christian IV in the 1600's as a summer residence. We got there twenty minutes before closing time for the main castle (luckily the treasury was open for another two hours), bought our tickets and rushed up to the throne room. Boy oh boy, do kings know how to spend money! I still can't get over the opulence of the way royalty lived. We then wandered through the rooms of the treasury where we saw chests made out of amber, sailing ships of ivory, and gold, gold, gold. Jason arrived home late that evening and the next day we set out through the streets to find Nyhaven, a colorful, old waterfront that reminded us of Bergen. Along the way the boys were delighted to stumble upon game stores and the mothership Lego store.

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Viking Graveyard

After our early morning arrival in Aalborg, we spent the the rest of the day exploring the quaint town. Wandering through its pretty little streets, we stumbled upon a Christmas market where we bought yummy treats to eat and saw the real Santa Claus walking through the streets. The following day was the day we had been waiting for....we would visit the much anticipated Viking graveyard, Lindholm Høje. Some Vikings didn't bury their dead, they placed stones in the shape of ship for a man and the shape of a circle for a woman. They then laid wood over the stones, placed the body on top surrounded by small possessions and then lit it all on fire. Afterwards they would place dirt over the top. Perched picturesquely atop a green hilltop, Lindholm Høje is home to nearly 700 graves from the Iron Age and Viking Age preserved by sand drifts that had covered them for hundreds of years. In the cold, dark morning air, we wandered through the hauntingly mysterious landscape between Viking graves with our imaginations and inner-Vikings awake and alive on the resting ground of the ancient dead.

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Ferry to Denmark

We left Bergen on a huge, overnight ferry to Denmark. The ferry was very cruise-ship-esque and we enjoyed watching the Norwegian islands pass by in the little bit of daylight we had left, warm in our comfy seats...a really, quite different experience than the sailboat. After the sunset, we watched as the normally staid Norwegians let loose as they set out on vacation and then enjoyed a Christmas buffet where Aaron helped himself to a big serving of lutefisk. Back in our cabin we tossed and turned through the night and then pulled our tired selves out of our bunks at the 6am wake-up call. By 7:15 we had piled onto a bus destined for Aalborg, Denmark surrounded by inebriated Norwegians who sang on and on while they passed a bottle of hard alcohol around. I have to say that it was really strange to watch people drinking so early in the morning, but the sunrise over the Danish countryside was quite lovely.

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Bergen

Bergen is a beautiful seaside town with an impossibly picturesque and wobbly waterfront. It served as Norway's capital in the 12th and 13th centuries thanks to wealth accumulated from oodles of dried cod flooding in from the north and its membership in the Hanseatic League that distributed the cod all over Europe. The colorful wharf, the Bryggen, survives from the 1700's only due to a strict enforcement of fire-free living quarters brought on by the city's experience with ten horrific fires in the past. Candles and fires were only allowed in a separate building behind the larger warehouses and living spaces. The men would warm themselves and cook in these assembly rooms before heading back to their lightless, frigid rooms. We spent our time in Bergen wandering through the creaky quarters of the medieval Bryggen. Built on the burnt remains of wooden buildings from the past, the walls lean at crazy angles and wooden planks moaned under our feet. We expected the walls to collapse at any moment. In the depths of the narrow alleyways, we stumbled upon a Viking store. We checked out its Viking weaponry, helmets and clothing. When we struck up a conversation with the owner, I couldn't help but to ask if he knew our Viking taxi driver. He did. Apparently Georg is famous in Norway and even has a Viking doll that was made in his likeness. We took a break to eat some lunch at a lovely cafe where a Portuguese barista brought back all kinds of warm and fuzzy feelings for the Portuguese people. We spent an afternoon checking out a 13th century fortress left over from Bergen's days as capital. We checked out the Hanseatic Museum where we saw the well preserved and still frigid living quarters from the 1700's, including authentic 100 year old dried cod. We ate an amazing dinner within the back alleyways of the Bryggen where the cobbled floor sloped downward and the building positively reeked of magical medieval atmosphere. And cod. Here we ordered a wide array of Norwegian Christmas dishes including roasted reindeer (sorry Santa), smoked salmon, meatballs and lutefisk wrapped in lefsa. We were all surprised that we liked the lutefisk and ordered more. For dessert we ate krumkaka (a traditional Christmas cookie in Norway and beloved memory from my childhood) with cream and berries.

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Viking Taxi

Aaron has spent a lot of time on Google Earth looking at mountains in Norway. One of the places he hoped we would go is the famous diving board rock lookout, but unfortunately it is inaccessible in the winter. We found that there is an alternative, man-made lookout above Aurland, close to our home-base in Flåm so we called a taxi to bring us up. Our taxi pulled up, predictably a Volvo, and I looked in to find a long-haired, beard-down-to-his-lap cab driver. Boy did he looked like a Viking! Shortly into the drive we discovered that he is in fact a Viking chieftain for the region. At the moment he is between Viking re-enactment jobs and is driving a taxi. Only in Norway do you get an out of work Viking driving you around in a taxi. As you might expect, it was awesome having a Viking taxi driver and also quite scary. I think that accurately describes Vikings in general, awesome and scary. He pointed out Viking burial mounds along the way. He showed us an amazing photo of himself in his Viking garb. He told us of his Viking plans to build a Viking village funded in part by Ted Turner whom he had spent a day rowing Viking ships. He gave us his Viking business card and then scared the pants off us driving at breakneck speeds up narrow, steep, icy winding roads. When we started up the mountain, the road narrowed to only one lane and the steep drop into the abyss was a little unnerving. Jason asked meekly, "um, where is the other lane for this road?" At which point we learned this was in fact both lanes and that Vikings don't need two full lanes up mountain roads. Though he did acknowledge that things got dicey in the summer with the tour busses. Further up the mountain, the road was blanketed with snow but the speed of the car remained unchanged. From the back seat I wondered if these were my last moments on earth, but then became distracted form my fear looking at the farms perched on these impossibly steep slopes. What in God's green earth are they farming up here? These people are ridiculously tough and their livestock must be in Olympic shape. In spite of my worries of sliding off the road our Viking driver never lost traction and delivered us safely to the overlook. The views were spectacular but with the icy wind and a cough-y kid, we didn't last long. On the way back to the village we had our Viking driver drop us off at a 16th century farm. He knew the owner and tried calling her to see if she was around to show us the place and make us waffles, but unfortunately she wasn't around. We explored on our own and then walked the mile and half along the fjord back to the village. After lunch we boarded the Sonjefjord Ferry at 3:00 for a trip through the narrowest fjord in the world to Gudvangen. We bundled in all of our clothes and watched gorgeous scenery pass by in the twilight. In Gudvangen we hopped on a bus and then a train which brought us to Bergen on the western shore of Norway.

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Flåm

Isaac was an amazing trooper and we were able to stick with our original plan to hike while in Flåm. The cold Norwegian air invigorated his Viking blood and we walked through the valley filled with picturesque red and yellow farms. Through lightly falling snow we climbed steep slopes to a waterfall with gorgeous views over the valley. In the evening we went to the Ægir Brewery or as we like to call it, "The Viking Restaurant!" Built in the style of a small stave church, we opened huge wooden doors and were welcomed by a round fireplace surrounded by wooden benches covered in sheep skins. Hands down, this is the coolest restaurant we have ever been too. At the bar, our friendly Irish bartender helped us navigate the menu. I ordered a smoked reindeer salad, Jason got leg of lamb, and the boys got venison burgers. The adult Vikings washed the Viking fare down with Viking beers and the smallish Vikings drank apple ciders. Afterwards we relaxed around the crackling fire soaking in the earthly Valhalla (minus the endless fighting) before reluctantly leaving to get our sick kiddo to bed.

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Train to Flåm

We got up dark and early the next morning, inhaled a quick breakfast and dashed off through the dark, with a sick Isaac, to catch our 8am train into the mountains. We watched how the countryside gradually changed from green pastoral fields to mountains, white and frozen. At Myrdal, we stepped out into the snow and boarded our next train to Flåm. The Flåm Railway was built in the late 1800's and is crazy, steep and curvy....one of the steepest railroads in the world. As Isaac snoozed in and out of a fever-y sleep, the rest of us enjoyed spectacular scenery as we descended down the mountains into Sonjefjord before disembarking in the tiny village of Flåm where we would spend the next two nights.

Click here for bad photos shot through the train window for a little glimpse of the Norwegian countryside.

Viking Ships

The following morning Jason woke me at 8am. I had floated in and out of sleep as screams and loud music had pulled me in and out of consciousness all night long. In my bleary brain, it couldn't possibly be time to wake up. I was absolutely positive that he had it wrong...it must be 4:00 in the morning. I made him re-check the time. To my dismay, it was in fact time to wake up and we all pulled our exhausted bodies out of bed. We were rewarded by a decadent spread of Norwegian breakfast foods...cocoa-sprinkled salmon, smoked mackerel, caramelized Norwegian brown cheese, pancakes, breads, fruits, nuts, smoothies and bottomless cups of tea and coffee. Many cups of tea later, with bellies full, we were ready to roll. We hopped on a bus headed for the Viking Ship Museum, home to three Viking ships recovered from burial mounds around Norway. Traditionally Vikings buried people of importance in huge mounds large enough to contain their ships and all of the things they'll need for the after life. The ships in the museum, and all of their belongings, were packed in clay which preserved them amazingly well. I have to say, this was one of the most amazing museums we have ever been to. Upon entering the hall we were greeted by the double-dragon-headed Oseburg ship dating from 834 AD. She is 65 feet long, 15 feet wide and her elegantly curved bow and stern were intricately carved with swirling dragon heads. With a relatively low free-board she was designed for coastal cruising as a pleasure craft. The next room contained the impressive, beefy, ocean-going Gokstad ship dating from 890 AD. The Vikings had made some dramatic improvements over the years, and measuring 76 feet long and 17 feet wide, this ship was fully seaworthy, ready to cross any ocean. Let the Viking age and pillaging begin! The next room held treasures found within the burial mounds...elaborately carved sleighs, wagons and beds, Viking tent posts, cooking utensils, etc. All weaponry and valuables had been looted long ago.

Next we visited the Folk Museum, home to over 150 historic buildings that have been transplanted from around Norway. We saw how Norwegians from all walks of life lived throughout history. We saw Oslo suburbs at the turn of the century, where children started smoking at age 5. We learned that Oslo did not have widespread indoor toilets until after 1952 and saw firsthand a double-decker outhouse, something I had never imagined existed. I would have always chosen the top floor. We saw log buildings from remote farmsteads that drove home how dark my ancestors existence must have been surrounded by dark wood with tiny windows in a place that hardly sees daylight for a large portion of the year. We saw a pagoda-like 1600's era stave church which was even darker inside than the tiny cabins. We saw a traditional Sami winter dwelling and learned more about the reindeer-herding people of the north. We saw how lefsa was traditionally prepared over a fire. We eagerly slathered our portion with butter and gobbled the warm goody down in the chilly air outside as the sun began to set at 3:30. After a quick rest in the hotel, we ate dinner at a quaint little cafe where Isaac ordered moose stew....a perfect ending to a chilly day.

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Oslo

After two weeks at home we learned that Jason needed to be in Atlanta in two weeks for a meeting and in Brussels the week of Thanksgiving for another meeting, so we decided to plan a trip to Scandinavia. We spent the next two hectic weeks planning and reminding people that, yes, we were aware that it was winter in Scandinavia. One of the decisions we made in planning this trip was that we would leave Pika behind for the very first time. We were all very sad about this but agreed it was probably in her and our best interest. Jason's mom valiantly stepped up to the plate to take on the job of taking care of our nervous, anti-social, bitey chihuahua. I'm pretty sure this secures her a spot for sainthood. So off we flew to Atlanta to visit the great-grandparents and for Jason's meeting, chihuahua-less. We spent a couple of days visiting with family and resting before our flight to Oslo.

We arrived in Oslo at 9:30am very jet-lagged and discombobulated. We had a series of follies as we worked our way from the airport to our hotel. We missed our first train by just seconds. We caught the next train, but when it came time to get off we gathered our stuff quickly and then stared dumbly at the door, waiting for it to open.  In a stroke of genius, I saw the open button and hit it, but it was too late. The door opened half-way, then closed and the train was in motion again. We managed to get off at the next stop and we all piled into an elevator with one other person. The doors wouldn't close so we all piled out thinking maybe it was over its weight limit. The doors closed abruptly and down it went. We had success with our second try. On the next train platform we had to buy a new set of train tickets to get us back to the stop we had just missed. Once we got off at our train station, dazed, we wandered back and forth, back and forth trying to find the street to our hotel. Once at the hotel, they informed us that according to their computer, we were supposed to have checked in the day before. Luckily, I had an email confirmation with the correct dates and they gave us a room. At this point we were starving and in serious need of caffeine so we stumbled into the hotel restaurant and dug into the sandwich and cake buffet. At this point we knew that Norway is expensive, but we did not have a good handle on the kroner to dollar exchange and ended up spending $250 on sandwiches. Oops. At least they were fancy sandwiches in a fancy restaurant. With full tummies and fully caffeinated, we hit the streets.

Jason navigated us to Akershus where we soaked in views of the Oslo harbor before taking an audio tour through the 1300's era castle. Afterwards, we circled back up the overlook at least three times, for reasons I do not think I will ever understand. The ultimate goal was to watch the early sunset over the water but I haven't a clue why we circled so many times...I suppose a byproduct of our jet-lagged state. At any rate, we had a lovely time watching as the sun sunk lower and lower in the sky until it disappeared behind the horizon at 3:40. At this point we wandered through the dark streets past a mixture of ultra-modern and traditional European buildings back to our hotel for a quick shower and rest before dinner at a Vietnamese-French restaurant. We all collapsed into bed at 8:00 where we fell asleep in spite of the loud music and screaming that emanated from below our window until 3am.

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