As for our trip, it couldn't have been better. First, we stayed with my mom's first cousins in Trollhattan, which is where my great-grandfather was born. It's also where they make Saabs, and they have a movie studio that they call "Trolley-wood", where some big time movies have been filmed.
Here's me at the Royal Moose Hunting Museum in Halleberg-Hunneberg. Every two years the king goes on his official hunt, and this museum was built to educate people about the moose and the history of the hunt.
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| From Sweden 2008 |
Here's one of the specimens in the museum:
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| From Sweden 2008 |
After we went to the museum, we drove around the hunting grounds, which are like a national park. We did manage to run into some moose on the prowl for apples!
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| From Sweden 2008 |
Here we are at the edge of the park near lake Vanern.
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| From Sweden 2008 |
Next we went to Hamburgsund, on the West Coast. Ingegerd (who's my mom's first cousin) kindly let us stay at her summer house out there, and Gunnel (my mom's other first cousin) kindly let us borrow their car. Although it wasn't warm summer weather in September, it was sunny and nice enough for us to go for a pleasant stroll around the area in the morning. Here I am on the street in front of the house:
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| From Sweden 2008 |
Swedish beaches are really rocky, and the water is cold, so it's a different experience from going to a beach in, say, Miami. Walking around the coastline, we came upon this little fishing village - Tegelstrand. I have no idea how long it's been there, but it looks like something out of a storybook.
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| From Sweden 2008 |
We spent the afternoon driving around Bohuslan, which is a very historic area of Sweden. There's evidence of people living there as far back as 3,000 years ago! In that time, Sweden's climate was like the south of France, until it started to get colder around 500BC. They were even growing grapes for wine back then! We stopped at the museum at Tanum (which is free!), where they've built some houses like people would have lived in back then. They kind of remind me of the English cottages with thatched roofs. Here's me coming out of one:
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| From Sweden 2008 |
That evening, we joined my Grandmother's brother Stig and his wife Greta for dinner in Högsäter. They have a gorgeous historic home up there, where they spend their summers. Greta treated us to a tasty meal and we caught up on some family news, and I got to practice some broken Swedish. Here we are at the dinner table:
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| From Sweden 2008 |
So that was what we did during the week. On the weekend, we went to Gothenberg and stayed at Fredrik's apartment. What was even better than free accomodation was that all my cousins are now living in or near Gothenberg! A lot had happened since I visited 5 years ago. Two of my cousins got married, and there were a couple of new baby cousins to meet.
Here's my cousin Peter, his wife Lijana and their super cute 9-month-old son, Vincent
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| From Sweden 2008 |
Peter is taking a few months paternity leave from work to be home with Vincent while Lijana goes back to study dentistry. Swedish law allows either the father or mother to take leave from work, with full pay, to care for a new baby. Lijana took the first few months, and now Peter is taking the next few months. Aren't you jealous? Kind of makes you think, higher taxes, but free school and crazy benefits like this - not a bad trade-off, I think!
And now for something that's not quite as cute. As a joke, my cousin Helene and her husband Karim brought us some Surstromming, which is a fish delicacy. What makes it a joke? Well, if you had ever smelled it, you'd understand. They used to make this stuff when salt was really expensive - instead of preserving the fish with salt, they used yeast, which basically ferments it. It's so vile that the tin actually bulges under pressure - that's how you know it's good! Paul had mentioned the night before that he liked to try new or exotic foods, and he already knew he liked 'sill' (pickled herring) which they usually use to impress foreigners, so they had to take it a step further. Well, not to be outdone, Paul had to follow through and try the stuff. Anna, Fredrik's girlfriend, understandibly did not want this thing opened in her home, so we had to bring it outside to try it out. So we knew it'd be stinky, but not that stinky! Apparently no one had tried it before, so all of the guys (except Fredrik - smart guy) tried it. Here's Karim opening the tin, which makes a sound like a deflating tire when you open it:
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| From Sweden 2008 |
If you've got a good connection, you can see Paul trying the surstromming on video, with Swedish commentary:
