Sweden Day Two

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Sweden Day Two
Amanda

Dinner at Anki’s and Michelle’s Manual Adventure

Today we got to Ostersund at 7:30 AM. I was joking with Michelle that I don’t think I remembered what 7:30 AM looked like. We had noticed on the train that it didn’t ever seem like it was night because it hadn’t gotten too dark. I had on an eye mask, but Michelle said it started to get light again around 3 AM. Mom and Sven-Eric (related to us in a way that is complicated) picked us up from the train station. Elsie is Mormor’s cousin and speaks perfect English, Sven-Eric is Elsie’s husband and he doesn’t speak any English. This doesn’t stop Sven-Eric from trying to talk to us, always in Swedish. When we got to Elsie’s and Sven-Eric’s, Elsie had already made us breakfast. Since our night train sleeping attempt left us more exhausted than when we started, we ate a really quick breakfast of strawberry cake and cucumber and tomato sandwiches and fell right asleep. After our 2 hour nap, we went into town to visit a museum of the “olden days of Sweden.” Most of the museum was aimed toward kids but it was still pretty interesting. They have an outdoor aspect of the museum too, where we got to see cows, horses and goats. After the museum we walked to town. When kids in Sweden graduate from high school (or what they call gymnasium) one of the ways they celebrate is by driving around in the back of cleaned out garbage trucks. Seriously. Garbage trucks. The girls wear white dresses and the boys wear white shirts and nice ties. It really is a sight to see. They “decorate” these trucks with broken tree branches and signs. They drive around all the streets in town in the trucks all day long, blasting their music and waving their graduation caps (which look like Skipper’s hat from Gillian’s Island). We saw about seven different trucks of kids in this small town of Ostersund. When we were walking around the town we saw this flower shop, and of course, we had to stop. They have some of the most beautiful hydrangea plants in Sweden. They also had cherry tomato plants that were less than a foot tall and already had HUGE red cherry tomatoes.

We drove to Elsie’s daughter’s house for dinner. They live about 20 miles outside the city in beautiful, woody countryside. Her house, which is on a lake, reminded me of an old colonial house you’d see out East. Aside from all the mosquitos, the property was amazing. Every year they have a party on June 24th, to celebrate the longest day of sunlight. I wish we were in town for the party. She’s an artist so many of her paintings were hanging around the house, all of them beautiful. She has four kids, two of whom live in Stockholm with their dad, and the other two live with her in Ostersund. In Sweden, kids start learning English in 4th grade. Most of the adults and teenagers we met spoke perfect English, even with an adorable British accent. Sweden imports so much American television, but the government has a law that forbids dubbing international television, so it always airs in English with Swedish subtitles. Clearly, it makes learning English easier and makes reading Swedish essential. It’s no wonder that they have 100%!l(MISSING)iteracy rate. We had salmon, beef, pork, and vegetable kabobs. Oh wow, they were good. I’m pretty sure I could eat salmon every single day of my life. Everything was prepared with little to almost no sauces, dressings, or butter. Some of the meat was marinated, but everything tasted so much lighter. It was a nice change from how we eat in the U.S.

Elsie and Sven-Eric asked Mom and Michelle to drive home because they wanted to have a glass of wine with dinner. In Sweden, they have a zero tolerance rule for drinking and driving. It’s also very uncommon to find automatic cars, or at least that’s what Elsie said. We had to take two cars to Anki’s because there were 6 of us and Elsie and Sven-Eric’s car was only a 5 passenger car. Mom, Cathy and Elsie got in one car. Michelle got into the other car and non-English speaking Sven-Eric got into the passenger seat. I quickly got into Michelle’s car, because, I needed to laugh at the hilarity that would ensue (even though there was that obvious chance I could die on the way home). Michelle started the car and Sven-Eric said something in Swedish, which I took to be something about backing out. Then we made it to the actual road. Michelle tried to ask how fast she was allowed to drive, and pointed to the odometer. Sven-Eric misunderstood this as her asking for music, so he turned the radio on. I just sat back and laughed. She then tried some “sign language” and Sven-Eric told her in his own “sign language” to go faster. But not too fast, because the highways in Sweden have cameras that are speed activated. They also don’t have stop signs at intersections, they have roundabouts. If there are no other cars around, you never really stop, and even if there are cars, people drive a little too fast for me to feel safe. At this point, Michelle only killed the clutch once and was driving very well, given the circumstances. We got to the roundabout, I held my breath. We made it though without issue and were finally home. After we all got out of our cars, Elsie said, “Oh, I think it would have been better for me to ride with Michelle, because Sven-Eric cannot speak English.” Michelle just laughed.

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