The drive was quite a journey (taking about 6 hours including a stop for dinner since we hit some Friday afternoon traffic going through Stockholm, but the kids were excited when we stopped for a taco buffet dinner followed by picking out candy from a store that contained over 700 different kinds! It is typical in Sweden for families to have candy allowed only on Saturdays, so after our kids got to pick out the candy, we had to make them wait until the next day...all part of blending with the culture:)
Their cabin is located on one of Sweden's many islands on the eastern boarder on the Baltic Sea. In Stockholm alone there are 30,000 islands called the Stockholm Archipelago of which 1,000 are inhabited. This picture on the map shows approximately where we were in Sweden. We drove from the Gävle area which is where we live and Stockholm is about 2 hours drive.
Many people in Sweden are quite handy as I have learned and a lot of people build houses for themselves (it is the best way in Sweden to afford nice houses because labor costs are so high). This is the case for our friends that took us here this weekend. Häkon and Catherina bought this piece of property with a tiny cabin on it (that eventually became the guest cabin), and then from the bottom up, Häkon built the cabin with his father, only hiring people to help with the wiring and plumbing work and sealing the walls and roof. The island has about 50 houses on it, but they are fairly spread out and very private. Also, there is no sewer system on the island and although running water and electricity are in the house, there is no bathroom inside. There is an outhouse (it is a pretty nice building complete with lights). Currently they are still working on an indoor bathroom, so the only place to shower is outside too.
Häkon had to take us by boat to the island along with luggage and groceries, etc. He keeps a boat in a marina close so it was about a 5 minute boat ride. We arrived late the first evening so settled in for the night so we could get an early start on the next very full day.
The next day was great weather. We started out the day by playing a soccer game, kids vs. parents, on a soccer field on the island. Two 25 minute halves and parents were up 3-2 after the first half I believe, but they must have wore us out, because they won by one goal at the end, and we weren't going easy!
After soccer, a few brave people (myself included) tried a dip in the water a cool 19 degrees Celsius, or 66 degrees for my fellow American friends...it was shockingly cold at first, but then I think you get really numb because after a while, it felt great!
After a shower to warm back up, Häkon brought the kids one by one on an inner tube ride by boat.
Then Häkon took us on a tour of their island and surroundings. It was beautiful!
Then it was my kids favorite time of day...Fika!!! Fika is a Swedish name for coffee and a sweet treat time and ever since we arrived it was one of the first terms they learned and everyafternoon, they beg for Fika (minus the coffee of course) and I usually give them a couple of cookies or something. This treat was homemade from the kids' grandmother and was particularly delicious!
So continuing on with a very Swedish day (I say this because these seem pretty typical activities to me from what I know so far about Sweden), we helped Häkon assemble some Ikea furniture. He is getting the bathroom put together soon and so we helped assemble the bathroom sink cabinetry so it will be ready for the installers when they come.
The day got even better as a traditional Swedish summer dinner of crayfish was prepared complete with decorations, hats, Aquavit and typical Swedish drinking songs.
Aquavit is a Swedish drink described to me as flavored vodka.
They even had this song book that was made by Sandvik for the propose of enabling English speaking people to sing-a-long at a dinner and if you look in the following picture, the first paragraph is the song in Swedish, the second is the words you could pronounce in English to make the same sounds as the Swedish words, and the third paragraph is the direct translation:)
The next day Catherina and the boys and I went into the woods picking berries. They had many blueberries and also they had lingonberries (very similar to cranberries) which are typically cooked down and made into a jam and served with Swedish Meatballs. They even have special tools for scooping up the berries and then after sifting out the dirt and leaves. We scored 2 buckets full of lingonberries and one of blueberries. I will be attempting the jam today and having it with meatballs tonight.
Alex picking berries...
Ben cleaning them...
It was a fabulous weekend and it was great learning even more about the Swedish lifestyles and cultures.
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