A Tremendous Thing

Hej from Stockholm!  Josh and I arrived in Stockholm yesterday and are spending a fairly quiet day catching up unfinished business, and preparing for the next stage of our journey. 

The last evening in Mora area we spent at Anna’s home in Färnäs with a number of friends from the Folk School.  There are two men named Kjell in this story and that can be confusing – so I will identify one as Tall Kjell (even though both are tall) and one as Geologist Kjell, which is the academic area of the other Kjell.  Geologist Kjell and his wife, Agneta, are neighbors of Anna and her partner, Tall Kjell.  Geologist Kjell and Agneta are also owners of the beautiful barn, which plays a key role in this story. 

Kjell and Agneta's barn

 The last week I was in Mora, I went with Geologist Kjell and Kerstin, a friend /colleague from the folk school, to see an exhibit of bags and purses made of repurposed fabrics by students in the design program at the Folk School.  The bags were clever and creative, and epitomized what I think of as that combination of artistic and sensible that characterizes Swedish design.  The exhibit was in a large second hand store, so, of course, we had to take a look around.  From a bin of old prints and paintings, Geologist Kjell pulled out a print of a famous Anders Zorn painting, titled Cabbage Margit, and said, “We live in Margit’s house.”  As it turns out “Margit” was one of Zorn’s favorite models and she grew up in Färnäs.  She was married and had a number of children.  At one time, her husband went to the United States to pan for gold, leaving her to care for the farm and the family.  He actually found some!  He used that gold to launch a gold trading business and did quite well.  He returned to Färnäs, a fairly wealthy man and set out to build the biggest and finest barn in Färnäs.  Margit’s house stayed in the family for a number of years, and also sat empty for a number of years.  Geologist Kjell and Agneta bought the property (a house made up of two connected houses – one from 1837 and one from 1905) about six years ago.  They have been lovingly restoring both the house and the barn these past years.  One small treasure they found in the barn was a post card addressed to Margit, inviting her to Anders Zorn’s 50^th Birthday party.  On my last evening in Dalarna (the province in central Sweden) I was thrilled to be able to see their beautiful home – Margit’s house.  Agneta had been working at home that day and had fires burning in the multiple wood stoves.  Besides being beautiful, it just felt so cozy.   It was too cold and dark to tour the barn, but looking forward to that will be but one of the many reasons I need to return to Sweden in the not too distant future.

Cabbage Margit

The post card inviting Margit to Zorn's birthday.

Margit's childhood bed, which was brought to her adult home.

 We returned to Anna’s house, and Tall Kjell whipped up one of his super nutritious delicious apple-beet-ginger juice drinks.  So Anna, Tall Kjell, Kerstin and Elizabeth (colleagues from the Folk School), Geologist Kjell, Agneta and I sat down to a final evening feast of fine food, wine and stories.  Josh and Isak, ate their dinner over video games and Simpsons.  It was the perfect closure to the first stage of the journey.  A weeper by nature, I could not say goodbye to any of these people without opening a floodgate.  I could simply say, “I will see you again,” and mean it with all my heart.

Tall Kjell, and me - with a glass of apple-beet-ginger juice.

Kerstin, Elizabeth, Geologist Kjell and Agneta

Bright and early the next morning, Anna drove us to the train station, and we set off for Göteborg (Gothenberg), Sweden.  This trip took about seven and a half hours and involved changing trains twice.  All went very smoothly but switching trains in Katrineholm involved going down a flight of steps across the short tunnel under the tracks, and up another flight of stairs to catch a train on another platform in less than ten minutes.  Travel guide writer, Rick Steves says there are two kinds of travelers: Those who pack light, and those who wish they had.  While I tried very conscientiously to be the first kind, those steps in the Katrineholm train station confirmed for me that I was firmly in the second category.  

We had a few hours to spend in Göteborg before our friend Mark could pick us up so we put our bags in a locker at the train station and set out to see a bit of the city.  The central train station is close to a huge indoor shopping mall, and not far from the Harbor.  There was snowboard “grinding” competition set up right in front of the Opera House by the Harbor, and lots and lots of activity on the streets.  There seemed to be a large number of police patrolling the area.  We were amused that the police cars were Volvos (of course) and the police vans were VW vans.  We later found out there had been a bomb threat in the area and two people arrested! 

VW police vans

At our agreed upon time, our host, Mark appeared and we set off to his house.  Mark, who also happens to be a geologist, was a colleague of mine at Gustavus for 17 years.  During a semester he spent at the Mora Folk School in about 1990, he met and fell in love with a beautiful Swedish woman named, Carina, whom he later married and began a new chapter in his life.  They have lived in Sweden now for about ten years and have a dynamic and talented eight-year-old daughter named Ellen.  Mark teaches at the University of Göteborg and, in addition to being a scientist, is an accomplished musician.  (He plays “vibes” or vibraphone.) Perhaps more significantly for Josh, he is a huge lover of music and has a music collection (both vinyl and CD) which kept Josh entertained and in awe for the four days we spent with Mark and Carina.  

We spent a day seeing a small sampling of the sights of Göteborg, time at the Universeum (which is like a combination of the Science Museum, a Zoo and Underwater World), and the second day, when the rain and wind curtailed our trip out to nearby islands, we opted for a tour of the Volvo factory.  But the very best moments were the times spent at home  - eating banana pancakes for breakfast, homemade Swedish meatballs for dinner, playing Yatzy, playing with Twisty and Cartman (their dog and cat, respectively) and listening to an impromptu jam with Ellen on flute and Mark on piano.  

Josh selecting his new Volvo - orange, of course.

Mark and Ellen jamming together

 I don’t know if there are words that express how wonderful it is when individuals make your feel completely at home when you are, in fact, far, far away from home.   As the brilliant E.B. White once said, "You have been my friends. That in itself is a tremendous thing."  A tremendous thing, indeed.

Twisty (the dog) Ellen, Mark and Carina.

Yesterday, we once again boarded a train and headed to a new city. We arrived in Stockholm just before 5:00 PM, found our way to the subway (the T-bana) and then followed our Internet directions to the hostel where we would stay for a few days.  The steps out of the subway station confirmed for me, once again, I had not packed lightly enough, and I was a bit grouchy as we dragged our suitcase the “five minute walk” from the subway station to the hostel through the already dark streets of Stockholm.  As we settled into our very small room, pulled the Murphy bunk beds from the wall, and searched out the W.C. a long way down the hall, I remember thinking “I am too old for this.”  The last time I stayed in a hostel was the summer of ’74, I was 19 years old and backpacking through Norway.  However, dinner and glass of wine improved my attitude immensely.  That evening, Josh discovered the best internet connection was to be had in the small café at the hostel, and settled in.

Today, we slept relatively late, ate breakfast at the hostel and set off to explore the city.  We walked to Gamla Stan, the old town in Stockholm.  There are buildings there from the 1300’s but most of the buildings are from the 1700 and 1800’s.  While the tiny twisting streets and old buildings are lovely, it is mostly souvenir stores and other tourist kitsch.  Tomorrow, we plan to connect with our friend, Anton, who was an international student at Gustavus last fall. 

On the train to Stockholm, I felt a little anxious like this was really the beginning of the “adventure.”  We will have far fewer friendly and familiar faces waiting for us in the cities that are next on our itinerary.  Yet I am comforted by the fact we have so many wonderful memories to support us when the road ahead gets a little bumpy. 

In his book, Confucius Lives Next Door, T.R. Reid quotes the wise old sage as stating, “Isn’t it a pleasure to have an old friend visit from afar?”  I only hope I have the opportunity to return the kindness that has been shown to me these last weeks, and experience the pleasure of having these friends, old and new, visit me when I am back in my hometown.  To all of them I can only say, tack så mycket – thank you so much.