In Which Dreams Become Reality

The first time I came to Sweden, I was 16. And I know it’s true. Everything from the “glory
days” does tend to take on a certain golden glow in memory. I was prepared for that.

But I am here to tell you, people. IT’S JUST LIKE I  REMEMBERED IT. The sun is shining, the lilacs are blooming. And everyone has a huge hedge of lilacs, so the air is just full of lilac. The flags are still blue and yellow. The houses are still red and white. The pear-flavored ice cream is still yummy, and the coffee, and the chocolate, don’t even get me started. We walked down the road and ate kebab for our first meal in Sweden, and yep, you guessed it. It’s just as good as I remembered. And they ACTUALLY SANG Den blomstertid and En vänlig grönskas rika dräkt BOTH the first time we went to church.

But you know, this time, I get to share it with the people I love most. And it makes it ever so much more so. Even if the boys roll their eyes when I point out the flag waving above the lilacs, and make them smell the lilacs, and point out the differences between the different varieties of lilacs…

Swedish landscapes: pastoral, idyllic... should I go on?

And this time, Kristina was waiting on the platform when we got off the train in Knivsta. If you know our exchange student from 2 years ago, you know that we were more than happy to see her. If you don’t know her, I’m sorry.

We got off the plane in Sweden and found all but one of our bags, and found the train station, and even found the right train. And on the 8-minute ride to Knivsta I was looking out the window and just getting happier and happier. And if you’re sick of this, feel free to skip this post. But when the train stopped at Knivsta station and Kristina’s smiling face popped in the door, well, that was the cherry on top of the icing on the cake. To coin a phrase.

We walked down the steps and under the tracks and there’s our house, just that close. It’s a good-sized two-story house, plenty of bedrooms and a garden and a swingset. Perfect for us. And Magnus and Becky Ijäs, our brave friends who are allowing us to use their house for the summer, were there to meet us and even offering to make us lunch. But I turned them down, 'cause I've been waiting 12 years to have kebab and I wasn't waiting any more. So we walked down the street to Panorama and ate kebab.

Kebab isn't anything like shish kebabs in America. It's slow roasted meat shaved off the spit in thin slices, served with a cold cucumber-sour cream sauce and assorted veggies. Not even a Swedish tradition - it was brought here by the many middle-eastern immigrants. Kebab is similar to gyros which can be found in larger American cities, but I've never had kebab in America. Even the kids thought it was great, and they fought over the leftovers later that day.

We had a nice couple days with Ijäses. They showed us the ropes and gave us survival tips. Becky was amazingly calm and organized. They left Sunday morning with all five kids in tow. I think if I had guests two days before I left we would have missed the plane. And I was not even close to that patient and organized even without guests. I was impressed.

Everyone's got their own godis bag!

As soon as I could I took the kids under the railroad tracks and down the block to the grocery store and introduced them to the wonders of lösviktgodis, or bulk candy. Sweden has really good candy, and it's mostly sold in bulk bins by the kilogram. So it's a great way to try all the different kinds without spending a bunch of money. Although we did spend a bunch of money the first time! Since then we've made it a tradition. Each kid gets 20 crowns on Saturday that they can spend on lösviktgodis. It's supposed to last all week... Guess if it ever does?

After we got our godis we walked across town to visit Kristina in her apartment. We had an easy dinner of pasta and salad to save Becky the trouble of making dinner.

That evening we lucked out and got to sit in on the last "Sunday School" class of the year. The call it Friday hour and get together Friday evenings, which is a nice excuse to visit during the week. It was special to see the kids eager to show what they'd learned during the year. And my kids thought the big bags of candy they got at the end were great, too. I think we'll have to be very diligent about brushing teeth!

In Which I Miss Out

Ok, here's where it gets tough to be a world away.

Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome

Gwenna Rakel Kuoppala

born July 16th. She weighed 8 lbs 4 oz.

Here she is with her adoring family, big sister Fiona and Grandma and Grandpa Heikki and Oili Kuoppala.









Congratulations to all of you... wish I could be there!

In Which I Soak My Head

So after we finished our sightseeing I drove on back to Atak, which I have by now added to my

favorites on the GPS. We picked up a new van, one of those attractive Euro-style shuttle bus

types. I think Magnus was disappointed when I told him that stick shift wouldn’t be a problem.

We had a good night’s sleep at Egilsborg and packed up in the morning. I had planned to spend

that night closer to the airport, since we have an early flight tomorrow. On the way south we

stopped at one of Iceland’s main attractions: Blue Lagoon.

Blue Lagoon is really quite the amazing place. It’s out in the middle of a lava field, nothing but black rocks for miles. You walk down a path from the parking lot, black lava piled on all sides, come around a corner, and there’s this aqua-blue water coming out of the ground. They’ve got a serious spa set up. And are they charging serious spa prices! Me and my five kids paid $45 to get

in, and another $40 to RENT TOWELS. They were nice towels, I admit it. And you never know, maybe towels are really expensive to buy in Iceland. But really.

So we got changed and showered and headed out to check out the situation. WOW. You’ve got this huge outdoor pool, formed to look natural, rocks and sand along the edges. The water is all the same milky blue color from all the minerals. It’s also really, really salty. The rocks along the edges are white from mineral buildup. There’s pockets of naturally occurring mud which is supposed to have therapeutic properties, which everyone smears all over. There’s a swim- through bar at one end, massage table at another. Oh, and did I mention that the water is actually bubbling up out of a steam vent off to one side? There’s a cave and a waterfall and built-in benches and bridges. It took us a good hour to check the whole place out.

The little kids had swim fins and the water is very buoyant since it’s so salty. So it wasn’t as tough as I was picturing to keep track of my 3 youngest. And there wasn’t much of anything that was over 5 feet deep. Remember, the water varies from 95 to 105 degrees Fahrenheit. So nobody’s really swimming laps. Most of the pool is actually closer to 2 ½ feet deep.

We brought sandwiches and fruit for lunch, which didn’t work out too well since tourist traps usually want to make maximum money off of the trapped tourists. They actually made us eat outside the building. But they did stop short of confiscating our food, I guess. We had a chilly, quick lunch!

Back at the lagoon, we found ourselves a corner with plenty of rocks to climb and room to splash. Drew and Rosalie figured out that they didn’t have to cling to me in the salt water and had the time of their lives. They were pretty sure that they had learned how to swim! I actually dozed off leaning against the edge of the pool. We stayed for about 6 hours and were total prunes by the time we left. I was impressed and recommend the experience, despite the price. But bring your own towel!

We drove south to Keflavik and found our motel, nice and clean and much more standard than our first lodging experience. We ate some drive-through hamburgers and hopped in bed. The alarm went off at 5 AM, possibly not what I would have chosen if the plane wasn’t leaving at 8. We ate a quick breakfast and headed to KEF.

I dropped the big boys and bags off in arrivals and drove the car to the rental drop-off. Magnus

was not happy to see me, and he didn’t have an invoice for me. Since I hadn’t filled the tank

before I came, I let him know and he charged me for the diesel. He also charged me for the diesel

a few days later, when he sent me an email saying that I had scratched the van and owed him

$600. Plus the diesel. I’m still not entirely sure what to do about that… We didn’t scratch his car,

of course, or I would have said so. I must have some kind of consumer protection or else rental

companies could do this all the time. We’ll have to see. In the meantime, he took my credit card

number and charged me the money. But I refuse to let him ruin my trip!

Keflavik International is a small airport, but they make up for it by having all their departures within a couple hours in the morning, so the lines are still long. We waited to check in for one hour. By that time the lady checking us in was so harried that she sent one of our bags off without a tag. We may see that bag again someday, but I don’t have high hopes. Fortunately, I packed all our necessities in our carry-ons. I somehow figured that with 12 bags we might not get all of them through three countries!

The flight to Sweden was uneventful. It was too cloudy to see the volcano, but we did get a glimpse of the Faeroe Islands on our way past. I will admit to wanting to break into “Du Gamla, Du Fria”, Sweden’s national anthem, at my first sight of Swedish soil. But I restrained myself. Maybe all that head-soaking in Iceland actually did some good!

In Which I Do Some Sightseeing

So after spending a few days in Reykjavik I decided it was time to venture farther afield. There are quite a few things worth seeing within an hour of Reykjavik. We decided to check out some geysers and a waterfall. There's a Danish guy staying at Egilsborg who has really taken a shine to the kids. Every time we come parading through the dining area he says, "Here comes Pippi and the Wikings!" Which cracks me up since the Danish word for Viking starts with a V and is pronounced with a V, but he says Wikings every time. Anyhow, he offered to come along to help keep the kids out of the waterfall. I was a little unsure at first but decided it might be worth having the extra hands.

But first we had to visit my buddy Magnus, who said that he was not happy to see me and that he didn't have anything for me to drive, and that I had to come back at 6 to pick something up. And that three hours was plenty of time to sightsee with 5 kids, anyhow. He's the best.

So we took off to Geysir, which apparently used to be one of the biggest geysers in the world until some kooky tourists (probably more of those dumb Americans) put a bunch of soap in the blowhole to see if it would make lots of bubbles. So now it only erupts if there's an earthquake. I was sincerely hoping not to see it. There have been small earthquakes while we've been here, but nothing I have been able to feel.

Thar she blows!

There's a smaller geyser in the same area, Strokkur, that goes off every ten minutes, though, which was fun to see, and plenty of little bubbling hot springs and mud pots and of course a gift shop. The boys all got baseball caps that say Iceland. I got mittens. It's blasted cold here! You'd think we were in Iceland or something!

Then it was on the the waterfall, Gullfoss. And I was glad to have another adult along. In true un-American style, there are no guardrails. Nope, friends, you have to use your brain while travelling in Iceland. The rocks just jut out directly over the immense waterfall, kind of sloping downwards, you know, so you can work up some speed if you happen to stumble. Not really my idea of a good time with five kids, but it was very impressive.

We stopped to take pictures in an area where there was at least a rope between us and obliteration.

On the way home we saw lots of the famous Icelandic horses, brought over by the Vikings and still pretty wild. Shaggy little things, but still pretty and fun to see. We met a whole herd galloping beside the road and even saw two stallions fighting. Unfortunately I was driving so we didn't get any photos.

Beautiful scenery along the way, too. And last but not, as far as the kids were concerned, least: our Danish friend bought them all ice cream on the way back!

In Which I Sample Local Cuisine

Here we are at our most adventurous! After waking up from our nap SOME of us were still a tad grumpy... and I still wasn't even sure what a grocery store might look like in Iceland. But I recognized this! And it was a hit with the kids. Left me feeling pretty sheepish, though.

So you may or may not have heard that Iceland's volcano is erupting again. Not the unpronounceable one from last year. This one is called Grimsvatn, Grim Water in Icelandic. So our plane was the last one down before they closed the airport. I am studiously not thinking about what it might be like to spend my summer in Iceland instead of Sweden.

Once we had eaten some food we drove around the city for a bit. Reykjavik is a very small capital city! One side to the other in maybe ten minutes. And we did track down a grocery store. So we picked up a random sampling of things we'd never seen before and brought them back to the hostel.

We made some Danish porridge which was a little strange, kind of a cross between tapioca and pasta. A little reminiscent of fish eggs, actually. Even the Danish guy at the hostel didn't recognize it. But they sell blueberry soup already made in cartons, which we added to the porridge. That was really good. And a really yummy, creamy Gouda cheese on hardtack, and that good, good European bread that is nothing like the marshmallow bread we have at home. We also grabbed some jam that we couldn't identify. We even asked a Brit in the store if he knew what it was, but he didn't recognize the word. Something exotic, we figured! When we got to the hostel Maggi informed us that it was "blended berries". So much for exotic, ha ha.

4 AM in Iceland

We all slept well that night. There is a little playground outside the hostel where the kids played while I made dinner, so they were plenty tired out. It actually got dark that night because of the ash. I woke up once at 4AM and peeked out the window. The sun was up by then but the sky was a funny orange color. But by the time we woke up for the day at ONE O'CLOCK (!!) the north wind had picked up and the sky was clear again. It was very chilly with the wind blowing straight out of Greenland. It even snowed a bit that night.

I was a little fried that we had slept so late, but when I counted out how many hours I'd slept (6 out of the last 72) I decided that we probably needed it.

We spent most of our afternoon at the city pool, which was heated geothermally. But even then the wind was so cold that our ears were aching, so we mostly stayed in one of the "hot pots", a smaller area surrounded by tall rocks to keep out the wind. But the kids had fun and the boys went down the waterslide. Even Rosalie went down once or twice.

Then we found a tiny little fishing shack restaurant where we ordered barbequed whale, lobster soup, and fish soup with squid. All very good and all very expensive.

Back at Egilsborg they had fixed the windows, so it was looking a bit more presentable. I did some laundry and the kids went to bed. I feel like I have a handle on the traffic and the city map and the food. We're settling in, hopefully not for the summer! The airport is supposed to reopen tomorrow, if the wind keeps blowing the right direction.