Nereus to Ursholmen

Today we were fortunate to be invited to join a class trip to Ursholmen, the site of the westernmost lighthouse in Sweden.

Not quite sittin' on the dock of the bay... but close.

Tjärno is top right, Ursholmen is red flag. Thanks, Google!

We donned lifejackets and climbed on the Nereus, one of the vessels belonging to the marine lab here in Tjärnö. About 20 undergrads studying ocean biodiversity came aboard, planning to spend the day snorkeling and learning to recognize the local seaweeds.

The Nereus, ready to head out.

Safety first!

On the ride out, the sky was grey and the water was calm. There was just one patch of rougher water, where the boat jumped up and down a bit. The girls stood gripping the railing at the bow of the ship, and screamed together in delight.

Ursholmen means "rocky island" which is funny because all of the islands here are rocky. Ursholmen is part of what's called the Strömstad archipelago, a collection rocky islands too numerous to count.

Time for a rest when you make it to the top!

On the island, the first thing the Swedes did was sit down and have a quick fika. Our friend Gunilla, the course instructor, gave some instructions to her students and they were off, changing into wetsuits and clambering over rocks to get down to the water.

"I am MOANA!" (That's literally what she yelled.)

We didn't brave the chilly water. Instead, we did some rock clambering of our own. We eventually made it up to the highest point on the island, where the lighthouses stand. They were automated in 1965, but before that a lighthouse keeper and a few other families lived out here. I can't imagine what life on this remote, isolated rock must have been like for them.

These few houses are the westernmost buildings in Sweden.

1891. Imagine living out here over 100 years ago.

By noon, the sun had come out and we were hot from our exertions. We laid a blanket on the grass in the shade for a picnic lunch, in the center of the small circle of old houses.

Om... with a mug for fika. Because Sweden.

The return trip was sunnier, but didn't provide any wave-riding entertainment. We saw some seals, basking in the sun on a low rocky spit. We saw countless jellyfish and seabirds. We saw not a single speck of trash in the ocean.

Lighthouse family selfie.

 A beautiful day, in a beautiful place. We are all feeling very thankful to our Swedish friends for inviting us to tag along on this adventure. Couldn't ask for a better way to start the week.

Tunnbrödsrolle Tutorial

I have a Swedish friend. I ask her all of my pressing, international inquiries such as, "How can I pay this Norwegian parking ticket?" and "Where should I leave my shoes at the pool?" and "What else do you eat with the crunchy roasted onions?"

Visiting Nordens Ark, we discovered that Swedes like to put crunchy roasted onions on their hot dogs. Friends repeatedly confirmed this when we were invited over to barbecue and offered roasted onions for our hot dogs.

Americans will recognize this food as "that crunchy stuff we only eat once a year on top of the green bean casserole at Thanksgiving". We call them "French fried onions" and ours are more like strips, but the Swedish ones are more like little chunks.

After this crunchy deliciousness came to my attention, I noticed it in the grocery stores. Sometimes, it is sold in giant bags. I couldn't imagine that all of that was for hot dogs, so I asked my Swedish friend: What else do you put that on?

She replied, "Nothing... Except, if you want to make your hot dog a bit fancier, you can do this."

And then she proceeded to describe to me the Swedish specialty known as a tunnbrödsrolle (translation: thin bread roll).

And here's how you make it!

Step 1: Get our your tunnbröd

It looks like this. Don't get the crispy kind!

Step 2: Make some mashed potatoes. You can get all fancy-like and boil actual potatoes, but this isn't gourmet food. I opted for the instant version.

Instant potatismos!

Just follow the simple instructions!

Step 3: Cook up some hot dogs. Again, you could grill them if you're feeling fancy and you want to make your life difficult. I put them in a pan of hot water.

Bacon and cheese make everything better.

That's not a blurry photo. That's steam!

Step 4: Get out your roasted onions and ketchup.

These are so delicious. Why can't we put them on everything?

Ok, yeah, I should've gotten some Swedish ketchup, but y'know.

Step 5: Put it all together! Smear some potatismos on your tunnbröd. Then toss a grillkorv on there, and top it with the rostad lök. Roll that sucker up and you're ready to go!

See how easy?

Voila! Dinner is served!

It is sort of like a hot dog burrito, I guess? Or hot dog wrap? The addition of the mashed potatoes was... interesting. Can't be any weirder than putting French fries in your Cali burrito, amiright?

Oh, and apparently if you want to take the fanciness factor of this dish up to eleven, you can add shrimp salad. Yes, that is correct. Shrimp salad. As in, cold cooked shrimp tossed in mayo. (Needless to say, my family did NOT approve of this variation.)

This dish got a passing grade from the Long family. I asked the kids what they thought of it and got one, "It's good," and one mute nod. Jeremy and I liked it just fine, but I think I'll stick with a traditional hot dog. In a bun. As long as I can pour a pile of those crunchy onions over the top of that, it'll be all good!

Thwarted

(I'm posting this on May 24, but this happened on May 5, our second day in Germany.)

The girls and I had one day to spend together in Hamburg, waiting for my mom to arrive. I started the search for things to do and found one of those "If you only have one day..." itineraries. It recommended a place called Miniature Wonderland and the Hamburg Dungeon.

Hotel play in Hamburg

I decided to dig a bit further into the Dungeon, because I suspected it might be a bit much for the kids. Although their website sells kid tickets and advertises group sales for school visits, I was still wary. I finally found some reviews that confirmed my suspicions, basically saying this place is way too scary for children and perhaps too scary for easily-frightened adults. Since we were a group entirely of children and one easily-frightened adult, the dungeon was definitely out.

On to the Wonderland! The Internet said I should reserve tickets online, to avoid waiting around for hours during busy times. Unfortunately, all of the morning slots were booked. Since we had to be back at the hotel to meet my mom mid-afternoon, this made the Wonderland also a no-go.

At this point, the girls took over the research. They found a trampoline place which I vetoed ("We can do that at home!") and an indoor play place which I also nixed when we looked up the directions: Take two trains, a bus, walk around 8 blocks, find the secret entrance behind the abandoned warehouse, etc. etc.

Poring over the city map, making plans.

Eventually, I found an itinerary that was a tour of the old part of the city center. It included a visit to the Rathaus (city hall) which had a self-guided tour, and a couple of local churches, one of which boasts a small museum and a panoramic view of the city. I knew I could get to the Rathaus by train and the three locations were in close walking distance from one another, so this seemed like the perfect plan.

After only slightly messing up the train ride (the train around the city center appears to go in a giant circle, luckily a friendly local told us we were going the wrong way on the circle), we popped out into the pouring rain right outside the Rathaus... which was surrounded by barricades and police officers. I asked them if we could go in and received a resounding nein.

The girls and I took off running to the center of the square to escape the rain and regroup. We decided to press on to the next stop on our little itinerary: the museum in the church. From our crummy map, we couldn't really tell exactly which way to go, but when we looked off in the direction we thought it should be, we saw a tall spire!

"Yes! There it is!" we shouted triumphantly. Then Savannah said, "And there's another one!" And Chelsea said, "And another one!" The city was practically littered with church spires. Those tricky Lutherans! Unsure of which church spire was the one we wanted, we dashed off in the approximate direction of one of them.

On the way, we became entirely soaking wet (although we own both snow and rain gear, including rain jackets and umbrellas, we neglected to bring any of that to Germany). We made numerous turns down dead-end paths, lost sight of the spire again and again, and finally came close enough to see that the church we hoped to visit was covered in scaffolding and closed until 2018.

C'mon!!!

Another mad dash through the rain towards a spire, any spire, landed us at a random yet beautiful old church. Relieved to be out of the rain, we stepped inside and made a silent tour of the interior. The church held an art exhibit of large fabric panels, painted with brush strokes. A group of children sat in a circle listening to an adult, apparently a school group on a field trip to see the church and the exhibit. Chelsea noticed a place to light candles and asked to light one. As she began, the entire group of children made their way over and surrounded her. She was slightly unnerved to be performing this task in front of an audience, but completed the lighting nonetheless.

Stained glass. Always incredible.

Leaving the church, we looked for the nearest place to stop for lunch. A small cafe nearby offered delicious fresh pasta (Travel Rule 1: You can't go wrong with pasta carbonara; there's bacon in there!). I felt a radiating contempt from the two staff members who served us. Was it that we were idiot foreigners, invading their local cafe? Was it that I had the audacity to bring children into their fine establishment? Whatever the reason, it left me feeling upset and unwelcome on an already frustrating day.

Looking back on this day now, it has become the stuff of family legend. The girls and I imagine ourselves to be Keystone Cops: incompetent yet hilarious stars of our own personal comedy. We remember dashing through the rain laughing, being thwarted at every attempt to do something, anything, that day. The girls remember the delicious lunch, no inkling of the harsh glares from the staff. They remember that despite all the difficulties of that day, we saw a something of the city and made it back in time to meet Oma when she arrived. As with so many things in life, it wasn't very funny at the time, but now we reminisce about it and just laugh.

Hamburgers in Hamburg!

My mom, who was born and raised in Germany, has been dreaming of taking my girls to visit her hometown since the girls were little. Life has gotten in the way of all our various schemes and plans over the years. But now that we're living in Sweden for half a year, a trip to Germany became infinitely more possible

Because Jeremy has a completely ridiculous and unbelievable life, he got himself invited to a Latin dance camp (wait for it) ... in Germany. Perfect opportunity to combine his trip with ours. The four of us flew together from Gothenburg to Hamburg, which is in northern Germany. From there, he'd set out for three days of dance camp, and we'd meet up with my mom to travel to her hometown.

 

We had one day to explore Hamburg together before Jeremy had to leave. Looking for an indoor activity, we stumbled upon a tropical aquarium. It looked fine from the outside, and since we had no way of looking it up online to check reviews or see what it was like, we just went for it.

The first door we went through had a sign that said something like "free roaming animals" so I thought, maybe birds? Or, some animals held by a keeper? I did not anticipate what we saw.

Lemurs. Free-range lemurs! Mostly just lying in a pile, keeping each other warm, or huddled under a heat lamp. (Germany is cold, if you are from Madagascar!) Chelsea wanted to pet them and hold them, but got a firm no from the staff member guarding them.

As we walked on, many of the animals on exhibit seemed to roam free. In many cases, the exhibits were designed so that you could see the animals without looking through glass, but you couldn't reach them nor could they escape. We saw lots of lizards, birds, and snakes. A few cute mammals, including a colony of dwarf mongoose. They had an open exhibit with a couple of scary-looking crocodiles. In the aquarium section, the girls both found a favorite. 

Jeremy left us later that afternoon, so I was in charge of dinner plans. Luckily for us, there was a 1950s style diner just down the street. I know, I know. Hamburgers are not from Hamburg. But how can you resist?

Quick trip to Göteborg

Our first two trips to Gothenburg were for taking care of business: getting Swedish residence cards and trying to buy a car. Of course, we managed to sneak in some fun time. This weekend, we took a trip into the city, just for fun.

We started at the city park, slottsskogen, and convinced the children to bypass the epic play area. Hiking through the park's trails, we visited a petting zoo, saw ponies and water birds, and found the penguin exhibit.

We held our own "bridging" ceremony.
Both girls bridge to the next level of Girl Scouts this year.

Magellanic penguin. It's so cold here, they live outside!

In the afternoon, Jeremy snuck off to take a dance class at his favorite Swedish dance studio. The girls and I spent some more time exploring the city.

We found a luck dragon to ride.

Chelsea!

On Sunday, we took a boat tour of the city. Gothenburg has canals running through it, and the harbor is the largest port in Scandinavia. We were lucky for the relatively warm weather, sunny and clear. Gothenburg is apparently known for it's "sideways rain".

We rode in a flat bottomed boat, which was open on top. On the tour, we passed under many low bridges. One bridge, called "the cheese slicer" had a large sculpture of a Swedish cheese slicer mounted underneath the bridge. Another bridge was so low, some people on the boat had to duck their heads to pass under it! The bridge's nickname? The hair dresser.

We learned a lot of interesting things about the city. It was founded in 1621 (just after the Pilgrims arrived in North America). Several statues nod to an early love of Greek mythology. The harbor used to be a major player in the ship building industry, but now the large cranes are designated as cultural heritage sites and may be used for bungee jumping! Best of all, we finally learned how to pronounce Göteborg in Swedish: yeh-teh-BOR-ee. I literally never would have guessed.

After lunch, we decided to split up. Savannah and Jeremy were eager to climb Gothenburg's highest mountain (which is not very high, at about 90m). Chelsea wanted to tag along with me to explore a different part of town.

Chelsea and I walked to Haga, one of the oldest neighborhoods in Gothenburg. It has charming, narrow pedestrian streets, full of cafes and shops. The local delicacy is a giant version of Sweden's ubiquitous kanelbulle (cinnamon roll), so we had to try one of those! I was pretty proud of myself that I managed to find a new part of town without a map, GPS, or internet access. (We did stop to ask one helpful older woman, but we found our way back to the hotel just by our sense of direction! Miraculous!)

Hooray for Haga!

Now that's what I call a Fika!

Meanwhile, at the top of the mountain...

Some interesting art.

Savannah surveys the scene.

And the panoramic shot to capture the incredible view.

There are still a whole list of things we haven't seen in Gothenburg yet: seals, a sensory trail, and international cottages (just within the slottsskogen), an amusement park, many museums. And we want to go back to many of the places we've already been. Since Jeremy enjoys dancing there so much, I'm sure this won't be our last opportunity to explore the city.

Being Known

One of the hardest things for me about living away from home, in a foreign country, is not having people around who really know me. It's different than being lonely, but similar.

Because we're on an island with very few people, many people know who we are. I don't always know who they are. There are a lot of folks who work at the lab, and when we meet, I'm not always clear on who they are (student? researcher? professor? maintenance staff? boat captain?). At first, I would just ask, but now that we've been here a while it's embarrassing to admit that I still don't know what people do here.

It has also been hard for me to learn people's names. When we first arrived, we met many people all at once. Often, their names were difficult to understand and even more difficult to pronounce. Sometimes they'd give me an alternative "English version" of their name, which is thoughtful, but effectively doubles the number of new names I encounter. I prefer knowing people's actual names, so sometimes when they give me the English version, I would try to convince them to help me pronounce the Swedish version. Which I usually fail at. And then forget.

We've been recognized in town a few times. At the mall, the mother of one of the elementary students overheard us speaking English, and came over to ask if we were the new family living on Tjärnö. (We are). She had heard about us from her daughter, whom we'd met during our school visit.

Another day, we were buying clothes in a local shop, and I was chatting up the cashier. She said, "Oh! Are you here with your husband who is on his sabbatical?" She had heard about us from her friend, who owns a local cafe and bike rental shop and was one of the first people we met in town.

Last Friday, on our weekly excursion to the big play place at Nordby, two mall employees recognized me. At the craft store, the cashier asked, "Didn't we meet before?" She remembered that I had been raving about my new favorite store, Clas Ohlson. Then, when I went to get a cup of coffee, the cashier at the cafe also recognized me: "Haven't you been here before?" She asked where we were from, and expressed her desire to visit California someday.

I think it helps a great deal that almost everyone here speaks exceptional English. It also helps that I'm generally chatty and (like many Americans) not afraid to share random personal details, like my love of Clas Ohlson. I think also because I spend so much time with my children, I'm eager for any adult conversation, even if it's just a passing chat with a cashier at the mall.

Although it's not the same as having friends or family nearby, who really know you, having some people around who remember you and recognize you is really nice. Makes me feel less alone.