Kungsbacka

myself with Krister and Barbo, with their house
in the background.

The West Coast of Sweden


Following on from our few days in Stockholm, we caught the train and headed west across Sweden, to Kungsbacka, which is just south of Göteborg. From east coast to west coast took just over 3 hours, in a train travelling at 200km /hour. It was a very pleasant and easy way to travel.

We were met by my two host fathers from my time in Kungsbacka. Krister and Håkan were there with two cars to transport the five of us and our luggage. From the moment they met us on the platform, we felt so welcomed. 

Barbro, with Håkan and Ulla Lignell, my second
host parents

During my exchange year, I spent most of the time with Krister and Barbro Egner and their children, Mikael, Kerstin & Karin. Krister and Barbro have now moved out of Kungsbacka to a small town called Åsa, which is where they had their summer house. Summer house has been renovated beautifully and is now their home all year round. 

Gemma with Malin Lignell, Kerstin and Karin (both Egners,
my host sisters in Sweden)

The time in Kungsbacka / Åsa again was all about people. We did no sight-seeing, instead preferring to renew relationships and catch up on the last 12 years of our lives. To our surprise, and delight, three of my "host siblings", Kerstin, Karin and Martin took a day off work to spend with us. Kerstin and Martin are both teachers, at the same school, and this was the PD week before students start the new academic year ... so not an easy time to ask for a day off! 

We had a wonderful day with them and their children, then later in the evening, their husbands/wives, with the main activity being crab fishing in the Kungsbacka fjord. This involved stretching out on the jetty, reaching underneath the jetty, pulling mussels off the wooden boards, cracking them open, attaching them to a peg on the end of a long piece of string and then dangling them in the water. To our amazement, the crabs came running! We caught heaps of the things - like about 40-50! It was so easy, lots of fun and great excitement. One of the children ran around with the net to scoop the crabs in and they were placed in a bucket for safe keeping. These crabs were all too small to eat, but if you go further into the fjord, you can larger ones. Finally, all the crabs are tipped out and there is a crab race to see which one makes it back to its natural habitat first. What great fun!

the crab fishing process

The simple fishing line - peg, with crab still
attached

The crab race is underway.

We had managed to leave our good DSLR camera in Stockholm, so much of the time in Åsa was spent closely following the DHL delivery service and working out whether it would arrive before we left Åsa or not. Thankfully, it was delivered to the small service station one hour before we were due to depart! The nick of time!

On both nights in Åsa, Barbro and Krister hosted dinner for 20+ people. It was a lovely way to catch up with everyone but a great effort for them all. That is a lot of food to prepare! It seems summer just ended in this part of Sweden, and the weather cooled each afternoon; there were showers of rain just before a couple of meals, but each time, we were able to eat outside - important with such large numbers. The food was yummy, healthy and just want we craved. The company was great and each evening, Martin Lignell pulled out his guitar, so the music was superb!

part of the table for one meal .....

There was ice-cream eating in the afternoon!

One of the things that constantly amazes us on this holiday is how children across the world can all communicate through play. Despite language barriers, give the children anything simple, such as snow, water, swings, balls, frisbees, or board games and they seem to be able to occupy themselves and interact together for a significant amount of time. This has amazed us with both French speaking Canadians and Swedes. Our children have loved playing with other children - after so many months together, they love meeting other children and regularly ask if they can just "play". These three days in Åsa were no exception. These photos show some of the things the children found to do. Occasionally they asked an adult to help with translation; or there was a teenager who had some English, but overall, they played together so well.

Crab fishing was a great ice-breaker
for the children

some croquet ....

and iPhones are universal...

 frisbee...

some twister ...

building a new kingdom.

Just like in Stockholm, we had a great few days of talking, remembering and laughing. With relationships renewed and dreams of visitors to Canberra, we farewelled Sweden and wandered our way down to London. 

Stockholm city

As the previous post said, when planning to visit Stockholm we really just wanted to catch up with people.  We knew we would spend very little time exploring the city. To be honest, the children were ready for a break from exploring and much preferred the days of swimming and playing.

Great colours on the buildings

We did however, spend one afternoon exploring. The main tourist feature in Stockholm is Gamla Stan, which is the old city. The old city dates back to the 13th century and is full of narrow streets, cobbled roads and great architecture. We made lots of comparisons with Quebec City's architecture and there are some common influences.



Cute courtyards and streets ....

Walking back towards the city

We ate some traditional Swedish food ... pittipana, which is fried potato and sausage, served with an egg on top and a side of beetroot; then meatballs with liggonberries (actually available at Ikea!). The traditional food was finished off later in the afternoon with a Swedish version of a hotdog - korv med bröd, but much nicer sausage than what is in our hotdog!

 A little souvenir shopping, as we do love Swedish designs (and we found some Pippi Longstocking merchandise) and we were done!

Stockholm, Sweden

In Älgö with Martin & Josefin, Eevery meal was
on this deck - made it easy to relax!

We had a pretty awful overnight flight from New York to Stockholm. Not sure what we were thinking when we booked that! We knew however, that we were in for a few days of relaxation in Stockholm so we were looking forward to that.

Both Tony and I spent time living in Sweden as exchange students. Tony was there many years before me! This wasn't how we met, but we discovered it very quickly and the fact that we can both use the language is a unique skill of ours!


We were so lucky to reunite with many of our friends and host families. We were given amazing food, great welcomes, laughed at memories, did lots of swimming (in water ranging from 24 degrees down to 15 degrees), had very family friendly food (which after lots of travelling was very, very welcomed), drank lots of strong coffee, watched lots of sunsets, slept, watched kids develop confidence and make new friends, spoke Swedish and generally felt very spoilt and lucky.

There was heaps of jumping!

Firstly we went to a small town just outside of Stockholm first, called Älgö, where we spent time with Martin Broden his wife Josefin and their two children Samuel and Mikaeala. This family have just spent 6 years living in Brussels and are about to relocate to Geneva, so the children speak three languages (Swedish, French and English) fluently. We were instantly made to feel welcomed and at home. All the children became instant friends and we had a fabulous 4 days of sleeping, swimming, eating ice-creams, chatting, dancing, learning the Swedish game Kubb and enjoying the sun.

and lots of ice-creaming eating too!

We were privileged to see many dance performances ...

and we loved learning how to play Kubb.

The whole Broden family came for dinner one night. 

From Älgö, which is just south of Stockholm, we headed north into the archipelago. The Stockholm archipelago is made up of about 24 000 islands. It sits in the Baltic Sea, but the water mixes with the fresh water of the lakes in Stockholm, so the water is known as "brackish" - a mix of salt and fresh. It feels lovely on your skin and you don't need to shower after swimming. In fact, mostly you wash in the water ... take the body wash into the water and wash there!

Nisse and Kerstin with our family

We went to another family connection from Tony's time in Stockholm - Kerstin and Nisse Zetterberg and their large family. They have a summer house on an island called Blidö. There are four houses on the island, so each child in the family has their own house for their part of the family. They spend many weeks there over summer and enjoy time together. 

One of the games in fem kamp

We had a fun couple of days, playing "fem kamp" which are traditional Midsummer games, which was in mid June. We spent time with each part of the family which allowed us to get to know their children (all young adults) better. We even participated in a traditional sauna (usually done naked, in winter, in the dark .... we did it with swimmers, in summer, in the morning ... so not really traditional in any way). Kids loved that - we kept the sauna to 60 degrees and then jumped into the 16 degree brackish water! 

Warming up nicely....

 .... the run down the jetty into the water!

We watched the moon rise at 10pm, 

and hung out with lots of great people .... Malin and Karin below, but also Johann, Tobias, Isabelle and many other members of the Zetterberg family.

Peter, me, Gus, Ove & Tony

 From Blidö, we returned to Stockholm again, to visit another member of the Zetterberg family who wasn't at Blidö. Gus and her husband Ove have actually visited us in Canberra, about 4 years ago. Their son Peter, visited about 13 years as a 20 year old and spent quite a lot of time with Tony doing some hiking in Koscuiskzo, so great fun to reunite with all of them.

tough setting!

another sunset from the end of the jetty, overlooking Lake Mälaren 

The highlight for the children however, was a ride on Gus' horses. They all loved it. Olivia has announced that she has a new hobby.... not sure I'm ready for that one! Gus and Ove also had two dogs and for those who know my two daughters, they are rather apprehensive (read terrified) around dogs. Well .... after just a few hours, Sophie and Olivia could not leave these dogs alone and are asking for a dog (as well as a horse). There is hope of curing this dog fear they possess!

Our final night in Stockholm was with Bernt and Britta. We had spent time with them and stayed in their house at Blidö but we had one night with them in Stockholm.

Bernt and Britta, with their son Johann.

So Stockholm was all about the people, which made it very special. We hope to reciprocate the kindness back in Australia one day soon!