Goodbyes and Mai TaisThe final few days in Sweden were an exhausted happy blur. As always, I had to swallow my tears saying goodbye to my mother-in-law Else-Maj, who I quite simply adore. I blamed the cold for my watery eyes and tried to just focus on the road. The trees were still dressed in their snowy coats along the highway and it was a gorgeous distraction. E4, the main highway from Haparanda to Luleå is lined with huge trees and in a few of the small fields we passed, we saw reindeer grazing.
Fairytale forest along the E4 from Haparanda From Luleå we flew back to Stockholm. As we boarded our plane south, Sydney and I agreed to give Robert the window seat, so he could feel his feels about leaving his home. We were feeling very magnanimous and a little sad for him, too. But then when we got to our seats, this was his. We laughed half the way to Stockholm. As ever, that laughter is the best medicine and was good for our sore hearts after saying goodbye. We didn't have much time to be sad after we arrived in Stockholm; we had to jump into a taxi and ride to Uppsala to meet Sven Erick, Robert's PhD professor. He offered to host us for one night and we were thrilled to see him again. He's visited us in the states and in Iceland and he's another of my friends around the world who hold a tiny piece of my heart. He immediately served us warm glögg, then put on a wonderful Christmas dinner for us--we were profoundly spoiled by Swedish hospitality--and afterwards, we drank most of his beer and Sydney tasted most of his collection of whiskeys. Sven Erick had the best glögg of the trip! Sven Erick's Christmas dinner. Sydney and I both ate herring and smoked eel like brave people who eat things. Instant hangover: just add people. In the morning we explored a little bit of Uppsala: I wanted Sydney to see the old cathedral, and of course there were pastries to be had. We started with fika at Ofvandahls, a cafe that's been around since 1878. There was a harried, scruffy old professory-looking guy sitting next to us and I remain 75% sure he was a ghost. After our coffee, we walked up to the cathedral, Uppsala domkyrka. It was built starting in the late 1200s and visiting, to me, is one of the quintessential experiences of being in Europe.
There are many famous people interred in the cathedral, including Gustav Vasa, the king in the 16th century. He's buried with his three wives, though only two are on the sarcophagus.
It also houses the second oldest medical theater in the world, from 1663.
After a quick lunch in the town center, we had to go say farewell to Sven Erick and head back to Stockholm. I loved introducing my niece to Sven Erick; he's one of these people that knows so damn much about everything. I love to ask him questions because he always has a fantastic answer that usually leads to even more fantastic conversation. As always I hated saying goodbye.
Tired, but ready for the last leg of the trip.
We met up with Roland, Jimmy, and Robert's niece Petra at a British pub, then we all had drinks, dinner, and a walk through town.
The next day, we got up and headed downtown again. We took the train from Roland's neighborhood, and I absolutely love this train station. It's carved out to look like a cave.
Once downtown, we headed for lunch: Sydney's first kebab pizza. One hundred percent of the people on this trip agree that we need kebab pizza in America. After lunch we stopped by one of Roland's favorite spots for beer, Omnipollos hatt. This was the Omnipollo Noa Pecan Mud Stout. Good gravy it was dangerously delicious.
From there, we walked a bit to show Sydney the city.
We wound up at Roland's other favorite place, Brewdog. Viking Sister Jessica met us, with her family--including my tour guide Jimmy--for drinks and dinner. We ended up at a very crazy Thai restaurant that was decorated in about a million fairy lights, neon paint and black lights. It's possible that I had too much to drink. I blame the decor. And the amazing company. The dog in this Brewdog, Alfred. The craziest Thai place ever, Koh Phangan.
We had initially planned to visit Jessica's house early on New Year's Eve, but we had all come down with the wine flu and instead rested and packed for our morning flights home. (If I'm being honest, I was grateful to have been spared saying goodbye.) We did leave the house very briefly to have one last fika and to pick up something to cook for dinner.
Roland was prepared with a couple fantastic champagnes (and wines and beers). We all cooked a gorgeous dinner together, and relieved Roland of several bottles of wine.
Sydney and I agreed to my standard "see you tomorrow" goodbye at the airport. If I had let the tears start, there would have been no stopping them. Some friends and family around the world do have a little piece of my heart with them, but Sydney is my heart. We haven't spent this much time together since she was a baby and I was her nanny, and I was devastated to leave her (our flight to LA left hours before hers to Chicago). I am so proud to have been able to introduce Syd to my husband's family, and so proud of the family (and friends) that I married into, who each welcomed her with so much love. We've been home for a day now, but my mind and heart are still back in Sweden with Sydney and Robert, Roland, Else-Maj, Solveig, Christer, Petra, Anton, Jessica, Robin, Sven Erick, and especially Jimmy. I'm grateful most of all to my husband for making this trip possible, for making this life that we live possible. Developments from Robert's week in Finland have led to us looking into moving to Helsinki in the coming year. We never turn down opportunities when they present themselves, and I would love to be closer to his family and to see more of the world. Plus, if there is any chance at all that I can get Sydney back into the Finnish sauna, I'm taking it. If you've read all this and have been following along on the trip, thank you so much! I wrote it as a way to better record what I knew was going to be a meaningful, once in a lifetime holiday. Now that we're back in LA I think I'm going to keep it up, because I found that the mere act of recording these experiences as they've happened has given them deeper meaning for me. There is certainly no shortage of interesting places to write about here in Los Angeles, and if we do move to Finland, I'll be grateful for the memories here. Hopefully you'll come along for that ride, too.
Last day in the NorthThis was our last full day in Haparanda, and we were lucky that the snow finally stopped and the skies cleared for us this morning. We got ready early and made a last visit to Taavolagården for coffee and cakes. It's so homey inside, they have this large cupboard filled with different cups for your coffee or tea. Today's cakes. Carrot cake for breakfast was just the thing. Robert had butter cake and Sydney had a spice cake.
It was cold enough to frost over the windows today. Robert said this looks like a Wes Anderson cafe.
The sun was finally up. Until next year! Up the road from my favorite cafe in the world is a place called Kukkolaforsen. It's an old fishing village on the rapids of the Tornio river. With no winds and very light powdery snow, the trees were stunning in their fur coats as the sun came up and turned everything pink and gold.
Robert took a few shots of the trees in the light as we drove back into Haparanda towards the Finnish border for sunset and some lunch. With the sun so low it's blinding to drive west.
From the banks of the river, just at the Finnish border, we watched the sun set over the rail bridge. The trees kept their fur coats on until just after we got home, when the wind picked up and the snow came blowing down.
The only Haparanda treat Sydney had left to try was a burger. Robert has a deep affection for "hamburger sauce" and after eating at the local place, I understand why.
sparklersIt snowed again today and absolutely everything is white. It's breathtaking, if not the most fun to drive around or trudge through. We still took a quick trip to the forest to have some fun with the sparklers we bought earlier this week. We all took turns doing ridiculous dances among the snow-covered trees, until we nearly ran out of matches and my boots became packed with snow. I think we need to re-do this experiment when we get back to Stockholm, with many more sparklers and many more people.
Haparanda TimeThe last thing we did on Christmas was go to the cemetery to light candles for Robert's family members who have passed. After we lit candles at the graves, we went on to the memory garden. They have a beautiful tradition here at cemeteries, a special place to light candles for people who were cremated and don't have a headstone, or if you are in another town from your loved ones, you may light a candle for them. I think it's the most touching and lovely thing and I always get a little emotional when we go there. This morning we woke up to -9 C and thick fog as well as maybe half a foot of snow. The ground was so bright and I could see only as far as the store across the street; it was as if a huge cloud settled upon Haparanda. I'd been fiddling with the photos I'd taken of Sydney's gingerbread house but felt unsatisfied. We kept joking about how much it looked like the witch's house in Hansel and Gretel, and it seemed to me that it'd look fantastic out in all that snow. We headed out to the forest to find a place for it. Some squirrels and foxes and birds will have had their holiday treats today.
The forest area, Riekkola, just outside the main part of town, was blanketed in snow and the townspeople came to ski and sled on the hills. We just took a short walk through the trees.
It was so cold today that your breath would turn your hair to frost. Robert and Roland told us about when they were small and first learned Orienteering in these woods. They would be given a map with waypoints, and the goal is to get through the waypoints in the designated route as quickly as possible. This marker on the tree is one spot along along a designated route. Sydney and I agree that this should be a thing back home! We also stopped at the Haparanda train station, which is actually huge for the size of Haparanda. Roland explained that it was built during the first world war and there was a lot of train traffic then as Sweden was neutral. We saw this fantastic Ministry of Silly Walks pedestrian crossing sign in the park. A local artist made a lot of different ones and the town gave the OK to post them, but the police decided they weren't a good idea and most have been taken down.
We heard this morning that the Christmas tree in the center of Haparanda was chosen the most beautiful in Norbotten, which is kind of a big deal because Norbotten is HUGE.
White ChristmasWe had planned on relaxing at home today. Instead, we got an offer we couldn't refuse. Robert and Roland's uncle Lasse has a wonderful cabin on the river just northeast of Haparanda, in the woods in Finland. We were invited to come and sauna, which is most definitely a verb in Finland. The weather report initially said "a bit of snow" but when I woke up this morning it was blowing sideways, drifting into small snow hillocks everywhere. I woke up to the smell of meatballs cooking: another way to tell it's Christmas. Roland was working hard in the kitchen.
We had a late breakfast, then, just as we were about to start icing our gingerbread house, we got the call to go to Finland. I had never been in a wood-fire sauna before, and we were all really excited to go now that the weather had turned snowy. GPS got us a bit lost on the way, and we found ourselves on some very snowy and deserted back roads in the middle of nowhere, Finland. A quick call to Lasse, some doubling back, and he met us to guide us to his cabin. I don't know what I expected, but it was more beautiful than I could imagine. It's their summer house, set on the river, with the sauna house, a small kitchen house, their old summer house and a new one. Of course everything is that lovely red and with the sun gone and the snow, it was absolutely glowing.
Robert has explained to me many times the proper sauna: go in, splash hot water on the coals to heat the room even more. Then there is a birch branch with leaves on it sitting in a pot of water.
You take this big wet branch and sort of, well, flog yourself with it all over. The idea behind this was explained to me quite vaguely as "it makes you feel good" and also that it gets rid of toxins. Then, when you cannot stand the heat any longer, you go out into the snow and roll around (or jump into the cold river if it's summer). Then you go back into the sauna some more. The boys went first and looked to have had a wonderful time. I can confirm that there was rolling in the snow. This was Sydney and me before the sauna. Kind of tired, kind of nervous, kind of cold. When it was our turn, we joined Vuokko up on the top bench and she splashed water into the heater and showed us how to use the birch branch. It smelled wonderful--like some forest-scented tea, infused through everything by the steam--and I was encouraged that it wouldn't hurt too much by how hard Vuokko hit herself with it. Sydney and I took turns hitting ourselves with the branch; it did not hurt. After the cold last night, it felt amazing to be warm all the way down to our bones. Finally, when we couldn't take it anymore we fled out into the snow and rolled around in it as instructed. I can confirm that it was absolutely refreshing and not cold at all on my bare skin. It was a singular experience, and going back into the sauna after the first round, I felt about 25% more alive. This time I let Sydney sit next to Vuokko so she could get closer to the birch branch bucket. We were already laughing when we came in from the snow, and when Vuokko saw Sydney not hitting herself hard enough, she took the branch into her own hands. I nearly wet myself laughing watching this tiny naked Finnish woman beat the shit out of my niece in the sauna. I love Vuokko. This is us after sauna. Very happy. Beaten half to death. standing outside in the cold barefoot. We stayed in the snow barefoot for awhile, cooling down. I let the snow fall on me for a good five minutes before I went to get dressed. Vuokko came strolling up ten minutes or more later, still barefoot. When I pointed at her feet, she just laughed, "it feels good!" This is the Scandinavian version of walking on coals. We headed into the main house for a quick nip of some schnapps before heading back home for Christmas dinner.
The roads were very, very bad on the way home, and Lasse had to dig the car out with a shovel when we got stuck in the driveway. Maybe next time, we get a four-wheel-drive. Back home, everyone put together julbord, Christmas dinner. I was too hungry to take pics of everything (hitting yourself with a wet branch works up a hella appetite) but here is my plate, with ham (julskinka), prinskorv (little sausages), gravad (like lox), meatballs, beets, tomato and cucumber, Janssons frestelse (potato and anchovy casserole), mimosa salad (fruit/mayo salad) potatoes, and my favorite soft round Swedish bread called Rågkaka, with my favorite Swedish gouda. Over dinner, Robert asked Sydney what her favorite part of the vacation has been so far. She answered that while seeing the aurora was overwhelming and everything has been wonderful, that just being around his family and everyone being so kind and warm and welcoming has been the best part. I love this girl! It was a great answer, and I let the happy silence fall for a moment before I announced that my favorite part, hands down, was watching Sydney get beaten by a tiny naked Finnish woman in the sauna. Merry Christmas! |
