Göteborg trip
We did something very un-American and spent five weeks in Sweden this summer. It wasn’t completely vacation since Mikal worked, but it’s a far cry from our normal existence in Austin and John did take off from his job. We have lots of Swedish connections: Mikal’s mother emigrated from Sweden and his sister, Marcia, lives in Göteborg with her husband, David, who was also Mikal’s grad school housemate. We also speak Swedish at home with Sylvia since Mikal grew up speaking it with his family. This trip was a chance for us to see Mikal’s family, for Sylvia and Marcia to spend time together, and for John and Sylvia to be immersed in Swedish. Not surprisingly, Sylvia’s malleable toddler brain leapt ahead of John’s calcified noggin in Swedish.
We spent the bulk of our time in Sweden’s second largest city, Göteborg (Gothenburg), where Marcia & David live. It’s all those things American cities now want to be: pedestrian- and bike-friendly, compact without being overwhelmingly dense, sidewalk cafes and shops abound, there are over a dozen light rail lines, and grand buildings from the late 1800’s and early 1900’s line the streets with the occasional 17th century building popping up.
The weather in Göteborg can be dicey in summer, but we lucked out with only a couple of rainy days and lots of sunshine. We also spent a week at Mikal’s family cabin farther north in the woods on a lake. Wild blueberry bushes literally covered the forest floor, and we plucked enough for John to bake two blueberry tarts and still have plenty leftover to dump in our cereal bowls each morning.
Normally after a long trip, we’re dying to get home, but this time we are perfectly content to stay longer. Alas our flight leaves in a few days and we’ll be back in our cars. But the mild Austin winters are pretty darn nice and Austin’s not too shabby a place to be, so I don’t think we’ll be pulling up stakes to move to Scandinavia any time soon.