Anders of Alingsas, Day 1

My grandmother's cousin, Anders, came to my games and immediately following the second game, I hopped in his car to head to his house in Alingsas, a 1 1/2 hour drive away. We had talked several times on the phone and had arranged a visit from Wednesday evening through Friday morning. The days were so action packed so I am dividing up the posts.

Upon arrival, I first got the tour of his place. I got to stay in a little cottage off to the side of the house. It had a mini kitchen, table and bunk beds. Anders has been retired for 7 years now, and so his house has tons of 'projects' and you can tell he is quite the handyman.

My own cottage for the two nights

Before dinner, Anders put a whisky bottle in front of me. Odd, I thought. He poured about an inch in a glass and filled the rest with water and made me try it. Best. Drink. Ever. Turns out it wasn't whiskey but instead something called Fladersaft. It is made by putting 40 flowers into a bucket with sugar, lemon and lime juice and soaking it for 4 days. This makes a syrup that you dilute with water. Seriously, the new nectar of the gods. (Sorry Diet Coke...and Mom). 

He then fixed dinner for us and said that he didn't care if I liked the main course but I HAD to eat the rhubarb. It was boiled down and mixed with cornstarch so it was like a soup/pudding. He made it "the Swedish way" by putting sugar, cinnamon and cream on top. It was also AMAZING. It was so rich that I could only eat about 1/4 cup and so I saved the rest.

It tasted better than it looked.

After dinner, it was time to go out on the lake near his house and set some fish nets. The lake was beautiful--peaceful, serene and so calm. We motored and paddled over to a secluded area and put out the nets (to be continued...). He let me drive the boat around the lake and then asked me if I wanted ice cream. He drove us across another section of the lake and we tried to get ice cream from a shop, but it was closed, so we went back to his house to eat ice cream. I had what my friend, Meg, calls a 'life moment'--a moment when the impact of what you are doing hits you and you take a mental photo to last forever. The wind was at my face and I was looking over an expansive lake with nothing but green trees, blue skies and white clouds ahead and everything felt perfect. I am in Sweden! The sun was out and setting, and the moment was simply amazing. The photos below hardly do it justice.

The reflections were amazing

A view from the other side of the lake

To finish the night, we spent some time on the computer. I was trying to teach him how to send emails with attached pictures, and we ended up playing on google maps. He showed me some old photos of his family and told me some family history. There was a strong 'oral history' feel to his stories, and I felt like I should have been taking notes. So much of my grandmother's family lives in Sweden, so it was neat to learn more about my relatives.

Anders is the youngest one in the photo.

I went back to my cottage at 9:30 after a tiring day at the fields and boating. A few chapters in my book and it was lights out for me.