Thursday-A Day with Relatives

July 26-- After a good night's sleep, we once again had a typical Swedish breakfast. Cheeses, hard and soft breads, tea, hard boiled eggs, yogurt and various spreads. Ove and Berit met us at Barbro's apartment and we took off for the day. We weren't really sure what the day had in store.  We stopped about an hour later at a camp ground type place and saw a group of people gathered. All relatives! We spent a good deal of time figuring out how we were all related and most turned out to be cousins of my grandma or children of cousins. There were about 15 of us in total and it was wonderful to get to know everybody. We had fika around 11:30, and the camp site had a small museum and old school classroom that we walked through. The weather was nice and the company even better. 

 In 4 cars, our caravan departed for an unknown destination. We pulled up to a very cute house and saw a large chart that outlined the family tree. It was very neat to see, and the scenery around the house was beautiful. Our next stop was the area where my grandma's father grew up, although the house itself had burned down. Ove spoke to the current residents and I guess they knew a lot about the Ålund family. 

Now for my favorite part of the day--we all went to Barbro's church where she and Berit had gone a half hour earlier than us to start preparing an early dinner. The feast reminded me of a Thanksgiving dinner. We sat at a long table that was decorated with a Swedish flag and a mini American one and flowers for centerpieces. Each of the families had contributed to the dinner, making it a sort of potluck. The dinner consisted of two kinds of smoked salmon, creme fraiche with hjortron berries (cloudberries), yellow potatoes, homemade breads, salad, and local cheeses. It was all so tasty! There were Swedish sodas like pear soda and gooseberry soda, (it was green!), and fladersaft. Once we were all sitting, the Swedes all rose to sing their national anthem. It was really cool to hear the song. Then they asked for us to sing the American National Anthem. I think we sang pretty well, haha. We laughed and ate and chatted and then learned new Swedish songs. Here are the English lyrics to my favorite one: The more we are together, the happier we'll be. Because my friends are your friends and your friends are my friends. The more we are together, the happier we'll be.  Another song they sing is the Itsy Bitsy Spider and they used the same hand motions! We shared a few of our American songs, although most I had learned in girl scouts.  The second round of food consisted of korv (sausage), elk meatballs, reindeer meat, and gravy. I didn't try the reindeer but the other meats were good. Finally, we finished the meal with dessert, (chocolate cake and a pound cake with fresh whipped cream) and coffee. It felt so much like family and so natural, and I know my grandmother was so happy.  We went outside and just stood around chatting for a long time and exchanged email addresses, Facebook pages and addresses. Most people had to leave around 7:30 to make the 2 hour drive home and we returned to the apartment around 8:00, tired after the long day of socializing and full from the amazing dinner. 

My grandma seemed thrilled with the day's events and I was so grateful for the warmth and hospitality of my Swedish family. I have been in Sweden for 2 months and this was an unparalleled experience. It all felt a little unreal to be spending quality time with my sister, grandma and aunt in Sweden in the company of tons of other wonderful relatives. We went to sleep around 11 after chatting some more with Barbro. It was such a happy day.