VII. “Bits & Pieces”
May 16, 2008
Hossna, Sweden

It was a slow day at Konkordiahuset. Rose Ann has some kind of stomach bug and has felt miserable, so we we’ve both been staying in the upstairs apartment and I’ve made a few treks downstairs to read and use the computer system. I also had a visitor, a man from Ulricehamn who is a cousin to a man I know in Olympia. He, too, is a genealogist, and he knew of this place when his cousin told him I would be in Sweden. We talked for an hour. He’s 81, healthy, wealthy, and wise. I enjoyed his company. But that’s about it for excitement today. I haven’t gone far or done very much. So here are some bits and pieces of scattered remembrances and reflections.

Language. Almost everyone in Norway and Sweden can speak some English, so they make it too easy for us. They want to practice their English, and we’re usually shy in attempting to pronounce words with these strange looking vowels. Agnes in Rena translated very well, and Anna-Lena here at the genealogical institute has good English also. It’s much easier than traveling in Madagascar.
The Global Cafeteria. While staying in hotels the best local meal is breakfast, and a Scandinavian breakfast keeps us going until mid-afternoon. No sweet breads or rolls of any kind; they are reserved for a midday snack. Eggs, cheese, yogurt, fruit, vegetables, meats—especially salmon and herring. I only ate herring once, and it didn’t agree with me. At home I love pickled herring, but I don’t think I’ll eat it here again. The breakfasts are generous in the hotels, and evidently it’s the same in the homes because we are told that most Scandinavians are minimalists when it comes to lunch. Bread in restaurants, hotels, grocery stores, and homes is wonderful—whole grain, chewy, tasty, healthy, not too expensive. It begs for cheese. And jam.
They still eat lutefisk and lefse in rural Norway, at least in Rena. We were given a severely labor intensive recipe for lefse we will be anxious to try when we’re home. It begins with real potatoes. No flakes. The cooked potatoes are put through a grinder. And the only other ingredient is flour. No cream. No milk. No butter. Potatoes, flour, and constant flipping with the stick to keep them from burning. That’s what they told us.
Our two restaurant meals in Rena—remember, it’s a town of 2200—were in Chinese restaurants. There are two different Chinese restaurants in a small town in Norway. The restaurants serving Norwegian food went out of business. Our favorite meal on the whole trip was in a Dutch restaurant in Goteborg, Sweden. While shopping in a Swedish grocery store, we bought a can of pea soup and container of meatballs. Just like going to Ikea for supper.
Television. Not much censoring. Pretty loose. American movies with Swedish titles.
Internet. All over. Free wireless in hotels. Wireless for pay in bus stations, train stations, airports. Being far away from home and still able to stay in touch with news and personal correspondence adds a new dimension to travel.
Costs. I’ve said enough about this already, but here’s two more items. In the airport, bus and train stations it costs to use the bathroom. It cost 10 kroner--$2—in Norway, and 5 kroner—just less than $1—in Sweden. Rose Ann suffered in Norway because she didn’t think it was right to spend $4 for the both of us to go to the bathroom. I wrote about the relatives in Norway whose dairy herd totaled 9 milk cows, and in a conversation about economics with Anna-Lena today I mentioned that. Her husband has 100 dairy cows. I wondered how a dairy farmer in Norway could make a living with so few cows, and she laughed. She said, “That’s the Norwegians.” She said that Norway has stayed out of the European Union because they would have to give up their protection and subsidies for small farmers, and they refuse to. Sweden is in the European Union but refuses to give up their kroner to adopt the euro. Stubborn Scandinavians? Or smart? Sweden is giving up the state church system and making a transition to locally supported churches. It’s a good idea, but they will run into the same painful issues as rural churches in America. It’s difficult enough to close a church because you can’t support a pastor, but nearly everyone of these churches has a cemetery in the church yard, and I wonder how a dwindling population will maintain all of this history.
Quiet. In 1992 when we traveled in Norway and Sweden in a VW Camper and stayed in campgrounds, we invented the phrase, “Quiet as a Swedish campground.” It’s not just the campgrounds that are quiet. Busses, trains, restaurants, walking on the streets. Granted, there is less traffic in the small towns, but it just seems that this part of the world is not as noisy as everyday life in most of the US.
So why did the Swedes leave and go to America? Anna-Lena’s stock answer is the three P’s: potatoes, pox, and peace. In the mid-19th century the potato was introduced to Sweden, and it almost single-handedly stopped starvation. You can live on potatoes. Pox, the small kind—smallpox—was stopped by the invention of the vaccination. Peace—Sweden was not at war with anyone. These three factors contributed to prosperity and a population boom, and there wasn’t enough land for a growing population, so people began to look for new opportunities. The quest for religious freedom was also a reason. The Swedish Covenant church emerged as an option to the state church system, and the government cracked down on it. And the final factor must have been publicity. Those who loved America sent letters telling others. That worked in most of Sweden—but not near Algutstorp, the Swedish home of the Lundborgs and Brobergs.

So tomorrow is May 17th, Norwegian Constitution Day, Syttende Mai. There will be great celebrations all over Norway, especially in Oslo and Rena. And here we are in Sweden. Most of my planning for this trip has been good, but I did miscalculate on timing. I will quietly honor the Norwegian part of my heritage, and we will discretely skoal one another with our breakfast orange juice.