HELLO EVERYONE!

Here it is Christmas 2009. Last year we had a dream come true. We traveled to Sweden for Christmas and spent a month there. I can't help but think about our trip and our special people there now a year later. It is so unfair that it is so far to Sweden. I yearn to have ficka with everyone. Such a special memory we have.

We love you all!

The Andersons

Last Entry of our trip blog

Today we got some very sad news. Ella has passed away. We will miss you Ella. The most special memories we have of Sweden are of you.

PHOTOS OF HÅ Ellas summer stuga

Ella and Marianne in Trönö

We love you Ella

The trip home Stockholm to Portland

We get our 3:30 AM wake up call. First the T.V. comes on and tells you it is time to get up. Then about 5 minutes later the phone rings with the same message. OK. OK. We get it. We get ready. Arvid gets a big cart and we go down to the lobby. He goes and gets the car. I check out. They give us a sandwich and a lot of fruit and 2 drinks to take with us. We go to the shuttle and wait. Hmmmmmmmm.

We go, get to the airport and check in. With little disruption, we get on our flight promptly. They do not check our bags for security. You check in, get your boarding pass, put your bags on the belt and you are set. Not like in Portland where you take your bags to another security area so they can check them before they load them on.

The flight to Amsterdam is nice. There is a young man who is from Linköping sitting next to Arvid. They talk a lot. At first we all are groggy, but toward the end it is a fun conversation. We get off the plane together and walk through Amsterdam airport together. He is going to Dallas so we have different gates for the US flight.

We get to the gate and there is a LONG line. Here is the security. You are called up one by one and interviewed by airport personnel. You are asked questions and your passports are scrutinized. Then you go to another room. I wondered why you are directed to go to your gate an hour early. This process takes a while.

On this flight I was planning on sleeping a good portion of the time. But the Northwest plane has individual TV screens for each person and a personal controller. It is amazing. There are at least 50 movies to choose from. There are games, maps, news stations, and flight information. There is a music option where you can select from play lists and create your own play list then you can play it at any time. It is fun to explore all the options. We watch several movies and the time goes by quickly actually. I get up and walk quite a bit and drink water, water, water. I believe that helps your body adjust quickly to your new time.

We fly from Amsterdam to Portland directly. We pick up our bags. We go through customs and they take our bags again. We find them on yet another baggage claim conveyor belt. It is more tiring to do that than the whole flight here! Richard is waiting and we are home! Yea!

Thank you Sweden for all the adventures and memories with our special family and friends. We are home but our hearts are still in Sweden.

Arlanda Airport Hotel

We eat breakfast in the room. We bought fruit and yogurt at the store before we came home. We take the sheets and towels to the Studentbåstader and turn in the keys. You are supposed to clean the room after you stay in it. Such a slick deal.

We do some shopping at Ryd Centrum in the Hemköp. We buy Karli a plant for her room. We also buy some things she needs for herself. We buy candy selection to take home. I am so impressed with the store. Everything seems of such good quality.

We go to the car and make sure there is nothing there that she needs. She has been traveling with us for 3 weeks in this car and I am sure has things that we are not seeing. But we have to say good bye. Arvid wants to avoid night driving. It will take about 3 hours to get back to Stockholm. The next time we will see Karli it will be late June. Gosh, that is over 5 months! But we know she will have a great time living here. Her new classes look great! At least she hopes to get them.

We drive to Norrköping. We have some things that we need to pick up for the grand kids. We drive to the shopping center where we bought Karlis coat. We find some nice things. We go upstairs in H and M and across on the sky bridge. There is a wonderful cafe there. We have a great stir fry meal. They have great espresso and teas. We also have some wonderful pastries. Yummy! Mission accomplished. All gifts bought, tummy full. On to the airport hotel.

We follow the signs to Arlanda. We decide to get off at an exit for Arlanda City and just ask at a gas station. We drive a bit and we see the sign for the hotel. What luck! We go in and carry all the bags with us. Yikes! Glad we bought the extra bag. We have a lot of gifts and mementos.

Arvid takes off to return the car to the rental place. I stay to organize the bags. It may take him a while so I have plenty of time to get everything straight. I also am going to organize the carry-ons with the Ziploc of liquid, etc. It is a nice room. It has a big bed for us, a long desk at the window, nice big TV and a bathroom with a porthole in it! Weird actually. There are two beds that you can pull down from the wall much like in the room of the ferry. They are single beds that fold down to make bunked beds.

Arvid comes back quicker that we both predict. It went slick as a whistle! He caught early buses and all the timing was right. We go downstairs to find something to eat. They have a wonderful evening buffet but we do not think we are that hungry. We look at the other choices and decide to take the buffet after all. It has appetizers, soup, salad, reindeer steak, chicken and fish choices, vegetables, 3 kinds of potatoes and rolls. There is a dessert bar as well. It is very nice and good food. We enjoy it a lot.

We go back to the room early, request a wake up call and go to sleep for the last time in Sweden. Good trip. We will miss being in a country which values all of its citizens and takes care of them. I hope when we go home the Obama administration will be able to make the changes necessary so the US will put its value on people rather than corporations.

Linköping

We have the buffet on the ship. It is easier to get up since we gained an hour coming to Swedish time. We have a nice table by the window and watch the view as we travel through the islands of the archipelago. It is so beautiful. I take photos through the glass so I doubt if it is doing the view any justice. We stay as long as we can. Our bags are packed and ready, so there is not much to do but walk down that gangplank to shore.

We land and wait for Arvid at the terminal. He is getting the car. It was just as we planned. We got to the car before you have to pay for the day and yesterday was free. All worked well! We drove for a while then stopped for a lunch. We stop at a COOP I think, and go in to eat at their cafe. We also needed to use the bathroom. The cafe here had some nice specials. I decide I wanted just soup. I miss soup. I have pea soup and it comes with salad and pancakes! It was great. We are pleased with our quick lunch and head out. We want to get on to Linköping before dark.

We had called the Scandic to see if there were any rooms from Ljusne. They did not have any available. They said they would call if they had any cancellations. We got a good deal when we stayed there before. It was about 84 USD per day. They call and they say they have a cancellation but now the price is over 200 USD! It is because they have a conference there and are almost full except for this last room. It is the same room we had last time but still the price is over double! We decline.

Karli gets on the phone and calls a friend of hers to find out about guest rooms they have in Ryd, her apartment complex. He calls us back later and said he found out. They do have them and they have one room left. So we go to the studentbåstader. The room is 20 USD per night, per person I think. It was something like that. It was so cheap! We get to the room and it is so nice! We should have done this when we came to Linköping on the first day! Oh, Well!

It also had a T.V with the room. What a deal!

We went out to the town. Ah, one last time in the beautiful city of Linköping. I love it here. We decided to park and go to the cathedral. We never had time to see it before. We go in and it looks like they are having some kind of a confirmation class or something.

After spending time here we go get something to eat. We go to this espresso and tea place on the corner that Dad and I had gone to before. We get great tea and coffee. We get some salad with various meals. It is a nice bakery too. I think Karli will go back here some other time now that she sees how nice it is.

We shop a bit in the downtown area. We make sure we have all the gifts for family that we need. It is cold but not as cold as it was in Helsinki! We go home and slumber off. Tomorrow we will leave Karli here are her home in Linköping and we will go to Stockholm for our flight. We stay in an airport hotel and leave at 6:30 AM on the 10th.

Good night Karli! I miss you already!

Helsinki and Silja Line

We get up at 7 AM Swedish time, 8 AM Finnish time. We eat breakfast and learn that the Swedish breakfast is much better than a Finnish one. If this was the first breakfast buffet we try in Scandinavia, maybe we would like it. But now that we have been spoiled, it is not so good. There are fewer types of everything really, not as many choices. Not much in the way of fresh fruit which is a favorite of ours. The yogurt choices are non existent. The hot food has horrible eggs and greasy bacon. Okay. We are too picky.

We clear out of the room and once again, put our bags in the storage area and Karlis bag in a locker. Taking 2 buses, we get to the dock where we board the tour bus. Funny. There is only one other lady on the bus besides us! It is a beautiful bus with comfy thick cushioned seats, cup holders and trays. The other tourist is from Australia and is very well traveled. Her son lives in Helsinki and she is visiting him. They went to the ballet last night and talk about that with the tour guide.

Helsinki is really a beautiful city. We go by a site where there are islands out in the Baltic Sea. The Finns actually still go out there to wash their rugs. They like the natural sea water to wash them in and claim the salt in the water is good for retaining the color of the rugs. The Baltic has a low salt content so it will not harm the rugs either. We tour the shopping district where we were last night. It is full of people today!!!There is a popular store called Stockmans. Then there are many other famous names on the buildings that we recognize. We see the Sibelius Music Academy.

The sightseeing tour takes in the most interesting parts of Helsinki, such as the historical centre, the Presidential Palace, City Hall, the Parliament buildings, Finlandia Hall and the Opera House. We will stop at the Sibelius Monument and at the Temppeliaukio Church (church in the rock).

The big white church is pointed out but is not a stop.

The Sibelius Monument is really wonderful. It is in the middle of a park and we walk up to it. There is a view of the Baltic from the large shining structure. The guide says there are two general ways people interpret it. Some say it is an abstract pipe organ and others say it represents a water fall of ice. We lean on the pipe organ side. There is also a bust of Silelius on the side of the main art piece. The tribute to him was erected in 1967. Sibelius died in 1957 and is greatly loved and revered by the Finns.

The Church in a Rock or Cave is really fabulous. It looks like an understated entrance to such a grand site. It looks like a cave when you are inside. I meet some people who are from Walla Walla, Washington! The church is nondenominational but most in Finland are Lutheran. There is a back wall where you can light a candle for someone. I light one for Julia. It is a magnificent sight unlike any church I have ever seen.

It is a very interesting tour and we hear all about many buildings in the city and their history. We see the presidents house which has 2 guards at the front doors. The guide talks about the many ice skating rinks in the city and how important they are to the Finns. . But now the Baltic is almost frozen to a safe amount but not quite. Yesterday, as the paper said, there was a man who was testing it and fell in! Luckily he was able to rescue himself.

The Finns have a real love of dipping into the icy waters of the Baltic and then going into hot tubs or saunas. They love saunas it is not a myth but a fact. Most apartment buildings have saunas in them for their tenants to use. They are group saunas so families can sign up for a time for the group or they have individual ones for small numbers too. Karli says there are saunas in Ryd in Sweden where she lives. Most homes and hotels must have a sauna for sure.

We get off at a main square where there are a few market stalls set up. In the summer I assume this place would be filled. The guide says before Christmas it is filled too. There are booths where people can drink coffee and you step in and it is heated. We walk around a bit. There are the typical handicrafts for sale. We are anxious to get to the shopping district to see the vibrant city in action. We only have a few hours before we board the ferry.

We walk around and go into shops. We stop for a lunch inside a cafe that is inside one of those malls in a building that are so popular here. The cafe is very cute and wide open to shops around it. We have some lunch specials.

Then we walk around some more. We try to stick to the inside areas to avoid the bitter windy cold. We go outside and walk up a street and into the next entrance. Funny. It is connected to the last place we were inside of! Building are very connected but you do not realize that unless you get on the right aisle of the mall. Sometimes you go through tunnels! From the outside it all looks like separate buildings.

We go back to the hotel and get our bags. We take a bus to the terminal.

Back on the ship!! It looks just the same. Our room is higher up this time but really the exact same room. We do the same as before and make reservations for the 5PM serving for dinner. We go explore the ship. This time we see different things.

This is the teenage night club and game room

The Spa area is so big and really beautiful. Hard to show it all.

Outdoor bar on the deck. Obviously closed for the season

View as we leave Helsinki

We go down to the buffet at 5 PM. We first stop by the Duty Free shop and buy some of the light up ice cubes. Our one souvenir of Helsinki! We will always remember above all how cold it was there. It was cold and windy and bitter on the 3 days were were there. If we would have been able to visit the rest of Finland, I think it would also be just as cold! So ice cubes are appropriate.

The buffet was really just about the same. Well, maybe different salads, maybe. Definitely different desserts. The desserts are really wonderful and I love the addition of fruits and cheeses. There is a fig, date, banana type bar too. Very interesting.

After the dinner we see some more entertainment in the center of the ship. There is a dance team much like the one on the other ship. They are quite good! Then there is a man who does a high wire act up on ropes. He is good but we enjoyed the Bulgarian couple much more. The same string music was there too but with different musicians.

We went to the night club for the entertainment after the teaser. It was more fun actually. We went a bit early before it all started. We were really just checking out the area to see if it was different at all. There was a childrens activity taking place. When we came on the ship there were these 2 people in costumes of Finnish cartoon characters. There are here doing dancing and games with the young children. One little boy is so taken with the characters he just keeps hugging them! It is so cute. It is obvious he watches the cartoon.

After the the club performers come on. They are dancers and the same ones we liked at the teaser midship on the promenade deck. They are very colorful and look like they are having a lot of fun. After the show, they lowered the dance floor! Amazing. It took about 15 minutes and you could barely see it move.

Then the dance band came on. People actually came out and danced this time. There was this one man that danced very flamboyantly and was good. He was dancing with all different partners. Seems like he loved to go out dancing and this was his big chance to show off. We decided to go home after he got tired and no one really went out to dance. The ship is a lot less crowded this time. Last time there were many Russian people traveling to Helsinki then home. Now there are not that many left since the holidays are really over. I hear a lot more Swedish being spoken.

We go off to sleep. It is kinda sad. This is the last night of our adventure really. The rest is just preparation for our trip home. We go to Linköping tomorrow night, then Arlanda Airport Hotel.