Photos from Gotland

A Spider Bit Me in Sweden, or, the Rest of Our Time in Sweden

Hi all! I'm writing from our lovely flat at Harlaxton Manor, where the weather is lovely, the people are lovely, the surgery in nearby Croxton Kerrial is lovely and efficient, even when they are squeezing pus out of your forehead….ah, England, where everything feels safe and comfortable. I'm so glad to be here.

First--I don't want to give short shrift to our final few days in Sweden, so I'll start there. It's difficult, however, to keep perspective on all that, now that I feel at "home" and have ready access to iodine patches to help my spider bite heal…

On Thursday last week I had the challenge of driving a rental car, sans GPS, from Arlanda airport to our Airbnb flat in Stockholm--easy enough on the E4 south, a bit more challenging once I was in the Sodermalm. Ben and the kids hung in the foyer of our flat after check out time and until I arrived, and, after a courage-giving kanelbullar and coffee, we headed south to Nynashamn ferry terminal to catch the ferry to Gotland. I liked driving a Volvo, and the kids were interested in the ferry experience, particularly the loading and unloading, and we arrived at our sweet little Airbnb stuga about 9 p.m. It was a small local cottage that had a nice porch and deck and a very different feel than our urban apartment in Stockholm, but I'd neglected to understand the Swedish well enough to know that we needed to provide our own sheets and towels, so our host scrounged what she could and we made it for four days on one towel (we washed it every day, don't worry, and dried it on the radiator…). 

Gotland is very beautiful. We were a short walk from a place called The Pancake Tree, build from a felled tree on the island that was moved and made into an epic playground where you can make your own pancakes on a giant, wood-fired griddle. We spent much of Friday afternoon at the Pancake Tree, where the kids played, Gabe and I took a long walk by the ocean, picking blackberries and watching bunnies and boats, and Ben got lots of photography time. We learned the next day that the builders of the Pancake Tree built the place in memory of their two sons, Max and Charlie, who died in the 2004 tsunami, in Thailand. It was a joyful place built from much grief, and a beautiful way to memorialize their sons. We spent Friday morning exploring Visby, a walled medieval town that hosts a medieval week each year and had just hosted Crime Week, a literary festival for crime writers from all over. Just after we left, there was an art festival coming to town, so we were there in the short break between festivals, though things were still fairly busy. Later in the time on the island we discovered some nicer places within Visby, but that first day, it seemed very commercial. Ben noted that it felt like a place that had made a deal with tourism and then regretted it, and I would agree. I did enjoy buying some local cheese and pesto from the cheese monger in Visby, and we had a fantastic lunch at Creperie and Logi, a French-style creperie what was yummy, where the kids tried (and liked!) some Norman cider. We had a nice dinner that night on the deck, where we could see the ocean and hear birds singing, and Friday was a good day.

The kids were eager to head back to the Pancake Tree on Saturday morning, but were real ornery, so much so that we imposed a time out that resulted in MUCH tantruming (ok, about 3 minutes, but you know that feels like an eternity) so I sent Ben and Ebi off to explore while I stayed home with the boys for an hour who promptly feel asleep as they were in timeout in different rooms. Just before they nodded off, a nosy (less generous Robyn) or caring (more generous Robyn) neighbor came over to "cheer the boys up" but also see "why (they) were upset" and, essentially, to see if we were beating them. Explaining our employment of consequences to an elderly Swedish woman was a real joy. We saw her the next day at the Pancake Tree, where she observed us and hung for a while, pleased that we had decided to stop abusing our children and allow them some small joy. Saturday was definitely the bottom of the family travel U--they were tired, we'd been with one another 24/7 for more than a week, and I'd woken up with a weird pimple that hurt a lot. I told Ben that we'd spent a lot of money to scream at our children in a foreign country. When Ben and Ebi got back, Ebi and I went for a sullen drive up to Kammelsham at the north of Gotland, and got take out savory waffles, and visited a great church. One of my favorite parts of Gotland was visiting a few of its 100 churches. Saturday was redeemed after everyone went to their emotional corners and napped before a dinner out at a tasty restaurant called Surfers in Visby, and a stroll to the cathedral where there was an organ concert, and a stroll through Visby at sunset, which was lovely, particularly the homes on the less-touristy side. 

On Sunday I woke with some swelling in my forehead and a bit of swelling under my right eye but thought it was just a really unpleasant pimple. It was rainy, rainy, rainy all day, so after 30 minutes at the Pancake Tree we spent the morning exploring churches on the island, which I really enjoyed and the kids and Ben tolerated for my sake. We visited about four churches on Sunday morning, and I was most impressed by Larrebro, where there had been a hospital for concentration camp survivors, and those who died while in care, mostly ages 21-40, about 50 in all, are buried in a multi-faith cemetery on this small Swedish island. I found that very moving, and admire the island's commitment to keeping up the churches (many were under repair) and to the revolving-pastors who hold worship services once or twice a month in the churches. There are many standing stones on the island, too, some of which are on church grounds. Sadly, I did not fall back through time in 1700s Scotland (yet)but given my recent need for medical care this turned out to be good luck. The other nice bit of Sunday was tea and ice cream at Sjelso Bageri, a bakery on the coast just north of Visby and overlooking an old fishing village, where Ben took some great pictures, I met a nice Swede to chat with, and the kids continued to have no chill.

Monday we returned by ferry where I donned a big pair of sunglasses because much of the right side of my face was pretty swollen, my right eye was swollen shut. Ben drove us to Uppsala, which is a great college town just north of Stockholm, and I enjoyed the park and tried to read while Ben took the kids for a walk and then we took them to a park--it was a nice last day in Sweden, though, if I'm honest, I was feeling really cruddy, not a little vain about my face, and had a good cry in the park for myself. It helped, but those of you who know me well know that I am not good sick. I returned our rental car, we had a picnic in our airport hotel, and tried to emotionally prepare ourselves for the early morning flight. The good news--that went smoothly, and I felt better emotionally almost as soon as we arrived at Harlaxton, and I feel better physically today.

The doctor in Croxton Kerrial thinks I was bit by a spider; he can't identify the spider from the bite, but I was in BAD shape physically when we arrived at Heathrow and Holly, Harlaxton's wonderful bi-continental coordinator, booked me into the surgery almost immediately (and drove me, offering empathy throughout.) I'll spare you the details, largely, unless you are Esme who has been getting a series of disgusting, un-bandaged photos, but I've been lanced twice and antibiotic-d and squeezed and bruised by some really nice doctors and nurses and I am feeling much better. Everyone feels very sorry for me. Last night I put an Avengers sticker on my bandage (it was weepy, gross) and I named the wound Paul Hollywood as the new season of Bakeoff is starting here.

More on our arrival and first few days at Harlaxton soon--it's been really good.

Harlaxton 2.0: Married, with children

Hej Hej Thank you for being interested in our time abroad! Permit me a little background. When I was 19, I studied abroad at Harlaxton College, long-referred to as the British campus of The University of Evansville. Baker University, my alma mater and my employer, has had a "partner" relationship with Harlaxton College for nearly 30 years. I remember, before it was cool to do so, working to be "present" in the Harlaxton experience, as I was oft-worried that it would be my one-shot abroad. To my great fortune, that semester abroad was the first of several travel adventures, and, somewhere in the intervening 18 years, I developed and nurtured my professional dream to be a professor, to be a professor at Baker, to work in international education, and to return to Harlaxton College as a visiting faculty member. I recently read a journal entry from 2007, just before I finished my doctoral work, to that end--"How cool would it be to teach at Baker, and to one day return to Harlaxton?" It's very cool. Our family of five will be in Europe from August-December, and will end 2016 in Australia with my in-laws before returning to the U.S. in mid-January.

Sometimes on this blog I'll wax-on about how incredibly fortunate we are--please know that this does not escape me. I've nearly teared up twice, today, about that very thing. Sometimes I'll focus on what it's like to travel with three children--prior to this experience, several people looked at me askance when I told them we were trying this, but, five days in, I'm so glad we did. Sometimes I'll talk about how travel makes me grateful for home. Sometimes I'll write about how my lens has changed since I was traveling at 19, or about daily life at Harlaxton, or about traveling abroad with three generations, as we plan to do in September when my folks visit. Sometimes I'll write about how this experience changes or otherwise illuminates something about our family's function--Ben isn't working while we're abroad, and our family routines are already much changed. Also, there will be a lot of pictures of food.

As I write, we are in Stockholm, experiencing Scandinavia for the first time. Ben and I sat down several months ago and discussed our personal goals for this experience, and one of mine was to travel somewhere new to me, and I was pretty clear that that somewhere should be Scandinavia. I do have Swedish heritage, despite what Andrea Howell will say in these comments, and I love water, coffee, not being hot, feeling cozy, and socialist democracies. So, Denmark and Sweden, what up?

We flew Kansas City to Detroit to Paris to Copenhagen, and the universe knew what it was doing when it gave us these kiddos--our only meltdowns, even with a delay, a missed connection and a 13-hour-layover in CDG, were about turning off or walking away from technology. This happens routinely at home as well. When we finally arrived in Copenhagen, at about 1:30 in the morning, we collectively passed out and then hit it with a great exuberance the next morning about 8:30, when we took a walk from Nyhavn, along the canal, through the royal palace, and on to Tivoli, the world's second-oldest theme park, where we spent much of the day, a good-call when traveling with exhausted children--we were able to get about 14 hours of energy from the kids, though Gabe, our youngest, did fall asleep in my lap at dinner. A great waitress (Psychology major--woot woot!) kindly gave us recommendations for where the locals eat, and we walked to paper island, an old paper-mill district filled with hip food trucks and lots of summer-loving Danes, for dinner and people-watching. I loved that, and I loved Tivoli--it was perfectly charming. Ben had virtually no sleep but the kids and I slept very well on Sunday evening, and we had a nice walk through Nyhavn before taking the bus to get our train to Sweden on Monday, midday. I'm sure it helps that our children are so damn cute, but every Danish person I encountered was warm and helpful--that has largely been true in Sweden as well, as people have approached us to see if we need help (we usually do.) What memories stand out from Copenhagen--watching my children play on street trampolines, watching our boys' joy in the bumper cars, winning Galoppen, the horse-racing game at Tivoli (this makes me more like my other true love, Richard Ayoade); eating some boss Hansen's ice cream at paper island, and the general warmth of all the Danes we encountered. Copenhagen exceeded my expectations, and we never even made it to the Little Mermaid.

Given the aforementioned lack of sleep, Ben was in need of some serious rest on our 5-hour train to Stockholm, but did stay awake long enough to play The Bridge with me while we crossed the Oresund bridge. If you haven't seen the American version, good for you--watch the Danish/Swedish version. Playing The Bridge pretty much just means talking about The Bridge--make up your own rules, it's cool.

We have tried our first Airbnb experience in Stockholm, and I have loved it. We're staying in a flat in the Sodermalm, just south of the old town (Gamla Stan) and very near a T-bana (Metro) station. Here's what works--we've done breakfast and dinner at "home" each day, and there's a playground just three blocks away, where we spent much of today. There's a washer and dryer, critical with children, and it turns out that it's really just the differences that fascinate children. Here's what they have to say, in response to the questions, "what did you like best about Copenhagen? Stockholm? and, What have you noticed is different?" As at home, Ebi is interested in the food, Sacou wants to Parkour everything, and Gabe wants to push ALL THE BUTTONS.

Ebi-Jumping on the road trampolines; playing at the park; people here talk differently; the houses are small.

Sacou--Jumping on the trampolines; I like the donuts (kardemmumabular, me too!); people talk differently (Sacou is totally copying, btw)

Gabe--Going on planes; going on underground trains; "I don't know anything else."

I intend to ask them this each night, but have made the mistake of asking them while they are watching the i-pad, the first day we've broken it out so far on the trip. Crickets.

I am working hard to manage expectations of self and others on this trip, and we were pretty wiped on Monday night, so I hit the grocery store (I love foreign grocery stores) and we had pizza just down from the flat. On Tuesday, a beautiful, sunny day, we took the T-bana to Gamla Stan and then walked to a tram, eventually lunching outside the Vasa museum and visiting the nearly 400-year-old warship, which was actually pretty darn cool. I am proud that we navigated the T-bana with three kids and they enjoyed the tram to Djurgarden and the ship building "games" at the Vasa museum. One other thought about the kids and what they notice--Ebi stops to read all the signs of panhandlers, largely written in English, and says, "we need to help [them] get back to their kids." It is challenging to explain homelessness to your children.

We'd hoped to take the Waxholmsbolaget boats to island-hop today, but it's been a cool and rainy day, so we went for Family Fika (coffee and a pastry, in this case a delicious kardemummabular) instead, which was fantastic, and spent about five hours at the park today. We all played for about an hour, then I had an hour to myself to walk through east Sodermalm today, looking at these wonderful old cottages near Sofia church, and spending some time alone at the church. We had fantastic falafels for lunch (the kids loved this hip spot) and then I played with the kids for a couple hours while Ben had some adult time. Ebi made a Swedish buddy, who was six, and whose English was better than mine, basically. Tonight we're having an indoor picnic, and then I am picking up a rental car tomorrow  (wish me luck) and, after more fika (I'm all about those buns) we will catch a p.m. ferry to Gotland. I hope we can do some island-hopping when we are back on Monday, as it seems like a real treat.

Recommendations so far? Hotel Bethel in Nyhavn, Copenhagen--let us all 5 share a room, greeted us at 1 a.m., incredibly considerate, good location, good breakfast. Kardemummabular.

Thanks for reading.

R

Tomorrow...

Hi all,
I've dusted off the ol' blog so as not to flood my Facebook feed (the kids tell me that FB is for old people now, anyway) and will be posting pics and updates of our travel here. Also, heads up, my phone number goes on sabbatical from calls and texts tomorrow, so I am not ignoring you if you write/call; it'll be back in action in January.
Love,
Robyn, Ben, Ebi, Sacou and Gabe