FAMILY ADVENTURES IN SWEDEN--PART 2

OUR FLIGHT FROM CHICAGO TO AMSTERDAM AND ON TO STOCKHOLM--JUNE 19TH, 2010

Our KLM plane waiting to take us to Amsterdam

                                                                               

Maia and Sage waiting to board

The long-awaited day has finally arrived!!! At Chicago's O'Hare airport we have all cleared security and are all together for an exciting journey...Judy (Grammy) and Dick (Gramps) from Cincinnati; Maia from Portland, Oregon; Bonnie and Dug from Chicago; along with our two grandchildren, Dugan 9 and Sage 7. We wonder what's going through their minds as the adventure begins.

Dugan and Bonnie at O'Hare Airport

                                                                              Judy, Dug and Dick ready

                                                             to board our KLM 747

                                                                              

Unlike on flights within the States, we were fed quite well on our overseas flight!

Sunset over the Atlantic

Almost to Amsterdam!!!

The flying time to Amsterdam, the city for our only connection, was 7 hours. We all were more than ready to walk around and explore Schiphol Airport where we could have some elbow room. Although it was just before midnight in Chicago, the time was half-past six in the morning locally. Our three hour layover seemed to go pretty fast.

                     Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam

The two-hour flight to Sweden was on a much smaller plane and was uneventful. Shortly after touch-down we were reunited with Tina, our former exchange student and very close friend, who is like a daughter to us. She was instrumental in making all the arrangements for our two week adventure. Thank you again, Tina, for all you've done to make this trip a once-in-a-lifetime adventure.

Our first sighting of Sweden from the plane

                                          Tina and Bonnie

        

Arlanda Airport, Stockholm, Sweden

When we first visited Sweden in 1965, we met Tina's mother-to-be, Solveig, and her parents, who generously invited us to share some meals and made sure we got to participate in the festivities surrounding Midsummer, a major holiday that all Swedes look forward to. Soon after our arrival in Stockholm this time, we rented a van, large enough to hold all seven of us and our luggage, and followed Tina in her car to Uppsala. There we joined Solveig and Ulf in their condo for a typical Swedish meal. Sage absolutely loved the Swedish pancakes Tina had made, spread liberally with lingonberry jam. Dugan slept through the meal after having little sleep on our cross-Atlantic flight. Later at Tina's apartment where they were staying, they both got quite squirrely and couldn't go to sleep!

Dick's grandparents on his father's side came to America from Sweden in the late 1800s. His grandfather, Emil Johansson, found work with Red Head Brands, a sporting goods company in Chicago. He was already skilled in the leather trade and stayed with the company for 60 years, from age 18 to 78. When he finally retired he had advanced to the position of treasurer of the company. We can't imagine anyone in this day and age working that length of time, much less with the same company.

Johansson was much too common a surname in the eyes of Dick's grandfather, so he had his name changed to Rosene, a much more unique Swedish name. He knew a pharmacist by that name. and it also reminded him of the town in Sweden, Ronneby, where he had grown up.

When we were first married, we had an "older and wiser" friend, who was quite a traveler,who gave us advice about traveling, taking Mark Twain's sentiment to heart...

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”

Our dear friend from long ago was our inspiration to explore the world, so Sweden became a natural destination, along with Germany, the ancestral home on Judy's father's side. We are extremely happy to be able to share our love for travel with our family.