Stockholm Adventures

Hi Eden and other grandkids or family

On Tuesday September 11 we got up for our last tour day in Stockholm and had a good breakfast in the hotel and met Mirian (Grandma’s third-cousin, descended from her great-great-grandfather Erik Ersson and her daughter Sara in the hotel lobby at 10 AM.  Sara lives and works in Stockholm, and Mirian was visiting Sara for a few days.  After meeting her cousins Orjan in Yxtorp and Ewa in Orebro, grandma had a text from Mirian asking if we would like to meet in Stockholm.  So we were ending our trip to Sweden with two more of grandma’s “long-lost” Swedish cousins.  Mirian and Sara both speak English very well and Sara lived in southern California for a few months with friends a couple of years ago.  Sara helped us add a day to our “travel cards” at the ticket machine and we rode the subway to a station where we boarded a bus to another art gallery house that was on the same island as Skansen and Prince Eugene’s house and other museums.  Thielska Galleriet was a villa built for a banker who was friends with many artists and who collected Nordic art from 1850-1925, including several of Carl Larsson paintings.  His house in the city was overflowing with his art collection so he needed a larger gallery. His fortune was lost during WW I and Sweden bought his collection and opened the villa in 1926 as an art museum.  We explained to Mirian and Sara that we had visited Carl and Karin Larsson’s house and were looking for Carl Larsson paintings throughout Sweden.  They had been to the Larsson house but had not visited this art museum and they were happy to join in the “hunt” for more of Carl Larsson’s paintings.  We walked on a trail to the Thielska Galleriet along the shore of the island and passed the old custom house- where ships would pay their tariffs and docking fees for trading in Stockholm.  We enjoyed walking through the rooms of the villa and we did find several more Carl Larson paintings (6 or more)- just like we had on Sunday at Prince Eugene’s art museum.  We had a very nice lunch together at the café in the villa, and imagined we were visiting Mr. Thiel with other artist friends 100 years ago.  

Mirian- Judy's cousin and Sara- Mirian's daughter

Sara at the old Customs House

Surprise- not a Carl Larsson painting

Mirian Judy and Sara

Delicious Swedish lunch with Mirian and Sara

We rode the bus back to the station and took the subway to Old Stockholm with Mirian. Sara had a business meeting so we said goodbye to her.  We walked down the curving streets surrounding the Royal Palace with our umbrellas in the rain.  A very narrow alley led us up to another street where-surprise- Carl Larsson had been born.  After looking in a few shops we stopped for coffee and a pastry.  We ended up at the Royal Palace and went into the apartments with just 20 minutes until closing time at 5 PM.  We were about the last visitors and so we had most of the rooms to ourselves.  These rooms were beautifully decorated with elaborate ceiling paintings, moldings, tapestries, paintings and fancy furniture.  The chandeliers and wallpaper and many other furnishings were amazing- we took pictures of each room because we only had time for a “spin tour” where we walk quickly through each room and spin around to see everything in the room and paintings on the walls briefly. The palace is still used by the king and queen of Sweden for their offices and receptions and meeting, but they no longer live there.  The Storkyrkan cathedral was next door and we snuck in through the exit doors to glimpse the gothic interior decorations.  This was the church where the Swedish reformers spread the Lutheran message from 1525-1550- encouraging people to read the Bible for themselves (or listen) in Swedish. This rainy afternoon was one of the few days that we needed our umbrellas - we generally had good weather with several sunny tour days.  Mirian went with us on the subway back to our hotel and we said goodbye to her.  We went to dinner at an Italian restaurant down the street from our hotel.  Our last day in Sweden was a good one, especially because we went with grandma’s Swedish cousins and saw Swedish art and the Royal Palace and the cobbled streets and buildings of old town Stockholm.  Back at our hotel Grandma saw an e-mail message from the woman from the island of Vinon who was looking into historical records of Grandma’s great-grandmother Brita Stina Pers dotter.  This woman had found records about Brita’s family and confirmed that Brita married August Erickson in 1867 and moved to America in 1880 with three children (one was Carl Joel, Grandma’s grandfather).  And she revealed that she was descended from the same family as Brita, so she and her sister from Vinon were also Grandma’s third cousins from Sweden!

Old Town buildings

Alley to Carl Larsson's birthplace.

Mirian and Judy shopping in Old Town

The Royal Palace staircase

Storkyrkan church near the Royal Palace

We planned our trip to begin in Oslo and to travel through Sweden and end our trip in Stockholm with all of its historical buildings and museums and art galleries and churches.  We planned for Stockholm to be the highlight of our trip.  Our five days in Stockholm were fun and filled with art galleries, historical houses, palaces and churches.  But the best part of our Sweden trip ended up being the days that we spent with our Swedish cousins.  We visited my cousins (Lena and Elisabet) and saw the farm where my grandfather Eskil lived before he came to America in 1920, and we had dinner with Lena’s son Fredrik in Uppsala.  We had planned to try to find the farm “village” that Grandma’s great-grandfather August and great-grandmother Brita left in 1880 to go to America.  But Grandma had no idea that she would meet Swedish cousins still living in the Erickson farmhouse, and meet Ewa in Orebro and Marian and Sara in Stockholm, and hear that she had other Swedish cousins from Vinon.  That was the “biggest surprise” of our trip to Sweden. 

Eden-I am glad that you have so many cousins and that you get to see them a lot in Sacramento.  Playing with cousins can be a very fun part of being in a large extended family.  Having cousins is like having more brothers and sisters.  Your baby sister Adeline is the newest cousin in our family. As Grandma found out about her “long-lost” cousins in Sweden we realized that we all have lots of cousins in the world.  Our “family trees” are joined together when we marry and when our brothers and sisters are married, so we have more and more cousins as our family trees grow.  And because we are all descendants of Noah and his family after the flood, we are sort of all cousins!

On Wednesday September 12 we had our last big smorgasbord breakfast in our hotel and packed our one suitcase (we didn’t have many clothes) and one backpack and went to the subway station under our hotel and crossed under the street to the train station to board the express train to the airport.  This was a very nice way to get out of the city without any traffic- we looked out the windows at the city apartments and then the towns and farms in the countryside- our last glimpses of Sweden.  We had a little time to wait in the executive lounge for our 2:30 PM flight back to Oakland on Norwegian Air. We had books and were relaxed and ready to return to our home in Sacramento after enjoying our visit to Sweden- the county where two of my grandparents and two of Grandma’s grandparents had come from. 

Eden- you have a lot of energy and you love to explore new places and new activities.  I expect you to travel and explore many parts of our country and different countries around the world.  I hope you will be able to visit Sweden one day- like your Mom did when she was living in Paris.  But wherever you go on your future travels, you will always want to return home, because home is where your family and friends are and where you are loved and cared for- it is where you belong.  Jesus tells us that we on a journey on earth and that our real home is in heaven with God our heavenly father.  Jesus said: “In my Father’s house there are many rooms. I am going there to prepare a place for you.” John 14:2. Jesus is the only way to make it home to God- “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6. Eden-wherever you travel, to Sweden or anywhere else, remember that God is your heavenly Father and that He has a room for you in His house. You are a traveler on earth and you can choose where you will go; so choose to follow Jesus and go where He takes you- “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” Matthew 7:13-14.

Love, Grandpa and Grandma   

Stockholm Architecture and Art

Hi Taliesin and other Grandkids or family

On Sunday morning we had a late brunch at the hotel breakfast room- it was crowded with other families on vacation in Stockholm.  We went down the street to an eyeglass store that opened at 11 AM to have Grandma’s glasses fixed.  We had stopped there the night before to see if they could fix her glasses, but they were just closing and didn’t have enough time.  We looked at clothes in nearby stores and Grandma was really happy to have her glasses fixed- so she didn’t have to wear her sunglasses inside buildings.  We walked down the street to a city house built by a rich businessman and his wife, Walther and Wilhelmina Hallwyl.  She built this house as a place to display her collections of furniture, paintings, jewelry and other decorative art objects.  The rooms were lavishly decorated and they each had windows with elaborate draperies facing the central courtyard.  The architecture and decorative wooden paneling, tapestries, furniture and paintings were all quite beautiful, collected from other countries and historical periods.  The house was like a palace although they were not the king or queen and we enjoyed looking at these beautifully furnished and decorated rooms. 

Taliesin- the Hallwyls had three daughters who inherited the family businesses (lumber and ironworks), but they had always planned to give their Stockholm house and furniture as a museum to display these treasures for other people like us to enjoy.  When our life on earth comes to an end, we will leave everything we have built or made or collected for someone else because we won’t take anything with us to heaven or to hell.  We can enjoy the beauty of paintings and sculptures that artists make, or the music that we hear, or the jewelry and furniture and clothes that craftsmen create on earth because we each have artistic and creative gifts that God has given to us. But Jesus told us not to store up treasures on earth because they can be stolen (like our luggage) and they will eventually decay or be destroyed.  Jesus told us to store up treasures in heaven where they will endure forever.  “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” Matthew 6:20.  Jesus wants us to make God our most important treasure (worship and serve only Him) and to love Him with all of our heart and mind and soul.

We rode the trolley past Skansen to Prince Eugene’s house and gardens and painting studio which he built about 1900.  We stopped for lunch at a café in the woods surrounding the house with outdoor tables looking over the water to the buildings of Stockholm.  Grandma ordered a shrimp salad and a plate of the “orange mushrooms” that are served all over Sweden at this time of the year.  Prince Eugene was an artist and was friends with many Swedish artists, writers, actors, and musicians.   He was a painter who usually painted large pictures of Swedish landscapes and he collected paintings of other Swedish artists.  We were looking forward to “finding” a few more paintings by Carl Larsson- and we did see several because the special exhibit was of Swedish painters from around 1900.  The rooms were colorful and the walls were filled with paintings and some furniture because this was his house as well as his art studio.  Our day was filled with beautiful art and architecture in these two houses in Stockholm.

We rode the trolley back to Jacobs Kyrka (church) that was built by Johan III in 1600 along with the Klara church next to our hotel.  We attended the 6 PM international worship service (in English) in this majestic Swedish Lutheran cathedral.   We sat in the first section of pews with candle lights along the aisle.  A small organ was playing as more people came into the church.  The priest opened the service with a prayer and we followed the responsive reading and prayers.  A woman sang a solo and we joined in singing a few hymns and the priest gave a message about God’s love and forgiveness through Jesus-giving us grace and not giving us what we deserve.  At the end we gathered in a circle and celebrated communion (bread and wine) to remember what the death of Jesus on the cross has given us if we believe- now we are free from our sins and will inherit eternal life.  

Taliesin- this was a special experience for us- to worship in a majestic cathedral that was 400 years old- giving thanks to God with people from other countries and singing praise to God for what He has done and promised to us.  God is our greatest treasure on earth and in heaven! We can talk to Him and worship and thank Him wherever we are and wherever we go.

On Monday we got up early to walk to the dock near City Hall in time to board an old (1901) steamship on Malaren Lake to go to Drottningholm Palace- built in about 1700- with grand rooms decorated in Baroque and Rococo styles with tapestries, paintings furniture and painted ceilings- similar to Versailles Palace near Paris.  Riding on the steamboat up one of the “fingers” of the lake to the palace was a fun way to travel- there were many small towns along the shores of the lake.  This was the summer palace for the kings and queens of Sweden and their families.  The palace has a large marble staircase with sculptures and paintings, and the rooms are elaborately decorated with painted ceilings, chandeliers, fancy wood moldings, doors and tiled floors.  The fancy furniture and tapestries and display cabinets were filled with fancy jewelry and ceramic figures.   There were large gardens with fountains and statues around the palace, but it was windy so we looked at the gardens through the palace windows. The kings and queens usually had guests staying at the palace and one of the queens had a theatre built in 1766 (just before the American revolution) for plays and drama productions.  We had a nice lunch after touring the palace at the café and found a few souvenirs at the gift shop. 

We rode a bus to the subway station and rode the subway train back to downtown and switched to the trolley to go see the Vasa ship museum near Skansen.  The Vasa ship was built in 1623 as a mighty battle ship for King Gustav II Adolf.  It was supposed to show the world that Sweden was a strong nation with a powerful Navy.  But the king changed the shipbuilder’s design and wanted two decks of cannons that made the ship too tall, and it capsized on the maiden voyage within a mile of the launching ramp- what an embarrassing day for the king and all of Sweden.  He should have let the ship designers build a mighty ship that worked!  Because it sank into the mud, the wooden ship and many of the decorative carvings and ship contents were preserved.  The ship was raised from the Stockholm harbor in 1961 and towed into a dry-dock.  A museum building was built around the ship and it was rinsed and cleaned and sprayed with a preservative.  I remember visiting the ship in 1967 when my family visited Europe, and they built a larger museum building for the Vasa ship in 1990.  It was fascinating to walk around the ship on five different levels and look into the gun ports and onto the decks of this immense wooden ship.  The complicated riggings (ropes) for all of the sails have been reconstructed- how did the sailors know which ropes to pull?  The museum had films about the Swedish Navy and shipbuilding and the salvage operations, and there was a large detailed model of the ship- with brightly painted carvings as it looked when it was launched.  We found more souvenirs in the gift shop and rode the trolley back to our hotel.  We had a very good dinner in the hotel restaurant where we normally had breakfast.  For desert Grandma had lemon custard and I had crème brulèe. 

Model of Vasa Ship

Carvings on Stern (Back) of Vasa

Painted Figures on Stern

Taliesin- we had a fun day looking at a king’s golden palace and another king’s ship that sunk. Most kings rule over their people with laws and taxes and armies- fighting for more land and for more wealth and power for themselves.  They have many servants and soldiers but are not very interested in the welfare of their people.  But there is another king, King Jesus, who loves us and who invites us to come to him and let him carry our burdens and give us comfort and peace! “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.” I Timothy 1:17.   Let Jesus be the King of your life.  Love Him and serve Him in all that you do.

Love, Grandpa and Grandma             

Stockholm

Hi Cameron and other grandkids or family

We woke up on Friday September 7 in our canopy bed and checked to see if our clothes were dry.  We had discovered that there were no laundromats in Sweden, so we had to wash our clothes in our sink and dry them in our shower with a fan that we borrowed from the hotel.  Now I had clean T-shirts and Grandma had clean jeans for our last days in Sweden.  We had another good breakfast at a window table overlooking the river and people riding their bikes to school and work. We packed our suitcase with our clean clothes and drove about an hour to Stockholm.  We were staying at the Scandic Continental hotel near the train station and we were turning in our rental car because we wouldn't need it while we were in Stockholm.  I dropped Grandma off with our one suitcase at our hotel and tried to follow the iPhone map to the rental car garage while I drove on the one-way streets, but I was soon totally lost and had to pull over and then circle around a few blocks and around a park until I finally spotted the sign and entrance to the parking garage down an alley.  I was only about 5 blocks from our hotel and soon I made it to our room on the 10th floor.  When I opened the electric window blinds I was very surprised to be looking across at a very tall church tower- just like in Uppsala- but this tower was right across the street and looked huge!  This church, Klara Kyrka was built in 1590 on the site of the Klara convent and the 380-ft high brick tower was added in 1880. We had arrived at our main destination- Stockholm- and we were settled in our room after a hectic morning. We would be staying for 5 nights because there were so many things to visit.  We had purchased 5-day Stockholm Passes for all of the museums, but we had ordered them earlier in the year and they were stolen with our luggage- so we walked to the visitors center to see if they could give us replacement passes.  They were able to see our order from April on their computer, but they wouldn't give us replacements because they couldn't cancel the stolen passes; so we bought new ones because we still planned to go to many museums and attractions.  We had lunch at a café in the Kungstradgarden park near the waterfront across from the Royal Palace. We decided to start our touring with a ride on the Hop-on Hop-off double deck bus, and we did see many buildings along the main streets of Stockholm, but it was crowded and a very slow ride in traffic.

Klara Kyrka church tower seen from our room

Train station across from our hotel

Jacobs Kyrka 1643

Lunch Café in Kungstradgarden park

Waterfront Hotels and Ferry Boats

After the bus ride we walked back to our hotel looking for a dinner spot.  As we were walking into the metro subway station at our hotel, Grandma stepped on a loose strap from a backpack that a woman was carrying like a suitcase. The strap pulled Grandma's sandal backwards as she was about to step forward and she tripped- she put her arms out as she fell but hit her forehead and landed on her glasses- her face hit the hard metal grill at the entrance door.  She was so surprised and didn't know what had happened. She had a cut above her eyebrow and her right eyeglass lens came out- the plastic strap broke.  As she lay on the concrete floor a few people who saw her fall stopped to ask if she was OK.  A security policeman came and checked on her condition and someone brought paper napkins because her cut was bleeding.  The policeman had an emergency pack and gave her a bandaid for the cut.  I found the eyeglass lens and we made it back to our room.  After resting for a while we went to a Pizza Hut restaurant across from out hotel- they had a salad bar and we had a fresh mushroom and chicken pizza.  We had seen on a poster at the church across from our hotel that they were having a worship concert for Compassion International.  So we went back to the church and listened to the concert with several different singers and then a talk in Swedish about sponsoring orphan children in African countries.  A woman who greeted us before the concert told us that this church is very active with several ways of helping people in the city and providing a place for worshiping God and following Jesus together.  Cameron- Our first day in Stockholm was very traumatic because of Grandma's fall and my getting lost trying to turn in the car, but we ended the day with beautiful music and worship of King Jesus in Klara Kyra.  Sometimes we have good things and bad things happen on the same day.  God is with us and loves us in good times and in sad times- Jesus says that He is always with us and will never leave us!

On Saturday morning we had a good breakfast in the large breakfast room of the hotel- this was the largest hotel we had stayed at with a large crowd of people.  We bought our 3-day travel cards at the metro station and rode the trolley to Skansen- the outdoor living history museum with farms and other buildings from many districts in Sweden.  The museum was started in 1891 as a way to preserve the cultural heritage and building styles of Sweden.  There is a small village and many different farms and rural buildings with a couple of manor houses typical of wealthy landowners or merchants.  We always enjoy seeing the historical buildings and the furniture and decorations inside.  Many of the houses and farm buildings had people dressed in historical outfits- answering questions and demonstrating various crafts and activities from the rural areas of Sweden.  We walked along the paths from one building to another and thought this was a great way to tour all of Sweden in one day.

One unusual building was a "mission church" that was built by people from a town where they could read the Bible and worship God in their own ways and hear talks (sermons) from independent pastors and travelling preachers.  Most churches in Sweden were built and controlled by the official Swedish Lutheran church that was a blend of teaching, worship services, weddings and funerals, and local government functions.  Many people from 1825-1925 wanted more independence from the official Swedish Lutheran Church, and this led to the building of mission churches and was also a reason that many families decided to leave Sweden and immigrate to America. This was the main reason that Grandma's great grandparents, August and Brita Eriksson, came to America with their three children in 1880.  And this was one of the reasons that my grandfather, Eskil Karlsson, came to America in 1920 with a friend. He met my grandmother Elsie who was born in America, but her parents had come from Sweden with Elsie's brother and sister in 1893.

Another unusual building was a "temperance hall" that was built by people from a town as a gathering place to combat drinking alcohol and gambling in taverns.  Life was hard and farm workers had very little money- so it was a great tragedy for men to waste their money on alcohol and gambling instead of providing food and clothes for their families  The temperance (no alcohol) hall provided a place for community activities, reading books together, learning crafts, art, music, dance and drama presentations- and in later years this was where you could go to see movies.  As a young man in the army my grandfather had a drinking problem; he heard a traveling preacher tell about God's love for him and how Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty (of death) for his sins- and he decided to believe that Jesus was his Savior.  God took away his desire to drink alcohol and he came to America looking for a new start- free from alcohol.  The temperance movement and temperance halls were a social movement not based on religion, but alcohol was a big problem in Sweden and many people were helped by having a place to have contact with other people away from the influence of alcohol and gambling.

Mission Church

We bought our lunch at booths that sold Swedish food- we had paper cones filled with mashed potatoes with reindeer meat and gravy.  I had lingonberry juice to drink and we had a bag of almonds with sugar/spice roasted in a copper kettle- very tasty. We ate at an outdoor table and listened to a folk band play with a few children dancing to the music.  It was a beautiful sunny day for being at Skansen.  We had seen most of the buildings and so we rode the trolley back towards downtown to see the Nordic Museum.  This museum opened in 1907 to showcase the collection of Nordic furniture and household items and decorative arts from the Swedish farm culture.  This collection of Swedish household items was started by the same man who started Skansen.  The museum displays many furnished rooms from Swedish houses from 1520 to modern times- with some paintings and many examples of Swedish decorative arts- wood carvings and clothing.  We rode the trolley back to our hotel and decided to have dinner again across the street at Pizza Hut.  We had a great day exploring the history and colorful culture of Sweden at Skansen and the Nordic Museum- what a good idea to preserve these buildings and household furnishings from long ago.

Nordic Museum

Cameron- what buildings do you and your family use?  We all spend a lot of time in many different buildings.  You don't live on a farm but you do live in a house with a kitchen for cooking and preparing meals and bathrooms for taking baths and bedrooms for sleeping.  You don't have to pump water from a well into a bucket because you have water faucets in your kitchen and bathrooms.  You don't have a barn for the animals, but you do have a garage for your Dad's boat and dirt bikes and tools with a workbench for projects.  Your sisters go to their school buildings, and you will go to a preschool classroom next year. The school house we saw at Skansen had just one classroom with all the children sitting together and learning the same lessons- and the school teacher lived in the same building- there was a small kitchen with a dining table and a sitting room and a bedroom.  Many people had to work hard to build their own log houses and barns.  I am glad that your mom and dad didn't have to build their own log cabin for your family to live in- that would have been crowded.  Cameron- God wants us to be thankful for all of the buildings and many other things that He provides for us to use.  God wants us to appreciate the gifts and blessings we have from Him and to look for ways to help other people who do not have as much as we do.

Love, Grandpa and Grandma