Sweden Trip Day 2 - Liquor is Quicker

My mom took this delightful photo of me while proclaiming, ah, your first day in Sweden! (Notice what I'm eating, it will be significant later.)

So when I woke the second day and came downstairs I told my mom all I wanted was some 7-up and regular Advil (I, like a fool, had only brought Advil PM). In all my singleness little did I realize what I really needed to quell my queasiness had already been discussed that morning. I was after all, now in the company of my mom and two of her sisters. Aunt Berit had called earlier to say what I really needed was a nice shot of whiskey. Thank God Aunt Kerstin (pronounced shas-tin, as in shasta cola) and my mom had settled on alka seltzer.

I took my alka seltzer and we started for the bus to my cousin Ingrid’s salon so I could get my hair done. I was really excited because I had been growing out my hair for two years so she would have perfectly virgin hair to work with.

I love my new hair!!!

It’s amazing how much better you feel after you get your hair done! We immediately walked down to the liquor store to shore up for the next two weeks. On the way we passed my mom’s best friend Gull-Britt’s house she grew up in – I’m sorry to say I didn’t get a picture of it. Then we went to the GROCERY STORE! I love going to the grocery store, and in another country, it was even better! I couldn’t stop looking at everything, it was so cute and small, no jumbo size American packaging, I wanted to look at every single aisle and see what I could find. Finally we went to the soda aisle – and what did I see – 7UP LIGHT!! Curse the day!!! I thought I was going to cry, then all of a sudden I saw it – regular 7-UP! I had hope! When I checked out I had my beloved 7-UP, my first Swedish magazine, Rosie, and a package of one of my favorite Scandinavian cookies, bixit with chocolate! And I became fast friends with the clerk who told me she was going to move to New Jersey to be with her American boyfriend…good for her!

My mom grew up in Malmö, which is where we were, where my Aunt Kerstin lives. After dinner my mom and I decided to take a walk. We walked for an hour and half and I got to see the house she grew up in, like a fool, neither of us brought a camera. My cousin Anna lives really close by there so we went on a wild goose chase looking for her apartment, amazingly enough we found it and stopped by to say hi to her, Anders (husband) and her new baby Moa. My mom said we’d better hurry back because Kerstin is a worrier and she would be outside waiting for us – she was!

On the way back a girl came up to me and asked me for directions, I said in my best panic-stricken Swedish, “I don’t understand you.” My mom said she was looking for a bank machine, she probably thought what I would think, what idiot doesn’t understand what a bank machine is…

The thing I enjoyed most about this day was my mom pointing out tons of houses saying, that’s where so and so lived, and that’s where this boy I dated lived, here's the school I went to in 6th grade, and that’s where this happened…

Aunt Kerstin's lovely backyard, she did all the gardening herself...

Ingrid's cute little salon in Limhamn (an area in Malmö), called Lockar & Sånt (meaning Curls & Such.) Me with my hair set! The lady on my right was going to a funeral and getting hers set too!