Meeting Old Neighbors 9/18/12

I should be heading for bed, but there is one more thing that we did this week that I need to relate. When the children visited Sweden this summer, Mom took them to visit the apartment building where she lived as a child. As she was telling about it, a couple went up to the door to go inside. Kari went up to them and explained that she had lived there as a child and asked if she could show us inside. The couple said sure and let us in. Below is the apartment building. We went up to the third floor to her former apartment. As we looked around, Kari remarked that her former neighbors still lived across the hall. We knocked but no one was home. We left but decided to call and visit them later - such as at the end of summer perhaps when they would return from their summer cabin.

Kari called them after the first of September and reached the Slagbrands who said that they would be delighted to see her again. Last Tuesday, September 18th, we went up to Stockholm, quickly visited Haga park where the Lindbäck family played and picnicked (we will return and spend more time another day), then we went over and visited Anders and Britta Slagbrand.

 

 

 Anders is 83 and Britta is 85. They are in extremely great shape and doing very well. Britta was born in that apartment on the third floor and has lived there all her life. (Apartments are very difficult to get. There are waiting lists of about seven years to get one.) Of course Kari and they talked over old times while eating goodies and drinking a black currant drink that Britta had made from currants grown at their cabin. When we were leaving, Kari just had to take the 2-3 person elevator (more if you are kids or maybe pack in super tight). I should have gotten a picture from further back that showed their apartment door also. Anyway you can see that mom was super pleased.

The Slagbrands (and Britta's mother who also lived in the apartment) had been very good neighbors that had taken an interest in the Lindbäck family and the two little girls. Years later you could still feel the love that existed between them.

The goodbyes with good hugs and hand holding were very tender!

Half way mark 9/16/12

It is now a few days past our half-way mark and it is going by way too fast! As our time is running out so is the Swedish summer. The weather is getting colder, the wind crisper, the daylight shorter, the leaves are turning color, and the emotions are getting more sensitive.

In fact, I would like to honor the moment by saying a few things about some of the faithful saints and the temple. As I was sitting at the recommend desk last night, a brother stopped and talked. He had been here a week with the Norwegian group and was heading back that night by bus. He would leave at 10:30 last night and after two bus changes would be home outside of Oslso at 12:00 p.m, today - a 13.5 hour trip. Other Norwegians were also packing up either to bus, fly, or drive home. They had been here for the week with their families, including young children. Adults trade off taking care of the young children. This is how it has been all summer - faithful saints coming with their familes for entire weeks. They have their own sessions staffed by their own people.

Today, Saturday, our High Priest group will have their own session (or maybe two - the rooms only hold 31 people each). The temple President is keeping the temple open after hours just for them. Then they will have a meeting in the nearby chapel afterwards.

Either next week or sometime soon, the Gävle ward (about 2.5 hours away and Kari's dad's parents are buried in Gävle) have scheduled the temple on their own to attend. The President is so happy that they are taking the initiative on their own without being given a time to attend. The ward has already made arrangements and made plans to accomdate entire families. They told the temple President that they are bringing the children's Sunday clothes with them so that they can all walk up to the Temple in their Sunday best.

This is a Church for families. Last week mom sat next to two women that were non-members at sacrament meeting for the first time. (One was born in a small outside of Dala-Foda were mom spent her summers so they had a good bond and talked and talked.) The other woman had a pad and pencil and was taking notes. It was a primary sacrament meeting with all the beautiful children. One of the ladies asked if our Church always had that many children attending. Mom said that our Church was for families. The Sister misionaries were so cute as they came over and took the ladies under their wings. (Sister Briton has a brother in our ward in P.G.. Her parents are mission presidents in Siberia, and the other Sister - has a fake name because her's is too difficult to say in Swedish - is also from Pleasant Grove.)  After the meeting, mom heard one of the ladies ask the Sister missionaries if they could ask some questions. The Sisters had to make an appointment because they had about a 4-5 hour car drive to Goteborg for a music recital they were giving that night for the Mission.

This has got to be one of the greatest ways to celebrate life and to honor our Father in Heaven and His children on both sides of the veil!

Paris Attractions, 8/29-31/12

Versailles
Well, after getting to bed at 11:30 the night before, we didn't quite get out of the Hotel by 7:30 the next morning. So we didn't get to Versailles until about 10:30 where we encountered a long line of about three football fields long or about a 1.5 hour wait. (We had decided in advance not to buy a $125 ticket each to get in free to certain museums, skip the lines, and pay for all transportation. For us, it was a good decision because we got along with a lot less cost. This was our only long line.) We stood in line with a grandmother, her friend, and two grandchildren of about 8 and 11 years. We talked in French and I played slap-the-hands with the 8-year old boy.

 

The Palais de Versailles has huge acres of gardens. So we wisely rented a golf cart and tore around the gardens at a very slow speed.  I drove because I have guessed for a long time that mom has this strong latent desire to speed recklessly.

 



Sacre Coeur
Mom's best-liked site was the Sacre Coeur built on the highest hill overlooking Paris. It is very striking and peaceful.

 

We sat peacefully at a sidewalk cafe, had dinner, looked up at the beautiful sight. I think that we may have sat peacefully because it hurt to walk.  The metro station is at the bottom of the hill and I don't know if we didn't see escalators or if there weren't any. Anyway, the flights and flights of stairs that we took and took and took, took their toll on our poor old knees.

 

La Sorbonne

I have also been intrigued by the Sorbonne, the University of Paris. So I had to see it. It is a large building the length of the entire block and half as wide. It has a monitored entrance so not just anyone can enter (I didn't get in). Because of the fountain in front, we loved the water sound and ate there twice at side-walk restaurants.

 

 

 

Our eating consisted of buying yogourt and bananas the night before at a small neighborhood grocery store and putting over our mult-grain cereal that we brought with us for breakfast. Then we bought a fancy lunch at the sites that we visited at about 2:30 p.m. to save time and to enjoy the ambiance. Then we had snacks at night. Incidentally, mom liked french crepes with sugar and cinnamon so much that she had to buy them at side-walk vendores about once or twice a day.

 

Eiffel Tower

We spent about two hours walking the garden, sitting at the opposite end of the garden, and taking pictures of the Eiffel Tower through dusk and night.

 

 

 

 

Arc de Triomphe

I had better put in a picture of mom at the Arc de Triomphe. We walked the famous Champs de L'Elysees twice. The second time mom wanted to look at fashions in several of the stores. I stayed outside and at one point I made a fashion statement of my own by probably being the first person to pull out my ipad and reading a Louis L'Amour (french right?) short story right on the fashionable Champs de L'Elysees.

 

 

Interesting Pictures

I like two rather impressionistic pictures that we took at the Seine at night without stabilizing my camera -- so the pictures are blurred. But, I like the "aura" of a mystical and romantic Paris that the blurriness creates. One sees the Seine, boats, Notre Dame, and a beautiful full moon.

 

 

 

 

 

We loved our stay in PARIS!

(Yes we loved our stay in Paris!!  Mom)

 







First Day in Paris, 8/28/12

August sure went by quickly. Starting on Saturday the 18th, the Temple was closed for the rest of the month. The next Tuesday mom and I borrowed tennis rackets and balls and went to a private club outside court at a beautiful beach and played tennis for an hour. We would have gone other days also but the weather was "wet." Instead mom got her hair cut in a nearby town and visited a museum in Stockholm on her own while I stayed at home, researched, and planned our trip to Paris.

We left for Paris on Tuesday the 28th via Air France. We arrived in Paris at 5 p.m. and were supposed to be at our hotel at about 7 p.m. for a peaceful exploratory walk around the neighborhood. I know that the "supposed to be" gives way to intrique. So, we went to buy our train tickets for a clear one-way trip to the hotel. We we told that there would be at least a two-hour wait because there had just been an accident on the tracks and someone had been killed. We were told, along with "hundreds" of other people, tours, etc. to take a bus. So everyone "runs" across several terminals in shuttles to catch the bus for a detour around the wreck. As many people as possible were shoved into the bus. Of course, we weren't one of them. Suddenly, a worker yells that one could catch a train. You must realize that most of the people are tourist just arriving at the Charles de Gaulle airport and have absolutely no idea of what is happening. We all run over to the train platform. At this point, no one has tickets or knows where the train is coming from or going to. There are multitudes of people asking other people who also have no clue.  Finally, a train comes and everyone blindly piles in. The train goes, stops, and everyone piles out onto a platform of who-knows-where. We wonder about for about 15 minutes while asking other people what to do who answered back that they don't know either.

Finally, I go down in the subway and ask and we are directed (with another unknowing women trailing we unknowing two) to take another train to who-knows-where. Fortunately, as we are riding the train, I still have courage to ask another person the same question about how to get to the St. Michel metro stop. This time we hit a mother load of all paydirt. His last name was Viega, Spanish and born in Paris.  It was the first time that he had taken this train, but he was going to one stop before St. Michel and if we would follow him, he would take us that far. One once-was swede and one american followed him like two puppy dogs -- so close that one couldn't have put a thin piece of French cheese between us.

How great it felt to come out of a metro tunnel, smell fresh air, and see a sign that says Fontaine de St. Michel.  All my best planning had not prepared us for what had just happened. Then to have mom basically say that President Monson says that nothing is a coincidence.  I didn't see wings on Mr. Viega or any harp, but I do know that angels don't need to have either one.

After, checking in, we headed out of the hotel a little after 9 p.m. The hotel Severin was perfectly located -- about two walking minutes from the central metro, five minutes from Notre Dame, five minutes from a Seine boat cruise, ten minutes from La Sorbonne, fifteen minutes from Le Louvre, and smack dab right in the middle of one of the best tourist areas of the Latin Quarter. It was time to party!

We walked some streets, went to the Seine, ate dinner at a side-walk cafe, and fell into bed about 11:30 knowing that we should get out of the hotel about 7:30 am the next morning to go to the Louvre to miss the long tourist line.