family in Sweden

After Copenhagen, we took the train across the sea to Sweden to visit relatives in a small city called Hörby. I'm sure you can imagine we were all (including our Swedish relatives, I'm sure) a bit nervous for the first meeting.  I mean, it's a relatively big gamble traveling across the Atlantic to spend 4 days with people to whom you've only ever written before.  However, I think almost immediately upon our meeting all fears were dissolved.  We all got along wonderfully and had so much fun getting to know each other!  

Back row (l-r): Linus and Michael
Middle row: Kenneth, Pia, Glen, Stefan, Frida, Frederick
Front row: Kerstin and Erik (with whom we stayed),  Kathy (my mom) and Mia (the dog)

 Okay, so a bit of genealogy.  My grandmother Good (aka my maternal grandmother)'s father, Ernst, moved to America from Sweden.  Ernst's brother, George, had children,  Erik being one of them.  So Erik, with whom we stayed, would be my grandmother's first-cousin. Got that? Good.  Let's continue...

Erik had three kids: Pia, Glen and Stefan (all pictured above) with his first wife.  Then he married Kerstin.  They had no kids together, but joke that Mia (their dog) is their baby. One of Kerstin's children is Michael, who is also pictured above.

Pia married Kenneth.  We spent a lot of time traveling with Pia and Kenneth and Kerstin and Erik.  They are who we got to know the best.  Pia and Kenneth have two daughters, Martina and Erika (not pictured).  They are both gorgeous and look like Swedish models.  Glen's children, Frida and Frederik are pictured above.  Stefan and his wife have two sons, one of whom is Linus, also pictured above.

Okay, that was a brief version of one branch of the family tree.  It's a lot to keep straight! And the relatives just kept coming!

Royal Copenhagen dishes at Erik and Kerstin's.  Loved these.

Dessert # 2: apple tart.  Seriously. We had already gorged ourselves on ice cream and fruit after dinner.  We had no clue apple tarts were coming! 

Flaggpunsch - a traditional Swedish drink.

Flaggpunsch is a nice après dinner liquer.  Not too strong, not too sweet, I am under the impression that it is consumed quite frequently in Swedish homes.  We were told that it is especially traditional to drink flaggpunsch while making and eating pea soup.

  The vanilla cream for the apple tart was divine.

We later learned that there is normally one dessert that follows dinner and then another one to go with post-dinner coffee and drinks.  Of course, it took us a few days of being absurdly full and still finding some way to consume another delicious dessert before we learned about this custom.

Skål!

I have a lot more photos of more family and more sights from the area to share with you.  Stay tuned!