July 12 Day 29 Fly to Umea, Sweden

When we talked about our summer plans, many people were surprised that we were flying to Umea,(OO-may-o) Sweden. This is north, nearly at the arctic circle. “Why?” We were asked. To visit friends, Elena and Stig-Olaf who had visited us in California as SERVAS guests. We always said they live our lives except in northern Sweden. Stig is a university professor and Elena is a social worker... just like us!

We flew from Copenhagen to Stockholm and then changed Planes to Umea. Julie and Lars dropped us off at the “kiss and fly zone”.

It was raining in Stockholm, but not when we arrived in Umea. The plane announcements in Copenhagen were in Danish and English. Going to Umea, it was only in Swedish. No one goes there who aren’t local.

Stig and Elma picked us up, greeting us with such warmth. We then got a lovely tour of the town. We walked along the riverfront and saw the old buildings. So pretty.

We had the chance to begin to catch up on what had been happening. There are some upcoming huge lay off of Swedish social workers (over 4,000 will lose their jobs in the next 6 months). Elena is also in her final semester of completing her Master’s Degree. Hooray for her.

These two friends are highly involved in their community, especially as environmental and client change activists. We have such respect for them and their work.

After our time in the town, we drove about 45 minutes north to the family farm which had been in Stig’s family for several generations. We would enjoy the next three nights here.

They fixed us a wonderful dinner of homemade pie and moose that Stig had hunted last fall.  It tasted really good and not too strong.

We were also introduced to Stig’s son, Anton, a university student home for the summer. We enjoyed getting to know him and hearing is perspective on Sweden and the world.

We were quite tired and went to bed, happy to have a break for so much time in large cities.