So last but not least we found ourselves in one of the worlds most beautiful cities, Stockholm. Our flight was pretty painless, our luggage weighed to much, but typical to all the other Italians we've come across the guy just winked at us and said " have a nice flight." The draw for us in Stockholm is people . We have the best of friends there. Jarmo and Eila we met through my Swedish friend at home and they are very special people. I've been told once you have a Swedish friend, you have a friend for life. They are actually Finnish people, but that's irrelevant they live in Sweden and will surely be our friends for life. We stayed at their eldest daughter and son in laws house with their three sweet little children, the first night I was so happy to sit with a girlfriend and talk I kept Isa up till almost 2:00 in the morning. At home, I have the best girl friends in the world, and being the mother of three boys I need my girl time desperately. So after nearly two monthes without my female companions I was overjoyed to have the company of a cool chic who spoke English.
It's fun having friends in other countries because you really get a true sense of the culture and for us we get to experience city life. There is some marked differences culturally. I spoke with one of jarmo and Eila' s friends who after visiting a while asked why we seemed different from other Americans they had run across. He felt we were more open. The ones he met before seemed uptight if I could put it into one word. He talked about the Finnish sauna and how natural it is for families and friends to use the sauna together. We both agreed it's Americans who are the perverts. Our culture is so much more sex oriented and makes natural things seem more dirty. For instance, the house we stayed at was full of nude art. It was a Mecca for boobie lovers. Coles eyes about popped out of his head when he first noticed all the boobies everywhere. I explained, this is art. It didn't bother us at all ,Infact I found it amusing, but in our culture many people I know wouldn't see it as art but be offended. So I love traveling and seeing and experiencing the variety of things people enjoy and I love the exposure my kids have had to different ways of doing and thinking about things. Another interesting difference is the things we get used to and see as completely necessary, for instance a car. Our friend Marcus is a painter. How on earth does he do his job without a car? He goes to work with a bike. Yes a bicycle. He has to pedal it. He carries his ladder and brushes and buckets all on his bike. Snow and rain and winter darkness doesn't stop him. Amazing really. We would self combust if we had to do this, but he happily works this way. He even comes home in a great mood, with a houseful, of guests. Another difference, it's illegal to spank your kids. Whooa now this one may be going to far. I'm a huge fan of spanking. But this is another interesting thing, our friends have have eight grand children and they are not spanked but they all are so well behaved and adorable. They don't fight with each other that I could see, they were kind and gentle and well mannered. Also they survive in the city. I used to wonder how children survive in cities and don't get run over by cars but these kids are well trained and learn from a very young age to not run in the street. They also have plenty of time outside in nature with plenty of parks and it sounds funny but there's a lovely cemetery right around the corner that is perfect for the kids bikes and scooters or just playing. They certainly won't have the people living their complain of noise and the kids can't hurt anyone for sure. After staying with them, I have an itch. Brace yourselves. I want to move to San Francisco. At least it's not Europe family and friends so don't worry.
I am not a fan of staying with people. I love having people stay with me, but when it comes to me staying with others I cringe at the thought. I'm so afraid of imposing or annoying my host I usually won't go in the first place. This is a grievous thing for Jimmie. It drives him nuts that I'm like this. There's only a handful of homes I'm comfortable enough to stay with. But as I get older I'm trying to balance this out a little. When you have friends there are five ways you can show them love. Each of us have our own love language. There is a book written on this subject that I love. My love language, the thing that makes me feel loved ,is primarily two things, first on my list is time, second is touch. You can tell me you love me all you want, but if you don't have time for me or don't hug me I'll never believe you. So here is where I'm trying to find my balance, if I don't make time for people I claim to love then that makes me a hypocrite, so I have to step out of my comfort zone in some cases and plop myself on someone's sofa, or in this case guest room.
Now the the thing is these friends of ours are so amazingly hospitable and comfortable and we were having so much fun I never for one moment felt like we were imposing. On the contrary, we were treated so lovingly I felt so embraced and happy that we made the right decision to go to Sweden again. We didn't need to be entertained . The city is a glorious place just to mozy around and soak up the creative open environment, but truly the best part was our friends and all their awesome kids and spouses who made us feel so special.
The kids had an amazing time. Our friends introduced them to a group of teenagers from their congregation and we hardly saw them after that. So now they have a whole new slew of Swedish friends their age that they really loved. We met so many lovely people this week it's hard to know where to start. What was so impressive was the time and energy people gave of themselves.
By the time we left we had tears in our eyes. Why must the ocean be so big?
The Juintenen family are the the kindest gentlest family I have come across but are also incredibly fun to be around. That's a great mix. It's hard to find people that have both of those features. So in summary, it was a perfect end to our journey. We were no longer lonely or homesick for those last few days we felt like we were with family.
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