Since we had so much time to kill on Friday, we decided to visit the pyramids. Thank-God we decided to go in the morning or I swear we would have melted in the afternoon. We had been warned about the very rude vendors at the pyramids who will hound you to buy their stuff, but since it was Friday morning, a holy day, very few people were visiting the pyramids and even fewer vendors. Unfortunately for us, though, our hotel had scammed us into getting into a car with a guy who was supposed to drive us up to the parking lot at the pyramids and give us a tour for around $30 USD. Instead, he dropped us off at a place that gives camel rides and told us there was no way that cars were allowed anywhere near the pyramids. I knew that this was false, but thought perhaps this was an added bonus for our $30. Nope, they soon had us inside and our driver had disappeared - we were stuck paying around $300 USD to visit the pyramids. Lesson learned - don't get out of the car! The camels were pretty cool - though I used muscles I had never used before when riding a horse! Camels have advantages and disadvantages. Advantage: They lay down, making it very easy to get on them. Disadvantage: They stand up with you on their back. The early morning desert heat already had my hands sweating pretty profusely - and the "horn" on the saddle is smooth vertical wood, without a horizontal piece to keep your hands from sliding up and off. I gripped as tight as I could, and squeezed my legs against the sides of the camel while the camel stood up and my body was thrust forward and back. Luckily I was on a camel that was at least 12 inches shorter than the one Gary was on. The saddles are very hard and very uncomfortable and I managed to get two open wounds on my rear. We rode up close to the pyramids, got on and off a few times for photo ops, and never got very close to the sphynx. We approached from the side that makes the pyramids look like they are sitting in the middle of a rocky desert, but as we got up closer we could see the paved parking lots all around them. We never went inside the pyramids or got close to the largest of them, but now we can say we have been there, done that - and we learned some lesson so we know what not to do in the future when Chris, Cassandra, and Lauren come for Christmas, or when we have other visitors who may want to see the pyramids. I also learned that riding a camel is probably not the best thing to do when one is going to have to sit on an airplane and in an airport for the next 16 hours, and those open wounds took days to heal and made sitting for any length of time very uncomfortable!
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| Gary's camel was anxious to lay down and scratch its head! |
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| Our very untrustworthy guide. |
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| Up close to one of the smaller pyramids. |
We arrived at the Stockholm Arlanda airport on Saturday, September 10, ready to make our way inland about 150 miles to visit our former exchange daughter, Emma, who lived with us for the 2012-2013 school year, and her family at their summer home. We arrived during their autumn, with the trees just starting to turn yellow and red. The temperatures were 70-80 degrees during the day, with nighttime temps falling to around 40-50 F. Emma's family showed us a delightful time! We loved their floating sauna - which doubles as a boat and Emma's bedroom. The water was as cold as Lake Superior in the spring - so we would jump in and get out quickly and go right into the sauna. We also went kayaking. Swedish kayaks are much more narrow and unstable than ones I have been in in the USA. My core strength was put to a test as I was in a double kayak with Rita and I was sure I was going to dump us over! If we had dumped over, I am not sure I could have made it to shore as the water was soooo cold and we were not wearing life jackets. Besides for my nervousness about the whole experience, it was also quite painful sitting on the hard floor of the kayak with raw spots on my butt from the camel ride! Oy vei!
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| A guest house to the summer house, but currently Johanna's cabin |
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| The "new" red summer home they have recently purchased and their original summer home. Very cozy with a fireplace on the porch and one inside. |
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| Clever kayak storage for many long kayaks! |
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| The boat sauna. One side is a sauna, the other is Emma's room. She has the room with the very best view! They can drive this whole raft anywhere in the lake and float take a sauna or have a picnic. |
They made us fresh pizza in their pizza oven, which was made by Emma's oh so funny father, Olof. They also served us a huge bowl of shrimp as an appetizer. Emma and her sister Johanna also made us a meal of fresh made-from-scratch pasta and meat sauce. Delicious!
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| UP, or Sweden? You decide. |
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| It is easy to see why the Swedes and Finns settled in the UP and Minnesota - there is really very little difference! |
One of the cows trotted up to me so I reached out to pet its head and it head-butted me, nearly knocking me down!
We drank from the artesian well on the farm. Along the way, we did manage to find a fair amount of mushrooms. We looked for yellow ones that barely peak up above the surface and look like the yellow birch leaves that had fallen to the ground, and we also looked for ones that were grey in color and looked like funnels.
They also told us that in Sweden everyone has the right to pick mushrooms, berries, etc anywhere - as long as you are not within sight of someone else's house. If you own acreage, you can not kick someone off your land who is only there to look for mushroom or berries or apples, etc. You can not go on someone else's land and cut down trees or cause damage to their land, but you can hike anywhere. Emma's family recently purchased the summer house next-door to theirs (which is much larger) and were beginning to clear out the furniture so they could have it cleaned. They do not know the exact age, but do know it was moved to its present location in the 1950's. They estimated it to be over 100 years old. It had the most unusual front door and the bunk beds were built in and very short - for a time when people were much shorter than they are today. The bunks also had a bar for bed curtains to be hung. Besides for the two main summer-houses they now own, each summer home has a guest house.
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| Two part front door. Inside door is very decorative |
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| Had to take this picture for Al Garland, so someone please be sure to show it to him. Who knew Husqvarna made sewing machines?? |
Rita took us to a local copper mine that was in operation for 1,200 years! Most houses, churches, barns, and other buildings in Sweden today are painted "mine red" from a pigment that is found only in copper mines. We were impressed with the museum attached to the mine where every display was deliberate and made complete sense. The stairs down into the mine were so well-built, polished, and clean and the tour was fascinating.
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| Looking at the mineral on the wall that is used to pigment the red paint. With the use of various temperatures to heat it at, they can now make the stain/paint into a yellow or a black as well. They credit this stain as the reason they are able to preserve wooden buildings for 300 or more years. |
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| One of the red churches in Emma's college town |
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| Emma's college campus is made up of all red buildings. This one is her dorm |
The aesthetics and simplicity of the place seemed like so much of everything else we would encounter in Sweden. I do mean everything else - the roads were well-maintained, we never saw one home that looked like it was being neglected, we never saw one place with a junk-yard of old cars or "stuff" laying around the yard, not one neglected bike path, bridge, etc. Even when we went to Stockholm, we did not see any signs of homelessness, no neglected buildings, and everything was extremely clean, well-maintained, and organized. Yes, they pay very high taxes (50%) because in Sweden, it is considered a "right" of being a human to have a safe home, food, and healthcare. Happy, healthy people keep the streets safer and cleaner and provide for a huge middle class which have the means to upkeep their homes. Over 80% of Swedes own second homes.
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| Emma's family's primary home |
There are upper middle class and lower middle class people, but very few people live in poverty or in extreme wealth. Those who say high taxes will reduce the motivation to work hard, keep reading as I will talk later about why most Swedes are hard-workers. After the mine tour, we drove about 40 miles to where Emma goes to college. She is spending 1-2 years learning ceramics. She lives in a dorm-type set-up where there are 6 bedrooms and bathrooms with a central kitchen and living area. The town she lives in is beautiful and is on one of the thousands of lakes in Sweden - this was a bit larger than most. We ate the mushrooms on toast the next morning before our departure to the cruise boat to make our way to Helsinki, Finland.
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| Emma's dorm room |
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| We were so shocked by the size of this pizza. Emma and Rita were not. In traditional Swedish style, which says it is impolite to eat the last piece of anything, we cut the last piece in smaller slices - then left one not to be eaten! |
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| Mid Summer's Eve pole - this area attracts 30,000 Swedes to their festival to celebrate the longest day of the year. It is decorated with flowered wreaths which are not taken down until the next year. |
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| The bunk beds in this 18th century home are really no different than the ones in Emma's parents new summer home. |
The cruise to Helsinki was overnight. In the morning we explored the city and ate lunch at a laplander stand in the market area. A guy called us over to try some little fish that are popular in northern Finland (similar to perch). He noticed Gary's MSU Spartan hat and made a comment - which is when we learned he is from Toledo, Ohio and had married a Finlander two years ago and moved to Finland. Small world. We also noticed a film crew, so Gary started talking to them when they were on break and found out they were filming an episode for one of Andrew Zimmerman's food shows (not "Bizzare Foods" but one about food from around the world). The crew members we talked to were from Minnesota and Colorado. We used a "Hop On, Hop Off" bus to see the city and wished we had had several more days. Like in Sweden, we again did not see any run-down, unkempt buildings in Helsinki (although, to be fair, we were only in Helsinki for less than 12 hours and did not really have time to see much of the city)
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| Port entrance into Helsinki |
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| We totally splurged on dinner. Don't hate us! |
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| Church built right into a mountain. They say the acoustics are amazing |
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| Gary feels right at home. This is an old prison |
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| Gun tower |
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| The statues and architecture in both Stockholm and Helsinki was wonderful |
The next morning we were back in Sweden and it was time to explore Stockholm.
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| You would never think a big cruise ship would fit between these islands - and if it did, you would think it would surely hit bottom! |
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| Many shops selling mink and other fur coats around Stockholm! |
Another "Hop-on, Hop-Off" bus. We saw the most incredible preserved shipwreck from 1626! They sprayed it with a collagen liquid constantly for 17 years to prevent it from dry-rotting once it was surfaced in 1961. Usually saltwater quickly decays shipwrecks, but this one was preserved underwater because it sunk in brackish water and was quickly covered by mud and years of heavily polluted water. (pollution was actually a good thing in this case!)
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| The transom on this ship stood nearly 7 stories high! Perhaps the reason it sunk on its maiden voyage after sailing just 1500 meters! |
We walked around "Old Town" listening to the performers, enjoying the very narrow streets with shops (where I bought my first real-leather purse!), and walked around the castle. Again, the city was well-planned with bike paths through-out the city, wide sidewalks, separate areas for walking and shopping, and great public transportation. It was a very easy city to walk to almost everything you might want to see.
Before departing from Sweden, we spent the night in the "Jumbo Stay" - a hostel built inside a Jumbo 747 jet! Jumbo Stay website for pictures
Backing up a bit, I want to tell you about the first billboard to greet us in Sweden as we made our way up the escalator in the airport. It was a big salute to their public education system! Beginning at age one, every child is entitled to a free education from daycare/preschool to college graduation, and beyond. Education is valued. High Schoolers are allowed to talk about and debate subjects that are considered "taboo" in the USA. Most Swedes are highly educated, beyond what Americans consider a high school education. A master's degree is considered part of the "undergraduate" system. A bachelor's degree requires a thesis which has to be orally defended. All degrees are equally valued by society, so pursuing degrees or training in the arts or a trade is just as valued as degrees in the hard sciences. Work is also valued, so people are encouraged to do the work that brings them joy and to explore their gifts and interests. The Swedes tend to believe that a happy worker is a productive worker. Refreshing!
On our plane to Istanbul, we sat next to a 30 year old Swedish man who gave us even more perspective on the Swedish system and politics beyond what we learned from Emma and her parents and from what we saw with our own eyes and researched online. He was headed to cheer on his friends who play on an intramural "old man" hockey team who were playing in a tournament in Florida. He was able to take the time off work, because that is just something you can do in Sweden. He said he was never very good in language arts in school, yet he speaks fluent English and Swedish and works in IT for H & M. He said he never finished his university degree because he got a job right away - and yet he was extremely knowledgeable about world history, geography, politics, movies, etc. I made a mistake of saying that it was neat to see buildings in use today that are older than our country - to which he quickly reminded me that Native Americans would probably not see it that way! He talked about their political system as being left and right AND up and down. They currently have the representation of 8 political parties in their government. I can't really remember exactly how he broke them down, but it was something to the effect that one party is for no new immigration and more government services, another is for more religion and more money spend on environmental pursuits, another for more worker rights and less business regulations, etc. There was no way to compare it to our 2-party system.
Speaking of work, think about this question: Do corporations and businesses exist for the good of the people, or do people exist for the good of the corporations and businesses? The policies and laws in the USA today seem to support the latter, while it is very obvious in Sweden that corporations and businesses exists for the good of the people. The government's policies and laws support this belief, which I will discuss later. Some Swedish companies have begun to move to a 6 hour work day believing strongly in the work to home life balance. It has worked as Swedes are more productive while at work than prior to the change. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/sweden-introduces-six-hour-work-day-a6674646.html Those companies that practice an 8 hour work day often provide flex-time or other ways for the employee to maintain a healthy work to home life balance. Public sector workers almost always have a 7 hour work day. Of course, there are always those who have jobs which are not really time-dependent, but involve more creativity and innovation or are very fulfilling in other ways and people often spend far more than 40 hours a week at work because they just enjoy what they do. In every work place, coffee breaks are essential. Employees are given a coffee break in the morning and in the afternoon, at minimum.
Many people say they believe in the importance of family. It seems logical, then, that the government should support this belief with their policies, doesn't it? In Sweden, parents are granted 480 days of parental leave, PER CHILD, which can be divided between the dad and the mom. Of those days, 360 are paid around 80% of their normal salary, and 90 days they are paid at a flat rate. In addition, these days can be taken up to the time the child turns 8. Also, if a parent wants to reduce their work hours by 25% in order to have more time at home with their children (up to age 8), they may do so and then the business must put them back to full-time when they are ready.
Since free healthcare and a public pension is a right of Swedish citizens, (Swedes believe these to be rights as much as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are American rights) businesses do not have to worry about trying to provide these "benefits". If a person is hired to work 20 hours a week or more, or is a "temporary" employee (working hourly, less than 20 hours/week) for more than 130 days, the business is then required, by law, to provide the employee with the benefits of collective bargaining rights.The way people talk about their work was almost confusing to us - they talked about "leaving a few weeks of vacation leave at a previous employer, so they will probably go back to work for them again at some point before retirement so they can collect their leave". We were also told that you can leave your employment to get more education and the company has to hire you back when you return. Can you imagine any of this in the USA today?
Swedish transportation was also very impressive. Emma's parents told us it would be best for us to take the train for the 3 hour ride to their home. We expected to have to get a taxi or uber from the airport to the train station, then wait at the train station for some time before the train would arrive - wasting valuable time for visiting. Instead, we learned that the train station is just part of the very well designed, well-marked, neat and orderly airport. After a short walk from the plane, we arrived with just 6 minutes to spare. We bought our tickets at the kiosk, walked down a short ramp to the train's platform, where we still had nearly 3 minutes before the train arrived! The train was also very neat and orderly - the conductor announced each stop clearly, and each train station was also clearly marked so we knew exactly where we were. After our visit with Emma's family in Falun, we had planned a cruise to Helsinki. How does one get from Falun to the cruise ship? Well, the easiest method seemed to be by bus. Where do you go to get on the bus? The TRAIN station of course!! All the transportation options in ONE location. How deliberately simple and convenient! While we can not claim to have much past experience with cruise ships, the simple organization of getting on and off the ship was much faster and smoother than either of the other two cruises we took out of Florida. Once it was time to make our way back to the airport in Stockholm, we walked to the centrally-located "Central Station" in Stockholm and bought a ticket on the high-speed Arlanda Express, which traveled at top-speed of 127 mph. I've heard a lot of arguments that the USA can't have nice things like high speed rails because we are too spread out or because we have mountains or because we have snow and the ground contracts and expands with the seasons making this too dangerous. Look at Sweden on a map - they are at the same latitude as northern Canada/Alaska. The ground is not exactly flat. And, perhaps the USA can start small - high-speed rails between NYC and DC?
Another "transportation" aspect we really liked had to do with biking. There are bike paths everywhere! Swedes have special bike tires for winter biking (again, a place where in the winter there is only 2-4 hours of daylight and temperatures can reach well below zero). There are lights along all the bike paths, and Swedes would rather bike 20 miles to work than take their car. There are large taxes put on their gasoline consumption to encourage biking - which also helps save our planet from the environmental impact of carbon emissions, increases the health of Swedish citizens, and reduces cancer-causing pollutants. It seems like a win-win-win.
Sweden stamped my passport on the page that bears this quote, "Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair. -George Washington. Washington knew that even with the best minds of the day, the Constitution would not be perfect, but it would be a start. Wisely, the founding fathers knew that there would be future situations and events they could not even begin to imagine and therefore, the Constitution, as monumental as it was, would only be a framework, the skeleton of rules upon which to build the body of a nation.
Every July 4 we celebrate our country's birth and we tend to remember only the brave and good things about those who lived in 1776. Yet, who can deny that the "standards of greatness" of 1776 USA are much different than today, in 2016? (Think homes with no central heat or air conditioning, no electricity, death by the most common of illnesses and natural causes, a government with nearly 100% debt to pay for the Revolutionary War, etc) The "standard of excellence" must always progress forward, even at the risk that some changes must then be repaired by future wise and honest people as circumstances change. One can never go backwards into a perceived era of "greatness" - what once was "great" in our past is far from adequate today on a world stage.
There are many lessons to be learned from around the world in 2016 because there are many contrasts between cultures. The founding fathers took what they knew from the most successful cultures from the past and present, attempted to repair what they perceived as flaws, and crafted the best, most progressive government and society of the day. Nothing was truly brand new - they just combined the best of what had already been done or improved upon ideas of their day that were being done in other societies. Unselfishly, they wanted future generations to have things BETTER than they had it. Scouts teaches us to always leave things better than we found them. Shouldn't we always strive to be like the founding fathers - exploring the possibilities in great ideas from elsewhere, improving upon those ideas, and making them our own?
You are an amazing tour guide as well as teacher. I am learning so much about the world from your travels. Thank you!
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