Long time no blogging - Back to Sweden

I really can't believe how much time has gone by since my last blog.  Shame on me !!!

So more about living in Sweden !  I can't honestly say I liked the job as a maid, but it did put a little money in my pocket and I met a girl from Romania who was also working as a maid.  She spoke no English, but we both spoke a little French  and a little Swedish so we became the best of friends. We worked together as a team doing rooms which made the whole process much easier.  When we worked the evening shift, we would work very quickly and when we were done, we would sneak out onto the roof of the hotel where they had a sunning area for guests and lie on the chaise lounges and smoke cigarettes and attempt to talk to each other.  The woman in charge of Housekeeping at the hotel, really felt I should be doing something more than cleaning rooms.  She got me a job with a gentleman that needed someone to clean his apartment, and also needed someone to type in English at the bank he worked at. This was certainly nicer than full time hotel maid.  Peter understanding my frustration in my job search told his Chef that we might be leaving Sweden for that reason.  The Chef offered me a position in the "Cold Kitchen" in the restaurant that Peter worked in.  This was highly unusual, as the Swedish Kitchen has very specific qualifications to work in different departments. All the girls that worked in the Cold Kitchen had gone to school to be qualified.  They didn't seem to be troubled too much about that, but the language was killing me.  One spoke Swedish with a Norwegian accent, another was from the south of Sweden and one from the north  of Sweden, so they all spoke differently.  I learned a great deal working there and they had an opportunity to practice their English !

The spring and summer in Stockholm are wonderful.  People totally enjoy the outdoors during that time of the year.  The midnight sun is really something.  When we would work the night shift, as we were leaving work around 11 pm the sun was setting.  By the time we would get to our subway stop, the sun was rising !  We went to a party after work one night.  It ended about 4 am.  When we stepped outside to head home, it was so eerie ......... bright noon sun and no one on the streets.  It was like the world had come to an end !!! 

We bought a VW Beetle in the spring of 1974.  We traveled as much as time would permit to see Scandinavia.  We spent time in Denmark, took a road trip through Norway and saw the Fiords, and took a one day boat  trip to an island off the coast  of Finland. We made some wonderful friends while there.  The picture of that motley crew is our little bowling team from work.  It was a German, American, Austrian, Finish, Japanese team.  Massa our Japanese friend even came to visit us in the states after we returned home from Europe.

 

The people crave the sun and warmth of the summer in Sweden.  It's easy to understand after spending a winter there.  The bright colored feathers are attached to forsythia branches.  They help brighten  up your home while waiting for the forsythia to bloom.

Although we were really enjoying our life in Stockholm, we needed to move on so Peter could get some more "European" experience.  Positions in Zermatt Switzerland were available so we both applied, and we were hired by Seilerhaus to work in their restaurant for the winter.  So we are off again to our next adventure.  Don't ask me where we got the nerve, I guess there must really be some gypsy blood in us !  What an incredible journey we are on !!!

The Days were dark,  dank  and short in Stockholm 

in the winter of 1974

We have now settled into life in Stockholm. Peter is working as Chef de Partie in the main restaurant of the Sheraton Hotel. He seems to like it quite a bit. There is a lot to learn. However being an American, he is pretty much looked down on as far as his culinary skills. Just give him a little time and they will change their early impression. They think Americans only know French Fries and Ketchup!

A dreary day downtown!

The first few weeks after we moved into the apartment, and Peter had started working full time was a very lonely time for me. The sun came up about 10:30 in the morning and was gone by 3:30. It was cold and snow less, just drab, gray and an unhappy place. I spent time wandering around the city trying to find my way to new places. But I wasn't very happy.

I started "Swedish" lessons on a full time basis. They offer free classes to invandrare or immigrants to the country. There were 18 of us in the class and we represented 15 countries. We started at 9 am with one instructor, broke for lunch at noon and then spent the afternoon with another instructor until 3. It was tons of fun. It's a rather interesting language with sounds that we don't have in
English. When I first started going to the class, an American woman sat beside me......I didn't move to Sweden to have an American friend, especially one that was a bit older than I was, and she bragged about all sorts of things. Yuck!! She told me she had dated James Garner, knew all sorts of celebrities, and was married to the Photographer of the King of Sweden. Yeah, right! oops, I was wrong. She was indeed married to Carl Gullers, Previous photographer of the Late King of Sweden, and was world renowned as he also had many of his photographs during WW2 in Life Magazine and had published many books of photography. It was rather easy to tell that he was really "Somebody" when we were invited to a party at the opening of his new offices in Stockholm. I had to go out and buy a formal gown to wear to the affair!

Barbara & Carl Gullers

By this time, I had learned enough Swedish and had received my work permit to start working, and was hired by the Sheraton Hotel as a Maid. A maid is a städerska in Swedish. So back to the party, where I had the pleasure of meeting and dancing with the President of Volvo. Making small talk in Swedish he asked me where I worked and what I did for a living. In my very best Swedish, I told him I was a maid at the Sheraton Hotel!!!! If I had known more Swedish,  I would probably have made up something much more glorious!!!

Perhaps before I finish my "living in Sweden" blogs I will add more about the Gullers, and the fun we had with them.

Tills nästa gång, lyckönskningar till alla! (until next time, best wishes to all!)

Who would possibly leave Bermuda and move to Sweden in the middle of the winter????

Stockholm in January

Bermuda in January

Only us, 2 crazy kids from Connecticut!!!  After we visited  with our families and packed a trunk full of winter clothes, off we flew to Stockholm.  We flew first class as there was no charge for excess luggage.  It worked out to be the same price as economy and pay for luggage.  So why not sit up front with the rich folks!!!  Unfortunately, our flight was so delayed leaving that I was too tired to stay awake for the meal and all the extra frills!!!

Not knowing how far the airport was from Stockholm, and not having done much investigating, we opted for a taxi to town.  Welllllllll, town was about an hour away.  So, just about all our spending cash went to pay the fare. No wonder most people were getting  on  the bus!  The bus destination is right next door to the Sheraton Hotel where we were going. Such worldly travelers we were!!!!

Our first few days where a whirl wind of activity.  We were put up in a room at the hotel while we found a place to live.  The woman in Human Resources found us an apartment to look at in the outskirts of Stockholm. We took a taxi to see the rent.  It was on the third floor of a walk up apartment.  Herr Erickson was the landlord.  He didn't speak a word of English and we didn't speak a word of Swedish except ya! He showed us all around and we didn't understand anything he was saying.  He finally got his daughter and she was able to speak to us in English.  The apartment was semi furnished(furniture only).  As we had not seen anything else in town we just decided to take this one.  It was clean and pleasant and we were within walking distance to the Tunnelbanan (subway).  We took the subway back to the city so we could get packed up and return  to our new domicile.  Again, not being "city folks or world travelers" we never thought about finding the name of the stop where we needed to get off the subway back at our apartment, or even which line we were on,  so had to take another taxi ride back to the apartment!!!!!  Our next venture was to find a store where we could buy dishes, pots, pans, linens etc.  We found Åhléns. A fabulous department store with everything we needed.  We were very impressed with the prices, but had no clue about the sales tax called Moms tax.  It was 25% !!!! Yikes.  So, totally loaded down with new household goodies, we realized we couldn't carry all of it to the subway and then back to our apartment, so for the third time in one day, we took another darn taxi!!!!!

The front door of our apartment building

The bed in the apartment was actually two twins pushed together.   There was a wooden frame around the beds so there was about a 3 inch gap in the middle of the bed, where mattresses didn't exactly meet. We were hoping we could push the mattresses together and have the bottom sheet hold them in place. Before we left for Sweden, my mother bought us a satin sheet and satin pillow cases.  Well the satin sheet wasn't going to hold the mattresses together so we needed to buy a bottom sheet.  When we were shopping in Åhléns we used our trusty little English/Swedish translation book to find the word for a sheet for our bed.  It is lakan.  So when we found a paslakan  we figured it was a sheet so purchased it only to find out it was a cover for a comforter, not a sheet.  So we cut it into two pieces and used it as a bottom sheet.  All was great except I think it was made out of burlap.  So burlap on the bottom and satin on top.  What an adventure we were having and this was only week one!!!!!  Many more memorable moments to come !!!!!

The Summer Trip of 2013 has come to an end

We have returned from our fantastic trip across the country.  What a whirlwind of travel,  that we are just now digesting.  We traveled for 4 months and 1 day.  We logged over 10,000 miles of travel in the Motor Home.  We never checked the mileage in the car, but I would image there must be at least a thousand miles on it.

It was a trip of a life time.  It is impossible to say what our favorite town, or activity or National Park was.  Everything was just so fabulous and different.  We met wonderful people, saw beautiful sights and will never forget it.......But now, we are back home and settling into a "normal", for us, life.  We are back in Lakeland, Florida.  We really love it here, however, we can't quite shake the gypsy life style.  Originally, we thought as soon as we returned, we would move into an apartment or a house and settle down.  But that is not what has happened.  We are so content living in our little house on wheels, that we will probably wait until the summer to find a stationery place to live. We do miss all  our "stuff" that is in storage, but we have no  problem making do with what we have in our motor home.

We thought by now we would be antsy and need something to do to keep us occupied.  But so far we are content doing a lot of nothing.  We have renewed our annual passes to Disney World and spend time just people watching and enjoying all that is offered there. We love taking our grand daughter Claire.  It is so much fun to watch her enjoy it.  Elliot is still a little too young to appreciate it, but when he is a little older we'll take him too.

This is Heaven

Our Favorite Lady!

In early December, Peter had a doctor's appointment with his Oncologist for his 6 month check  up.  We had also booked a 5 day cruise during that time. We drove the motor home down to Fort Lauderdale and stayed there.  He had all his tests when we first arrived.  We visited with many dear friends and then we took the cruise.   The cruise was great fun as usual.  We had fun in the ports. When we returned we had the doctor's appointment and we got fabulous results on Peter's tests.  Cancer free for 18 months now.  Hallelujah, what a great Christmas present!!!

Christmas decorations on board our ship

Papa and Claire making a Gingerbread House

  






We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and Christmas.  We celebrated both holidays at Paul and Erika's house.  Before Christmas Peter (Papa) and Claire made a gingerbread house.  This is becoming a Christmas tradition that Claire looks forward to.  She also helped make Christmas Cookies.  She did all the sugar cut out cookies by herself.

We have joined a church here and have made many new friends. Next week some of us are getting together for a Roast Duckling Dinner.......and guess who the Chef will be???? Chef Peter, who makes the best roast duck in the whole world!!!! It should be a fun evening.


New Years Eve was a quiet evening for us.  We had Claire with us for a sleep over.  She wakes up VERY early in the morning (5:30 to 6:00) so we opted to forgo the hoopla on TV and get to bed early.

We have now been retired for a year.  It has been the best year so far, and we are looking forward to many more.

Bermuda - Part Two

In May of 1974 Peter was able to help out another hotel, The Mermaid Beach Club, in Bermuda.  They had staffing problems in their kitchen and were looking for people to work part time to help out.  It was all cleared by Immigration, so he took on the the job.  After he had been there for a month or so, they asked him if he would like to take on the position of Executive Chef for the company.  The pay was good and the position came with a House!!!!!  WOO HOO!!!  Our own little cottage in Bermuda!

We were so excited about the move.  The cottage was adorable. It had 2 bedrooms, a little efficiency kitchen, living room and bath room.  But it was like Heaven.  It had a fireplace too!  They had to do some upgrading of the kitchen, so we couldn't move in right away.  They put us up in one of their other hotels, until it was finished.  

In early July of that year, Bermuda was hit by Hurricane Alice.  We had just moved out of staff housing at the Sonesta Hotel and were staying at Pink Sands Beach Resort waiting for our cottage to be ready.  I was at work when we received a call from Horace, the manager of our factory saying there was a hurricane coming our way that night.  (This is letting you all know how old we are when there was no "warning" time with hurricanes!!!!!)  Mr. Gaade, my boss, told me to wait for him to secure his sail boat then he would drive me home.  He didn't want me on my moped with the winds that were blowing.  

So we spent the night with the hurricane raging.  Pretty brave of us wasn't it?  Actually not, there was NO way off the island at that time, so we didn't have a choice. Fortunately, there wasn't too much damage to the Island.  

We flew home to Connecticut in early July.  We had a great time.  We spent one week at the Sonesta Hotel  in downtown Hartford, gratis......and the second week with family, gratis........It was nice getting off the island, but couldn't wait to get back to start living  in  our little house.

Now, don't forget the reason we moved to Bermuda.  Remember, Peter wanted to be able to work in Europe.  So, even though we absolutely loved living in Bermuda, we were looking to move on.  So we kept ours eyes open, read the Swiss publication, Union Helvetzia Newspaper every week, and looked for an opportunity to get Peter a job in Europe.

 

A position with the Sheraton Hotel in Stockholm Sweden, came available, and Peter applied.  The hotel was interested in him, however, once again we had to wait to see if we could get a work permit.  While we waited, we had a great time living in Bermuda.  We had dinner guests constantly in our little cottage, we had family visit all the time.  One of our best visits was when my Mom, Aunt DeDe and my Nana came to visit.  It was so much fun showing them around the island.

Christmas in our little Cottage was delightful. Just before Christmas, I received a letter from the Sheraton Hotel with his permit enclosed. I bought a "tourists" book about  Sweden and put the permit inside.  He was thrilled...............another new adventure....................... Sometimes I wonder why we left Bermuda.  I know, there was so much adventure ahead of us, but it sure was joyful living and working in Bermuda.

We had to face some difficult decisions with this trip.  We still had our dog, and could take him to Sweden without him having to go into quarantine as Bermuda was a rabies free island.  However, that meant we couldn't go to the states to see our families before we flew to Sweden.  Yikes, that was a tough decision.  Family won. Dog lost.  We found friends that would take the dog for us while we were in Europe. There was no way we were going to put the dog in quarantine for 6 months.

So now it is time to leave, on yet another adventure.  This one was a little bit scarier than the last.  A real foreign country with a different language.  Ah, what the heck, we were young and carefree.  We could survive, and did !!!!!!!

The Merry Month Of May

When  you live in one of the world's greatest vacation destinations, you just have to take it all in. 

Its not as though we haven't been to the theme parks in the past, but the month of May turned out to be the "Theme Park Vacation Month" for the Schrolls.  We took many visits to the Disney Parks as well as Universal Studios. 

We went to The "Fantasy of Flight" Museum.  It was incredibly interesting and very well presented.  They have a nice little cafe there, so we had lunch and then spent the afternoon in the museum.

 One evening we drove to Disney just to have Dinner and watch the Fireworks.  We ate dinner in France, of course, and lingered so long over our dinner and wine, that the fireworks were finished by the time we left the restaurant. C'est la vie.

 Claire spent many a "sleep over" with Mormor and Papa during May.  One of her favorite past times was to feed the ducks at Mirror Lake in downtown Lakeland.  Of course that meant having an ice cream cone before hand.

 I had a wonderful Mother's Day.  We Met Erika and the kids at Bok Gardens and Tower.  We had a little picnic lunch and listened to the Clarion Concert.  It is a beautiful setting, and as you can see by the photo, not terribly crowded!!!!!  Would love to do this again when the weather is a little cooler.     

We took a day trip to Indian Rocks Beach for lunch and some walking on the beach.  It was a beautiful day.  We miss seeing the Ocean.  It was part of our daily drive to and from work!!!!                                                                                                                                                 

As the month was coming  to an end, we started getting Carefree ready to travel. The Park was nearly empty as all the "snow birds" had gone home.  It was quiet and peaceful.  We said good bye to all the new friends that we had made in the park and at our Church.  We look forward to seeing Father Wally at First Church again in the fall.   

During our last two weeks in Lakeland, Peter started going to a Chiropractor.  Dr. Merrick was wonderful!!!  He helped Peter so much with the pain in his back and the numbness in his hand.  Now he is definitely strong enough for this big adventure that lies ahead of us!!!!!                                      

We left Lakeland on Friday, March 24 and headed to Sebring Florida to camp at Highlands Hammock State Park.  Peter drove Carefree & Paul took his 5th wheel camper straight to the campground to get set up. I took the car to Erika's house and waited for her to finish work.  Then she and the kids came with me to the campground.  It was a lovely spot.   Side by side camping is so much fun.  The weather was rather warm and muggy, but cooled off a little on Saturday. 

Sunday, Paul, Claire, Peter and I took a tram tour of the Hammocks.  It was a long hot ride, and Hammocks are not one of my favorite things.  When we returned to our campers, Paul started to feel sick.  After dinner, Peter & I started getting sick.  OMG........the dreaded food poisoning had reared its ugly head.  By morning Erika had it too!.  Not the best ending to a wonderful weekend of camping!!!!!

From Sebring we headed to Hallandale, and  back to the campground we had stayed in for several months while we finished working.  The next three days were Doctor's appointments and tests for Peter.  It was his one year anniversary of his Stem Cell Transplant. 

We also had a chance to visit with some of our dear Miami friends.  It was good being back in Miami as there are many truly wonderful people there. It was great to visit with several dear friends however, somehow, it just doesn't feel like home any more!!!!!

Bermuda - Part One

Whoever would have thought that we could actually live on the Island of Bermuda.  Some people might be lucky enough to go there for a vacation, but not many actually get to call it home.  But here we were arriving at the Sonesta Beach Hotel for our next adventure.

Staff Housing in foreground

We moved right into staff housing upon arrival.  It was a two story cinder block structure with approximately 20 rooms designed to house employees, same sex employees, not husbands and wives!!  The rooms were like dormitory rooms, with 2 of everything.  Two beds, two chairs, two bookcases, two end tables and one bathroom.   So with a little ingenuity we made it home.  It was a stones throw from the ocean.  We had our own "staff" beach and a "staff" club with a busy bar and lots of dart boards!!

We were of course the only occupants with a dog.  And a rather large dog at that.  The head of security lived 2 doors down from us, but it didn't seem as if it was going to be a problem. We just kept saying we were going to find an apartment to rent.

Staff Beach

Peter started work immediately. He was a Sous Chef at the hotel.

Inside our little home

I, on the other hand was now a lady of leisure.  I ate all my meals in the staff cafeteria, spent the day at the beach, played tennis in the evening and partied in the staff club. This went on for a few months, and finally Peter thought it would be a good idea for me to go out and look for a job.  I didn't mind the idea, as I knew once I found the job it would take a couple of months to get the work permit, as we had already witnessed in applying for Peter's Permit!  So, I contacted an employment agency and was interviewed by them on a Tuesday.  They sent me on an interview on Wednesday to Royall Lyme Bermuda Ltd, for a secretary/receptionist position.  I must admit, I was a bit put off when the 2 girls that were working there laughed when I came in. I was told when I started that just before I had arrived for the interview, Mr. Anthony J. Gaade, (the boss) had said I sure wish they would send me a tall young blonde for a change!!!!!  therefore, on Thursday I got a call saying I was hired and needed to come in that day to fill out paper work for immigration as the Immigration Department met on Fridays. AND guess what?  I got called on Friday to say I was cleared and could start work on Monday!!!!!  I didn't know at the time that the lady who ran this employment agency had a very good connection with Immigrations.  She had been responsible for getting the necessary secretaries, etc to work with Scotland Yard during the murder investigation of the Police Chief.  I was excited about the job but a not a real happy lady of leisure that weekend.

Bermuda version of a Harley Girl

So we bought me a used moped so I could get to work.  We lived out on the south shore of Bermuda and my job was in Hamilton.  So I had about a 20 minute drive to work. Such a new experience for me.......neither rain, nor wind would stand in my way of getting to work!!

I loved the job.  The girls I worked with were great fun.  My boss on the other hand was a rather stuffy brit!!!  But I got him to loosen up though.  Every morning as he arrived for work he would ask me "how I looked?"  This seemed like such a stupid question, so finally one day I said "I think I'm looking pretty nice today don't you?"  We got along really well after that. 

Bringing Home the Tree

Our first Christmas in Bermuda was such fun.  We had to wait for the boats to arrive in port with the Christmas Trees.  When they arrived it was a feeding frenzy!!

Christmas Eve guests

It was interesting being with many different nationalities, and learning about their holiday traditions. Jiffy Pop popcorn, in the aluminum disposable pan was the biggest hit as a present, as many of them had never seen it before!!!

This was our Third Christmas. The first one was in Connecticut, the second in Vermont and the third in Bermuda.  Where will the next one be???  To be continued...........

Christmas Eve 1973