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.