The Swedish Finale

The long-awaited moment: the vacation wrap-up. I'm sure you're all very disappointed (or thrilled?) that I won't be reminiscing about our adventure on the other side of the pond. From Östersund , we journeyed to Borlange, Göteborg, Helsingborg and then back to Malmö. On this leg of the trip we visited the last bit of my family and some of Joe's family. It was fika after fika, but as always, a wonderful time.

We visited Joe's cousin Tryggve and his family Sanna and Py (though the little one was put down for a nap before I could snap a photo) - What a cute family. And they are all extremely artistic; even the little girl's finger paintings were masterpieces!

Then we met up with another cousin, Mickey and family friend, Henrik. They kept asking Joe when he was moving to Sweden - noting that there was need for people in health care IT who spoke both Swedish and English. (My mom isn't too fond of this idea :))

Next in Helsingborg, we met up with his cousin Mariah (pronounced Maria) and her boyfriend, Andreas. Helsingborg is a port town right across the water from Denmark. We had even more coffee and then they took us on a quick tour around the town. Since it was his hometown, Andreas knew all the little details to highlight during a quick visit.

In Borlange, we met up with my final family members - Sonja, Al and their family. They made us a nice home cooked meal, filled us with some sort of Apricot liqueur and even set us up in a hotel. They also spoke in 80% Swedish because they said, 'it's the only way you're going to learn.' Needless to say, I didn't follow some of the conversation :) But once again, another great visit.

So that concludes our trip to Sweden. I wish I could go back tomorrow. But alas, that's not in the cards, so for now I will just look through my pictures again for the 117th time.

top pic/via