The Wanderer

Today I spent the day with my fourth cousin, an amiable 40-something man I had never met before Thursday. Ola, a fireman and part-time stone worker (he designs jewelry, golf clubs, candlesticks, and other ornamental objects from Porfyr, a semi-precious stone), took me for a tour of the Karlstad area and gave me a tour of his fire station. I had mentioned to him earlier that I was always interested in firefighting, so after the tour he took me up in the ladder truck and we got a bird's-eye view of the city, and then he piled me into fireman's garb and took a bunch of photos with me in front of the firetruck. Very cheesy, but fun nonetheless. Ola is a great guy, and I think he had as much fun as I did, showing me around and explaining all the firefighting equipment that he was partially responsible for buying.

My Swedish experience has taken a dramatic turn for the better now that I am with family here in Karlstad. Not only am I escaping the high prices of Sweden, but my distant relatives are helping me track down my roots here in Varmland. I am served delicious home-cooked meals every night (a treat after surviving off bread and cheese from the grocery store for awhile), and my relatives (from my mother's side of the family) are helping me track down my great-great-grandparents' (from my father's side) "village", if you can call it that. It was actually composed of two farms! I guess that comprises a town in rural Sweden, since it has a name and it is clearly marked on the map. It was lucky for me that my relatives contacted the local emigration/kinship office to help me track down the village/farm, because there are many village/farms with the same name in Sweden. In fact, we originally thought that Vastana (pronounced VES-ta-noh) was near Ransater, but after the investigations at the kinship office, it turned out that they were actually from a different Vastana, in Vase. We also located the birthplace of my great-great-grandfather, and found three or four possible Oknas, where my great-great-grandmother was supposedly born. I will give you the whole story in a newsletter, as it was an entertaining adventure.

I had a rough introduction to Sweden, and I'm not real impressed with the organization in my ancestral homeland so far. When I stepped off the ferry in Stockholm, there was absolutely no place to change money, which left me far from the city center with no way to get money. In nearly every other country that I have been to, and certainly every developed country in Europe, there has always been a place to change money at international ports and points of arrival, so I was greatly surprised and more than a little disappointed that Sweden was so disorganized. When I asked a woman at the ferry office where I could change money, she replied, "In the town center." So I asked her how I was supposed to get to the town center with no Swedish kroners for the bus, and she just shrugged and looked away, signaling the end of the conversation. Luckily, the bus driver was more friendly and understanding, and let me get on without paying, and hence I was able to get to the center of town and change money.

The prices here were a shock after the Baltics. The dorm bed at the hostel where I stayed cost $25/night (without breakfast, I might add), and that's after paying $23 for the hostel card (without the hostel card, it costs about $31.50/night). And for that outrageous price they expect us to clean our own rooms and bring our own sheets! A single bus ride costs $4, so I walked everywhere instead. Luckily Stockholm is a compact city, so I could get around pretty easily.

Today is my last day in Riga, and my last day in the Baltics, for that matter. Tonight I set sail for Sweden, where my family's roots are waiting....I thoroughly enjoyed this unexpected detour into Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and I am glad that fate steered me in this direction. Now I have some interesting exploring ahead of me in the Swedish countryside, and then it's on to South America, where my journey will draw to a close. I am looking forward to warm weather again, and being in a familiar place. I think I am definitely missing home, and I am ready to return to the US, but South America will be a good transition phase for me, to let me ease back into the familiar. I'm off to do some last errands and head to the boat in a few minutes, so I'll sign off for now, but I'll let you know how the investigation into the Westin heritage goes...