Our journey north took an entire day, and when we arrived my mother was already here. There are a lot of tasks that have to be completed when arriving to the cabin. Most of the tasks involve some method of cleaning the cabin. If you needed to know anything about my family, you would need to know that they clean voraciously. Everything seems dirty. The mothers of the house spent two whole days cleaning, organizing, re-cleaning, and re-organizing, in order to mark our arrival.
The clean and organized behaviors demonstrated by my family have unfortunately not been passed down to me. My level of attention to details is far lower than that of my family. I do however have to be thankful for their diligence. The structure of our cabin is over one hundred years old, the floor was a floor for horses in a barn seventy years ago, and the furniture collection and decorations consists of traditional Swedish antiques (or just family heirlooms): this place would not be in the amazing condition it is in now if it were not for the attention to detail that my family posses.
Overall, returning to the cabin where I have spent much my childhood has been incredible. I have learned that the lens through which I have experienced Swedish culture and has been through this cabin. It has a distinct smell that I have learned not to forget. It seems to sit on a pedestal that faces south into the sun, and is surrounded by a guesthouse and a woodshed. My grandfather built all of the structures. The cabin is an old horse barn from the 1700's that my grandfather took apart and put back together again one hundred miles away from its original home. It was a massive undertaking considering that he had to build and repair the road before he could even begin dragging the wood up to his land. After he dragged every timber up on a tractor, he had to put the whole thing back together again. Everything he did seemed to be hard, compared to the effort we have to put forth to get anything accomplished in modern times.
The guest house (Hebbre). It is impossible to have a bad nights sleep in this little house. It is now my father's temporary office.
The first couple of days here were marked by some of the coldest weather we have ever had up here during February. The average for our first five days was –13C. With just a little bit of wind, that temperature is excruciating. Most of our time was spent relaxing inside and taking the occasional journey into the frigid cold to have some fun. The cousins were absolutely stir crazy to get outside, and once they finally got outside they were so excited that they could hardly feel when when their cheeks froze.
Among the activities in the cold included the construction of a luge in the backyard, digging the snowmobile out and getting it stuck again, and shoveling paths to get into the house. Shoveling the snow up here is challenging considering the immense amount of sugar snow in the snowpack. The snowpack is easily half to three quarters sugar snow (or a well-developed layer of basal facets), and every step into it sends you up to your hips. On the other hand, struggling with the luge was a little bit more fun.
On one of the days in the cold I came home to see that the cousins had built a wide ski slope/luge. It was large enough to warrant cutting down a couple of trees along the sides. This luge was a serious ordeal. Getting onto the sled and going down this thing was downright dangerous. The first turn of this sucker is a right leaning turn at the bottom of a small bump. The turn was made more challenging with the close proximity of a couple of trees that were bone breakers. The bottom of the run had the option of a jump that behaved like a wall, or a gentle slope into three feet of powder.
Jenny and I going down the Luge.
The last couple days in the cabin have delayed my blogging because I was struck with a serious stomach illness, but after one role of toilet paper, two pairs of underwear, and two showers later, I seem to be doing all right. I woke up last night with fever hallucinations and I convinced myself that I could not ask for help because I was sure that I was crazy enough to be sent to the hospital. After twenty minutes of desperately convincing myself that I was not paralyzed and that my brain was not turning into a black hole, I finally fell asleep.
The next couple of days will see the departure of my family, including Mormor, aunt Katarina, Janne, Jenny, and Anton. I hate seeing the family leave the cabin, but everyone has to go back to work. Next week is week nine, which is Stockholm’s week off. Our friends Bjorn, Inger, and their son Isidor will come up and stay with us. Our friends Bosse and Birgitta will be up here with their two kids as well staying at their cabin down the road. Next week will involve much of the same: fika with friends and family, special dinners every night, and day tours into the nearby mountains.
No comments:
Post a Comment