swedenusa

I said Sam had calculated about 40 hours in the car on this roadtrip. It turned out to be more like 52 hours.

We left Denver yesterday at about 2pm and rolled into Minneapolis just around 5 am. Sam drove the last shift and honestly I don’t remember much about the last few hours.

Except for the last conversation in the car when Shie asked us what we would ask God when we come to heaven. This resulted in a discussion around our limited understanding yet the things we really do walk around and wonder about.

I didn’t want to upload all of our 300 some pictures on Jonas and Shie’s computer but I picked some that I want to share now. These pictures are all from Albuqeurque. Most houses were in these earth tones. They blend into the desert landscape in New Mexico.

Our favorite structure was the Adobe style with the flat roofs and the beams coming out on the side. The tour guide in Old Town is pointing them out. These are the traditional type houses in this part of the state and the ones on the pictures are close to 200 years old. That is amazing considering they are made of mud, straw and wood beams.

The houses stay really very cool since they have very thick walls. The church for example was very cool in spite of the 90+ degrees out and they said they didn’t have the AC on.

So far we have been playing nummerous games. We go through the alphabet a-z taking turns naming movies that start with the letter a, then b, then c… We have sung songs using this a-z and namned ways to die, lord of the rings trivia, countries, and cities. Sam, Shiloh and I decided to sing “99 bottles of beer on the wall” since none of us could remember that we actually finished the whole song. To Jonas’ dismay it took us about 20 minutes!

Yesteray we started from Springfield at 10 am and arrived in New Mexico at about 2 am. Today the temperature in Albuquerque was about 100 degrees Farenheit.

In a couple of days we are back on the road… any ideas for games we can play

We are heading out in just 90 minutes. After we all pile into the Ford we will aim south south south towards Missouri. It will be a 10 hour drive not counting the stops. Rehersals for the wedding is tomorrow and on Saturday they are getting married. Monday morning all four of us will pile back into the car and go west west west to New Mexico. We won’t be back in Minneapolis until Friday after a quick stop in Denver. I think Sam calculated that we will be in the car for about 40 hours during this time…

 I am sure we will have a lot of these in the next few days. This was Friday night after we had arrived. We had some great steaks too that are not in these pictures.

We were discussing how sad it is that grilling is hard to do in the winter since it’s so cold and that the summer is actually too warm for standing by the grill.

It is warm and humid in Minneapolis!!!

When we came to my dad’s apartment we saw this sign on the elevator just warning people what might happen in an elevator without the protecting inner doors. It really made me laugh because it is so morbid. Really worse case scenerio!

We flew with KLM this time which meant a short stop in Amsterdam. Like all airports there are those dumb tourist stores where you have your last opportunity to buy the items associated with the country. In this case a store selling plastic tulips with unnatural glowing colors. The fake wanting to look like real tulips are farthest away in this picture. It makes me wonder what the Dutch think of us tourists buying those things!

Finally two pictures I snapped before we left dad’s apartment just before 4 am. It looked about the same when we went to bed at about 11 pm…

Dad drove us in to Arlanda the airport out of Stockholm at 4 am. We had to get up at 3:20 on Friday morning. Lucky for us the sun was shining so it wasn’t THAT hard to get up. The lines at the airport were so long we were worried we wouldn’t make it. But here we are. At Jonas & Shie’s. We got a warm welcome like always. BBQ in their backyard and a quick trip to Southdale mall!

is my new favorite Swedish word. Around a month ago, I went to Mullsjö to hang out with Mir’s brother and his family. He borrowed a pressure-washer from a friend to clean the sidewalk leading to the house. After that was finished…we decided to start cleaning things outside in the yard. We had a blast cleaning patio furniture, gutters, the cars, lamps, some vases, a giant rock… well pretty much everything. After 6 hours of “cleaning” we were running out of things to clean (and Andy didn’t think it would be a good idea to wash the dog with it.) So, reluctantly, we unplugged it and went inside.

Ever heard of a soccer game where the ref approved 6 goals. Where before the end of the game a non-player scored one goal and the score all of a sudden was 0-3. A game that is judged to be over yet the score will not be decided until Wednesday!

Well it happened last Saturday when Sweden played Denmark in Copenhagen. All the experts said Denmark would win. Within the first 30 minutes Sweden was ahead with 0-3. We were very excited. Towards the end of the game Denmark had also scored 3 goals and then… in the penalty kick area a Danish player hit a Swede with his fist. The ref judged it to be a penalty kick.

All of a sudden a Danish supporter comes running to hit the ref. The ref decides to call off the game since the security could not be gauranteed. Before that happens another supporter runs out and takes the ball all across the field to kick it into the Swedish net.

Who said soccer was boring?

Click on the picture to watch part of the game (from YouTube)

My brother and his family are moving to Lund in southern Sweden. This is the family that let me live with them for 3 months before I found an apartment of my own and Sam came.

Through the year in Jönköping we have spent many days with them. Either at their house watching the Eurovision Song Contest, sports finals, or celebrating holidays. Or in Jönköping as they have been coming to town to eat out at a restaurant or shopping for clothes.

We are so excited for them that they will be moving to a great town in the best part of Sweden! But very sad for us that we won´t have them close to us anymore. Thank you for always making us feel welcomed and at home with you! Can´t wait to see you soon in Lund.

I only met him twice but I remember the meetings well. Dunn Brother´s café by Loring Park. He was there to support his son who was playing live. That is what I always heard about him - supporting his children. Such a warm person that really was present in the encounter.

That is all I know. So what do I say when there are no words? How do I encourage the ones left behind. When all that they want is to make time stop because it puts us further away from the point when he was alive here on earth. Talking about heaven and reunions there does not soothe the longing and aching heart, at this point. The world seems to stress on as if it is all as usual but everything has changed. So I have nothing that will help but I love you, and cry for the family that has lost so much!

Let us know if we can help in any way!

Rev. Dr. Michael Leonard Pilla of Monticello, MN died on May 31, 2007.