Wander & Nest

Our last sabbatical trip has come and gone. And what a perfect way to go out it was – with family, new friends, daily adventures, and the peaceful chaos of a summer home full of kids in Northern Sweden.

Wylie’s sister, Marie, brother-in-law, Israel, and their kids Emiliano and Benicio, arrived in Sweden on July 5th and we set off on our last big Swedish adventure together. They flew into Stockholm and spent a couple of days there before taking the train down to meet us in Gothenburg. While they were in Stockholm we started on the very big job of completing the final move out cleaning or “flyttstädning.” We were pretty intimidated by the cleaning instructions – it said to plan to spend 2 days cleaning, that Swedes can officially request time off of work for the specific move out cleaning, and if we didn’t feel up to it, we could hire an agency to do it. Unfortunately since we don’t pay Swedish taxes that subsidize these kinds of services, the price to hire an agency was going to be ridiculous, so we rolled up our sleeves to do it ourselves.

With clean floor drains and dusted baseboards we met the fam at the train station. We spent our days in Gothenburg hanging out in the apartment, going to playgrounds, having Fika, and shopping for matching summer house shoes.

One of the hardest things during these days was saying goodbye to the friends we made in Gothenburg. On our last day we had 2 visits with Suzie, Adia, and Zoe because we just couldn’t say goodbye the first time. Zoe and Mara finally fully warmed up to each other and played in the bath together while Suzie and I chatted in the kitchen over drinks, perfect!

In addition to saying goodbye to friends, we also had to say goodbye to some of the stuff we accumulated in Gothenburg. Mara did amazingly well at delivering her toy stroller to the second hand shop for another kid to enjoy. Marie and Israel kindly took the rest of our stuff to our favorite second hand shop for a second (or third) life. They said the whole exchange from walking to the shop saddled with stuff, to the drop off, to then browsing the shop was totally delightful, which is exactly how we experienced second hand shops throughout our time in Sweden.

We left Gothenburg on July 10th and headed north to Stockholm. We stayed in Stockholm for the night in the empty apartment of Marie and Israel’s friends, the Zinks, who they met while they both lived in Thailand. We were stopping over in Stockholm on our way to meet the Zinks at their summer home. The Zinks have actually stayed in our home in California when they visited Marie and Israel earlier this year. It’s funny that we both stayed in each other’s homes before actually meeting in person.

We rented a van and drove up to Härnösand for the reunion/first meeting of the Zinks and a late Fika at Lotta’s parents home. Everyone was so kind, we immediately felt so welcomed! After Fika we caravanned with the Zinks to their home in Nordingrå. Lotta and Eren’s home was amazing, and very similar to the Umeå home we visited with the large house and guest house on the property. It even had a tiny play house that Mara loved! Wylie, Mara, and I got to stay in the fully stocked guest house, while Marie, Israel, and the kids stayed in the big house with the Zinks so the kids could be in constant contact. Emiliano and Elliot, the youngest of the five Zink kids, were in the same class in their international school in Bangkok for four years and are the best of friends. We also met Edith and Nora Zink, who are amazing young women who stole Mara’s heart, she loved being with the big girls. We didn’t get to meet the two oldest Zink girls who are off at college, but I imagine our paths will cross again at some point.

We were in very good hands with the Zinks. We were so comfortable in the guest house and enjoyed the very shifted schedule of dinner at 10pm, bed around 2am, and waking up at 10am everyday. We had a least one outing each day, and even on the rainy day they were delightful. Activities included:

• Boat ride on Eren’s boat from their boathouse to a fishing village for lunch, ice cream, and beach play
• Picturesque lunches overlooking rolling hills and the Baltic Sea
• Beach trips with invigorating cold plunges
• And eclectic outdoor museum with train cars and more for the kids to play on
• Wild berry picking
• Picnic of homemade wild blueberry crumble, ice cream, and coffee outside an old chapel overlooking the sea
• Beautiful hiking along the sea
• Daily ice cream, some homemade from wild berries

It was great to get to spend so much time with family and friends at the house. It was so peaceful even with up to 9 kids running around at one point. There was just so much space and so many things to do, it was the perfect way to spend the final days of our sabbatical year.

These days in northern Sweden really having us thinking about a future of a buying a lake house somewhere out in the country, maybe in France or, who knows, maybe even in Sweden. The dream is to have a place where friends and family could come spend time, where we could all get away and just enjoy time together – which is exactly what the Swedes have perfected.