Finding my roots at IKEA

Hidden in the middle of our ten day London expedition, Jared and I took a shotgun trip to Sweden. I mean, why not? It's the top vacation spot in Europe, with white sandy beaches, beautiful villas for cheap and ... OK, maybe not so much. I think we are actually still thawing out from that one day jaunt, but we had a great reason for this excursion: family! My brother, Josh, has spent 18 months in Molndal, Sweden, attending the Florence Academy of Art (you'll see him on the rotating pictures from FAA's website). In addition, I had the privilege of going back to my roots. My Great Grandpa, Gustav Granberg, ran away from Sweden for a better life in America when he was 14 years old. Here's a picture of his dad (my Great Great Grandpa). My Dad and Josh found it last summer in the church at Nas, Sweden (he was a vicar at he church).

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so why don't we cut out all those words and I'll give you a picture tour of our day...As I mentioned before, our first impression was, "Brrrrr!!" Once we got over that initial shock, we headed straight for Ikea. For those of you who aren't aware, Ikea came to us from Sweden. And if you thought the store was popular in America, then you haven't seen the popularity in its home country. We, of course, had the meatballs (which, by the way, they do not call Swedish meatballs). And then a few weeks later we heard the exciting news that those same meatballs have been recalled in many countries because they discovered horse meat in them. Brilliant. You may also notice a seemingly delicious looking pastry on my tray. This pastry had cardamum in it, a (strong) spice they put in everything. Josh and I talked through the whole meal trying to decide what it tastes like, and the closest thing we could come up with was cheap, but very fragrant lotion. Luckily, I had the horse meat to get rid of the taste.

Oh yeah, have I mentioned that it was cold? I'm not sure if you're convinced, so please, let me convince you:

Cold, but beautiful

Don't let the layers fool you, our teeth were chattering

The yellowish building that the river flows right under is Josh's school.
The area used to be a paper mill powered by the river. A beautiful scene
and, I'm sure, inspirational for the artists.

Josh spends 8 (or more) hours a day standing here staring...

...occasionally it gets really exciting and he takes a few steps forward
to add another line on his paper. (Visit his site to see his work).

And now, to the houses. If you've ever admired the cute little show houses at Ikea, you'll love where Josh lives...and just about every other house in Sweden. If you think I'm exaggerating, you are very, very wrong. Here's his sweet little kitchen/dining room that he shares with his Canadian roommate. Everything is from Ikea.

Living Room

And if you've ever wondered what the outside of those cute little Ikean show houses look like...
they're pretty much exactly as you would expect!

And here's Josh's house...er...room....er....outhouse

And the inside...I especially love the pink wall.

That's the end of our picture tour. I have to say I'm a bit stunned about all that we learned about the Swedish culture during our 24 hours there. From how they eat their food to philosophical undertones of the culture, we loved learning about Sweden! In a couple days we'll have a guest post from Josh on our work blog that talks about the way of thinking in Sweden (and Europe). You won't want to miss it! I'll end this post with one of our lighter cultural findings. I discovered the root of my (slightly... OK, extremely ridiculous) sweet tooth. Thanks a lot Great Grandpa Gustav. According to Josh, Swedes do not eat sweets ... except on the weekend, and then they go crazy! Visit any Swedish grocery store to find proof. You'll have no trouble finding the candy isle(s), because they take up a quarter of the store! We went to a tiny grocery store that had 3 candy isles and a candy wall. Heaven...