Since We've Been Back

Hej!

A lot of time has passed since we've been back, and a lot of things have happened. Rachel has continued working on her new house, Kara is hosting some of our new Swedish friends from Alingsås here in Minnesota in October, Steph chaperoned her son's band on a school field trip to New York City, and Jennifer has been learning Tae Kwon Do with her grandsons! We were all so lucky to meet the Swedish inbound team when they visited Minnesota in April, and we are all still in contact with many of our host families and friends we met overseas.

As for me, besides recently celebrating my 30th birthday (yay!) I've been spreading the great word of sustainability based on the lessons learned there in Sweden. The high point so far has been completing a report that outlines opportunities in Minnesota for sustainable communities and green building based on what we learned in Sweden. The report, "A Tale of Green Cities: Exploring Opportunities for Minnesota through the Natural Step Process and Sustainable Communities in Sweden", was sponsored by the Blandin Foundation and was released today by Dovetail Partners in their e-newsletter. Click here to download the report.

I'm really excited by the opportunities for Minnesota presented in the report and hope that it will lead to some examples similar to the great places we visited in Sweden! Please pass the report around as you like.

A special thanks to the Rotary District 5960 and our clubs who sponsored this great trip, my fellow teammates, our host-families, Rotary District 2360 and hosting clubs, and to all that provided information on the report. Without you, none of this would have been possible.

I hope this finds you all well! Ha det bra!

-Alison

Home Again

Home again!





Hej! Just wanted to let you all know that we had a safe return to the US, and although Kara had her baggage searched at customs, she was still able to keep the 2 kilos of flour! I spent the weekend showing Clint all of the great things I brought back from Sweden and talking his ear off about the great people we met and things we learned. It still amazes me how much we did! My first night back I dreamt in Swedish, which was a clear sign to me that I should continue to learn the Swedish language. :)

Sweden lives on in my household! This morning for breakfast we combined our typical American peanutbutter toast with some Swedish-made honey and Rum Butter Preserves, and even had cheese with my new Swedish cheese-slicer on Britt’s serving platters! I plan on implementing fika into my days as well, although I’m pretty sure the coffee won’t be as strong. I also hung up my Lights of Alingsås calendar in my kitchen. The next task will be to tackle the thousands of photos I've taken!

Today we all returned to work. I’m pretty excited about the possibilities that Dovetail will bring to our communities based on the sustainable initiatives we learned about in Sweden. I’ll keep you updated!

It has been great to be home, and my life feels much richer now because of the great experiences we had and the wonderful people we met. I miss you all and hope you’re well! We’ll probably have another post about our District’s conference in a few weeks, where we'll hopefully meet up with the Swedish GSE inbound team and maybe Bo as well! If you're coming to the US or Minnesota, please let me know; I would love the chance to catch up and also return the hospitality. :)

Har det bra!

April 2 - Last day in Göteborg

Who knew Egypt and Heaven were in Sweden?
Today was our last day here, and the team had a great time at Fiskebacke School while I received a personal tour of Göteborg from my host Karl-Ake! Yesterday I was able to visit a prefabricated housing plant yesterday, and also take in some of the history of the local countryside, including a short visit to Egypten! Today Karl-Åke also gave me a historical and architectural tour of Göteborg, including a wonderful lunch at the FiskeKyrka (Fish Church), a stop at the beautiful wooden MastHogget Kyrka, and a fika in Heaven 23 – the top of the Gothia Massan Tower, 23 floors up (Göteborg’s tallest building). We also had an impromptu stop at the Gamlan Majgrabbar, where some Swedes gave me information on "the capital of Maine"!

Tonight I rejoined the team (except for Rachel, who is nursing a pretty bad cold but thankfully has reported feeling a little better) for a delicious home-made dinner at District Governor Bo Westling’s house. Then Anders took us to the opera Katja Kabanova at the Göteborg Operan. We especially enjoyed watching the orchestra, as we sat in the first row! What a great day to be our last!

Tomorrow we leave Sweden, and I think I can say that none of us will ever forget our experiences here. It has been absolutely wonderful. We’ll try to keep you all updated here upon our return. We still have our District Conference coming up in a few weeks, and we all have learned sustainable things that may change our work or our communities.

Lycka till med alt, och tack så mycket! Vi ses i Minnesota! :)

Unemployment, Swedish style

A few days ago I had the chance to visit a local Arbetsförmedling (employment services) office. Thank you to Sven and Tottie for setting this up! Like the U.S., Sweden has seen an increase in unemployment due to the world financial situation, but the severity of the problem varies by region. Western Sweden where we are has not been hardest hit, but the headline in today's local newspaper was about layoffs at Volvo trucks, a significant employer here. Last year there were between 8,000 and 9,000 people who were unemployed in the Gothenburg area; at present the figure is closer to 15,000.

An unemployed person in Sweden usually receives unemployment benefits equal to 80% of his or her last salary, up to a maximum of 680 SEK ($85) per day, or 4760 SEK ($595) per week. Standard unemployment benefits last for 300 days, or 450 days if a person has children at home under age 18. If a person has not found a job during this period of time, then reduced benefits (65% rather than 80%) can be extended up to 150 more days, during which time the person is required to engage in a REALLY intensive job search.

After that, if a person still has not found a job, then he or she would apply to a different social service agency to receive support for basic living expenses.

By way of comparison, unemployment benefits in Minnesota are usually around 50% of a person's recent salary, up to a maximum of $566, and standard benefits last 182 days. The appeal process is also different in some interesting respects, but probably not such exciting reading here! I look forward to filling everyone in on the details at Minnesota UI Appeals -- see you all soon!
-Kara

March 31st - A bittersweet three days left!

March 31, 2009

First of all, thank you so much to Stefan, Inger, and Viktor; I had a wonderful time at your home learning about your family and your summers, experiencing Swedish curling, and hearing new music. I can’t wait to use the beautiful Swedish crystal boat!

We met our newest (and last!) host families today. Karl-Ake, who I’m staying with, has arranged some special visits for me specially relating to architecture and building construction! His daughter Camila has already taken me on a great walking tour of Göteborg, and big dork that I am, I think I loved riding the public train the best!

Last night, Anders arranged for us as special night in Göteborg. First we went to a delicious vegetarian restaurant called Freddy’s, and then went to Artisten to see a live music show called Smask . It is basically a musical event that is a satire on the Swedish version of “American Idol,” only they make up their own funny versions of songs. Last night’s event was for the University of Goteborg’s Music Department, and the winner there competes at a national competition. Once we finally arrived at the Artisten (Kara, Steph, and I were in the wrong place and ended up frantically sprinting through Göteborg clutching coats, bags, and IKEA purchases), the show was great! The people who won sang a song called “America”!

As Stephanie said, the farewell party tonight was amazing! Thank you so much to everyone that came– I know many others wanted to be there too and we were all sad that Rachel couldn’t make it because she wasn’t feeling well. All of you were in our thoughts!! The food was fantastic (of course!). There wasn’t nearly enough time to talk to everyone, but it was so great to be able to see you all again! I feel like you’re part of my family now, and I’m really looking forward to keeping in touch. I hope we really can see each other soon!

So… it’s definitely a bittersweet symphony that we’re leaving. I’m going to be so happy to be back to Clint and my cats and my friends and family, but I also feel like I’m leaving some very special people behind. This has been an amazing experience, and would not have been possible without the great people involved with Rotary. Thanks again; this has certainly been a life-changing experience. And I plan on coming back! Jag tycker om Sverige!

So we’re not quite finished here in Sweden yet… so stay tuned for a few more days – we may just find out what the Swedes do for April Fools Day! - Alison

Our Farewell Party was AMAZING!!!!

Tuesday, March 31 – What an AMAZING evening!!!! I enjoyed the afternoon sitting around with Anni, each of us “playing” on our laptops as I put the final touches on our slideshow for tonight. This is Anni & her husband Jan and 10 year old son John (sorry if the spelling isn't correct....)

We had a going away party at Kvibergs in Partille – all of our host families and others who were involved with our GSE visit were invited to attend.

It was so much fun to see many of the people who have touched our lives during our adventures here in Sweden. There have been so many people in so many communities that we have enjoyed getting to know and can’t WAIT to have them visit us in Minnesota or to return here to Sweden some day…. Bo, the District Governor, may be visiting in April for our District Conference; Erik from Alingsas is planning to visit in October of this year to learn more about farming and I’ve promised him a tour of RWSC; Vivianne from Alingsas has planned a trip in 2011 so we know that seeing us again will keep her young and energetic; and Jens & Jessica (my hosts in Uddevalla) with some friends are planning a motorcycle trip in 2014 --- so, we’ll be sure to mark our calendars!!! We appreciate all of the open invitations to return to Sweden and you never know when the opportunity may present itself!

During the past few weeks, we have taken THOUSANDS of pictures and enjoyed putting together a slideshow of photos from our stay to share with our new friends at the Farewell Party. We each also got an opportunity to say a few words about our stay and, honestly, it was really difficult to keep from becoming emotional.

I also have to mention Alison’s thoughtfulness and humor - - she bought us each a small Dala Horse to remember our trip by. Four of them were painted the same colors and mine was a bit different to commemorate my “love” of wearing our uniforms everyday!!

I also received another un-expected gift that really touched my heart - - Jens & Jessica brought me a copy of Stieg Larssons first book in English!!! I’ve been looking for it every since I heard about him early in our trip…he was a relatively young Swedish author who died in the middle of writing his fourth book. He trilogy has sold more than 5 million copies world-wide. Thanks again – that was SO THOUGHTFUL!!

Thanks again to everyone that has touched our lives in some way during this trip - - we will NEVER forget you or our time here!!!!!

Steph

Last few days in Molndal

Monday, March 30th - Two visits today. One to AstraZeneca - Alison's host, Stefan, told us about their pharmaceutical operations in Sweden and on the site in Molndal where they do mostly R & D work. Their facility in Molndal is HUGE and the architecture is amazing! This is just a portion of two builidings on the site.

Our second visit of the day was to IKEA. There we met with the Social and Environmental Coordinator to hear about their business practices PLUS we had a little extra time to do some shopping - even though we have an IKEA in Bloomington at home, it's still more fun to shop in Sweden!

Tuesday, March 31 - We had an early start this morning at the Molndal Stadhuset where we learned more about the structure of government in Sweden and how things work. In the entryway of the building, they had this awesome photographic layout of the town of Molndal.

At lunchtime, we gave our last official presentation in Sweden.

Tonight, we have a farewell party where all of our host families have been invited to join us one last time before we leave on Friday.

Thanks again to everyone that we have come in contact with during our time in Sweden - - it has been a trip of a lifetime and I, for one, will NEVER forget the things I have seen or the people I have met during my stay!!!!

Tack så mycket!! Steph

A great day in Mölndal

March 29, 2009
We had such an amazing day today (thank you, Tomte) so I wanted to post a few photos before heading to bed. The next few days are packed as we're nearing the end of this wonderful trip so we're trying to get some rest. Get well soon, Rachel, we missed you and hope you can join us tomorrow! - Alison
(By the way, I've updated my other blog with new information on sustainable eco-communities in Sweden if you're interested!)

Royal (Purple) Soup

Kara and I made vegetable soup tonight from a bounty of fresh ingredients. One thing that we had not considered is that the purple cabbage would turn the pureed soup into...a...slightly unappealing color! Despite the color of the finished product, the flavor was fantastic.

We showed the results to our host family and they laughed heartily. They suggested we post the pictures to our blog. Just to prove that the soup tastes good, here is a picture of me enjoying the fare.

-Rachel

Molndal - Valley of the Mills

Friday, March 27 – We wrapped up our visit to the Tanum area by doing a presentation for their Rotary club and enjoying some typically Swedish food called kåldolmar (which, if I understood correctly, is basically some minced meat wrapped in cabbage) – it was really good!!

After the meeting, we had a few minutes to do some shopping at a local store owned by one of our host families (Britt who hosted Alison) and we each found a few treasures to take home to our family and friends. I found a fun little serving tray that had a painting of the area that Britt herself had painted.

Our train ride back down to Göteborg started out uneventful but about 45 minutes into it, the train stopped in the middle of nowhere. Luckily, one woman figured out we were American and told us what the captain had announced. Apparently, the train’s compressor had overheated and needed to cool down before we could proceed. We actually arrived in Göteborg pretty much on time and (as has become the norm) meeting our new host families, saying goodbye to each other and getting our luggage loaded happened so quickly before we were on our way to the next adventure.

My hosts in Mölndal are Sven and Anita Hilmersson along with their cat and they live in the countryside outside of Lindome. We enjoyed a quiet evening at home getting to know one another a little bit better.

Saturday, March 28 – this was a somewhat lazy morning as we really didn’t need to be anywhere until noon today. Sven took me on a little shopping excursion to a local village called Kungsbaka. We walked around and stopped into a few stores - - I got a chance to buy my son, Tyler some lingon berries to bring home to make pancakes with!

Our only event as a group today was lunch and a tour based out of the Mölndal Museum. We had a guided tour of the area and I later found out that Mölndal means the “Valley of the Mills.” During our tour, we enjoyed seeing the water falls or rapids that ran from the mill area and wound its way through many of the buildings that used hydro-power at one time for their production.

Back home, we enjoyed a quiet evening and I got a chance to Skype with Kevin and talk to him again for about a half an hour – Tyler was gone at band practice but I found out that he had quite an interesting week. There has been some serious flooding in the Fargo North Dakota / Moorhead Minnesota area this week. His band director pulled together a bus trip for the band kids to go to that area and help with the sandbagging - - I think this was AWESOME and I’m very proud of them all!! The floods in Fargo even made the news in Sweden - - I actually watched more TV tonight than I have in the past four weeks!

Sunday, March 29 – Today, we met everyone at a place called Gunnebo Slott – it is a manor that dates back to 1796 when it was completed. We were given a dramatic tour of the manor where characters from it original owners told us the story of the manor. It once belonged to the richest man in Sweden – it was said that he even borrowed money to the King! After the tour, we enjoyed lunch on the grounds - - I can only imagine how beautiful the gardens are later in the summer!

This evening, we were invited to Tottie’s house – she has been the GSE coordinator for our stay in Mölndal and was a team leader to India about a year ago. She lives on the sea and has a FANTASTIC view of the water!!! We also took a little walk and ended up climbing up some rocks to see even further out to sea!!! Of course, Alison and I typically have our heads down on, looking at the paths for cool rocks to bring home – if our luggage is overweight at the airport, we’ll have to blame the rocks!

Just a few more days to enjoy everything that Sweden has to offer us so I better get rested up for another jam-packed day tomorrow!

Steph

5 Days Left In Sweden

Today is Sunday. How strange it is to realize that our team has 5 days left in Sweden. Wow! The past 4 weeks passed quickly--and slowly--at the same time. I have made many new friends that I look forward to hosting (I hope!) or visiting in the future.

I decided to skip this day's cultural activities to recover from my cold. The team has met at the Gunnebo House (see below). With rest and lots of tea I should be ready for tomorrow's vocational visits.

On Monday, we will visit AstraZeneca, a pharmaceutical company, and visit IKEA to learn about the company's operations. I am really looking forward to the IKEA visit because that company has used The Natural Step framework. So, I've been reading my book The Natural Step for Businesses in preparation for the visit.

The Gunnebo House was a summer house of a wealthy merchant built in the 1780s. Kara offered to take a lot of pictures. I liked that suggestion and said that I would live vicariously through her visit. You can search on the internet for Gunnebo House or use the link I found: http://www.gunneboslott.se/index.php?id=1&L=1.

-Rachel

Needlework night in Strömstad

Rachel and I spent a lovely evening in Strömstad with our hostess, Madeleine, and several of her friends who meet regularly to work on their knitting and other needlework projects. We were both novices, but after some good instruction and a LOT of concentration, we managed to crochet a few square inches each!

We also paused during the evening for coffee and smörgås, which is a wonderful Swedish institution. Smörgås is basically an open-faced sandwich that you construct from your preferred combinations of bread, butter, cheese, jam, cucumbers, bell pepper strips, tomatoes, thinly sliced meat, etc. One of the specialties on this particular night was a sort of homemade preserve made from chantarelle mushrooms. Yum!

Our "Northern"-most visit to Tanum and Stromstad

Tuesday, March 24 – Kara and I started out the day shopping with Lotta in Goteborg. We stopped by a little handicraft shop just of The Avenue near the Art Museum – we each found a couple of items to bring home AND Lotta was kind enough to buy us each a Dala horse towel for our kitchens.

Jennifer and I are staying in a little fishing village called Grebbestad with Krister and Nina Jansson and their white cat named Champis (Sham-piece) right on the water.

Wednesday, March 25 – Two stops today on our program. The first was the Eko Park in Strömstad which was located in a relatively new facility built in 2000. Here they have developed programs to provide environmental training and conferences for everyone from 4 years old and up. The building was funded jointly through the EU, Sweden, the District and the Kommun but is now run with funding only from the Strömstad Kommun. The building was erected to be almost self-sufficient based on the technology available at the time. The displays along with Margareta’s stories are very entertaining and would certainly appeal to the younger audiences to help them learn about recycling and taking care of the environment.

The Loven Center for Marine Sciences was our second stop of the day and was located on the coast in Tjärnö. It is part of the University of Göteborg and in addition to being an educational center, they conduct quite a bit of research here and also have an aquarium to show their visitors. The various tanks in the aquarium allow the visitors to see the various fish and other animals that live at the different depths off the coast of Sweden. In the middle of the room, they have a shallow pool with animals that can be touched or even picked up by the visitors. I almost forgot - - for fika today, we got to help celebrate Waffle Day in Sweden with some waffles, fruit and cream.

Our evening plans included a boat ride out on the sea around Grebbestad with Krister & Nina’s friend Per. Their other friend, also Per, joined us and we left the harbor just after 6 PM so there wasn’t a lot of daylight left but just enough to sit on the front of the boat and soak it in for a few minutes before the sun set. As it was getting darker, we stopped by some rocks and caught a brief glimpse of two seals that were in the area. It was a delightful evening spent with some of our new Swedish friends!

Thursday, March 26 - We’ve been looking forward to today! Almost an entire day spent outside – the weather was once again sunny but a little chilly. First, we were shown some rock carvings at a location known as Litsleby. In our minds, we all thought rock carvings would be on a wall but these were actually on the ground! They’ve been painted with red paint to make them more visible for the more than 160,000 tourists EACH YEAR that visit the area! Some date back to 1600 BC. We enjoyed lunch and more information about the rock carvings at a local museum that specializes in documenting and research on rock carvings.

Next, was a walking tour of a small fishing village called Fjällbacka on the west coast of Sweden. This sleepy little town has about 1,000 residents in the winter months but comes alive in the summer with the visiting boats and people. Hans, our tour guide, told us the story of this town. It became part of Sweden from Denmark without much fanfare as Denmark thought it was a dying town but shortly after becoming part of Sweden, there was a “run of herring” that lasted 27 years and brought much wealth to the community…it was a quaint little town with a lot of character and a huge rock “mountain” that we got to climb to the top of and look over the city and towards the sea. Once we caught our breath from the climb up, the view was breath-taking!!! The descent was just as much fun as we wandered down a path through a part in the rocks.
Jennifer and I ended the day by having dinner with Krister and Per at the Nautic Restaurang. We all enjoyed a glass of Sweden-produced beer called Falcon and I tried a pizza known as Tjurpannan Pizzor. It was made of köttfärs (pronounced shurts-far and is ground beef with kind of a taco seasoning), bacon (no Swedish name for this ingredient), champinjoner (mushrooms) and I added some vitlök (garlic). It was really good but it’s been haunting me all evening! After dinner, while we waited for Nina’s movie to get done, we played Virtual Bowling…. It’s the same concept as Mark Lynch’s golf simulator where you actually throw a ball down a lane that ends about 15 feet from the line and then the ball continues down a tv screen and shows it hitting the pins. Our scores were horrible but we enjoyed it!

Friday, March 27 - We awoke to snow this morning! It is a beautiful sight on the Swedish coastline! After lunch and another Rotary presentation, it's back on the train to head "south" again and meet our next host families.

Steph