Goodbyes

There are lots of goodbyes at the moment. Every day I realize this is the last time we'll see Monique or Conceicao or little Eric Lugo and it's actually really sad. I say that with some surprise given that I'm happy to be heading home and we haven't been here THAT long after all. But I tell you, when you start from nothing in a new country, the people who become your friends along the way are really important and the goodbyes have been more emotional than I bargained for. I even got teary saying goodbye to my bodypump instructor at the gym. Lord!

Ava is losing a kid a day at school and she comes home crying "I'll NEVER see Lucas again!!" on Monday, then "I'll NEVER EVER see Leyan again!!" on Tuesday. And it's sort of true so there's not much we can do except hug her and mumble something about endings also being new beginnings.

This week was a whirlwind of adieu events. Three dinner parties out plus our own goodbye party on Friday at Slottskogen (see pix above), on a beautiful and sunny evening (hallelujah!). Having it at the park was a stroke of genius, if I do say so myself, because it meant that the 15 or so children in attendance just ran around like mad people for 3 hours and left the parents to chat in the sun. It was sort of amazing to look around and think that we didn't know any of these people 2 years ago and now they are our friends and the people we see every day. Teary teary, but in a good way.

Boating

Just in time to leave Sweden we have done the most Swedish of Swedish things and taken a boat out to the archipelago for a picnic on a perfect summer night. Our dear friends Andreas and Conceicao (Swedish and Portuguese) and their daughters Annika and Louise invited us out on their boat and we putted over to a little island called Kvarnholmen that has a playground and sauna (!) and a beach where the kids fished for crabs and collected shells while Andreas grilled sausages. We searched for wild strawberries to no avail, but we did find a snake skin, a goose egg and, most importantly for Julian, goose poop! Oh, and the kids love that there are a couple of sheep on many of the islands to keep the vegetation to a minimum. A charming sight.

Swedes are obsessed with summer and it totally makes sense if you have to suffer through long, depressing winters. They do a wonderful job of making the most of them, including guaranteeing everyone 3 weeks time off in July (out of your total 5 weeks paid vacation a year). And it seems like almost everyone has a summer house and/or a boat or at least a family member who does. Because of the insanely long days (the sun has been setting about 11:15pm and is up again around 3:00am right now) it's just magical to be out in nature this time of year. A great note to end on.

Winding down

The Move sneaks up on you. Up until about 10 weeks out the move home still seems far away. Then suddenly you're 6 weeks out and you're surprised that you just made it in under the wire to order that coffee table you've been eying for a year because it's a 4- to 6-week delivery window. Then you're a month out and have to rush to cancel your cell phone service and gym membership. Then you're less than a month out and you stop buying big things of ketchup at the store because you probably won't finish it and you're planning meals around what you have in the freezer. We fly home on July 10, so we're officially in the no-new-ketchup phase, and my days are full of final playdates, goodbye coffees, and work wrap-up meetings.

Am I sad to be leaving Sweden? Not exactly. I'm a little prematurely nostalgic because it's been such a great family adventure and learning experience for all of us. I will miss the friends we have made who have meant so much to us over the past 2 years. I'll miss the slower pace of life, the 5 weeks of vacation a year, the kids being in 1 school, the sincerity of the Swedes, the daily discoveries. But no, I'm not sad to be leaving, nor am I purely ecstatic to be moving back to SF.

I'm excited about being on my home turf again and knowing how things work and where the best kiddie swim lessons are. I'm excited about Mexican food for 4 for $20 and buying nuts at Trader Joe's for peanuts (pun intended). I'm excited to have friends around who have known me for 5, 10, or 30 years, who get the context of my life. And I'm excited about the work opportunities that are happening in the Bay Area for me and Adrian. I'm also nervous about losing the work-life balance that we have fallen into here and I'll do my best to hang onto that European lesson as we slide back into home.