Key West

A little update. Following Kristin and Doug's wedding on Saturday we left Dover* early Sunday morning and drove to Washington DC for our flight from National/Reagan airport to Key West via Miami. Even though Isolde's cold was still pretty bad she didn't seem to mind take-off nor landing. In Key West we have enjoyed the scenery and walking (otherwise we've mostly taken the car to go places) and today we first visited the Hemingway home and then went to the beach at Bahia Honda State Park. It was Isolde's first swim in the ocean ever and she seemed to enjoy it even though it was a bit cold (compared to what she's used to). After her bath she got a treat, her favourite, raspberries, and after that she tasted some sand :)

* Friday evening we did some more tax-free shopping by the way...

Tax-Free

Since we're in Delaware, the tax-free state (as in VAT; there's still income tax of course), shopping is a must. Including shopping at the outlets at the beach (Rehoboth). We were quite lazy in the morning but got to the outlets at a pretty decent hour - 11:30 - and had about four hours to spend before we had to drive back at 4pm. With Isolde in tow and fitting in meals and nappy changes we didn't do as much shopping as last time we were here (3 years ago), when we filled the whole trunk with bags, but we still managed to pick up (and spend) a decent amount.

This evening we had dinner out with (my aupair host mother) Karin and (her partner) Steve, made a quick diaper and baby food stop at Walmart and are now watching telly. Isolde played with the rocking chair and befriended the cat before she fell asleep. The cat also cuddled with Peter and slept on his lap before it suddenly threw up a hair ball on Peter and the sofa :)

Tomorrow we're going to hang out with Kristin (my aupair daughter, the real reason we're here right now as she's getting married on Saturday) and the check out the shops at the mall.

Show & Tell: A Comment/Remark I Will Never Forget

Time for Olgakatt's last theme and it's a tricky one. I can't remember anything "major" that I can focus on so I think I will just list two sweet memories I have.

Both memories involve my American aupair children who are no longer children, but young adults (one just turned 21 and the other one is turning 23 next month). Both comments were made in the summer of 1996; the children were almost 7 and 9 then.

We were talking about an aupair friend of mine and her medical condition (though nothing she suffered from), which meant her organs were reversely positioned inside her, i.e. her liver was the left instead of right side. Etc.)

Nine-year old K. thought about this for a long time before she asked:
- "So does that mean her belly button is on her back?"

We, the adults, couldn't help laughing, but in a way, a perfectly logical question, especially from a child who doesn't yet have a view of how things are supposed to be and who is meant to question things that we have started taking for granted.

The other memory involves K's younger brother D.

We were watching Sound of Music and I commented that if you lived in such a big house (the house of the von Trapp family), you would need lots of help (i.e. people). D. looks at me and says sincerely:
- "No, just you, Anna."

I thought that was so sweet and the comment went right into my heart and stayed there. (We yelled at each other too that year, especially that summer, as we were both sadly aware that my year was coming to an end, but most of time we loved each other :)

Pettas will take over Show & Tell in October!

P.S. At work right now so only tell today as I can't upload pictures from here.

Show & Tell: When I Was Little...

I'm going to be a bit boring and just show a few photos as my interpretation of Bejla's second theme of the month. I started scanning old photos a few months ago but didn't get very far (so far I have only scanned random photos kept in boxes but I will tackle my albums soon), hence I don't have much to show you (in addition to those you've already seen). Here are a few you haven't seen yet.

Age 2½, not sure where it is taken exactly but I think it's in front of one of the houses we rented (in Dalarna?) in the summers when I was little

My fifth birthday but I have no idea who the other children are. I think this is taken at pre-school. Maybe my mum can enlighten us :)

Skip to age 15 or 16; I travelled to France by train together with the church youth group I became a member of following my confirmation. We spent a night at the Swedish church in Paris* before we headed to our destination, Taizé, an ecumenical Christian monastery, which has become perhaps the site of Christian pilgrimage**. Taizé is a place for prayer, Bible study, sharing, and communal work, but for a teenager it's very much (mainly?) a camp for young people from all over the world. One of my favourite moments in Taizé were the twice-daily prayer/song sessions in the church:





A blurry picture of my beloved cat Kitty Tigera who's no longer with us, Someone (me?) has put a napkin around her neck, poor thing!

Check out my outfit at the Christmas celebrations at the Norwegian church in New York in 1995 (together with Norwegian aupair friends)! What was I thinking??!!

Here I have recently returned to Sweden (a few pounds heavier...) after my aupair year in the US. I think this picture is funny as we're all wearing blue and my grandmother's curtains also happen to be blue :)

* The Priest who was our "tour guide" is a very kind but a bit naïve and a scatter-minded man, so there are quite many stories from these annual trips (I only went on one) ranging from kids (well, teenagers) left on the platform in Hamburg (this happened to my friend on the trip I was one and, I have to say, was really my friend's fault) as the train to Paris leaves in front of their eyes to the group getting lost in Paris's redlight district to a girl (another friend of mine, the year before I joined) tripping and breaking her arm.

** If you haven't heard of Taizé, you may have heard of its founder Brother Roger, who was tragically stabbed to death by a mentally ill visitor in 2005

US Road Trip Part 3: Washington D.C.

We arrived in Washington D.C. around 2.30pm and were very happy to see our stylish hotel, the Palomar, located by Dupont Circle. We had managed to find a good price for an executive room, almost as much as a regular double room.

As you can see I look pretty happy and I also match the interior pretty well! :)

The bathroom was not too bad either!

Old restored colonial houses towards a modern background. There is a name for the neighbourhood/street but I can't remember it or find it - anyone knows?

Almost the same time we arrived at the hotel, members of my extended aupair family arrived as well (they live in Virginia Beach, about a three hour drive from D.C.), and we headed out on the town with them. Here's me with Amy and her children (from the left) Ella (10 years old), Kyle (15) and Jack (12). Amy used to be married to my aupair mother's brother so these are the cousins of my aupair children. I have known them since Kyle was 3 and Jack newborn and Ella wasn't even born, and Amy and I have become close friends! Amy and Kyle visited me in Sweden about five years ago and the last time I met up with them was in October 2004, which as the last time I was in the US before the trip this summer.

We walked A LONG WAY that afternoon, from Dupont down to the White House along the Mall past the Capitol and up to Union Station where we took the Metro back to the hotel. The kids didn't complain a single time, well, towards the end when they were getting tired and hungry. The 15-year-old talked to Peter constantly throughout the 3-hour walk while Jack kept to the side - as illustrated by this photo. You could tell he was listening but he's in this (pre-)teen mood.

I think the Capitol is such a beautiful building.

Capitol detail.


This is one of my favourite photos from the trip (taken by the Capitol lawn).

Ella was so funny taking photos with her mobile phone constantly - and concentrating hard!

Animal life in the capital.

In the evening, after dinner at a Thai restaurant, the grown-ups had a few drinks in the hotel var while the kids watched a movie in the room.

The next day we jumped on one of these hop on-hop off sightseeing tours, which took us past National Cathedral (pictured) and through Georgetown where I have never been before.

The trolley also took us down a street in D.C. that houses almost all embassies, for example one with a statue of Winston Churchill - guess which one! :) We also passed by Sweden House, which is not in the ambassadorial street but down in Washington Harbour (I didn't manage to take a picture of it though).

We also went past all the sights we had seen by foot the day before - the White House, the Capitol, etc. - but I'll spare you another set of photos. A new building for us though was the US Supreme Court of Justice. A grand building that was unfortunately covered by scaffolding when we were there.

We got off the tour bus in "museum street", the road that runs along the Mall and has all (or most of) the Smithsonian museums. Peter went to the Air and Space Museum (and for example saw the capsule that landed the astronauts from one of the Apollo spaceflights back on earth) but the rest of us had been there before so we went to the Holocaust Museum instead. It was actually Kyle and Jack who wanted to go there, otherwise I hadn't even known about it! Unfortunately we only had two hours there as Amy & the kids had to get on the road again, otherwise I would have stayed three or four hours. I think that is what you need to really see it all. It's one of or maybe even the best museum I have ever been to so if you're going to D.C., it's a no-miss!

After Amy & kids had left, Peter and I hopped on the trolley again and saw the Jefferson Memorial from afar...

...and went past the World War II Memorial (there is also a Vietnam memorial as well as a Korean War memorial but I have seen those on previous visits so we skipped them).

The Lincoln Memorial is a must of course!

And a visit with President Abraham Lincoln himself! He sure was a tall man!

Here's the view of Washington Monument and the Capitol from the Lincoln Memorial. The picture is pretty dark but the weather wasn't as bad as it looks, it was just very grey and we did get a few drops of rain later in the early evening when returning to the hotel.

The final stop on our tour of D.C. was Arlington Cemetery where many American soldiers are buried. Initially all Americans who had served the country were buried there but as they were running out of space they changed the "rules" so that only those killed in battle are given their final rest in this cemetery.

Presidents qualify as well of course. This is - I dare to say - the most famous grave at Arlington Cemetery, that of John F. Kennedy, where an eternal flame burns.

Jackie Kennedy and two of their children (those that died as infants) are buried next to JFK.

One of JFK's famous quotes.

Another well-known tomb, that of the Unknown Soldier.

That evening, our last of two in D.C. we met up with my friend Nonna (whom I met at Oxford), at Kramer's Café Kramer's café. I hadn't seen her since November 2004 so that was fun!

Kramer's had some fun drinks on the menu but we were too full to try one :(

After Kramer's we went to a pub where we saw this funny sign.

The next morning we got up at 6am to drive up to New England! To be continued...

US Road Trip Part 2: Philadelphia, Dover & Annapolis

Time for part 2 of our road trip. On this stretch of the trip we covered Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), Dover (Delaware) and Annapolis (Maryland).

Day 4 - Thursday 31 July

On our way to Dover, which was going to be our basecamp for the next few days, we stopped in Philadelphia. It takes 3-4 hours to drive from New York to Dover and Philly is about half-way there. I've been there before and we wanted to get to Dover by dinner time so we decided to just visit the historic district. One of the places we visited (well, the outside) was Independence Hall.

Another building we looked at was the Second Bank of the United States. Peter looks pretty small in between those pillars.

Our favourite street in Philadelphia is Elfreth's Alley, which happens to be the oldest continually inhabited street in the entire United States. The houses were built in the early 18th century, the oldest one in 1702.

Around 6 pm we arrived at the house of my aupair family, the wonderful family I spent over 8 months with back in 1996 and have visited almost every or every other year since then. Last time was October 2004 though so this visit was well overdue. I did see Kristin, one of the children (who's not a child anymore but almost 21) in Sweden at Easter when she visited from Denmark where she was spending a term abroad from her American university. She is the first one from the family to have visited Sweden (except for members of the extended family) so I'm still waiting for the others... It was a good thing that I did see Kristin back in March because she was away visiting her father in Texas during our stay and only got back around 8pm on the Sunday night (when she immediately asked if her new boyfriend could come over :)

Day 5 - Friday 1 August
We didn't take any pictures this day because basically we spent ALL day (well, we had a sleep-in too) at Dover Mall shopping. It wasn't even such a good mall but when the dollar is low...

Day 6 - Saturday 2 August
The original plan was to go with my host mother Karin and my aupair child Drew (who's no child anymore either but just turned 19) to the beach, however, we woke up to a thunderstorm and decided to go to the outlets by the beach instead and see if the weather cleared up later in the day.

We hadn't really bought enough at Dover Mall... And Delaware is the tax-free state and the outlets all had 20% back-to-school offers so we left the shops with as many bags as the day before.

The weather did get better towards the end of the day but we were just to busy spending money! We did take a walk along the boardwalk at Rehoboth Beach though.

Here's me with Karin and Drew in Rehoboth. Rehoboth (and the outlets!) is about an hour's drive from Dover so they have chosen a very good place to live in my view!

Day 7 - Sunday 3 August
Karin needed to do some chores at the house and Drew had to go work so Peter and I went by ourselves to the beach. I'm not too keen on Rehoboth so we went to Cape Henlopen State Park nearby instead, a place I have been to several times with Karin & co.

It didn't turn out to well in the photo - they were difficult to catch on camera! - but there were dolphins swimming around for hours! (The dolphins are behind the person swimming.)

In the evening we had a farewell dinner with my host family - Karin and her partner Steve and also Karin's mum and the kids' grandmother Barbara and her husband Vic. Drew was also there but arrived after the photo was taken.

Day 8 - Monday 4 August
Before leaving Dover and heading for our next stop, Washington D.C., we stopped by the Amish neighbourhood. The Amish really fascinates me and especially in Dover because the two communities - the Amish and "regular people" - live so side-by-side. I've spent so much time in Dover and I still want to go and "look at them" every time.

A horse & buggy next to cars in parking lots is a rather common sight in Dover, at regular supermarkets but especially at Buyler's, a shop run by Mennonites. By the way, if you're ever in the neighbourhood, Buyler's has delicious homemade ice cream.

Boy on an Amish style bike.
The Amish still farm their land the old way.

Amish laundry - these are pretty much the colours they use.

Washington D.C. is a two-hour drive from Dover. Half-way is one of my favourite American towns, Annapolis. And no, it's not the name, though I have to confess it appeals to me, but its colonial history and style and its waterfront location.

I especially like the cute little streets like this one.

Annapolis's main street goes down to the water although it's a bit difficult to see in this photo as the camera's focus is all on me! :)

And that's about it for this leg of the road trip! Next episode: Washington D.C.!