Author: Theresa Haynes Page 1 of 4

Homeschooling in Sweden

On May 8, 2024

I wrote this piece in August 2018.

For the past two weeks, my social media has been dominated by American back-to-school pictures.

Last week it was kids with backpacks standing poised to step off the front porch into the conventional school world, and this week it has been by my homeschooling friends posting their images of life outside of school — kids playing in the backyard, kids reading in their pajamas and socks, kids snuggling on the couch with their mom, kids at a museum, kids at the beach.

And while my Swedish friends don’t seem as likely to post pictures of their children embarking on a new school year, I am fully aware that the season has dramatically changed: vacation is over, school is back in session. The schools are full and the houses are empty.

Except for us.

River is not going back to school. Earlier this month he went to the international school he attended last year, turned in his school-owned MacBook and unenrolled himself from school. In America, we might call him a high school dropout, and it is basically the same concept here in Sweden.

In Sweden, while it is legal for children over 16 to “drop out,” such a decision makes River instantly ineligible for the generous monthly stipend the Swedish government pays all students under 20. It also likely prevents him from attending the famously free Swedish universities and trade schools, as entrance to these institutions are only available for those who have passed through the conventional system. As far as I know, there is no legitimate path for independently learning students to validate their education and enter into the publicly-funded university system.

Sweden is one of the few remaining countries with draconian anti-homeschooling policies. Homeschooling is legal in neighboring Nordic countries: Norway, Denmark, and Finland, but in Sweden children under 16 are legally required to attend state-sanctioned schools. According to the international homeschooling rights advocacy group, Homes School Legal Defense, noncompliant families in Sweden have suffered fines, litigation, and in some cases, children have been removed from their homes and parental rights terminated. Some Swedish families have allegedly left Sweden to live in Swedish-speaking areas of neighboring Finland, rather than comply.

As one of my Swedish friends said, “Of course I have heard of homeschooling, but I have never met anyone who does it.”

It’s a radical step off of the conventional, accepted path, in a country that deeply respects convention; and I am well aware that River may be the only homeschooler in Sweden.

But River is 16 and legally eligible to “opt out,” of school, so thankfully we are not concerned about the legal ramifications for our family.

And, as this was primarily River’s request and decision, I am convinced that he is motivated and ready to work towards his goals, and I have no doubt that he will be successful.

But why homeschool in a country where we have no homeschooling community and little social support?

Kip and I decided to support River’s decision to return to homeschooling because we thought it was the best decision for him and for our family. I love Sweden and I respect the reality that society and culture are different here than in the US, but in the end, we had to do what works for us.

Here are a few of the many reasons homeschooling works for us here in Sweden.

Time for Creativity

We were appalled at the amount of wasted time River described in his school experience. Modeled after the parents’ expected workday, the school day is long, often lasting from 8:15 until almost 5 p.m. During the winter River walked to school in the dark and came home in the dark. After school and homework, there was little time or energy left for him to engage in creative, life-giving activities he had always enjoyed like making stop-motion animation videos, playing guitar and skateboarding.

Educational Content

River attended a private International Baccalaureate school here in Sweden, and we had hoped when he enrolled that it would be an appropriately rigorous education. And while he enjoyed classes that he had never had before, like jazz class and design class, overall, we thought that most classes were less rigorous than the homeschooling options we had in Los Angeles. His English class, for instance, read and discussed only one book for the whole year. They also discussed the international epidemic of fake news, wrote one opinion piece and analyzed poetry, but it was a pale substitute for what our daughter had the year she was 15. During her sophomore year of high school, she studied and performed multiple Shakespearean plays, read 25 nonfiction and fiction books, wrote about 10 papers, wrote and delivered multiple speeches and made group presentations with her weekly “class” of homeschooling students.

Furthermore, going to school revealed areas that River needed to improve, but as is the nature of traditional school, there was little time to stop and catch up. With River being home during school hours, we are beginning to address the areas where he needs individual tutoring to get “back on track.”

Mentoring

When River was attending the IB school he had “mentors,” assigned, adults who were supposed to be involved in his academic life and help guide him in personal development as well. I initially liked the idea, but the reality was that these arbitrarily assigned mentors never developed much of a real relationship with River and subsequently never had much of an impact on his school experience or personal growth.

However, when we decided to homeschool here in Sweden, one of the first things we did was enlist the assistance of real mentors. I asked my dad, who is a medical doctor in the US, to oversee River’s biology program. River is working through an excellent biology textbook and will be fully participating in biology labs here, but by including my dad, River will have a weekly mentor meeting to talk to another adult who will be interested in his learning progress.

River also reached out to one of his favorite educational mentors in Los Angeles, Shawn Crane, a veteran homeschooling mother who has created her own homeschooling support organization that hosts excellent, rigorous, scholar-level classes for homeschooling teenagers. River will be following along the reading and writing assignments for one of her classes, participating in weekly class discussions by way of an Internet-based video conferencing call.

Social Life

When River started school last fall we had hoped it would be a good place for him to make local friend and connect with other teenagers living in Sweden. But for the most part, it really did not work out that way.

We found that after spending hours at school, the last thing River wanted to do was spend more time with his classmates. It was not until late spring that any of River’s friends from school came over, and even then, it was really just one friend that River wanted to get to know on a deeper level.

River found that his greatest source of friendship in Sweden was not at his English-speaking school, where he shared little common interest with other students, but at a Swedish youth group, a church just a few blocks from our apartment. Despite the fact that the youth group meetings were all in Swedish, River found that through translation and the kind hospitality of the youth group leaders, he could relate more deeply with the Swedish kids there. Since then he has developed strong friendships in this church and also at an international, English-speaking church we attend on Sundays. As a bonus, his natural connection with local teens has made him the most motivated person in our family to learn Swedish. He currently dominates the rest of us in Duolingo.

Do I worry that River will be lonely, come the middle of winter when the days are short and cold? Yes. I do. But as he so acutely responded when I suggested that, “I would rather be lonely at home than lonely at school.” Winter is winter in Sweden.

Freedom to Travel

Last spring River skipped the school trip to go on an epic motocross ride across the Italian Alps.

One of our main motivations for living in Europe was the opportunity to travel extensively. Already this summer we have seen Italy, Norway, Germany, Austria, Slovenia and Hungry. Last year Kip and I made it to Spain and Madera, and next month I will get an opportunity to study in Rome for two weeks. And as we hope to continue seeing Europe while we are here, homeschooling will give us the opportunity to travel as a family on our own schedule.

So what does homeschooling look like during school hours?

River has a schedule of assignments that he and I have agreed upon, mostly reading and responding to his reading. He has a stack of over 25 books that he is interested in reading, mainly biographies, histories, and nonfiction. He will also be working through an Algebra II curriculum and a Biology textbook along with the accompanying lab work. Different family members are planning to read books along with him, and so far, this week he has been busy working on academic pursuits from morning until late afternoon.

Will he be alone during the day?

No. Like many modern professionals, Kip frequently works from home, a fact which is perhaps the strongest evidence that homeschooling is part of a larger social deconstruction of centralized work centers. My graduate school consists of mostly independent reading and online classes, so I too am home during school hours.

And what about college?

River plans to go to college. When we return to the US he can continue his homeschooling, attend a community college and eventually transfer to a four-year university. If he wants to go straight into a four-year private university, he could also take the standard college entrance exams (SATS and ACT) and apply directly. We are designing his homeschooling course study with college in mind.

Why are we being public about our decision to homeschool in Sweden?

We have been hesitant about talking to even our friends about homeschooling in Sweden. Most Europeans who have been raised in socialist settings do not have a flexible framework for understanding nonconventional education, and I would rather avoid the conversation than hear well-meaning suggestions on how we can make school work for us.

But I think it is important for people in Sweden to understand how homeschooling works and why someone would choose it over a traditional school experience.

I also think it would be beneficially for Sweden to rethink its public policy concerning homeschooling. Homeschooling in the US, a movement not without flaws, has produced a generation of self-motivated, highly-educated adults who often excel in their areas of business, athletics, education and art. They are in many ways the social entrepreneurs of their generation.

Sweden is experiencing an economic boom, and now more than ever there is an emphasis on, and support for, startup endeavors, new high-tech companies and new business ideas in general. Opening the educational system to better support motivated, nontraditional students could help the country cultivate a generation of creative, problem solvers who value innovation over time-filling, the risk of entrepreneurship over the stability of employment.

And furthermore, I think homeschooling could work in Sweden because there is a public will to fund creative educational experiences. There is a general desire to equip all types of students for their varied futures.

For instance, there are many creative, diverse, publicly funded gymnasiums (high schools) that River could have chosen if he were Swedish literate. Before we decided to homeschool we visited a Swedish school centered around a professional-level indoor skatepark. The school day there consists of traditional morning classes and skateboarding, photography and free art classes in the afternoons. It was a lot closer to the school experience River was looking for, but in the end, we chose to homeschool because he wanted more freedom to choose the actual subjects and course study. And he wanted to be home.

So in conclusion, we are homeschooling because after considering River’s desires and personal commitment to his own education, we decided it was the best decision for our family. But I have decided to be open about our decision because I hope to give my European friends a glimpse of what an American homeschooling family is like. And furthermore, I hope Sweden will re-evaluate its outdated, anti-homeschooling policies that are counterproductive to its general commitment to tolerance and its growing support of entrepreneurship culture. I think it is time for this notoriously liberal country to liberalize its educational system to accommodate homeschooling.

Update January 2019: I wrote this piece in August 2018, but decided not to publish it right away. We have continued to homeschool River, but we have found that it is not without challenge. Homeschooling in a country without any other homeschooling teens has been difficult, especially when the short winter days can leave you with a serious case of cabin fever. I do think it was the best educational choice for him as he seems to be progressing in science and math better than he did in the traditional school setting. But I won’t sugar coat it. It is lonly to be the only one.

Update: May 2024

It has been five and a half years since we decided to homeschool River in Sweden. Since then the COVID pandemic made homeschooling a household word, around the world.

Homeschooling was the right choice for us in the fall of 2018, but it ultimately contributed to our leaving Sweden in 2019 and returning to the US so River could finish homeschooling in a community. After graduating from our homeschooling, he took a year off of school and then went to a private university in Oregon where he has just finished his second year of Civil Engineering.

Jennifer

By Theresa Haynes

On December 20, 2021

In Uncategorized

This morning, as the late December dawn broke over my backyard in Washington state, I video called my friends Therese and Camilla. They were already in their own darkness, having already spent the short day in Sweden and the UK mourning the loss of our dear friend Jennifer.

We cried together as we remembered the kind, gentle soul who had brought so much beauty to the world. She was generous and compassionate with her words and her possessions. She loved well and she embraced people with the love and dignity of her Savior. More than once, I remember her talking about a friend whose burdens were beyond her capacity to bear. She would shrug her shoulders and say, “I just listen and I hug.” She was like that. She gifted people with her presence, her eyes listening, her heart responding, her hands reaching out to hold.

As another Californian in Sweden, she went out of her way to welcome me to Malmö, meeting me for coffee when I barely knew her. I’ll never forget her asking me how I was adjusting to the move. When I struggled to say everything was great, she looked me in the eyes and said softly, “I am learning its ok to not be ok.” It was a gift.

Jennifer loved to swim in the ocean, even when it was cold. I remember asking how she could swim in freezing water, and she said something about how you would not swim very much in Sweden if you were always waiting for it to get warmer. One hot day in June we met at the docks and just jumped in. I didn’t waste time thinking about cold Nordic water. I just did it because she was there with me. That was her gift to me.

She also encouraged me to pursue my graduate studies, even when I was struggling to justify diving so deeply into an academic program that seemed to have little economic value. What do you do with a master’s degree in the emergence of Christianity, Judaism and Islam in Europe? She championed the act of learning for the sake of learning, making art because art matters. Beauty for the sake of beauty.

She had a childlike faith that deepened over the time I knew her. She often said something like “God’s got this.” She rested in that truth, even when the circumstances prompted others to fret. During the pandemic lockdowns she started a routine of calling a friend to pray every day. Her Facebook intro simply says, “Read the whole Bible. More than once.” She trusted her loving Heavenly Father. Yesterday, when I heard that her life was drawing to an end, that her oxygen levels were sinking to an unsustainable level and that her lungs were struggling to keep her heart alive, I prayed that she would sense God’s presence in her hospital room. When I heard the news that she had died, I imagined Him walking into her room, taking her by the hand, and leading her into Heaven.

I know that He has healed every wound in her body and heart. I know that He has satisfied the longings that this world could never fill. I know that she is drinking deeply of the Heavenly waters that she only began to taste here on Earth. I know that she is Home.

And yet I grieve because I miss her. I just miss her. I want to call her up and talk to her, to walk down rainy cobble streets in the old part of Malmö and grab coffee at one of the many coffee shops near her apartment. I no longer live in Sweden and she no longer lives on this Earth, but I long to defy space and time and walk into her Swedish apartment, see the hundreds of plants she has nurtured, the stacks of books she wanted to read, the candles that gave the room a cozy glow, even on the darkest day in December.

The girls and I got to know Jennifer through a little book club we started a few months after I arrived in Sweden. I think it was Camilla’s idea. The four of us randomly arrived at the park for a women’s social event that no one else showed up for. We talked and Camilla mentioned that she wanted to have a book club, but maybe not just to read books, maybe to get together and talk and go to spa or get lunch or just walk around the park together. So, in a spontaneous moment, we decided to be friends, to get to know each other, to share a little bit of our lives together. I suggested we name our little group the SWeAR club, Sometimes We Actually Read club, and our little joke turned into one of the greatest experiments in intentional friendship I have ever known. Over the next two years we listened to each other’s life stories. We made dinner for each other. We laughed together. We prayed for each other, and occasionally, we talked about the books we were reading. We just never managed to read the same book at the same time.

This morning, the three remaining survivors of our little group met virtually, one more time, to process our deep sense of gratitude and the loss we felt. It was the beginning of healing. I am grateful. Jennifer blessed my life tremendously and I only wish that she could have lived to bless more people. God knows. As she would have said, “He has got this,” but maybe she would add, “But its ok to not be ok.”

Posted on Instagram on her last birthday, September 2021. She was 39.

Jennifer died of Covid 19 while visiting a friend in Maine on December 18, 2021.

Seven Amazing Beaches in Mallorca

By Theresa Haynes

On August 15, 2019

In Uncategorized

There is no shortage of beautiful beaches on Mallorca. With over 250 unique beaches, the island offers everything from silky, white sandy beaches along popular tourist enclaves to rugged, natural rock beaches hidden in coves. There is something for everyone.

When our family visited Mallorca this summer, we wanted to see the best ones, but with only a week to do it, we decided to just sample a few that were either conveniently close to where we were staying or a scenic drive away. As it turned out, we discovered our favorite beach almost by accident when our teenager spotted it out the window and said, “Let’s go there.”

Beaches in touristy areas

Mallorca beach rental chairs — There is no reason to get a sunburn. Beaches in tourist- ready areas of Mallorca often provide loungers for rent. Expect to pay around 12 Euros for two people per day.

1. Platja de Muro

This white sandy beach with an expansive shallow beach in the Alcudia bay is perfect for swimming, wading or just chilling out under rented beach loungers and umbrellas. We decided to go to this beach because it was close to our hotel, and it was not a bad decision. We spent 18 Euros to rent three loungers and an umbrella with a locker for our wallets and phones and stayed here all afternoon and into the early evening. With a steady gentle wind, this beach is also perfect for water sports like windsurfing and sailing. We hired a catamaran and sailed around the bay, clipping by at a speed thrilling for Kip and a little terrifying for me. I may or may not have screamed “We’re going to die,” when our path seemed to veer too close to a glass-bottom boat charging our way.

Swimming in the ocean made me think of my mother who loves the ocean but finds it difficult to walk across the sand or climb into a swimming pool, so I was happy to learn that the developed beach at Plaja de Muro was designed with disabled guests in mind. It has several long boardwalks and an amphibious chair service during the summer months, making it a great place for people with wheelchairs to enjoy Mallorca.

2. Alcudia Beach

Like Muro, this beach on the Alcudia bay has long been a popular destination, and it is easy to throw down a towel and settle in for the day or just a few hours. It also boasts soft, white sandy beaches, rental umbrellas, and every imaginable water sport rental from SUPs and windsurfing to paddle boats with oversized slides for the young-at-heart. With its long shallow beach, it is a natural attraction for families with small children, and one of the delights of this trip was hearing happy children playing football or paddle ball, shouting to each other in French, German, Spanish, Swedish and every other European language represented on the island.

This beach is also the closest to Port of Alcudia, and the best restaurants and take-out-tapas are just a few steps away. Our favorite restaurants in Alcudia include Ramons Bar, a very authentic Spanish tapas bar, and Las Sirens, a moderately priced seafood restaurant on the promenade that offered the best paella have had to this date. We went there for our anniversary date and loved it so much we returned later with our son.

Paella is served table side with style.
Naked seafood paella: all the taste, none of the shells to touch

3. Playa de Port de Pollenca

The beach in Port de Pollenca is another sandy beach framed by distant mountains and the town’s promenade. Its gentle waters are perfect for wading and swimming. During the day it is packed with tourists, but when we arrived in the early evening the beach was nearly empty. Germans and Scandinavians, already dressed for evening dinner, strolled along the promenade, on their way to the oceanfront restaurants, while Kip and River tossed a ball in the warm, shallow waters.

Natural beaches

4. Cala Torta

After a quick walk around the charming town of Arta, wandering street markets in search of a few practical souvenirs, a leather belt for our son, a bracelet for our cat sitter, olives for the road; we headed out of town into the spacious windswept hills. The wide-open vistas, so different from the sharp mountains and tightly-wound roads of the Tramuntana on the other side of the island, led to an increasingly rugged road that seemed barely paved. Just when it seemed our rental car could not make it around another elephant-sized pothole, we parked under a shady tree and joined the steady stream of beachgoers making their way down the path and to the crowded beach.

Bring your own umbrella to this perfectly natural gem at Cala Torta.

Like every other beach experience on Mallorca, this was no disappointment. The lack of rental umbrellas and beach loungers did not deter the hundreds of tourists setting up camp on the small beach, but the beach was clean, the sand soft and the water warm — a paradise worth sharing. And for those who wanted more privacy, it was an easy hike along coastal trails to even more remote coves.

5. Platja des Coll Baix

This postcard-perfect rock beach is only accessible by boat or by hiking down a steep trail into a canyon. The last part of the hike involves scrambling over coastal rocks to get to the beach, which is no deterrent to ambitious tourists and mountain goats, but certainly not something to attempt without proper shoes. Halfway down the canyon trail, I saw a group of sunbathers descending with flip flops and an oversized pineapple floatie. I don’t think they ever made it to the beach.

The waves at this beach are much stronger than any of beaches in the popular bays, and I got knocked down a few times getting out of the water, but its rugged beauty is worth the visit. It’s important to have proper shoes to walk across the smooth rocky beach that tortures tender feet, and if you do bring food you will have to guard it from the wild goats, but in all, one of the most beautiful rugged beaches I have ever visited.

Wear hiking shoes to make the steep path down to Platja des Coll Baix.

6. Cala Figuera

One evening, when driving out to the end of Cap de Formentor to watch the setting sun splash color across the end of the island, we spotted Cala Figuera at the bottom of the cove. From the windy road, high above the beach, it looked like a secret cove, nearly hidden from view, accessible only by steep hike or yacht. The next day we headed back, only to discover that the road to Formentor is blocked to private cars until after 7 p.m. Reluctantly, we parked the car at a paid lot and boarded a bus bound for the lighthouse at the end of the peninsula. We got off at the first stop and carefully picked our way through the bristly path to the beach. We were unsure if it was worth all the trouble, but we were not disappointed.

Cala Figuera Beach — Absolutely stunning , almost hidden, beach at Cala Figuera

The quiet, rocky beach opened up to pristine, blue water clear enough to see for meters down. We swam for hours and River and Kip made friends with a few locals and jumped off a small cliff into the bay. It was by far the highlight of our trip, and if I could only spend one day at the beach in Mallorca, it would be here. Unfortunately, we lost the trail coming back up the mountain and had to bushwhack our way up. Eventually, a little covered with scrapes from the bristly foliage, we found our way back to the bus stop. Once again, I was glad that I had worn my best hiking sandals.

7. Sa Calobra

This natural rocky beach is accessible only by driving the islands famous scenic road and then taking a well-worn path along the water’s edge, through a series of pedestrian tunnels to the canyon. It’s a small beach that can easily become crowded, but it is worth the scenic drive and short hike to get there. Alternatively, if you are an experienced hiker comfortable with ropes and scrambling through deep gorges that never see the light of day, you can attempt the challenging hike through the gorge beginning at Escorca. Excellent guide here.

The road to Sa Calobra is not for the faint-of-heart.

When we left Mallorca, after over a week of exploring new areas every day, I knew we had only sampled the island. With not only beaches, but also hiking trails, caves and mountain biking to experience, I left hoping that we would be able to return soon.

Finding Cala Figuera

By Theresa Haynes

On July 5, 2019

In Uncategorized

Driving a windy coastal road up to the to Cap de Formentor, windows open to appreciate the sea breeze of the fading summer day, looking down at the majestic cliffs crumbling into the Mediterranean; we saw it, a hidden cove with a rocky beach and an unbelievably aqua-blue bay, a private treasure on an island otherwise crowded with tourists.

“Can we go there?”

It was at the bottom of a steep gorge and I did not see how we could access it.

“Sure. Tomorrow, maybe.”

Teenagers are hard to deny, and so the next afternoon we found ourselves on the same scenic road, looking for our canyon beach. We drove out of the Port of Pollença, past the main tourist areas, onto the Formentor Peninsula, winding up to the entrance of Hotel Formentor, a luxury resort on a strip of pale, sandy beach, secluded amid the pine forest. The renown hotel was immortalized 70 years ago by Hollywood’s elite — Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Charlie Chapman and Grace Kelly who spent her honeymoon with the Prince of Monaco there.

The road to the northeast end of the island stopped abruptly with a barrier blocking the way we had taken the night before. A parking attendant waved tourists into a giant, paid parking lot with a bus stop, and a steady stream of tourists with their colorful inflatable floats and beach towels parked their rental cars and headed down the wooded path to the famous beach.

“The road is closed to traffic during the day,” Kip reported after consulting the parking lot attendant. If we wanted to go further, we had to park the car and wait for a bus. It would be 20 minutes or more. Should we go back? Mallorca is full of amazing beaches. Was it worth the trouble?

This summer has been full of decisions like this. Do we continue? Do we turn around? Should we stay in Sweden? Move back to California? I am the family planner, and I have the minor talent of being able to do a mental cost analysis on the spot. My repressed inner accountant loves calculating wages, taxes, costs of living, risks and benefits; but it doesn’t really help us with making decisions because there are always hidden costs and risks to everything. The heart needs to lead the way.

So after a typical crisis of vacation indecision, we decided, in part because we did not want to disappoint our 17-year-old son, to wait for the bus.

It was the right decision.

We rode the bus packed with tourists wanting to ride to the end of the peninsula and see the lighthouse with its epic, edge-of-the-world views. We apprehensively got off at the first stop, found an ill-marked trail and started picking our way through the overgrown path, down the canyon. I was glad I was wearing sports sandals, but despite the heat, I wished I had worn pants to protect my legs from the sharp, dry grasses that grow along the hillside and into the path.

The trail opened up to cliffs small enough to scramble down and then a rocky beach of smooth, hot stones. A handful of other people had found the beach already and they had set up shelters using rocks and driftwood, towels and lightweight beach sheets.

A few people were snorkeling in the crystal-clear water and others were settled into the rocks, caves and coves nestled around the bay. We set up camp with our own driftwood and towels and jumped into the water. No, my men jumped in; I slowly immersed into the cool waters, mindful of the slimy rocks and pale fish that populated the shallows.

Like always, it took me awhile to get into the water. But once in, the water was amazing — calm, clear, clean, cool, but not cold. There were no waves, due to the protected bay, and when I treaded water several meters deeper than my height, I could see my toes perfectly, still painted pink from a month ago.

River and Kip found a small cliff to jump off and made Mallorcan friends, chatting with a group of locals who had come to swim in the cove. They jumped with them, tossed a football with them and they even lent us their face masks so we could see the fish swimming below us.

Curious mountain goats, sensing we had abandoned our lunch, emerged from the brush to investigate our bags. The must have been hungry, but not as desperate as California raccoons, because they did not chew through my cloth bag to get to our green Spanish olives and our jamón-and-Mallorca-cheese-on-crusty-white-baguette sandwiches.

Please, can I try your sandwich?

We stayed in the cove for hours, swam longer than I had in years, and finally packed up our things and picked our way back up the mountain to the bus stop. We lost the trail at one point and got a thrashing from the dried grasses as we bushwhacked our way to the top of the canyon. But we made it, in time to catch the bus back to the crowded parking lot and our rental car, back to the tourist crowds and a late-night dinner, Spanish style, under the stars in the fading heat of the day.

Milan for a Moment

By Theresa Haynes

On July 17, 2018

In Uncategorized

Years before we moved to Sweden, I heard stories of amazingly cheap inter-European flights. Expats living in the UK whisking away to Spain and Italy on a $20-weekend excursion. But disappointingly, since we have been in Sweden I have found that these bargains are almost nonexistent. Either we are too far north to benefit from these legendary deals, or they are just that, legends of the past, a memory of the days of cheap carrier price wars. It is actually very rare to find even a $25 one-way flight anywhere from Copenhagen, except to Milan.

For some reason, Italy’s fashion capital is the exception. I often see extremely cheap tickets to this less frequented Italian city, so when Kip and River began planning their epic motorcycle adventure to Italy, I noticed Ryanair was offering one-way flights for $17.

The more we thought about it, we realized Micah and I could fly to Milan, stay for a couple of days and then meet the men in northern Italy to help them drive back through Germany to Sweden. It was a simple plan that would allow Micah to see a little bit more of Europe while she lived with us for the summer.

The boys on their Italian motocross adventure.

Bergamo

By the time we ended up buying our last-minute plane tickets, it was more like $30 each, but it was still cheaper than a train ticket to Stockholm, or a train ticket from LA to San Diego for that matter.

Flying into Milan on Ryanair usually means arriving in Bergamo, a small city about 50 kilometers outside of Milan. Most people take the 5 Euro bus directly into Milan from there, but we wanted to have an old town Italian experience first, so we took public transit through Bergamo to a funicular that took us up a hill to the old town of Bergamo where we stayed at an Airbnb apartment in the old walled city.

Bergamo, Italy

Our Airbnb apartment, another bargain for $70 including fees, was on a narrow, quiet cobblestone street, near enough to a convent to hear beautiful church bells on the hour, at the evening vespers and again first thing in the morning. The old stone buildings with their wooden shutters and balcony laundry lines seemed to be preserved in time, unaffected by either progress or war.

We walked around the old town like two kids in Fantasyland and someone mentioned it seemed like Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride or the Pinocchio ride must be hidden somewhere around the corner.

“It’s like Disneyland, but the real thing,” Micah must have said as many times as I did. It reminded me of C.S. Lewis’s concept of Shadowlands, the idea that everything good in this life is a mere shadow of the real thing beyond.

We found a restaurant and ordered pasta. It was some of the best I had ever had, and when I took a picture of Micah I thought about my Italian friend Marlo who insisted we stop by her parents’ house in Pittsburg after we took Micah to the Pittsburg Zoo for the first time.

When Marlo’s mom found out that Micah had never eaten spaghetti, she was delighted, overjoyed, to watch her try it for the first time. I think Micah was about 9 months old, trying her first spaghetti to an audience of enthusiastic Italian women. I wish I had a picture from that moment, and I found myself trying to make up for it by taking a picture right then. Sometimes honoring the past is embracing the present.

Milan

Micah did not know that Milan was known for fashion. I thought that was hilarious, and I mentioned it every time I looked up an article about Milan and found that it started with a description of Milan being the fashion capital of the world.

However, what Micah did know about Milan was far more substantive. Having just finished a church history class at Colorado Christian University, she was exuding with information about the Edict of Milan that legalized Christianity in the Roman Empire, Ambrose the brave bishop who stood up to the emperor and Ambrose’s own protégé, a philosopher-turned-theologian that even I was familiar with, the great St. Augustine of Hippo.

She highly recommended me listening to her Audible copy of The Story of Christianity, so while we were flying to Milan I listened to the chapters pertaining to the city’s history and we were able to talk about the historical relevance of the churches and people who occupied that city more than 1500 years ago. We spent most of our time in Duoma, Milan’s overwhelming cathedral, and to Micah’s utter delight, we saw the fairly recently unearthed archeological site where Ambrose baptized St. Augustine in 386.

The baptismal where Ambrose baptized St. Augustine.

In Milan we stayed at a youth hostel with bunk beds and shared dorm rooms. With the exception of the remote mountain lodge that the kids and I stayed in last summer when we hiked the Kungsladen in Lapland, I had never actually stayed in a shared dorm room. It is a little outside the typical American traveling experience, and I was a little worried that it might be strange. But it was actually fine and I was glad to share the company of a few other women along our journey. I suppose as an American I tend to think of the risk of sharing sleeping quarters with strangers instead of the benefit, but in a high-quality youth hostel like the one we stayed in, I think there is actually more security in the temporary community of fellow travelers.

We spent a little time walking around the fashion areas of Milan, buying nothing. We found a chain store on a side street away from the high-end Italian brand stores, and Micah bought a little black dress that looked amazing on her. And I felt that our Milan experience was complete.

After a little over 24 hours in Milan, we took a train to Turin where we met Kip and River. They were tired and happy, having been on motorcycles on Alpine trails for the past four days. But they were happy to see us, especially since I had ordered pizza at a typical Italian-Middle Eastern restaurant called Pizza Kabab and it was ready as soon as they arrived. I laughed about the fact that the only pizza we ate in Italy was not particularly Italian, but it was pretty good anyway. Not everything has to be authentic to be authenticly good.

Picturing the Milan cathedral

Swedish Summer Saturday

By Theresa Haynes

On June 10, 2018

In Uncategorized

Swedish summer in Västra Hamnen

Today, like nearly every other day for the past month, the sun rose early, pouring into the apartment like the savage heat of a Mexican vacation.

The birds started their daily chattering around 4 a.m. in regular observance of their fowl social hour. And before long the radiant sun was pressing through the layers of our drawn window blinds and thick, velour curtains. It was hot, really hot.

I usually keep my extra thick face mask handy, just in case I wake up and cannot get back to sleep. The face mask is amazingly effective, cradling my closed eyes in soft satin and soothing darkness. I am sure that I look scary, but not nearly as scary as I look when I only get four hours of sleep.

This morning I slept in, thanks to the mask and the relative quiet of our apartment with the men gone on their schools-out, summers-in motorcycling adventure. I stayed in bed late and then took extra time to journal, read, pray, and drink coffee on the balcony under our tree, now thick with its summer leaves.

It has been a mixed week for me, a few days of enjoying our life here, and a few days of struggling with the ongoing search for a job and the ongoing problems I cannot solve. The futile job search is a difficulty I should have expected, coming to Sweden without highly sought tech skills or a proficiency in Swedish. But even so, looking for a job can be deeply discouraging, and some days I just need a vacation from planning and thinking and trying. And so, this morning I decided to do just that.

Micah brought me an avocado-cocoa-spinach-almond milk-date smoothie, and we talked about life, not the distant future, just the present; and when the smoothies were done I told her I thought we needed to go for a long, hot run and jump into the ocean.

She was reluctant, not so sure about the jumping-into-the-ocean part, but I prevailed and we ran across Malmö in the midday heat. We ran through some of our favorite parks with the tall trees and their delightfully shading green canopy. We ran past the museum that she has not yet been to and then on to the long sandy beach strand. We ran along the beach, choosing a trail and avoiding the stream of people using the bike and pedestrian path. And then we ran through our “old neighborhood,” Västra Hamnen, the stylish new apartment village where we lived in a small, temporary apartment last summer. That already feels like a long time ago, even though the anniversary of our arrival is next Saturday.

It was almost 80 degrees again today in Malmö, and I was surprised to see how much of the grass had turned yellow, sun-scorched like California in September. Everyone is talking about how unusual the weather has been, and Swedish officials have even sent out social media warnings, urging people to use less water.

When we arrived at the docks, I took off my running shoes, walked to the end of the pier; and to Micah’s surprise, jumped in. Last Saturday I met my friend Jennifer at the docks and she urged me to jump without thinking. Jennifer often gives me really deep advice without realizing it. “Just jump in,” she says with her cute shrug and reassuring smile. And she was right. It really is the best way, because even in June, the water is still freezing cold, and the only way in is sudden, full immersion.

Later in June Micah jumped off the highest point at the docks.

But here is a nasty secret most people don’t know about California: the water is cold there too. It looks warm and balmy in movies, but it is not Hawaii. In the 14 years, I lived within three miles of the Pacific Ocean, and I only swam a few times. And when I did swim in the ocean it was almost always in August when the warm sun had finally warmed the water to the mid-60s. In June I was more likely to wear a sweatshirt to Santa Monica beach than a swimming suit.

According to some resources, the water in Malmö is actually almost the same temperature as Malibu throughout the summer months. Today it was about 62 degrees, and it was 63 degrees in Malibu. But unlike swimming at the beautiful California beaches where you have to brave past each cold, crashing wave; getting fully immersed in the Öresund Strait is as easy as running and jumping from the public docks. And after the cold shock of it all, nothing feels so exhilarating and calming as washing away all the sweat and dirt in an instant.

After swimming around long enough to feel warm, we got out and did what everyone else on the dock was doing. We let the sun dry us and then we jumped in again — like the sauna routine without the sauna.

Families around us shared picnics, parents with small children, young people with grandparents. Couples talked or read books, both in English and Swedish. One young man next to us read a biography of Stalin in English. Two young women laid next to each other, reading the same novel in Swedish. I wondered if they had a book club or if it was for a class.

The crowd was wonderfully age-diverse, elderly men and women sunning and swimming alongside teenagers. I noticed again, how gracefully Swedish people seem to be able to transition from winter white to golden brown. I, on the other hand, got the first sunburn I have had in years.

After we swam, Micah and I walked slowly back to the apartment, stopping to play on an empty playground, talking about the creative play structures and her childhood friends. We watched an endurance race with multiple obstacle stations, teams of people crawling under a maze of ropes, crossing the city moat on connected barrels. It looked like fun, the kind of thing Kip would like. We watched for a while and then meandered to my favorite falafel stand. I ordered a kycklingrulle, a middle eastern chicken burrito, the best fast food deal in Malmö, and we walked back to the apartment. Satisfied. Happy.

One of us said we liked the simplicity of our life here. The other agreed.

It is Saturdays like this that I want to remember when somebody asks what we did in Sweden.

I wrote this piece in June 2018.

May, Glorious, May

By Theresa Haynes

On May 31, 2018

In Uncategorized

Spring and Summer

Spring came abruptly and quickly gave way to summer.

I had been waiting for spring, anticipating the anticipation, and when it arrived the only thing that surprised me about it was how short-lived it seemed. One day the first yellow and purple buds were piercing through the grass, and then, a week later there were tiny buds on the trees. And then BANG – May 1st arrived and it felt like summer.

This is what spring looks like from a Swedish apartment window.

On May 1st, after a disappointingly cold and rainy Valborg night, the sun came out and the world celebrated in shorts and t-shirts. By Ascension Day, May 10, which is also a public holiday in Sweden, it was California hot. I wore an outfit I bought for a Rio trip two years ago, and Kip and I walked to Davidshall for an impromptu date. We bought a couple of beers at a restaurant with sidewalk tables, waited for a table outside and spent the next few hours sitting in the late afternoon sun, watching all of Malmö past by on the street. There is nothing like the combination of first summer sun and a public holiday to bring the entire inhabitance out of hiding. It felt like Malmö had tripled in size.

The garden at slottsparken in the last week of April, just before the heat of May arrived.

Just a few weeks earlier, in April, the tulips bloomed in Slottsparken. By mid-May, they were gone and the park looked like summer.

Earlier in the day on May 10, I met my girls at a café in Slottsparken, one of Malmö’s gorgeous city parks. Slottsparken is literally translated, the Castle Park, and it felt like a royal experience that sunny morning. We ordered salads and veggie burgers at Slottsparken café, a charming and particularly scrumptious garden restaurant surrounded by trees in full bloom and Swedish families enjoying their prized outside culture. The café and surrounding park were full that morning, Disneyland full, of people enjoying the day — walking, jogging, biking, paddling canoes through the park canal and playing Kubb — a Swedish block throwing game that may or may not have anything to do with Vikings. And it seemed like hundreds of people were lying on picnic blankets in sundresses, shorts, and t-shirts, or just swimming suits, soaking in the Swedish summer sun.

Sunny day brunch with the girls.

And this is still true, even three weeks later. The parks and every open green space is filled with people on picnic blankets, mostly in bikinis or shorts, soaking in the sun.

Celebrations

In May we also celebrated River’s birthday. It was his first birthday spent away from his friends in California, which was a little sad, but it provided an opportunity for us to invite some of his new friends home for a breakfast-for-dinner party in our apartment.

Jenga anyone?

One group of friends got together and bought River a box of Swedish treats, both good and quirky things that represent Sweden – the best candy and chocolate, the traditional crackers, meatballs, hot chocolate, super salty liquorice and a can of surströmming, the infamous Swedish fermented fish which has been named among the world’s worst smelling food — a heartfelt box of welcome whose generous gesture was not wasted on any of us.

And then we asked them to sing the Swedish Happy Birthday song.

For Kip and me, it was a really important moment. The long days, the sun, River’s new friends, it seemed like we had turned a corner in our experience here. We had made it through the winter in Sweden, and our son had finally made good friends, and that made being here so much easier.

And More Reasons to Celebrate

Taking our Colorado college kid for a hike in Sweden

And then, a few days later, Micah came back to Sweden.

Micah has been in college since August, a full 8 time zones away from us. When she left for school it was difficult for all three of us left behind. It was a sorrow intensified by the distance and the disorientation of being in a new country with new expectations and rules. But it was also a sorrow soothed by watching her mature and grow intellectually. I am sure it is an experience that every good parent has, sorrow for the childhood that is over, joy for the adult who has emerged. But getting her back for a few months this summer was just cotton candy, the icing on the cake.

Last Day of May

As I am writing this blog post it is the last day of May and we are still amazed at the good weather here in Sweden. It has truly been a month of California weather with sunny skies and warm temperatures, and it seems too good to be true. In a few weeks, River will be finished with school and we will begin a truly busy season of summer visitors and road trip adventures, but for now, we have enjoyed this month of summer bliss. There is nothing like a good, long winter to make the summer so special.

The canola fields in bloom. Kip took this picture on his way home from work, and its a perfect example of the Swedish Skåne countryside.

Island of Ven

By Theresa Haynes

On May 30, 2018

In Uncategorized

There is an island I know, where the wind blows gently over quiet fields.

A thousand yellow bicycles stand ready for us to ride.

A majestic swan nestles in her seaside bed, covers her cygnets under her wing. So strong. So beautiful. A Swedish mother for our Swedish mothers’ day. We watch with ice cream sandwiches for you and the kids, a juvenile pear-flavored, colorfully sprinkled ice cream cone for me.

We ride on.

There are thatched houses and memories of history on this quiet island, once Denmark, now Sweden. There is a museum for Tycho Brahe, an astronomer who came here to see the stars, understand the universe. I want to stop and see, ride and see. In the end, we decide to come back another day. Museums are not for perfect May afternoons.

We find a café, hidden in a garden, surrounded by flowers and potted herbs, a few talkative birds — a cottage with a moss-covered roof. We share coffee and carrot cake and homemade pizza with the world’s best goat cheese, or so, somebody happy says. Rose bushes surround us, and it does not rain, not even a drop. The sun comes out instead and someone suggests we all try to ride the tandem bike. All four of us, together, laughing, coasting, peddling, being scolded in Swedish by the old woman waiting for her bus.

Riding through the fields on a single-lane earth trail, soft grasses pressing against our feet; we pass the little lighthouses, so short they seem out of place.

We are warmed by the sun, quieted by the beauty, forgiving Sweden for the winter.

At the edge of our island, a solemn church, surrounded by her faithful saints, silently watches the harbor below, waiting for pilgrims or people like us, anyone who will stop time and notice eternity. We stop and feel the day.

Mors Dag 2018

Easter Break in Stockholm

By Theresa Haynes

On April 23, 2018

In Uncategorized

Swedes love their candy, especially lakrits, that acquired-taste, salty licorice treat. This is a chocolate lakrits egg, and unfortunately I acquired a taste for them over Easter.

Easter is no small holiday in Sweden. Even though Scandinavians are largely secular, the official state calendar still pays respect to the Church, granting not one, but two state holidays on the Friday before and Monday after Easter, creating a generous annual 4-day Easter holiday unknown in the US.

School children also get the week before Easter off from class, and so when Kip told us he had a meeting in Stockholm, we decided to tag along.

There is an easy train route from Malmö to Stockholm, taking a little over four hours if you catch the express train. Its long enough to relax, listen to an audio book or podcast, study, work, walk to the dining car to get a cup of coffee, and generally stare out the window at the fields and woods and small towns of Sweden passing by. As Americans accustomed to trips of this length happening in cars, it’s a novelty that has not gotten old.

Arriving by train

Like every other Scandinavian city, a few days in Stockholm can be expensive. Hotels, restaurants, coffee shops and museums add up; especially when you are an expat trying to see and do everything you can in the short months or years you have in Europe. So with our shoestring budget in mind, we began looking into alternative accommodations in Stockholm and found a couple of budget hostels. One looked hip and cool, with a nightly social mixer, and the other was a nineteenth century, fully-rigged ship, docked along an island, just outside of the city center.

I heard Bob Goff whisper “Pick whimsy!” and we decide to stay on the boat.

The STF Chapman is a Stockholm landmark, often appearing in images of the city. It had a lifetime of service, first as a cargo ship, then a navy teaching vessel. In the 1940s it became a hostel and now provides accommodations for over 200 guests in dorm-style rooms with shared bathrooms.

We had a private room with four bunks, perfect for a small family. River’s foot, always photo bombing.

In addition to the ship, the hostel includes a reception building that also offers daily breakfast, a café with late hours, a billiard hall and a communal kitchen. I liked having the kitchen, and we used it to make a late night dinner and prepare sandwiches for the train trip back home.

STF Chapman

When we arrived in Stockholm, the first thing I noticed was that the rivers and canals were full of ice planks. It was the last week in March and the waterways were mostly melted. The ice chunks, the last remnants of Stockholm’s long winter, were quickly making their way down the rivers, through the wide and narrow city waterways, toward the Baltic Sea.

As we walked along the marina we could hear the tinkling of ice gently colliding with more ice as it piled against the moored boats. We stopped to watch the big pieces float over a set of locks. Birds — ducks, geese and majestic swan — hitched a ride on the little icebergs, unconcerned with the temporary nature of their transportation. It was a beautiful and rare site, sun shining on ice; and by the time we left two days later, it was all gone.

Entrance is free at the Royal Armoury museum if you have a little time and you want to see a real-live Cinderella carriage.

While Kip was in his meeting, River and I wandered Gammal Stad, old town, stopping to take in a couple of free museums. But we saved the prize museum to share with Kip, a favorite historical attraction, one we had actually visited last summer with Micah, the famous Vasa Museum.

This museum, the most visited in Scandinavia, is completely devoted to a single ship, the Vasa, ornately designed and sunk on its maiden voyage in 1628. Three hundred and thirty three years later it was carefully salvaged, elaborately restored and preserved. It now stands as a powerful symbol of the golden age of Sweden’s monarchy, a tribute not only to the lavish past, but also Sweden’s future as a prosperous leader in culture and innovation.

As we walked around the museum I thought about how the Vasa represents both a colossal failure — a beautiful boat that sank because it was poorly designed, but also, ironically, a tremendous success, not only in its unprecedented resurrection, but also its consistent ranking as one of the best museums in the world. If it were a bit smaller it could have been considered a specimen for another popular Swedish museum, The Museum of Failure, which has been anything but and is now raking in success at $19 a ticket in Hollywood.

On Friday we left Stockholm and headed back to Malmö to spend the rest of Easter weekend at home with our cat. Little did I know then, but it was our last real weekend of cold weather. Like a long awaited Easter miracle, sunshine and warm weather were just days away.

My Language Immersion Diversion

By Theresa Haynes

On April 21, 2018

In Uncategorized

Rivstart, the standard Swedish textbook for the state sponsored language course, SFI, and Rosetta Stone, my starting place for Swedish studies before we arrived in Sweden. I now use Duolingo mostly.

Last November I dove deeper into my Swedish learning, taking an intense three-hour, daily class that lasted four weeks. It was perfect — exhausting and effective. I learned more than I could immediately articulate, but unfortunately the day after the class concluded I boarded a plane for the US and put Swedish learning on hold for a month.

That hold extended when I decided not to re-enroll in the intensive Swedish class and opted to try an online intensive crash course in Biblical Hebrew instead. I looked over the class syllabus and realized that the pace went alarmingly fast, a true crash course, so while I was in Los Angeles I ordered a little booklet on learning the alphabet and sounding out simple words. It arrived just in time, and while we were flying over the Atlantic Ocean, I was writing my first Hebrew letters on the back of a barf bag.

My very first attempts …

I was hooked.

I have always struggled with language learning. We lived in Los Angeles, for 14 years and I never made it past the first level of Spanish in Rosetta Stone. All of my New Year’s resolutions and short-lived attempts resulted in a “smattering” of Spanish vocabulary and common phrases. If I had to rate my language acquisition abilities, I would not have given myself much of a vote of confidence. But, fresh off of my budding success in Swedish, and aided by the gentle discouragement of my friends and family — “Oh, Hebrew is hard, you should just try Greek,” and “You can’t learn Hebrew in a few weeks,” and “I think you should focus on Swedish,” — I decided to give it a try. Why not?

By the time February rolled around I had a good handle on the alphabet, including the exotic vowels which are mostly expressed as subtext dots and dashes; and I was weary enough of the winter weather to press into the Hebrew course when it started the first week of February.

Extra curricular materials I found to help me through the course.

It was rough going. The class, which was composed of graduate students from around the world who already knew either Arabic and/or multiple European languages, went immediately from introducing the alphabet to reading and translating (with the help of a vocabulary sheet) long sentences. At first each sentence took me almost a half an hour to decode, but eventually, just before I thought I might give up, I began to see patterns. So I continued onward.

My not-so-helpful cat, keeping me company while I watch online lectures.

And now, more than halfway through the course, I am enjoying reading sentences from the Hebrew Bible in a matter of minutes instead of half an hour. I am still a long, long way from mastery; but I have learned enough to keep me motivated to learn more.

So why Hebrew? Why now?

I have always been at least mildly interested in learning Hebrew. But it always seemed like a quest out of my reach, a study that only serious Theologians pursue.

But in late November, as I was finishing my Swedish class, I attended a graduate school information fair at Lund University which happens to be a short train ride away. I looked into several graduate programs focusing on business or communications, but I was mostly fascinated by a graduate program called the Religious Roots of Europe — a study of early Judaism, Christianity and Islam, the connections between them and how they shaped Europe. It was a combination of so many things I love – history, theology, travel, personal narrative. Other then the fact that pursuing such a master’s degree seems to be counterproductive to actually getting a job – which I need to do – it seemed perfect. But there was a catch. Classical language study was a prerequisite. Students needed to have learned Hebrew, Arabic or Latin before they started the program.

I was disappointed, but ready to move on, when I met the head of the RRE program at Lund. He suggested I reach out to a colleague of his who teaches an intensive Hebrew course online, which I did.

Then after a few quick e-mail exchanges I started taking the Hebrew class on-line, not knowing if it would be too difficult for me to “keep up,” or if I would even be accepted into the graduate school program.

So here I was, in Sweden, in the dark of winter, studying ancient Hebrew with a Danish professor and handful of other international students from Germany, Syria, Turkey, France and other places. It was not what I had planned, but it has been unexpectedly delightful, like getting the Christmas present that I had always wanted but never mentioned because I did not know I wanted it.

Last month I took the train to Copenhagen and met my class in person. I was afraid that I would be embarrassingly unprepared, but all of my work at home had paid off and I was able to keep up with the class.

At this point I do not know if I will continue with the Religious Roots program in the fall. But even at this point I have already learned not only the basics of Biblical Hebrew, but also a powerful life lesson in what I am capable of, given enough dark winter hours.

I think I can. I think I can. I think I can.

Maybe it is not too crazy to think that I will be fluent in Swedish someday … and be able to read the Bible in Hebrew ….. and maybe order falafel in Israel. Maybe.

It is good to be inspired. That is worth the price of admission any day.