Winter 1993, my first time experiencing a real winter! Stockholm and Southern Sweden is surprisingly mild for being so far up north. Sweden is really a land surrounded by lots of water. If you ever fly into Stockholm you will know what I mean. As you first start your descent you fly over the straight between Denmark and Sweden called the Oresund Straight. Then as you get lower you see hundreds of lakes and the Stockholm archipelago. It is quite a sight and wonderfully beautiful. It is the surrounding water that keeps the temperature on the mild side. This is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand you are rarely if ever snowed in. On the other hand the clean white snow, that helps lighten up the dark winter days, usually melts, becomes a dirty slush or melts completely leaving a muddy mess. To make matters worse the melted snow usually turns to ice over night and if it is followed by new snow then watch out, if you are anything like me, you end up slipping and landing flat on your back. That first winter I must have fallen at least 10 times.
My wife was on paid maternity leave and would continue to be for my son's first 16 months! Something unheard of in the USA. I was given (actually it is required by the state) the first 10 days of my son's life off from SFI (short for Swedish for Immigrants) classes. I was also given the right to take 2 months paternity leave or if I wanted too or I could donate that time to my wife.
As my wife was the bread winner at the time, (I was getting an allowance from the state for going to SFI of about $550), we decided that she would use my leave instead of me, collecting 80% of her monthly wage every month.
SFI was held every Monday to Friday 8:30 to 2:30. The first few weeks were mainly basic conversation class. "What is your name", "My name is", "I am from" "I am ___ years old", that kind of thing. I was there with one other English speaking guy from England and the rest were from Bosnia or Croatia as there was a terrible civil war raging in that region of the world at that time. I usually tell people that the only reason people immigrate to Sweden is Love or War. I was there, thank god, for love.
My wife and I had met 3 years earlier through my then room mate. He was a Life Guard and had met my wife and 4 other Swedish girls on the beach, all of whom were working as Au Pairs. That night he came home from work and asked if I wanted to join them for a night out on the town. Which was of coarse a stupid question, Funny thing was that my friend ended up leaving them all to me to instead try to patch things up with a long time girl friend of his.
They were all very excited to be going out dancing as they all had just arrived a few days earlier. I was an instant hit picking them all up in my Volvo, at the time I didn't know that it was a Swedish car.
We had a great time that night. I was very happy to have, as they had said, "been brave enough to take on five Swedish girls".
One of the girls had caught my eye, she was blonde, about 5"5" with a tiny bit of baby fat still on her, by no means chubby or fat though. She was almost 19 and I was 26. She was a little shy, as was I, and it took a few times of going out with the girls before we both were brave enough to exchange telephone numbers.
After a few more dates we started spending a lot of our free time together, and within 3 months she was spending her nights at my house and leaving for work in the early mornings.
Eventually she had to go home to Sweden. Her visa had expired and she had over stayed by 6 months. We planned for me to visit her that Christmas in Sweden, even though, it was a tearful goodbye. She didn't believe I would come to Sweden and I had to promise again and again that I would. She didn't know how far I had fallen for her.
That Christmas I arrived to snow on the ground and freezing temperatures. On Christmas day I made the mistake of showering just before leaving for the Christmas Church Service. Being from L.A. I had assumed we were going to drive to Church. When we finally arrived my hair was frozen to my head. Worse still, the ice in my hair started melting and dripping on my Christmas finery. It was so embarrassing, of coarse my wife and her sister got a good laugh out of it!
Two weeks later I left Sweden more in love than ever but telling myself I would not ever even consider living in such and cold and dark country. How wrong I was.....
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