First Day in Umea

Today was our first full day in Umea. We started the day with a walking tour of the downtown area of the town. Our guide, Lars, is retired from the museum and has an archaeology background. His information about the time periods when man was located in the area was wonderful. I realized when speaking with Lars that most of us at the table could state with some certainty when our family came to the United States and from what country or countries they came. I have an easier time with that on my mother's side, of course, than my father's. At any rate, we kept asking Lars when the Scandinavian peoples came into the area and where they came from. His basic understanding was that people came from the Caucasus Mountain area and populated Germany and that the people from Northern Germany ultimately travelled into Scandinavia populating that area.

What is amazing about this is that the people who came into the new worlds they were exploring were doing so without mechanical invention, without maps, without any knowledge of the places they were journeying to or what lay in wait for them there, and without locomotion other than by foot or by animal. When I knew I was coming to Sweden, I wanted to find out everything I could about the places I was going to visit, so I would know what to expect. The original settlers OF ANY CONTINENT had no idea about their destination but they went anyway. Talk about courage!

Another point -- language difficulties. I studied Swedish via Rosetta Stone before I left. I still cannot understand but a few isolated words, when listening to the Swedes speak. In fact, I think I have a harder time because most of the music is in English, everyone speaks English with us, and a lot of the street advertisements are in English. Immersion training in a foreign language is probably better when there aren't visual and audio cues to remind you of your primary language.

This afternoon, we toured the Vasterbotten Museum and learned about the battle staged at Umea between Sweden and Russia in 1809. Russia ultimately won that war, which meant the loss of Finnland by Sweden. Umea also suffered a tremendous fire that destroyed most of the property and homes in the area. When went to the photo archive and saw a photograph taken at the time of the fire in 1888, showing the decimation of the town. They have now planted rows of birch trees down the center street of downtown to prevent the spread of the fire across the street.

Tonight, I went to IKSU, a HUGE gym here. They have every class imaginable and every nook and cranny of the facility is packed. As a closet introvert, there is NO WAY I could ever be a member there. I need the nurturing atmosphere of a small dance classroom and a few students, not one hundred unknown faces jumping up and down. Tomorrow, I am going to learn a folk dance. I pray that there aren't that many people in that class. On Wednesday, I am going to attend a trial with witness examination, and that will be very interesting. Thus far, I have been given a good background on the legal system, but I will enjoy seeing the system in action. On Wednesday afternoon, we are going to visit the Volvo plant. When that opportunity presented itself, I realized that I have never spent any time at the GM plant in Shreveport. I don't even know if they give or gave tours of that facility. At the last large factory we went to here, a forklift came past us at a high rate of speed and I immediately thought, "This is why the lawyers would never let people come into a plant in the U.S. We could have been hurt." If someone had stepped back a few inches, they would've been nailed by the forklift. Everyone else thinks I am just too cautious. Maybe, but I sure wouldn't want to have to defend THAT forklift driver, listening to his Ipod and driving like a bat out of hell. Anyway, I digress. I am actually getting a little bit tired of all the snow. I can only imagine what the Swedes feel about the snow by this time of the year.

The Opera here is showing "West Side Story." I am trying to picture how that is in Swedish. Hmmm.