Northward bound
So much has happened since last I wrote! We have visited friends in Paris, family in Sweden, been to the vet, and are now headed into Norway, the northern arc of our journey. We've been camping in places without Internet, and although my phone hotspot gives us rudimentary access to the world, we coudn't upload photos or publish this blog. So today, I will try to catch everybody up on our travels:
Paris
Although Lyon is still my favorite French city, nothing compares to Paris for the feeling of being in the center of the world at the crossroads of history. Our friends Nathalie and Jerome live in central Paris, on Boulevard du Temple, between the Place de la République and the Place de la Bastille. We spent several days there, getting reacquainted with them and their kids, who were in Maria's school in Lyon when we lived there.
Because of its iconic location, Boulevard du Temple is the key route for many of the city's public demonstrations - and no one demonstrates more than the French! On the Saturday we were there, the police started blocking side streets and removing parking early for the two demonstrations that would pass by under our windows. The first, immigrants and their advocates calling for more generous immigration policies, started as we sat down to lunch. African drums in front and a brass band at the back lent a festive atmosphere as the marchers came slowly down the street. We told our hosts that, if we lived in Paris, we would probably have been marching with them.
Then, the second demonstration, sounding much more angry, with bullhorns and loud shouting – the Black Bloc, black-clad, hooded anarchists whose members had destroyed a fair bit of Paris infrastructure during their violent May 1 demonstration, and who clearly had triggered the heavy police presence. As we watched from our second-floor window, the Black Bloc came marching up a side street, right into the immigrant march. For about 30 minutes, the two demonstrations seemed gridlocked, and we worried it might get violent. But finally, the second demonstration turned left and continued down the boulevard. The immigrants lingered for a bit beneath our viewing post before following them toward the Place de la Bastille.
Another kind of demonstration was also taking place at the Place de la République that weekend – an eco-installation that included sodded grass, flowers, displays about the proliferation of plastics in the world’s oceans, nature crafts for kids, tasting booths with local agricultural products like yogurt and honey, and – right there in the middle of the city – cows, sheep and geese! We walked over after lunch and enjoyed the sight of ultra-urban Parisians looking eye-to-eye with sweet-eyed cows. Children who had probably never been near a farm stood rapt at the fences, and tumbled happily in the temporary grass. The Mayor of Paris, Anne Hildalgo, spoke passionately about the need to bring more nature into the city, to reduce the use of cars and make space for bicycle and pedestrians, and to connect the city’s residents to the earth. 
The following day, we went to the Anglican church, where the choir interspersed the service with a gorgeous 16th century Monteverdi Mass. Ahh!
Of course, we also did the tourist thing, taking the hop-on hop-off tour bus to the city’s most famous destinations, hopping off to explore from time to time. While Joe and Jacob walked along the Seine, I spent some time in one of my favorite museums, the Musée d’Orsay, a gorgeous retired train station now devoted to the works of the Impressionists and other 19th century artists. Afterwards we enjoyed watching kids on a school trip dancing to a lively jazz band outside.
Paris - what a city!
Northward Bound
We had thought we might be headed to the UK next, but when we checked the Weather app, we saw that England was cold and rainy for the foreseeable future, while Scandinavia was hot and sunny. So we headed north, through Belgium and the Netherlands and into Denmark, a country neither of us had visited before.
Denmark
We stopped south of Copenhagen to see a friend who lives in an outbuilding of a castle with his family. Jesper made us a delightful lunch with homemade cultured rye bread and we compared political notes at the picnic table in his sunny garden before heading on to the city. Copenhagen is a bicycler’s paradise – totally flat, with few cars, and bikes everywhere! We found a cheap place to spend the night in the parking lot of the marina, and spent our first evening walking along the Baltic shore, amidst families grilling, swimming and biking well into the night. A canal tour by boat the next day gave us a great view of the city, and then we headed north again, toward Sweden.
Sweden
My great-grandfather was born on a farm in Småland, one of six boys and two girls. Over the years, in the second half of the 19thcentury, all but one of the sisters emigrated to the US, where they settled in the upper Midwest, most, including my great-grandfather, in South Dakota. The farm where he was born is still farmed by descendants of the remaining sister, and we joined them there for a meal and coffee. Eva and Borje are of my mother’s generation, retired from farming but still living in one of the farm’s houses, and their son, Jonas, and his wife Boel live in the main house and continue to raise dairy cows and hay and run a guest house in the “grandmother’s cottage”. We were joined by another cousin, Donald Mellskog and his wife Jeanette, who grew up in the US, but have long spent half of every year in a little house across the lake from the farm. We spent the evening with them, and camped in their yard for the night.
The Grandmother's Cottage
Some of the younger residents of the farm
The 13th century church in Moheda where my great-grandfather was baptized
Then it was on to Stockholm (and another boat tour) before heading west to Norway.
The Vet
Norway, Finland and the UK require all dogs entering their borders to be treated for fox tapeworm 24-72 hours before they arrive. We weren’t quite sure how to go about this, but happened to see a sign for a veterinarian Thursday as we passed through a small town in central Sweden. I went in and asked if they could give Jacob the treatment. Fortunately, they (like almost all Swedes) spoke English, but said that they had no open appointments that day. In any case, I would have to go to a pharmacy to get the pill before they could do anything. The receptionist wrote down the medicine I needed, and even offered to weigh Jacob so the pharmacist would know the right dosage to give us. When I brought him back in, the vet came out and said she would be willing to give him the treatment at 4pm – three hours from then. Then she recommended a great café in a nearby town where we could eat lunch, right near a pharmacy. So now Jacob is tapeworm free (as I assume he already was), and ready for Norway.
Norway
We entered Norway today – our 16th country of the trip (no one asked to see Jacob’s papers), and are spending the night in the Oslo Marina parking lot. Tomorrow we’ll go to church before heading to the Nordic Culture Museum and then continue through the mountains to the west coast and the fjords. Today I visited the Oslo’s Viking Ship Museum, to see the three restored Viking ships that were buried in the 900s as tombs for Viking chieftains and queens. They are beautiful. If you ever get a chance to visit them, I highly recommend it. I even learned that Vikings traded with countries as far away as Iran. Pretty incredible.
So now you are caught up. But don’t worry, we have another two months. The adventure continues tomorrow.
A pheasant on a rural Swedish road
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