Day 2 in Sweden September 14th - Visiting Karin

The main reason to come to Sweden was to visit relatives, especially Aunt Karin.  Karin is Kent's father's sister.  There were 3 children in their family, Burt (Bertil) who was Kent's father, Karin & Sven.  All 3 of the siblings had polio when they were young and Sven died from it at 8 years old.  Burt had health problems much of his life because of it and Karin still feels some of the effects from that terrible disease.   But Karin looked very good and we had an amazing visit with her.    This was the first time Kent had returned to Sweden since his family left when he was 2 years old.

 Karin was so fun to visit with and we tried to get her to tell us stories about Leif and Kent but she would only say how sweet they were.  :)       Karin lives in a nice flat that seems perfect for her.  Karin has had a very very sweet lady in her life which made us very happy.  Monica who is wearing the red shirt has been like a daughter to Karin.  Karin did not have children of her own but worked with many children including Monica.  Monica took care of Karin's husband when he was sick the last few year and comes very often to be with Karin and help her out.  Karin and her husband, Bengt, have know Monica since she was 6 years old.  We were so happy to find that Karin had such loving people around her.  Karin has also been in touch with many of her cousins from her father's side.  Gunilla Lofstrom  (far right) is one of her many cousins and also came to see us when we visited Karin. 

Names starting from mother around to father.  Karin Staffansson (Mother), Per Uhno, Waldemar, Ruben, Anna (Kent's Fathers Mother), Olle, Ingibord, Sven, Erik, Brit and Anders Staffansson(Father) 

Day 1 of trip to Sweden September 2016

Monday September 13th 2016 we began our journey to Sweden.  It would take 3 planes and about 17 hours of air travel to get there.

We were able to travel with Donna, Laif, Ann & Mark.

I had signed up for a global upgrade and was amazed that we had it from Detroit to Paris.  It was nice, I didn't really get that much sleep considering it was flat bed seats but our flight left at 9:30 AM out of Seattle and then we left Detroit at 12:30 PM so it was hard to get any sleep.  We pretty much lost a whole night of sleep.

When we arrived in Paris we thought we would have lots of time, 2 hours, but first the plane took forever to taxi to the gate, then we were held for another 10 minutes at the gate because someone was ill.  Finally we got to the passport control area and it was a complete stop!  It took us almost one hour to get through.  They finally opened a few more windows for people and then all they did was stamp our passports.  No questions, nothing!  So it was 5 minutes before our plane was supposed to leave.  Mark took the lead, running in his slippers, and was the first to the gate.  The agent was just walking over to shut the door.  We told them there was more people and we were yelling to Donna, RUN!!!  We couldn't believe we made it on the plane.  They shut the door after we got on and we sat down and caught our breath.  Just one of the many times we found ourselves running to catch a train or ferry :)

So we arrived at the airport at 6:30 AM on Monday and arrived in Stockholm at 12:30 PM on Tuesday.  We then got our bags and rented a car and headed out to Karin's home.