Well, I’ve been traveling for most of the day, and finally made it to Karlskrona. I found out that today is the first day that they’ve opened the railline between Kristianstad (ask me how to pronounce that when I get back. It’s nothing like you’d think) and Karlskrona. Also, the connection, which usually in Sweden seems to be about 10-15 minutes for any train connection, was almost 2 hours. I ate at a Chinese restaurant in Kristianstad, and the woman working there used to live in LA. As I speak Chinese too, I tried to speak to her in that language, but found that my brain has been working so hard on Swedish, that I don’t have the brain space for Chinese at this point; I couldn’t remember the words. Oh well.
Karlskrona is a miliary/naval town, and it’s a little scruffy. The Stortorget (main city square) is enormous and very impressive, but it’s Sunday night and not a lot is open. I’m going to look around the place tonight, and then be up tomorrow for the big adventure. I have to rent a car, as I’ll be going places that aren’t easily accessed by train and bus. I’ll also be taking some boats out to some of the islands where the Jonasson family lived. I also found out (thank you Kristina!) that my mother’s mother’s father had a brother Magnus Olsson, who also moved to Boston in the 1890’s, followed by his wife and four daughters. Here’s another branch I didn’t know about.
Well, I have to do some research on car rentals and also check up on some family information. I’ll be here until Tuesday morning, and then will take the train (with 2 changes) up to Norrköping.
Adjö!
Ken