Six months ago, I published a post about the surprising results of my ancestral DNA test. You can find it by clicking here. At that time, I expressed surprise about my significant Swedish/Danish ancestry and the lesser but still unexpected Norwegian ancestry. Although those two regions only accounted for 8% of me, it was much more Scandinavia than I was expecting. But the remaining 92% was also a surprise. I certainly wasn’t expecting it to be far more “Northwestern Europe/England” than “Germanic Europe”.
View from the Christiansborg (Copenhagen, Denmark)
Well, DNA knowledge and technology changes quickly. A mere month after posting those results, I learned that there had been substantial changes. My DNA hadn’t changed, but there had been refinements in assigning regional ancestry in several parts of Europe. As a result, I learned that my original results were no longer accurate. Just when I was getting used to my distant past, I had to deal with another new reality!
Tivoli Gardens (Copenhagen, Denmark)
So while I likely still have some Norwegian DNA kicking around, it is now too small to be significant. However, my Swedish/Danish ancestry has remained at the same level. To acknowledge that, I have illustrated this post with images from my 2016 trip to Denmark. I felt at home there too…so maybe those are my true Scandinavian roots?
You can’t have too many pictures of Nyhavn in Copenhagen!
As for the even larger (now around 94%) remainder of my ancestry, the majority of it is now in fact Germanic Europe. A slightly smaller, but still significant, portion is traceable to “Northwest Europe and England”.
The Wish Tree Garden on Papirøen, Copenhagen (my collaboration with Yoko Ono)
As some other friends and family members have tried this testing too, I have also learned just how random this DNA business can be. Even siblings can have significantly different outcomes. You almost certainly won’t get the same 50% from each parent that your brother or sister did. And of course 50% is lost with each generation.
The Fish Kiss Spa in downtown Copenhagen
What now? I will certainly be checking in from time to time, to see if my results have been refined further. I now know there are some other regions in my family’s past, and I’m curious to see if they will appear for me too.
Today’s post is a little different, but still very much in the spirit of travel.
Although I had been thinking about it for a while, I finally got around to requesting an “Ancestry DNA” test this spring. And the results have now arrived.
Getting caught by the waves at the same beach where my father played as a child (‘s-Gravenzande, the Netherlands)
On the surface, the expectation was simple. With one Swiss parent and one Dutch parent, one would expect the results to be 50% from each country. But I also heard some other distant echoes from the past.
My ancestors lived in Maassluis, the Netherlands, many centuries ago
Over time, family stories become almost accepted as fact. And one of my family stories was that we had some Spanish ancestry, due to the Spanish occupation of the Netherlands in the 16th century. With respect to the Swiss side of my family, I wondered if there might be some Italian influence, given the fairly close proximity of Italy to my ancestral place of origin. And I also wondered what other interesting connections may have been forgotten in the mists of time.
A church in Lenk (Switzerland) – I wonder what important family events took place here?
I was pretty excited when the results finally arrived. When I clicked on the link, I discovered something very interesting. Switzerland and the Netherlands each belong to the same two broader groups: “Germanic Europe” and “England and Northwestern Europe”. And I had almost complete (92%) ancestry in those two regions.
Lots of choices, high above Lenk and Adelboden (Switzerland)
I found the “England and Northwestern Europe” region interesting. Consisting mostly of England, Belgium, the southern Netherlands, Northeast France and Switzerland, I had never really considered that DNA from England would be connected to both of my countries of origin. This region even contributed more to me than the anticipated “Germanic Europe” region.
Mårten Trotzigs gränd – the narrowest street in Sweden (Stockholm)
And what about the other 8%? The stories and guesses were, in a word, wrong. No Italy. No Spain. As it turns out, most of my other ancestry was from Sweden/Denmark, with a smaller part from Norway. I had always been looking south, but it appears that I should have been looking north.
Terminus of the railway to Flam (Norway)
I know that these tests are not 100% accurate, and of course some ancestry is lost with each passing generation. But way back in 2012, I felt very comfortable in Stockholm (see photo at the very top of this post). I thought it was a place in which I could live. It makes you wonder why I had that feeling.
Malmö and Copenhagen are in two different countries but, thanks to the Øresund bridge, are now considered to be part of the same metropolitan area. Both Sweden and Denmark are part of the European Union; they are also both part of the Schengen Area. Many people live in Malmö and work in Copenhagen. You’d think that it would not be a hassle to travel from Copenhagen to Malmö. But you would be wrong!
A medieval square in Malmö…and a very large lamp
During the height of the recent refugee exodus in Europe, Sweden was considered to be a desirable destination. It has an extensive social security system and indicated that it was willing to accept refugees. Malmö was the chosen point of entry, given its proximity to central Europe. However, Sweden is not a huge country in terms of population and eventually they decided to restrict the flow. To do this, they decided to hire security personnel and place them on the platform for Malmö-bound trains leaving from Copenhagen. As a result, I had to show my passport and be closely scrutinized before being allowed in the boarding area for the next train to Malmö from Copenhagen.
The main square in downtown Malmö
Once I was in Malmö, however, it was clear sailing. My hotel was right across from the train station; in turn, the hotel was only a block or two from the centre of old Malmö. It appeared to be very clean, prosperous…and just a little bit cheaper than Copenhagen.
My soup at La Soupe, Malmö
My last full day in Europe was, once again, rather cool and gray. Eating out for an entire week was starting to lose its lustre. However, stumbling upon a cosy restaurant called “La Soupe” was just what the doctor ordered. It specialized in soup, of course, and I had an excellent tomato/lentil/chorizo soup that blasted away any travel weariness. It came with some sweet black bread and was supplemented by a warming mug of tea and a chocolate ganache for dessert.
Exterior of “La Soupe” in the French Quarter of Malmö
I had some success at a record shop called Folk å Rock (which I think means “People of Rock”) and decided to wander around the area to the south and east of the historic core. I had read a vague description of it as a neighbourhood of cheaper restaurants; in reality, it was where many refugees appear to have settled. It was quite different from old Malmö and it reminded me of entering one of the ethnic neighbourhoods in Toronto.
I visited this record store in Malmö
I had already visited lots of museums and castles in Copenhagen, so I spent the rest of the day doing some shopping and sending a few postcards. For my last meal, I found a restaurant close to my hotel where I thought I could use up all of my remaining Swedish coins…neither Sweden nor Denmark use the Euro. The restaurant was a Thai place and I enjoyed a very tasty Tom Kha Gai soup there. Alas, I won’t give its name (or any free advertising) because I think they tried to scam me with an extra charge that didn’t appear on the menu! They never did give me a receipt.
An excellent Tom Kha Gai at a Malmö restaurant that shall remain nameless
After that, I think I felt more ready to return home. The next morning, I caught a train to Copenhagen’s airport (only 20 minutes from downtown Malmö…and no security check before boarding the train!) and used up my remaining Danish currency there before my connecting flight to Amsterdam.
One of my goals on this trip was to see a professional (ice) hockey game. This proved to be difficult in Denmark, as there does not appear to be a professional team based close to downtown Copenhagen. However, with Malmö, Sweden, now easily accessible by bridge (you used to have to take a boat), I had another option.
The Swedish Hockey League (SHL) is one of the top professional leagues in the world. While it is a notch below the NHL and Russia’s KHL, it nonetheless features some premier hockey talent and a very dedicated (and knowledgeable) fan base. On November 24, I was able to watch a regular season SHL game between the Malmö Redhawks and Brynäs IF.
Malmö Arena – shortly before game time
As with European soccer, the crowd was enthusiastic and did not rely on gimmicks to get into the spirit of the game. The hardcore Malmö supporters were in a standing area at one end of the ice, complete with drums! Actually, I suppose there was one gimmick: the Redhawks came on the ice at the beginning of the game through the mouth of a giant inflatable hawk: lasers and explosions were in abundance.
Here come the Malmö Redhawks!
Malmö started off the season strong but had been faltering of late. Against Brynäs, they definitely controlled most of the game but had a very hard time scoring on David Rautio, the talented Brynäs goalkeeper. In the second period, Brynäs took the lead on a goal that the goal judge missed because it went in so quickly. A look at the video replay confirmed that the puck did in fact go into the net.
The opening faceoff
Going into the third period, Brynäs was holding on to a slim 1-0 lead. Things looked even worse for the home team when Malmö took a five-minute major penalty for a check to the head in the third period. However, they managed to kill off the major penalty and take one last run at solving the Rautio mystery.
The diehard Malmö fans in the standing room section
With four minutes left in the game, Malmö finally scored on a rebound to tie the game. Brynäs took a penalty shortly afterwards, on a scary play that saw a Malmö player crash into the Brynäs goalkeeper (and net) at high speed. On the resulting power play, Malmö scored on another rebound with just two minutes remaining and the home crowd was rewarded with a narrow victory.
Malmö (in red) on the attack!
While the skill level was very high, I thought that the players had a tendency to forego shooting opportunities when they were close to the opponent’s goal. There might have been more goals in this game if the forwards had shot the puck more often rather than trying to make that one final pass close to the net. If you want to see the highlights, they are currently located at this link.
Malmö Redhawks celebrate their dramatic victory
It was great fun to see the game and I will definitely try to catch another one if I am ever in Europe during the winter months. I went to a Swiss League game about 10 years ago and that was a little crazier (probably because thousands of spectators from the visiting team made the trip by train and were not feeling much pain by the time they arrived in Zürich).
Yes, I said that the next post would be from “on the road”. While I am on the road already, I actually wrote this at home. One of the best parts about running my own blog is that I can change my mind!
As I do not speak the language of the two countries I’m visiting on this trip, I decided to try an experiment. Could I learn the language in less than a week, using only online tools?
More Cuban Crocodiles in Stockholm, Sweden
I decided to try my experiment using the “Duolingo” app/website. You can use it to learn multiple languages…simultaneously, if you want! There are two ways to start working on your foreign language skills: as an absolute beginner, or using a five minute placement test that will send you directly to your approximate level of fluency. Just for fun, I decided to do the placement tests for French and German. I was curious to see how my fluency in each of those languages would be assessed. I figured that my German grammar and pronunciation would be better but I thought that I had better French vocabulary.
Swedish primates grooming each other.
The placement test gives you a percentage score that represents your fluency in that language. It also adapts to your performance: if it is clear from the start that you don’t know very much, the remaining questions will focus on the basic components of the language to more accurately determine where you need work. My scores confirmed that my French skills were not measuring up to my German ones. Even so, it was encouraging to see that I was not too far from fluency. I was tempted to work on those languages…but, alas, that would have to wait. I had another language to learn.
Check out the grin on the reptile, at the bottom right!
My progress with my new mystery language is erratic but very tangible. While I am nowhere near fluency yet (I just passed the 6% fluency checkpoint!), I have learned an incredible amount in only a few days. With no books and no charts to memorize, I am learning more organically…almost like a child learns a new language. It’s scary, because I usually learn by note-taking and then studying what I’ve written. Somehow, much of what I’m seeing and hearing is actually sticking with me, even though I am not writing it down. This forces you to learn intuitively and invent your own rules for the language: it’s very hard at first but eventually you remember those rules better because they belong to you!
These are the globes that travel to the top of the Ericsson Globe Arena in Stockholm
The cool part of using a program like Duolingo is that you can proceed at your own pace. You can use it anywhere that you have Internet access. It’s better to use it privately, so that you can hear the language (and speak it back into your computer), but you can still skip over those parts if you need to work silently.
Approaching the top of the Ericsson Globe Arena in Stockholm
Studies have shown that learning a completely new language is an excellent way to keep one’s brain from deteriorating with age. I’m excited to report that it can also be fun. Over the next couple of weeks, I will find out if it can be useful too!
I promise that my next post will really be from my mystery destination. In the meantime, here are some more pictures from our 2012 visit to Stockholm, Sweden.
Another day, another blitz of the various attractions covered by the Stockholm Card!
We started off by visiting the Vasa ship. The Vasa was a huge, overly ornamental and excessively armed ship that was launched in Stockholm with much fanfare in 1628. Alas, with all of the bells and whistles, the engineers failed to take certain things into consideration. Foremost among those considerations: would it float? Sadly, it did not even make it out of the harbour and sunk ingloriously after a mere 20 minutes.
The Vasa ship
However, the ship was magically preserved over the centuries at the bottom of the harbour until it was rediscovered in 1956 and finally exhumed in 1961. Some restoration was obviously required but the ship now stands proudly in its own museum in downtown Stockholm. While the environment is strictly controlled and does not lend itself well to photography, it was still fascinating to see the 17th century version of the Titanic. It’s much more impressive, and perplexing, when you see it in person.
A couple of lemurs at Stockholm’s Skansen open-air museum
Our next stop was Skansen – the “original” open-air folk museum after which many others are modelled (and sometimes even named). Alas, we were starting to grow a little weary of museums by this time and we decided to focus on Skansen’s small zoo rather than the other elements.
This lemur crossed the line and was subsequently sprayed
We spent a fair bit of time “walking among the lemurs”: there is a large area that you can walk through with about 20 of these odd creatures also wandering around. They don’t harm humans but aren’t supposed to jump on your back because it could easily become a habit for them. If they do jump on your back, a staff member will come running out and spray them with water: the lemurs don’t like that! It was strange to be hanging out with these creatures from Madagascar; we didn’t quite trust them but they also didn’t seem to be very dangerous.
Some of Skansen’s primates
After observing the primates for a while (they all seemed to have those nasty-looking red behinds), we visited some of the indoor enclosures. We saw rare Cuban crocodiles there, accompanied by this text: “Since there is an embargo from American authorities regarding Cuban goods, crocodiles born in Cuba are not allowed into the U.S.A. They are regarded as communistic crocodiles, in the eyes of American authorities. On the other hand, if they are born in Sweden, they are allowed [and this is] the only way for American zoos to acquire this rare crocodile.” I wonder if this still applies, given the recent thawing in relations between Havana and Washington? You can read more about these crocodiles here: I certainly didn’t realize that they were kept in a Russian cosmonaut’s apartment for a while!
Is this crocodile a communist?
As this was our last full day in Stockholm, I pressed onward and visited the Ericsson Globe Arena. This is a famous globe-shaped sports arena towering 130 metres above Stockholm. I mention the height because I did not go inside the arena: I rode a globe-shaped “elevator” on an external track to the top! This is definitely not recommended if you are prone to vertigo but it was a nifty way to see Stockholm from a completely different perspective. Once again, the Stockholm Card covered the admission cost.
The Skyview ride to the top of the world’s largest spherical building: the Ericsson Globe Arena
While I’ve got more pictures from Stockholm to share, I’m going to keep them in reserve for now. The next blog post you see will be from our 2016 journey to the Southern Hemisphere. Stay tuned to find out what I’ve been hinting about for the past couple of months!
On our first day in Stockholm, we had an unforgettable experience at an international soccer game between Sweden and Brazil. However, we also found a lot of other things to like about Sweden’s capital city. Today’s post is about our second day in Stockholm.
The National Museum in Stockholm (as seen on our boat tour)
Stockholm offers a multi-day combination tourist pass called the Stockholm Card that includes all public transit, museums and a host of other attractions. We easily made it pay for itself, although we raced around at a blistering pace. We began with a tour of the Royal Palace (Kungliga Slottet), the Postmuseum and a boat tour of the downtown area. The Palace was appropriately huge and opulent; the Postmuseum included oddities such as a realistic portrait of a Swedish postal director from the early 1900s that was made entirely from postage stamps! It was one of the oddest things I’ve ever seen: kind of like a mosaic but using stamps instead of stones or pieces of glass.
The streets are very narrow in Gamla Stan (the old town) area of Stockholm
The boat tour turned out to be rather brief (it was free, after all) but it was still nice to see Stockholm from another perspective. It is built on 14 islands and, as you’ll see from my next blog post, has quite a fascinating naval history.
Mårten Trotzigs gränd – the narrowest street in Sweden
We worked up quite an appetite navigating the narrow streets of Gamla stan (the oldest part of Stockholm) and had a fun outdoor lunch at one of the local restaurants. Downtown restaurants generally have a lunch special (called “Dagens rätt“) with a price corresponding to the local “lunch allowance”, so we took the opportunity to have some Swedish meatballs with lingonberry sauce. In the afternoon, we went to the Nobel Museum [“Nobelmuseet“]. This was important for us to see but the last “site” of the day was, to our surprise, even more impressive.
One of the sculptures at Millesgården in Stockholm
Carl Milles was a sculptor who created most of his enduring works in the first half of the 20th century. His home overlooked downtown Stockholm and was turned into a museum after his death. The home/museum is interesting (it looks as it did during Milles’ lifetime), but almost all of his major works are outside. The complex is called Millesgården.
Another one of the ethereal sculptures at Millesgården
While he created all kinds of sculptures, Milles is best known for those that appear to defy gravity and even take flight. You can see a few of them here, as well as a very small portion of the extensively landscaped grounds overlooking Stockholm.
More of Millesgården, with some of downtown Stockholm in the background
Millesgården is relatively difficult to find, if you are based in the downtown area, but it is well worth the effort if you would like to have an unconventional art experience. While I did my best to capture them in my photographs, the sculptures are even more impressive when observed in situ. It turned out to be one of our favourite stops on our whirlwind cultural tour of Stockholm.
Stay tuned for the highly unusual next day in Stockholm: who would have thought there would be an element of Madagascar to our visit?
Our 2012 trip to Scandinavia started off with 2 nights in Uppsala. Although it’s the 4th largest city in Sweden, it only has about 140,000 inhabitants. We chose it because it was close to the Stockholm airport and it looked like a good place to acclimatize for our upcoming journey into the former Soviet republic of Estonia. As our return flight was also departing from Stockholm, we thought we’d defer spending time in the capital until we returned from the east.
Bees at Uppsala’s Botanical Gardens
Everything about Uppsala was pleasant: the parks, the streets, the historical sites and the university (founded in 1477 and Scandinavia’s oldest centre of higher learning). As we had hoped, it was easy to get into the European rhythm. We did some very mundane things to start: we went to a local mall to buy shorts, as it was warmer than we had anticipated and I had also forgotten to bring shorts with me. As a result, I remain the proud owner of Swedish “pirate shorts”: a little longer than usual but still comfortable on a hot summer’s day.
Uppsala Cathedral up close
We shed our jet lag with leisurely visits to Uppsala Castle, the adjacent Botanical Garden (both pictured at the top of this post), and the Domkyrka (Uppsala Cathedral). The Cathedral goes back to the 13th century and dominates the skyline of the small city. While I wouldn’t say that Uppsala has a lot of bucket list sights, we enjoyed wandering around the city and soaking in the academic vibe. We both thought it would be a great place to attend university, should we ever decide to pursue further studies!
Uppsala Cathedral at a more sensible distance
I was prompted to write about Sweden today because I decided to try a Scandinavian cheese called Juustoleipa (in Finnish) or Ostbrod (in Swedish) for lunch. The name translates as “bread cheese” and it’s described on the package as a “buttery-flavoured flat and squeaky cheese”. I found it at our neighbourhood supermarket, among the other specialty cheeses.
Frying up some Juustoleipa at base camp!
To make Juustoleipa, you just heat it in a skillet for four minutes on each side. The end result is quite similar to fried halloumi with hints of mozzarella and the texture of cheese curd. It was warm throughout with a bread-like crust on the outside. While the instructions recommended serving it with jam, honey or syrup, we went with plain fresh croissants instead. It was delicious; I look forward to trying it again with something sweet. Speaking of sweet Swedish food, that is my favourite culinary memory of Uppsala: we enjoyed terrific crepes al fresco at a charming downtown cafe.
Downtown Uppsala
This post was delayed a bit because of some photo uploading challenges, although everything seems to be sorted out now. In the meantime, we were able to take care of immunizations and some logistical planning for our summer journey to the southern hemisphere. This is one of my favourite parts of travel planning: seeing everything slowly fall into place and realizing that “yes, this is actually going to happen!” We’re really going to see three new countries!
Sweden doesn’t enjoy a high profile among Canadians considering a trip to Europe. It may be perceived as being somewhat similar to Canada, both geographically and culturally…and therefore perhaps not quite “exotic” enough as a destination. However, we loved it there and hope to return someday.
While I hope to report more on Sweden in a later post, I’ll cut to the chase in this one: even if we had done nothing else in Stockholm, the evening of August 15, 2012 completely justified our three day visit to that vibrant, beautiful and multicultural city. The final international soccer game to ever be played in historic Råsunda Stadium was scheduled for that evening.
Fun at halftime. Every attendee was given a Swedish flag!
While it has hosted the Swedish national team for many decades, Råsunda is best known as the stadium that hosted the 1958 World Cup. In turn, the 1958 tournament was notable because it was Brazil’s first ever World Cup victory and also marked the emergence of a brilliant new 17 year-old superstar named Edson Arantes do Nascimento…better known as Pelé. Pelé is generally acknowledged to have been the greatest soccer player of all time. In the final, Brazil defeated Sweden by a score of 5-2. And now, 54 years later, the stadium was being retired with a match between the current national soccer teams of Brazil and Sweden.
Neymar prepares to humiliate a Swedish defender
I found out about this match in a most unusual way. Earlier that year, I had been asked at the last minute to play in a hockey tournament in Kingston. A team from Sweden had arrived without 3 of their players and were looking for some local replacement players. One of the tournament organizers heard that I was “Swedish” and I was contacted to play. While my background is actually Swiss and Dutch, it is not uncommon for people to confuse Sweden and Switzerland. In any case, I brought along a couple of (equally non-Swedish) friends from my local team and we all had a great time playing for the Swedish squad. We even made it to one of the tournament finals.
Neymar takes a first-half free kick against Sweden
I stayed in touch with a couple of the Swedish hockey players and I asked one of them about going to a pro soccer game when visiting Sweden that summer. He told me that the timing was not right for a regular league game…but that an international match between Sweden and Brazil would be played while we were there. Although he couldn’t make it to that match, he gave me the contact information for the tickets and I embarked on a complicated journey to purchase them from Kingston. It was a crazy roller-coaster of very long-distance phone calls, credit card follies and international money orders. I persevered, however, and we were able to get tickets only a few rows from the field!
Somebody must have cancelled their purchase right before I bought those tickets, as the game was completely sold out. We arrived to a scene of sheer madness: there even was a samba band playing at the entrance, complete with outrageous Carnival costumes. It was a little bit of Rio in Scandinavia.
A little bit of Rio in Stockholm, Sweden.
Just a few minutes after we settled into our seats, the ceremonies began. First, we saw some of the Swedish players who played in that 1958 final. Then we saw some of the Brazilian players who played…including Pelé himself! Wow! He said a few words about the 1958 World Cup and even performed the ceremonial opening kickoff (see photo at the top of this post). For a soccer player and fan like me, it is truly amazing to be able to say that I saw Pelé kick a soccer ball. He was 71 at the time and still looked like he could control a game.
Pelé runs off the field after performing the ceremonial opening kickoff
The game was equally thrilling. Led by Neymar (the “next Pelé”), and having just finished playing at the Olympics in London, the Brazilians made the Swedes look like amateurs. The final score was 3-0 but it could have been much worse. Their ball control was particularly amazing: we could not believe how Neymar (and many of his teammates) could do such magical things with the ball while also running at full speed. It is far more impressive in person than on television. Even the partisan Swedish crowd had to applaud the impressive display by the Brazilians.
It was a “friendly” match, but there were still some hard tackles (and resulting injuries)
We felt sad when the game ended, as it had been so entertaining, but for the Swedish fans it was especially poignant because this was the last hurrah for their fabled national stadium. There was a great deal of emotion in the air on that beautiful northern evening: we felt honoured to have been a part of it.
Getting back to our hotel on a ridiculously packed subway was a chaotic experience but it did not diminish the thrill of seeing both the greatest soccer player of all time and (possibly) the greatest soccer player of the near future. We will be extremely lucky if we ever see something like that again.
