“Why are we taking this way home?” I ask my mormor (grandmother). From what I see from my window of the car, this road means it will take longer to get home. This puzzles me; why can’t we just go home the same way we came? “I mean, why are we taking the long road?”

“To take in a different scene.” My morfar (grandfather) answers. I shouldn’t have asked; I should have known the answer even before they answered. We always do this – just because a difference of scenery is something like their motto, but I don’t really mind. Of course, I give just a little attitude (I have to keep the reputation of a teenager), but we’ll get home sooner or later. Inside, I smile at the people in the front seat.

This scene has been the same every time I came with my family to Sweden to visit Mormor and Morfar. Mormor always drives, and Morfar always looks at the map. Always.

Mormor, Ulla Britt Juhlin, works as a mail carrier, and she has for almost 40 years. Morfar, Olle Juhlin, is a genius with computers and works at the University of rebro with … computers. They have one son who still lives in Sweden, on the west coast, and a daughter who decided that USA looked interesting and now lives there with her family – hence the names mormor and morfar meaning mother’s mother and mother’s father. (This means we also have farmor and farfar meaning father’s mother and father’s father.)

They’re really great people. They are also very tall. I really didn’t notice this until this year, but you really hurt your neck if you want to look right into their eyes. Now I don’t know why you would look directly in their eyes … to make a point maybe, but you understand what I am trying to say.

Mormor is one of those really great mormors that bake nice things so when you come home from wherever you’ve been all day there’s a wall of good smells to greet you at the door. It’s either bread or cinnamon buns. I’ve gotten pretty good at being able to tell which she is baking before I get to the kitchen. My mormor is wonderful, but the poor thing is trying to teach me to cook.

This is a bad idea because:

a) When trying to cook in the past I’ve had to use the fire alarm as my timer. When it goes off I know it’s time to take things out of the oven with fire extinguisher in hand.;

b) Everyone in my career development class knew that I only got an A for effort in Cooking Prep (No, really, you should have seen my chocolate chip cookies … well, maybe you should not have seen them; it was hard to tell exactly what they were); and

c) It’s actually been proven that I am a bad omen in the kitchen. I was with the French club last year making crpes one night. Big mistake. Everyone else’s crpes looked like crpes but when my group decided to let me have a try, well, let’s just say I only got one try. I’ll have to update you on how it’s going with my mormor’s attempts of getting me to not be a fire hazard in the kitchen. I know I’ll have to learn something someday since even my morfar helps out in the kitchen.

For as long as I remember, my morfar has looked exactly the same. He loves the color green, so he always wears it, and he has always had the same beard. (Not the same beard;, the hair obviously grew and was replaced by new hairs, but you know what I mean.) He also remembers a lot of history that he has learned in the past and can remember almost any date in history upon being questioned.

Morfar is also very useful in the car. Aside from reading the map (and he has plenty – he loves maps and brings one everywhere) he can tell me how many American miles there is left of our journey. I brought my best friend, Anna, with me when my family visited Sweden last year, and when we were alone with Morfar in a car on the way to some place, I remember we took turns asking him how many miles X kilometres were, and he could figure it out pretty quickly in his head. He really amazes me. The thing I love most about Morfar is the fact that he never changes. If I need a pen, for instance, I know I can go to him. Every shirt he wears has a pocket in the front, and he always has the following in that pocket: a pen, a pencil, a comb (a green comb to be exact), and toothpicks (unused of course). I think it’s funny that you can just rely on him to always have those things with him.

So there you have it: Mormor and Morfar. Now, for fear that, with my descriptions, you would be imagining my grandparents as giants, one with a big loaf of bread and the other with a huge beard, I have sent a picture of us together taken some time in August. Finally, I have to say that I consider myself very lucky to be with people I know this year instead of strangers. Especially people I love. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I smell freshly baked bread…

Hlsar, Angelika

Contact: email: [email protected]

Address: Angelika Guy

Huginvgen 12

SE- 715 31 Odensbacken

Sweden