PAUL'S DOUBLE EMIGRATION ADVENTURE

Those who got the final (second) email of my "Paul's Big Fat Immigration Adventure" will already be aware that my surface-only recreation of Grandma Selma's immigration to California from Sweden is now finished and the soil from her family farm in Sweden has been scattered on her grave in Glendale. (No stringed background accompaniment, however.)

CALIFORNIA

The end of my "immigration" trip! Ann picked me at the Riverside train station July 20, the same city my grandmother had as her destination in 1908. They'd moved the station, but we found the original 1904 building - now a coffee house! I stayed with Ann and Cam in their recovering home in Fallbrook, San Diego County (recovering from the October '07 fire) for about four days then transferred to the LA area, sleeping in Aramco friend Kim and Allan Petker's guest room the final days. July 27 found me leaving on a jet plane (my surface-only transport vow now completed) - back to Copenhagen.

SWEDEN

First night, train from airport to Malmö across the Oresund Bridge. Malmö seemed like my home base this trip, stopping overnight at some train station hotel three different times! The next day I got a fast train up to Stockholm (first class, it turned out, by mistake). At least in first class I got free wifi internet and could catch up on hours of backlogged email!

One major message I came across on the train was from Mark Rentz, the director of the American English and Culture Program at Arizona State University, where I had interviewed July 18 on my Amtrak trek to California. Short story: I got the job! That suddenly revolutionized my entire vacation, and I had to rebook my return ticket to Oman for 10 days earlier than schedule, effectively killing my big See Sweden tour. But I had known for a while that accepting the ASU job would mean I'd need LOTS more time in Oman to clear all the final bureaucratic hurdles there. (We'll see if I make my August 17 deadline!)

Before heading back to Oman August 4 I did manage to complete one more big family-related adventure. In June I had reconnected with my grandmother's Carlson relatives after 28 years. August 1 I reconnected with long-lost Sundberg relatives after over 120 years! My dad's grandfather Johan Emanuel Sundberg had gone awol from the Swedish army after one year of three (so the family lore goes) and caught a ship to Amerika in 1881. He ended up in Omaha and met Elsa Anderson at the one Swedish Lutheran Church there, married and had four kids. In 1896 they picked up stakes, sold several houses they had accumulated, loaded up the truck (metaphorically) and moved to Beverely ... uh, LA.

Back in Sweden he had left two full brothers and three half-sisters. Their progeny multiplied in Sweden and today there are scores of relatives on the Sundberg side, but due to female inheritance lines, very few with the actual family name Sundberg. My Swedish genealogist hero Jan Feith-Ell (whom I also met at a café in Stockholm on my birthday) had provided all the names and some of the addresses of the Sundberg clan, and I had written the male Sundberg's (not-sexism, just some organized way to reinitiate contact with the larger family). There were three brothers, and two only-son Sundbergs.

Four of the five responded, and we ended up meeting August 1 at the lovely country home of Arne Sundberg and his sambo (live-in wife) Sari Kivelä, a Finn. It was one of those typical Swedish long summer evenings. They grilled some pork loin on the outside grill, and we sat at picnic tables. Also typical of Swedish summer, a coolish little shower blew in, and we got out umbrellas and some jackets and tried to eat under their cover. Shared hardships build bonds, they say! Afterwards we moved inside for "coffee", which in Sweden always includes some sweet dish and 1000 extra calories. ("Coffee" is the most fattening food in Sweden, I have decided. Watch out if they invite you for some!) But it also included healthy things like the world's most perfect strawberries ("earth-geezers", or jordgubbar in Swedish). And schnapps.

After the initial awkwardness and linguistic jostling for comfort (many decided my Swedish was good enough to keep the conversation in that - the first time all vacation I'd actually dared continue a conversation more than a few sentences. Good sign!), all the brothers and their wives/mates felt comfortable and we joked a lot. Even Kent, the "shy" older brother opened up and had a good time. Lennart's sambo took it upon herself to be the linguistic and social glue for the evening and monopolized the conversation with me 95% of the time. (I don't exaggerate.) The more wine she had, the more this task took on a heartfelt determination. The others looked a bit stifled and embarrassed, but the goodwill shone through it all. We stayed till after 12, usually a good sign!

Then I had to rush back to Malmö for a day to rest up and regroup before boarding my flight back to Oman from Copenhagen August 4.

And that, as they say, is another story ...