These
are the continuing adventures of a Swedish immigrant during her first
year as an American. She boldly went where she'd never gone
before...please come along on the Adventures in America.
I
don't remember much about our flight(s) over the Atlantic. I do
remember changing planes a lot, and being ultra tired when we arrived
at JFK. Grandma Vivian was there to meet us! We were safely in
America! And were about to go our for ice-cream. I didn't want to.
I have nothing against a special treat, at that time didn't know I
was hypoglycemic and shouldn't eat ice-cream, but all I wanted was a
bed. A BED. Grandma was just so excited to show us all things
American that she insisted. I don't know how my parents (probably
even more tired than us kids, 8, 6, and 2) felt about this, but to
Baskin Robbins we went.
I
was overwhelmed when I saw our 31 choices.
(image
free-extras.com)
In Sweden as I recall,
(you'll have to bear with me on the whole recall thing throughout
this series as this was THIRTY NINE years ago, and through the eyes
of a child) there were four flavors of ice-cream. Chocolate,
vanilla, strawberry, and pear. Don't ask my why pear got such
status, but to this day it's my favorite flavor. I couldn't decide.
I could barely keep my eyes open. I ordered vanilla. Grandma was
not happy. “Don't you want to try something you haven't tried
before?” No, not really. This whole moving to America thing is
enough without you force-feeding me ice-cream in the middle of the
night. I have no actual concept of what time it was in NY, but for
us, having traveled forever, it was NIGHT.
We
ate our ice-cream. I don't remember anything more about that night
except getting into a car and blissfully falling asleep for the long
drive to Silver Spring, MD.
I
of course got over my vanilla-ness. Grandma was a spoiling Grandma –
she'd take us our for ice-cream FOR LUNCH. You might recall that my
mother is The Nutritionist. I remember her approving this and
wondering if she'd lost her mind. I think she probably just wanted
some time to herself and would gladly let Grandma take us ANYWHERE.
It's certainly what I do today. Best likes to treat the boys to
LARGE Dairy Queen blizzards as a reward for surviving oral
presentations. They never want dinner, and I don't care. I had some
time to myself.
I've
never really considered how this move was for my mother...perhaps now's
the time to think about what she went through...after all, there are
plenty more days of April left.
