July 27, 2008...(Day 4) Odensbacken

Around and About Odensbacken: Today, Amanda's parents gave us a tour of the area around their hometown of Odensbacken. This map shows you where the town is located in relation to the rest of Sweden. The town is very near to Lake Hjalmaren, where we visited yesterday.

Odensbacken Town Square: This is the center of Odensbacken, population of around 1,384 residents. Amanda's parents live here.

Betelkyrkan Free Church in Hampetorp: Amanda has given me a bit of history surrounding this church that her parents attend.

"It was originally a Baptist church, and I was a member of the Covenant church - the one where my parents were married. When my mother grew up, both churches were active and had their own ministries. When I was growing up, they were still two distinct congregations, though we had most of the services together. After I moved here, the churches sold all the chapels but one - Betelkyrkan, and "joined forces." They are still connected both to the Baptist and the Covenant churches of Sweden, but they call themselves "Frikyrkan," which means the Free Church. That title doesn't have much significance now that the State Church is no longer connected to the State. It used to be that unless you specified otherwise, you became a member of the State Church upon your birth. The Baptist and Covenant churches were two examples of free churches that broke off from the State Church in the late 1800's."

Church entrance: The suffix "kyrkan" means church. This is a baptist church. Jonathan and I spent some quality time, up on the second floor, shooting pool while we waited for the service to begin. Now, that's my idea of time well spent, although Jonathan cleaned my clock several times.

The church congretational hall: This was such a lovely church, and rather informal at that. I was very comfortable attending a service here, which was conducted by a young female minister. Amanda's mother, UllaBritt, played the organ during the different musical numbers.

Amanda speaking at church: Amanda was asked to speak, and give a multimedia presentation, about the new church her congregation was having built back in the USA. Her audience hung upon her every word, although I could not understand any of it!  (I apologize about the fuzziness of the photo. I grabbed it off a video clip I took of her, as I neglected to take any still shots.)

VIDEO: Listen to Amanda speaking in Swedish: Here is the language I was surrounded by during my three weeks in Sweden. Most people I met could speak English, and Amanda did a lot of translating for me. (Note: In order to play this video, you need a lot of patience if using dial-up. You also need Flash.)

UllaBritt's Old Mail Route: UllaBritt just retired from work as a mail carrier. Much of her rural route was down single-laned back roads. We are enroute to the first house Amanda lived in as a baby.

Ingvaldstorp: We are on our way to Ingvaldstorp to see where Amanda lived as a child. I photographed this map when we visited Vinon, and Amanda pointed out where her family's house was. I've never seen a map of an area where the houses are actually placed on the map like this. I created a faint gray circle around the houses, just above the word Ingvaldstorp. The middle black square was Amanda's family home which you will see in the next entry.

Here is a bit of information that Amanda is including about how the country is set up to create provinces, cities, towns, and villages: 

"The old way of dividing the country is by provinces. We still have the provinces, even though they don't have any political or economical significance. Närke is the name of my province. Then there are "läns," which are almost the same as the provinces. So, my län is Örebro Län. That means, of course, that the "capital" is Örebro, and our mayor lives in the castle etc. Then there are counties that are centered around the county state churches, which in our case is Lännäs Church, where I got married. (We got married at a state church because there was not enough room in our little Covenant church for all the people that came to the wedding of the century, but we had our ministers, (husband and wife pastors, doing it in Swedish and English respectively) not the priest, officiating. In most cases, the place where the state church is, is also a fairly good size town, but in our case, Odensbacken is our town and the church is out in the country. Hampetorp is probably also a town. But the rest of the places are just little villages, all part of Lännäs county. Ingvald is a man's first name, and torp is the word for cottage. In our specific case, Ingvald was the man who opened the village store."

The first house Amanda lived in as a child: This house was initially owned by Amanda's grandfather, who also owned all the surrounding land. The house exhibits typical exterior coloration of houses throughout much of Sweden. I believe this house is in the village of Ingvaldstorp.

The second house Amanda lived in: Amanda lived here as a child. This house was literally just a stone's throw from the first house Amanda's family lived in.

Mile Marker: This old mile marker has been here since 1781. I don't know what it marks a distance to, but it was so interesting to see along the side of the road.

Lännäs Church: Amanda very proudly showed me the church in which she was married. The grounds and graveyard were all so well kept and pretty.

Amanda re-visiting the moments of her wedding: This was a gorgeous location for Amanda's wedding of 22 years ago. I can easily envision her in her flowing, white gown with a radiant smile upon her face as she may have posed here for photos.

Rye Fields and Wind Turbines: This typical Swedish scene is on the outskirts of Odensbacken town proper.

Odensbacken Wind Turbines: These wind turbines are just outside of the town proper and serve to provide some alternative energy for the town. You can see the town of Odensbacken's water tower just behind the base of the first turbine.

Viking Stone Circle: This Viking stone circle has been here since about 700 AD. It may be an ancient grave site. It is just on the outskirts of Odensbacken. The word Odensbacken means "The Hill of Oden". Oden was the biggest Nordic god in Viking mythology.