Goodbye to Gamla Stan. Goodbye to Slottsbacken and the Royal Palace. Goodbye to Bollhusgränd and to Köpmanstorget with its statue of St. George eternally slaying the dragon, which is a copy of a wooden statue, the original being in the Storkyrkan. Goodbye to Stortorget dressed up for winter with its Christmas market, and goodbye to narrow little Mårten Trotzigsgränd.



My desk is packed, my computer unplugged, countless old papers, magazines and photos thrown away. On Monday, the company starts the day in Östermalm on Linnégatan, in new offices. Sweden won't be quite the same for me. I miss the old office terribly, and it's only been an hour and a half. I know, I'm a sentimental fool.



The Swedish words for the day are farväl, adjö and hejdå. They mean farewell, adieu and goodbye.



- by Francis S.

Have weddings in America always been nearly five days of feasting and fetes? Events of nearly royal proportions, it seems? Not that I'm complaining. I had a grand time.



First on the agenda was a small family dinner with one of my beloved little brother's oldest friends, who runs an eco-hotel in Ecuador - I hadn't seen him in nearly 10 years and amazingly, he is exactly the same as when I last saw him. Well, almost the same; perhaps a little more settled, a little more realistic, but just as kind. My youngest nephew fell in love with him. (The husband and I will definitely be going to Ecuador sometime in the near future.)



Then, there was the day where the bride, the groom, another old friend of the bride's, the husband and myself all spent the afternoon in the city getting pedicures and drinking champagne (the husband thought the pedicures were deplorably bad as pedicures go, but I'd never had one before so it seemed perfectly wonderful to me), yakking it up with people we'd never met before in an apartment across from the venerable old Ambassador West hotel, eating bad sandwiches at Cosí, some kind of new sandwich shop I'd never seen before that tries desperately to look funky and unique, serving toasted marshmallows that can be cooked over a can of sterno and with weird mismatched sofas. Except the same mismatched sofas can be found at every Cosí, of which there seem to be, er, at least more than 20 in Chicago, judging by the five or so we encountered in our brief wanderings.



Next, there was a dim sum lunch for 30 at Phoenix in Chinatown, with my sister-in-law officiating and arguing with the waiters in Cantonese while my beloved little brother made the rounds from table to table, introducing all the various factions of his life to all the various factions of his soon-to-be wife's life to one another.



Then, instead of a rehearsal dinner, my parents rented a bowling alley the night before the wedding, so 50 people spent the night drinking beer and bowling badly (I think I hit an 88 once). My favorite part was watching the various people under the age of 11, who had a grand time despite the constant announcements over the loudspeaker ("No walking in the lanes!" "The orange balls are for children only!" "Only one ball at one time in the lane!").



Oh, and then there was the actual wedding. The chuppah held up by among other people, my sainted sister and the husband; the very explanatory ceremony by the rabbi (she speaks Danish!?!); the breaking of the glass on the second try; my very bad singing (I was too nervous and too emotional); the bride's mother having a wee bit too much to drink; the fighting over the cakes (each of the ten tables had its own different cake and everyone wanted the gooey chocolate one); the karaoke singing ("Delta Dawn, what's that flower you have on?" was, perhaps, my favorite choice of song, sung by the voluptuous C. with great verve and gusto, if little understanding of the concept of pitch).



The Swedish words for the day are brud och brudgum. They mean bride and groom.



- by Francis S.

I've been there and back again. The United States is still the same, just with more flags. And more god-bless-america. I guess everyone everywhere has already noted the irony of both sides of the war on terrorism invoking god as being on their side. Not that it surprises me, I just find if funny.



However, I was amazed that the airport security wasn't overwhelming. And unlike the previous visit, the person at passport control didn't seem to be extremely uncomfortable about the fact that the husband and I are homosexualists.



When we visited in August of the past year, the woman at the passport control desk asked us as we stood together in front of her, "How are you family?"



We told her we were married.



She said with disgust, "We don't recognize that in this country. Next time you come up separately, understand?" Which made my stomach lurch, and my knees nearly shake. I wanted to say something nasty, but passport control is one place where you can't win by saying something. The passport control police are all-powerful.



This time, however, passport control was nothing like that.



This time, though the husband went up first by himself, the man behind the desk gestured to me to come up once the husband said that he was traveling not alone but with his husband, namely me.



This time, the man behind the desk said "Have a good stay," as we left after he stamped our passports.



This time, the husband didn't ask me how the United States dares to call itself the home of the free.



The Swedish word for the day is onöjdig. It means unnecessary.



- by Francis S.

The New World beckons with a crooked finger. I could have conceived and bore a child in the time it's been since I was last there. If men could bear children that is. It's the longest time I've spent without going back. And I haven't missed it really.



Now, I just need to remember to give the husband plenty of space, and to grab some time alone just the two of us so that he doesn't drown in the too-muchness of my happy family. If there's one thing I learned from my ex, it's that it is important to show to one's spouse that they are No. 1 when it comes to family.



Rationally, it shouldn't matter: There is no contest between spouse and in-laws, it isn't a competition for my affection, I don't love one above the other, it's apples and oranges. But life on planet earth has little to do with rationality and everything to do with emotion. And wanting attention is in fact natural when faced with in-laws, no matter how well we all get along.



Chicago, here we come.



The Swedish word for the day is släktingarna. It means the relatives.



- by Francis S.

My mother and father spent last night hanging out at a gay club in Oak Park, Illinois. It's not like the clubs downtown in the city, the men are less beautiful, more tentative, more real than at the big clubs in Chicago. But there were strippers - "They were really handsome!" said my mother with conviction - and a dancefloor and loud music - "My ears are still ringing!" said my father after they arrived home.



The reason they went was to raise money for the Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays organization my mother started. Another local branch of the organization recommended it. My mother gave out hershey kisses in little bags tied together with rainbow ribbons with cards attached with a phone number and address.



"I kept telling your father 'our mothers are probably rolling over in their graves right now,'" my mother said to me. "But maybe your grandmother would understand, deep down."



I replied that I thought now that she's dead, my grandmother most certainly understands everything.



"Yes, I guess you're right about that," my mother said.



I keep envisioning my parents sitting there in that club, friendly and smiling and giving out chocolate kisses - as well as the real thing - to all these hundred or more gay men, listening as one by one they tell my mother about their relationships with their own mothers, my poor nearly deaf father unable to hear a thing but nodding amiably and sympathetically, both of them cool as cucumbers when the strippers come out. It about makes me burst with pride.



The second Swedish phrase for the day is Mors dag. It means Mother's Day, which is on May 26 in Sweden this year.



- by Francis S.

I can see on everyone's faces, feel it in the air: the promise of summer is almost too much to bear. April and May have been heaven-sent, sunny and warm and full of pale green leaves. But will the summer live up to this glorious spring? It's rumored that June and July will be hellishly cold and damp.



I would never have imagined living in a country where the collective national psyche is so dependent on the weather. Where one is forced to throw oneself into a warm and sunny day as if jumping from a high cliff into the unknown, where the ten lesser months of the year are mere preparation for a tenuous summer that could possibly never come.



Me, I'm as nervous as the next guy that today will be the end of the balminess, as the husband and I wander around the city, buying presents for the upcoming trip to the States for my beloved little brother's wedding to my friend the Rebel.



I'm sick of worrying about the weather, especially when it's this perfect. Perhaps this means I really am becoming a Swede.



The Swedish word for the day is sommaren. It means the summer.



- by Francis S.

Dogs are allowed in Sweden. In shops and on buses. Just about everywhere except restaurants. So it was no surprise to hear strangled and asthmatic barking in the subway as our train pulled away from Central Station - dogs are allowed in the last car.



The question is, however, whether pig-dogs are allowed. Because what was making the noise was small and round and pink and white and indeed, the ugliest canine-type critter that I have ever seen. An albino pug with a few white patches on its back, the rest of it a rubbed-raw pink, its owner was visibly proud of its pathetic ugliness.



Is it possible to be so ugly as to be endearing?



The Swedish word for the day is husdjur. It means pet.



- by Francis S.