Off to Sweden on the Kungsholm

I love the colors of the Swedish flag! Blue and yellow have been used as national colors since King Magnus III's royal coat of arms of 1275!  The cross represents Christianity. (Wikipedia)

After a year in France, I returned to the Washington D.C. area to complete high school at BCC, Bethesda Chevy Chase High School.  My French sister, Luce, arrived in the late summer and spent the following year attending school and perfecting her English.

At BCC, I made the acquaintance of a Swedish girl, Gudrun Jungner, who was in the USA because her father, a renowned biochemist, had been invited to do research at NIH. (The National Institute of Health).  He had a one year fellowship.  Gudrun  wanted to stay on after her parents left and receive an American high school diploma.  After my adventure in France, I was ready to try another international experience. (I considered myself oh-so-cosmopolitan) So together we cooked up a plan. We invited our families on a picnic.  Once our parents were sitting across from each other we sprang our plan.  Pretty sneaky! Eventually, they agreed to the exchange.  So Gudrun stayed on at my house after her parents left. A year later, after graduation, we left for Gothenburg, Sweden on the Kungsholm, a Swedish-American ocean liner.

The Kungsholm 

My parents drove us up to New York on a sunny June morning.  They accompanied us up the gangplank. Together we found our small cabin and dumped our bags.  We were hyper-excited. Up on deck we tearfully bid my parents adieu.  The majestic Kungsholm pulled away from the shore and we continued to cry as my parents disappeared from view.  Then we looked at each other, screamed with delight and started to laugh hysterically.  Our adventure had begun.  Two 18-year-old girls, unsupervised, on a week-long voyage.  We scurried downstairs to unpack.

Don’t imagine a romantic cruise, we were crossing the North Atlantic and the North Sea.  The weather was terrible and we barely went out on deck.  I was seasick a good part of the time, but that didn’t keep me down.  We participated in activities and went dancing every night.  I ate all the delicious food but didn’t always keep it down.  Sometimes I went to the swimming pool in the bowels of the ship.  Being in the pool water counteracted the effects of the roiling sea.  I remember one time going upstairs when the ship plunged sharply down a wave so that I was almost going downstairs. Oh-la-la!

I remember we drank a cocktail called a White Lady: Cointreau, gin, lemon juice, sugar syrup and an egg white; all shook up. I haven’t had one since!