Augusta’s friend Lotten didn’t cry over spilled milk. She just laughed as she spilled milk over her white dress. It turned out to be the most enjoyable evening. “My dear Augusta! Thank you, my dear friend, for your long-awaited letter… … Do you know the most enjoyable day I have had this winter? It was last Monday at my aunt’s. She had a reception and […]
The First Real Flying Reindeer!
The first real flying reindeer? A reindeer flying over Stockholm in 1851? Seriously? Yes, it happened. I was rereading Augusta’s diary entry about her outing on 18 June 1851 to watch the first balloon ride in Stockholm. On Wednesday we walked to Skeppsbron to, if possible, take a boat over to Djurgården, where an Italian intended to ascend by an air balloon, but seeing the […]
Dashing through the snow…
You can get to Stockholm’s international airport either by train or by car. Either way, you will pass Rosersberg, a small community northwest of Stockholm. If you are having a rental car, this is where you start looking for a gas station to fill up the car. If you are going by train, you just enjoy the beauty of the landscape. In the winter, there […]
On her birthday: Cecilia Ekenstam
Under the moss on the gravestone, you can discern the words chiseled in the polished marble: NEVER FORGOTTEN. We have reached the final destination of our trip to the west coast of Sweden – Varberg. This is where Augusta, at the age of 28, spent a short time to treat her tuberculosis with sea air and spa water – the only prescribed treatments available before […]
Augusta’s First Love
“They are not long, the days of wine and roses: Out of a misty dream Our path emerges for a while, then closes Within a dream.” (Ernest Dowson, Vitae Summa Brevis) The Summer Sejour to Gustafsberg, 1845 In the summer of 1845, Augusta turned 18. She had just finished her schooling in Stockholm and maybe her mother Anna thought it was time for her to […]
