What state or country do you live in?
USA -California
shareThe Hudson River Valley of New York State
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MovieChat Forums > General Discussion > What state or country do you live in?
England
North bit
1.'Sunny' Bournemouth, Dorset, jolly old England, by the sea.
2.Before that Bangkok.
3.Before that Orlando, Florida.
4.Before that, back to number 1.
Sweltering SE City by the river USA
Across the street from the Gulf of Mexico. It’s where the salt air dry rots your tires. Oh, the clear coat is dissolved also. Where your metal outdoor light fixtures are eaten away until they look like lace. Where there are seagulls constantly bombing caca onto your house, cars, trucks....anything and everything! Where your outdoor porch ceiling fans rust and freeze up.
Where your porch furniture can never be clean. Where the grass you planted is overtaken by their precious 300 year old (so they say) live oak tree acorns sprouting and looking like weeds. Where that damnable tree stains your house, drops debris all over the steps, and causes piles of its leaves to collect on the screen porch framing, therefore staining the porch railing. I hate that damn tree! I could go on, but I think y’all get my drift. Do I sound like a happy camper?
Sweden.
shareMy great-grandparents were born in Västra Götaland and came to the U.S. in the early 1890s.
shareI live in Västra Götaland :-) A lot of us swedes went over to America back in those times so not surprising you have roots here. We are very grateful you gave us a chance to a better life away from the poor condition our country was in.
shareInteresting. Great-grandmother was born in Fröjered and great-grandfather in Hjo.
shareI have relatives close to Hjo so my family drove through there often when i was a child, i don't think i've ever actually stopped at the place though.
shareThat's kinda cool to know that you've been through the area my ancestors came from. I know it was not an easy decision for immigrants to make, to leave their country of birth and make a new home in a faraway country.
shareSad and exciting at the same time i guess. Virtually no one knew english either. Sweden is such a small and calm place so going to US must've truly been like another planet. Hard to imagine the thrill.
shareNot knowing the language has to be scary. It's no wonder folks settled in communities of immigrants from their home country. I've read about discrimination against Swedes due to Sweden's ties to Germany, especially heading into WWI. In the early 20th century there were more Swedes living in Chicago than Gothenburg.
shareOur part in the world wars isn't exactly something to be proud of, i can admit that, in WW2 we went into business with the nazis and let them use our railways and pass into the neighboring countries, it was nothing but an act of cowardice to avoid being invaded. That is the true reason we are one of the few countries of Europe that the nazis never occupied. It might look like we withstood Hitler's conquest on the outside but we didn't really, we just gave them what they wanted without starting a conflict. People like to call the french the cowards of the world but it would make more sense if it was us who had that reputation since we didn't even fight back at all. I'm sad if many got discriminated though, what happens in war can't really be blamed on ordinary people.
shareNo, it can't be blamed on ordinary folks. Can you blame them if all they wanted to do was avoid being sucked into it? Survival by hoping to remain neutral, perhaps.
shareI can understand why they did it, we would've been destroyed otherwise, no way could we fight the nazi war machine with what we had, they would've destroyed us anyway and then they would've gone into the other countries just like they did but with enormous amounts of dead swedes added to it.
shareYes, I can understand it, too. Senseless deaths and nothing gained (stopping the Nazis).
shareYeah, being brave isn't always everything, it was the right choice looking back on it. Who knows what would've been left otherwise. I'm sure they would have bombed Stockholm and we would have likely lost the old original structures of Gamla Stan which the city is known for today among a lot of other things, also of course human lifes.
shareI agree. When you know there's no way to defeat the enemy, you do what's necessary to survive and hope that you come out the other side intact. I don't blame them at all for what they did.
Interesting that today many folks look to Sweden as a very desirable place to live.
The big cities are a bit of a mess nowadays because of criminal immigrants, but if you can put up with that there is a lot to offer. The countryside and nature is great. Overall a nice country i would say. One of the better places to settle down.
shareMy paternal grand parents were Swedish immigrants, at least I think so. One or both may have been born here, but I definitely have strong Swedish roots. I think Dad was born in one of the Dakotas then I think the family moved to Minnesota. Seems like a lot of Swedes did this.
shareIt is possible Minnesota was a favorite. There is a swedish movie called Rasmus på luffen which takes place in old times where they talk a few times about going there :-)
shareOne sort of embarrassing thing is I recall my Grandma Ida having an album or two of Yogi Yorgesson, who was actually an American with Norwegian roots. And Dad used to smile and say One thousand Svedes went through the veeds, shased by vun Norveeyun.
sharelol, i have to look that guy up now XD
shareThere was a large Swedish community in Chicago, too. That's where my great-grandparents settled. There is a large Swedish presence in Minnesota too, but I think Germans and Norwegians immigrants outnumbered Swedes.
shareNorway was a part of Sweden until the early 1900's, so i'm not surprised many of them immigrated, they basically suffered the same problems as a nation as Sweden did with poverty and sickness. Not sure how Germany did but Europe overall wasn't exactly the most fun place to live. America was seen as the future and the place of opportunites.
shareOkay. My Scandinavian knowledge is lacking so this is interesting to me.
shareWe are still pretty crazy about US here in Sweden to this day, not that much has changed :-D
shareWhen you start reading about just what it was like to live in many European countries (famines, rebellions, wars, etc.) it's no wonder people decided to emigrate to the U.S.
shareTrue that, seemed like a dream land in comparison.
shareYes, and it can't have been easy to leave, realizing that you might never again see those you left behind. Transportation back then was nothing like what we have today.
shareTrue, weeks and weeks on a boat, even if you sent a letter that would take just as much time to arrive. Not to mention getting an answer. Going somewhere back then was serious business.
shareI have the body of a taught pre-teen Swedish boy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENgMT9c1bHE
Damn XD
shareNevada. But my username refers that I an originally from NYC
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