Swedish American Institute

Kind of a cool thing about being in a semi Scandinavian like state in the US means we have fun things like the American Swedish Institute.

It started out as the home of the Swedish immigrant Swan Turnblad and his family. He came to the US as a child in 1968 due to poor harvests and built the house in 1903. It is an extremely gorgeous house and it was donated by the Turnblad family in 1929 to the American Institute for Swedish Art, Literature and Science (Now just called the American Swedish Institute).

www.asimn.org

The house is connected to a newer building that acts as the sort of reception or entrance area. There you find the information desk, gift shop, and cafe all filled with Scandinavian goods!!! I went there with my fiance in January when they still had all their Christmas themed exhibits up! It was beautiful! The theme was Christmas in Scandinavia which included quite a few of those lovely places including Sweden.

We started our visit by getting a signature Swedish beverage from the cafe. I got a cup of hot glögg which is basically mulled wine served with a ginger bread cookie! The glögg was really really sweet though...almost too sweet. But it was still fun! And I loved saying the word glögg because it sounds like gloog, ha!

Wandering around the mansion was so fun! Seeing all the various rooms and nooks. The main attractions were held around the 3 floors and depicted Christmas settings from Norway, Denmark, Iceland, and Sweden. The pictures I took were not very good, but it kind of gives you the idea.

It seems like the number one thing the institute offers is community. They have so many shops and activities throughout the year that I can only dream of being able to attend. They even offer Svenska language classes that would be AWESOME to take  before moving but they are offered at times that I cant make. :(

Short post but life is busy right now. School and work are demanding! More updates later! The fiance has everything in order to move to Minnesota in July for our -hopefully- short transitional period before moving to Europe.