Petalling, v. – riding my cruiser and buying flowers for the garden – two of my very favorite things to do.
I'm trying to make more of an effort to get in some me time. I decided this week that I'll schedule in an hour on Tuesdays and Thursdays to do something for me. Maybe go to the rec center. Or get back to sewing and painting. Today it was reuniting with my beloved cruiser bike...
We hit our favorite beach spot yesterday... a quiet area a few miles south of Åhus. (For those of you in the area, you drive past Åhus and turn left at the Åhus Missionsgård sign. Then follow the parking signs.) Lewis came too, with his laptop in tow. I thought it was going to be a huge disaster (sand + bright sun). But he actually got a lot of thesis work done, and his Macbook survived the trip.
I've been a bit bored around the house lately and feeling a little bit of an itch to go back to work. Although, after seeing all the IKEA employees waiting for the 5 p.m. train yesterday, I was glad I spent the day at the beach instead of at a desk.
I hope to hit the coast a few more times this summer. But with gas around $10 a gallon, it definitely makes it tough to leave Älmhult. You guys in the U.S. have nothing to complain about (yet).
Of all the places we've been to in the world, there's one spot that stands out as our favorite vacation destination: Gunnison, Colorado. Several years ago we even bought a piece of land there with the hopes of building a vacation home on it. We figured that if we ever wanted to do it we might not be able to afford it, so we thought it would be smart to at least buy the lot. There it is behind Lewis and Sophie. Someday our front door will face the "W."
We can't wait to spend weekends here... teaching Sophie how to snowboard at Crested Butte in the winter and taking her on her first 14er hike in Lake City in the summer. We took her on her first real hike yesterday. And as mountain bikers passed us, I couldn't help but think that someday we'll be teaching her how to mountain bike on that same trail.
Perhaps only my dad can appreciate this blog posting. And, well, maybe Tilly too. The big news is that we saw a squirrel during our walk yesterday! A whole family, in fact. I think it may have been the first squirrel I've seen in Sweden. Tilly didn't know what to do... been almost three years since she hunted them on a daily basis.
As you can sort of see (sorry... it's the camera on my phone zoomed to the max), the squirrels here look more reddish-brown and have tufted ears.
Tilly doesn't get as much attention as she used to. I think she knew the moment we walked in with Sophie that she was bumped down a rung. But she's still the star when we go for our morning walk. We pass by a daycare – the one we hope Sophie will go to – and you can hear the kids screaming as soon as they catch a glimpse of Tilly. "Hund! hund!" That's the Swedish word for dog. Often they come running up to the fence and ask,"Vad heter hunden?" "Tilly," I say. "Tilly?," they repeat with some bewilderment. I guess it's not a common Swedish name for a dog.
I've already admitted that my Swedish isn't very good. Well, Lewis' is worse. And sometimes the kids aren't asking Tilly's name, they are asking what kind of dog she is or if they can pet Tilly. Lewis, having no clue what the kids are asking, always just responds, "Tilly." Hee hee.
Every day we take the same route at the same time and see the same people along the way. All of us with our routines. To them, I'm the girl with the red stroller who has her dog off the leash. Her well-behaved dog.
It's Tilly's hour to shine.
(If the video doesn't load, click here)
Yippee... we have a new toy! A video camera that successfully made it through Swedish customs. Even better. We decided on the Flip Video Ultra because it's really small and doesn't look like a video camera. It's the size of a PalmPilot, so it's pretty easy to throw in my purse or pocket. It was $150, so a good price too. The super cool thing is that the USB connector flips from the camera, plugs into the computer and then you can instantly download the files. Easy, inexpensive and small. Perfect.
We bought it for the baby. To document the delivery and then all the little things that happen as he or she develops. Right now we're playing with it to test it out. This video was from the 1-hour walk we took in the woods after our first real snowstorm of the winter.
Lewis has also been using it to document my snoring... apparently a recent pregnancy phenomenon.
Five cubic meters of dry birch logs were dropped off this morning by a guy named Henric. This is in addition to the 7-10 cubic meters of pine logs we bought in August. Yup, I think we're set.
For those of you who remember our wood-buying adventure last year, this one wasn't nearly as animated. But I did do the whole transaction in Swedish... over SMS that is. Much easier than a telephone conversation. :)
A few posts ago, I mentioned that the lingonberry was now in season. So when Lewis and I walked down to the farmer market (yes, it's a one-farmer market) yesterday to get some fresh raspberries for our morning waffles, I also picked up a half kilo of lingonberries. By the way, I erroneously posted that raspberries were already gone for the year, but we've been able to get them the past two weekends.
This morning I made lingonberry scones. And for dinner this week, I'm going to try this recipe for mustard-roasted salmon with lingonberry sauce. You carnivores out there would find a lot of good uses for lingonberries. There's the IKEA staple: Swedish meatballs with lingonberry sauce. And I found this recipe for duck breasts in lingonberries and red wine.
To be truly Swedish, though, we should have picked the lingonberries ourselves. This time of year, you see lots of families on the side of the road and in the forest picking lingonberries. The former owners of our home left a lingonberry picker behind, but we've never gone out on our own lingon hunt. Honestly, I wouldn't trust myself to know that I was picking the right berry and could easily end up with something poisonous. I don't think Tito would appreciate that.
Maybe we'll be brave enough to try it next year...
Despite the fact that my growing belly and what's growing inside it have become the preoccupation of my life right now, there are actually other things happening in the world. :)
Here at the farmer's market in Älmhult, fresh raspberries and strawberries are gone, and now the in-season fruit of choice is the lingonberry. Kind of like a cranberry.
Our friends Henry and Alisa have been staying with us for about a week, and I've been laughing so hard my stomach hurts. Last weekend, we took the ferry over to Helsingor and FINALLY visited the Louisiana Museum. It's a modern art museum, and we visited just in time to see an exhibit of Richard Avedon's photographs. My favorite was his picture of Marilyn Monroe when she was "out of persona." Then yesterday we explored Copenhagen and found some cute new neighborhoods: Norrebro and the area between the University and Norrebro (near Norreport Station).
It was also our 5-year wedding anniversary on Friday. I don't think we could have predicted back on September 7, 2002, that in five years we would be living in Sweden, expecting our first child and even more in love. Life is wonderfully unpredictable...
I just love our life on a morning like today's. Woke up to fall's first sign of impending arrival. Put on my down vest and orange clogs and walked down to the town square with Lewis and Tilly. We have a farmer's market there every saturday morning. It's about a 300-meter walk from our house. We got there as they were setting up, so the town was still really sleepy and peaceful. We picked up a carton each of fresh Swedish raspberries and blueberries. Then we went back and had a delicious waffle breakfast while listening to a live feed of KCRW.
Life is definitely going to get more hectic for us beginning on Monday, when Lewis starts his daily commute to Lund University. But I told him no matter how crazy it gets, we'll always have our Saturday mornings.
For those of you who have seen my bike, you know it was not meant for the Tour de France. Or anything faster than a leisurely stroll. It's an orange Raleigh Retroglide cruiser. With the springs in the seat and huge handlebars. One gear only and foot brakes. I wouldn't want to ever ride anything else.
So I must have really looked like the wicked witch yesterday afternoon when Lewis and I decided to bike to Killeberg, a town about 10 kilometers from here. Lewis clocked me and said I was keeping a pretty fast pace.
The road to Killeberg is a small countryside road, but the speed limit is still about 55. No worries in Sweden though. They are very good about sharing the road with cyclists because it's such a big part of the culture.
Not only was I impressed that I made it there and back. I also took some nifty photos of Lewis with the camera behind my back!
Since we moved into our house in June, this has been my most frustrating sight. The mailbox left open. We've come home from a week-long vacation to find all of our mail dripping wet. Packed with snow. Bleeding ink everywhere.
The longer it goes on, the more I feel like my grandfather. "It must be those dang kids." Some little kid, I'm convinced, has been opening our mailbox whenever he or she walks by. I've never seen it. But I'm SURE that's what's going on. Sometimes I'll leave for work in the morning, put the lid down, and it's up again by the time I get home for lunch. I put it down, and it's up again when I come home from work. Damn kids!
OK, so same story yesterday. I go back to work after lunch and the thing is open. I put the lid down and start walking. But then I turn around and look. And I think. And I wonder, "Could the wind be blowing the thing open?"
It's still a mystery. But it's just funny that I did not consider this very logical explanation earlier.
And when we came back from Christmas break and saw how little firewood we had, Lewis was CONVINCED someone robbed us. Yup, they drove their car up and loaded up! He even explained to me how he could tell by the way some of the wood was stacked. A few days later he suggested that maybe we didn't get robbed, and that we had just used more wood than we thought.
Anyway, it's pretty hysterical and very interesting how easy it is for us to jump to conclusions... and in both cases how someone evil must be behind it. Yes, there are bad people everywhere, but little Älmhult is far safer than anywhere else we've lived.
I think I will post a web cam in front of the house and find out who the little bugger is!
It says "you are pathetic." Well, not really, but it is implied. I'm addicted to vitamin D, what can I say?
Of course, it's not completely mindless because the instructor ONLY speaks Swedish. Hopefully I don't blow up the kiln.
There's just no getting around it: I'm completely bored off my butt. In a funk, as my dad would say. For anyone who dreams of living abroad, I'm sure you've already figured out that it is not one long dream vacation. I think the thing that is depressing me the most right now is that I feel like my identity is totally tied to my job. In Denver I didn't feel that way. If I had a day off, I would have plenty of ways to spend it. Here, not so much. A huge part of that is the fact that it's winter. In summer, I would just make a beeline for the beach.
At the same time, Lewis and I are trying to get to Portugal for Easter. (That's when living abroad really rocks!)
This weekend I decided to try to snap out of my funk. I set up my studio upstairs and painted, and I also signed up for a ceramics class that starts Monday (through IKEA). Between the two of them, I should definitely survive the Swedish winter this year. And have a whole bunch of crap to put on the walls and shelves...
*As a side note, I just looked up the word "funk" in the dictionary. My favorite definition is "the state or quality of being funky." Like the 3-week-old feta cheese in the fridge...
Yes, it's tulip day today... so, of course, when I got off work Lewis and I walked over and picked up a bouquet at the store. It's been so warm here all winter, you'd think they would be blooming in the yard. Ironically, we looked out our window about an hour ago and saw.... SNOW! I was so excited I grabbed the camera and took a picture out the front door.
I just had to share that in an all-employee catalog meeting today, two different people said "full fart." Hee-hee. Yes, the 1-hour meeting was completely in Swedish. Fullfart means "full speed" as in full speed ahead. It appealed to my juvenile sense of humor. Here's another fun one...
...but 30 years later, having a mouse in the house really isn't my idea of entertainment. This is the Swedish version of a humane mousetrap. Reminds me of the squirrel traps my dad was obsessed with when I was growing up. He was convinced the squirrels were coming back to our yard from the remote spot where he freed them. So he started spraypainting their tails. (Hey, everyone can use a little color in their lives!) One day my sister sprayed the squirrel and got him right in the face. An orange-faced squirrel was then running around Ridgewood, NJ...
A fall run/ride for me, Lewis and Tilly
If anyone is still reading, yes I am still alive. Wow. As my friend and former creative director would say... this is EGREGIOUS!!
Has Swedish life become so normal that we have nothing left to talk about? Well. no. But, maybe just a little. However, we still have kept to our promise of spending at least one weekend day exploring something new. We found a great beach that hopefully we'll hit one last time before winter's grip is here. (Yes, the rug is going to be pulled out from under us at any moment.) A few weeks ago, we drove to Kalmar to see a huge castle and stopped by some glassmaking factories on the way home. No pics. And then last weekend, our uncle Dick and aunt Kristin from Geneva flew up. They officially beat the rest of you as our first guests. 
They brought great weather with them, and a lot of great times. I had to work Friday, but Lewis went down to Lund with them. And then the 4 of us went to Copenhagen all day Saturday. The icing on the cake was that after 9+ months of being here, I finally had my first real "snaps." (Like Schnapps in the U.S. but not sweet.) It is very Swedish, and I guess Danish as well. These snaps makers were giving away free samples. I told the woman I was a beginner, and she gave me something normal. They use herbs to infuse the snaps and then mix it with regular snaps so it's not so strong. You can see some of the herbs on the table, and all the different bottles are different infusions. I only had one and my eyesight went a bit blurry.
We should have some exciting blog reports in about 12 days. That's when we get back from a 4-day trip to Budapest. We're going to hang with my peeps (Figlar is Hungarian, and my great grandparents came to America in 1907.) I don't know of any family back there, but it will be great to learn more about the culture.
OK, on that note, I need to post a few pictures of my adorable little family members, Will and Samantha. I wish I could have packed them in my suitcase. (I'm pretty sure Lewis does, too.)
Hej då!
Ginny
I've been a little depressed that we can't seem to find a house and get settled in. All of our stuff has arrived in Sweden, but we can't get to it until we have a place to move everything into. So now we're even more impatient.
But ... today, Saturday, we woke up and it just felt like everything will come together soon. Nothing in particular happened. Just a few inches of snow came down during the day. We took Tilly for a hike to the huge lake in town. Literally we just walked out our door and found a trail to it. I can't believe I've been here 3 months and never found it before.
It was nice. We passed one person the whole time we were out. I guess it was a little over an hour to get there and back. So it was really peaceful. Tilly was in heaven, of course, but I think it was just as good for us to be out there.
Our car arrived no problem on Thursday. Lewis got to drive it first, and he was like, "It's sooo good to be in our car." It sounds like such a silly thing. But it's really our only possession that we have right now. So it felt like a little bit of home was out here with us.
Tomorrow, the home search continues ... we are driving out to the West coast to a town called Landskrona. It would mean a bit longer commute for me, but it looks like an ideal spot. I KNOW you will all want to come visit!! :)
When you are out here, you can help me de-head and de-shell the "shrimps" they sell here. Yeah, kinda freaky. The worst part is that after all that work, it's a shrimpy shrimp!!
I was crazy busy this week and realized Friday afternoon that I had no plans for the weekend. But things can quickly change in Älmhult ... and I'm not just talking about the weather.
Saturday morning I woke up to a balmy 31-degree morning and decided to go for a run and make my way down to the IKEA Aktivitethus (activity house). I was already feeling good that I was working off the few pounds I think I've gained. All the scales are in kilograms, so I still can't figure out what I weigh. But my pants still fit so that's a good sign! Anyway, I ran to the activity house and bumped into my Chinese friend Jun (her English name is Donna, but she's going back to her Chinese name.) So we made plans to meet up for dinner.
I decided that I would spend the afternoon making some traditional Swedish Christmas cookies. Got online, found an easy recipe, and headed to Maxi. Only one problem ... my recipe called for vanilla extract, and there wasn't a drop to be found (!!!). I had heard that vanilla extract was VERY expensive in Europe (our aunt Kristin asked us to bring her a bottle from the U.S. when we went to visit her and Dick in Geneva). Now I know it's because they don't sell it. They do have other interesting baking ingredients that I've never seen, though, like vanilla sugar. I thought about just loading the cookies up with that ... it still sounds like a pretty good idea. :) So my foray into Swedish baking was temporarily put on hold. Luckily Jun arrived with pepparkakor (ginger cookies) and blue cheese. It sounds like a weird combination, but it's quite tasty. It tasted even better with the glögg. Although, my head doesn't feel very good from the glögg.
So it was a fun night. And today I am at the activity house again to work out and use their Internet connection. They have a small cafe, and all the food is at wholesale prices. I got a latte and a cookie for less than $2 USD. They also have a cardio/weight room, sauna, jacuzzi, pottery studio, darkroom, carpentry workshop, pub, foosball table, and supposedly a tanning bed. But I could be misunderstanding their "Swenglish." It's all free for IKEA employees and their families (except for the tanning bed).
On Saturday, I also bought our first Swedish Christmas tree (from IKEA, of course) for the apartment and decorated it with battery-operated lights (also from IKEA). It will definitely be a special Christmas for me and Lewis.
P.S. I learned of a new Swedish musician who is awesome. His name is Jose Gonzalez and his song Heartbeats is used for a Sony Bravia commercial that airs here. His family is from Argentina, but he was born here and lives here still. Anyway, his music is gaining a lot of critical acclaim from what I've seen. The commercial was directed by a Danish filmmaker, and it is really beautiful. Hopefully you guys will see it soon.
