Sunday, November 29, 2009

nummer två (#2)

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves :)My hard work was rewarded with some gifts! Barbro and Roy got me this beautiful plant, Margot got me a box of chocolates! And his mom, dad, sisters and their boyfriends got me a bag ful of homemade bath goodies! This picture cracks me up!

Just a few pictures from the big day! It went off without a hitch! And I had a lot of amazing helpers, and I am so thankful to Maria and Pontus for lending us their house and helping out so much! I am forever thankful to Fredrik who took all the pictures and was there by my side doing everything I asked him to! I am also thankful to have such a wonderful 2nd family, I love them and really enjoyed giving this day to them! Today we went back to Maria and Pontus's house to make some Lussebullar. I will explain more what these are when "Santa Lucia" gets closer! :) These rolls are made from saffron, which is what gives them the yellow color, and oh my god, they are delicious! :)

Friday, November 27, 2009

etta (number one)

Here are some pics from Thanksgiving number one with my Dutch family and Fredrik. I spent 7 hours preparing this meal! And we ate it in about 30 minutes! :)

The final menu
-stuffing stuffed chicken breasts
-mashed potatoes
-creamed corn
-gravy
-cranberry sauce
-homemade sweet rolls
-deviled eggs
-apple cider
-pumpkin pie
-chocolate covered pretzels
-egg nog with ice cream
*everything was homemade, except the stuffing, but who makes that homemade anyway!

This apple cider made the house smell amazing!So did this cranberry sauce!
How typical, huh? Too cute! :) She did a fabulous job!The final product!

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Thankful

Thanksgiving is coming up and I have a lot to be thankful for. First and foremost, I am so thankful to have Fredrik. He has gotten me through more than one fiance should have to get another through in a short 4 month span, and even longer than that. He's such a strong, loving, giving and caring man, I couldn't be any luckier. He is the kind of man I can be thankful for everyday.

I am also thankful I am in Sweden. I get to learn so much, and learn a lot about myself. I also get to live with a familiy who tries very hard to make me feel comfortable. Mireille could feel that I've been feeling really down lately, so tonight she got all her Christmas decorations out and let me help myself to what I wanted. I took a Ljusstake, some holly, an advent candle (which is very popular here), and she bought me a Swedish Star. After I put all this up in my house, it really boosted my spirits and I'm very excited to celebrate Thanksgiving and move onto Christmas! And although I miss my family and my home, I think I will be ok here.

I am also thankful for all of you who actually read my boring blog and leaves comments, you guys are great!
My Swedish Star!LjusstakeI even wrapped some gifts today!

And just for reference, this is the sun at 1 in the afternoon. How lovely, huh?

The Swedish word of the day is "tacksam" which means "thankful" and is pretty much pronounced how it looks. What are you "tacksam" for?

Monday, November 23, 2009

holidaze

With the holidays coming up, I have so much I want to talk about, but not feeling so inspired to write. I'm definitely feeling very homesick. It started with my birthday and is moving onto Thanksgiving and then Christmas. I first realized how different Christmas would be when I heard Caitlin tell me she was going to play a "Christmas" song on her flute. I was so excited to hear, but then as she started playing I couldn't recognize the tune! Swedish Christmas songs are not the same as American Christmas songs. I've already engrossed myself in making Christmas playlists on Spotify, so that at least when I'm sitting by myself or doing the laundry I can listen and pretend I'm home. It's also a harsh reminder that nobody has put a Christmas tree up. Here at my house they aren't even going to put one up because they will be in Holland for Christmas. Driving by houses, I'm not getting sneak peaks of trees in open windows, and they definitely do not decorate their houses like we do. How will I make it through a whole Christmas season without seeing a single decorated house? This is such a sad post, but when you think about Christmas away from home, it's kind of sad.

But on the bright side, Sweden is a great place and they do have their own special traditions I'll get a little taste of. And I get to celebrate with Fredrik's family, who I really love and feel like they are my own family. Fredrik and I bought our gifts for the Christmas exchange, and I will wrap them later. We each buy 3 gifts for under 150kr, which is about...30 bucks, and we play some sort of game with them. It should be fun! Since I'm so competitive!

Thursday I will be making my "family" a small Thanksgiving feast, since I don't want to make an entire turkey that day, I'll make chicken breasts stuffed with stuffing and baked in the oven, some potatoes, gravy, corn, rolls and pumpkin pie. Then Saturday is the real deal. I'm making a 13 pound turkey, with all the fixins'. I'm really excited, but also nervous. Fredrik's family hasn't really grown accustomed to the way I eat and what I cook, but we will see what they think of all this. Wish me luck!

The Swedish word of the day is "God Jul" which is "Merry Christmas" and is pronounced "god yul".

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Halloween in November

Here at the Huerter/Schiks/Van Abeelen household there were 6 rabbits living. Those rabbits lived in a room, in cages, and never came out. I had to explain to the girls every single day why those rabbits had to be fed. The girls were no longer interested in those rabbits. Well this morning, good news arrived and Mireille found a good home for the rabbits to live. A girl, who is obviously a rabbit lover, agreed to take the rabbits. Thank God. Well Mireille asked me to go with her to deliver the rabbits. So we loaded the rabbits this evening in the car and headed out into the country.

Now, Mireille warned me this is really out in the country. She gave me her version of the directions, written in chicken scratch Dutch/Swedish and a map. I was the navigator. We started off ok, going down our normal road, and she had a slight idea where we were going. We started into some towns I had never heard of, and followed into a curvy, very dark road. And mind you, Swedish people do not let the dark or rain bother them. There were many people running and biking, so we felt kind of safe, that people actually live on this road.

We then hit the "ancient ruins" sign, and this is where the house is, we think. We call the girl to confirm and she tells us to keep going down the road, it's very bumpy, very dark, and there is a "car graveyard" to the left. Ok? We aren't sure which way to go, but we know the road to the right is incredibly floaded with water and we decide we can't go that way. So we head into the car graveyard. This can't be her house. This is way to creepy. You can't even see the house. Oh my god, is that a boat? This place was very very creepy. I felt like we had teleported to somewhere in the Ozarks. But there she was, waiting, with a super creepy pit bull.

We then unload the rabbits and carry them into a dark alley. We put them in a room with over 50 other rabbits. This place was, yes, I'll say it again, creepy! I've never been to a place like this in Sweden. People in Sweden keep their homes and the area around their home very clean. Even if they live in the country, it's clean. Once we got back into the car, we were so ready to get back onto the road. And we had a pretty good laugh at how "brave" we are.

Not only did this creepy adventure happen, I noticed something that has grown normal to me, but then I realized it's not that normal in the US. As I mentioned, Swedes are always out running, biking, or walking their dog, regardless of light and rain. But they all wear these vest things, that are reflective and even their dogs and horses get them! Swedish people are so safe!

The Swedish word of the day is "mörk" which means "dark" and is pronounced "muhrk". And
"
riktigt mörk" means "really dark" and that road we went on was "riktigt mörk!"

Friday, November 13, 2009

IKEA

I went to IKEA for the 2nd time this week with Mireille. I went one time with Fredrik, and we went on a Sunday afternoon, so it wasn't very enjoyable, way too crowded! But going on a Wednesday night was really enjoyable! I wanted a lot of new and smell good candles! I bought 4 new candles, a star shaped string of lights and Mireille bought me a blanket and a mirror!

Other than the IKEA trip, this week has been pretty boring. I have stayed home with Caitlin everyday since Wednesday because she is "sick".

Today Fredrik went to the doctor for his 2 week checkup after his surgery. They took out 15 stitches out of 3 incisions. He doesn't have to wear the cast anymore, just a plastic thing to protect it, and he can take it off when he showers and 4-5 times a week when he does his exercises to help his hand get back to the way it was, or close to it anyway. We are both so happy he doesnt have to wear the cast and he can start getting his arm and hand back to normal. He does have a plate and some screws in his arm, and the doctor didn't know if that would set off the metal detectors at the airport (what kind of doctor doesn't know that?), so that is something we can deal with later, I guess! But I'm really happy for my buddy!

The Swedish word of the day is "Håkan" which is Fredrik's dad's name! :) It's pronounced "Hoakan". :)

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

what I did

What I did this weekend was...

Enjoy a delicious "American" meal of buffalo wings, celery and carrot sticks, and baked potatoes made by Fredriks dad. He is so nice and treats me really well! It was so nice of him to go out of his way to make me a home cooked from home meal!

I went to the Cirque Du Soleil "Saltimbanco" with Mireille, Caitlin and Tara. It was so much fun and I really enjoyed it. I've never seen anything like that, and it was really amazing! I would totally see it again and definately want to see another Cirque du Soleil!

Celebrated Halloween with Fredrik and his sisters house with some nice people! It was a lot of fun dressing up with Fredrik for the first time! :) His sister had great decorations and really good and fun Halloween snacks!


On Sunday we came back to Lerum and celebrated Caitlins 12th birthday with some yummy Thai food and a delicious cake. Later in the evening Fredrik and I made pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting for Caitlin to take to school on Monday, and from what I hear, they were a huge success!

This week I have already been to Tara's school to teach English to the class. I am actually teaching 4 different classes. I take turns going to each class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Lately, I have just been introducing myself, and the kids wrote questions and have been asking me them. They want to know all kinds of funny stuff. And they definitely always calls Kansas "Canada" and they always want to know if I have met any famous people. Funny questions. But I am really enjoying it. It's a lot of fun to just be around kids and talk to them like that.

The Swedish word of the day is "fråga" which is "question" and is pronounced "froaga"...and "questions" is "frågor" pronounced "froagor". I'm wondering if anybody has any frågor about Swedish or any special words in Swedish? I know you do! :)

Thursday, November 5, 2009

My fiance wants me to eat blood...

...a very creepy title...I know.

But really, he does. He wants me to eat blood pudding. Now I was going to write a whole entry about this and in doing some research found another blog from an American living in Sweden and his version is so funny and really captures how I would feel if I had done this myself as well. So I will let you read it and see for yourself.

READ THIS!

The Swedish word of the day is "vampyr" which is, yes, "vampire" and is pronounced kind of how it looks. Again, that "y" sound is really hard to make, so usually my way of faking it is making a weird "ewwyyyrr" sound at the end. I tend to laugh when I say words like this, because it's pretty hard to take myself seriously saying vampire in Swedish, especially when it looks like that.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Random Facts

Wow, it's been awhile! Sorry!

1. In Sweden, the table etiquette is not even parallel to that of which we use in the US. They use the knife in the right hand, fork in the left (upside down style). Unlike us Americans who rarely use a knife, and if we do, we switch it back and forth, not able to hold a knife and fork at the same time. I have adopted this method of eating and it's so simple, you take much smaller bites, and really...it looks much more elegant! But often, to my surprise, napkins aren't present at the table as much as you would expect. I'm very used to having a napkin and putting it in my lap right away.

2. Movies in Sweden are expensive and that price is based on the length of the movie! Also, seats are assigned. No going early to get the seat in the middle with the rail in front so you can prop your feet up! The worst part about this is, if you buy you tickets well in advance and DO get that great seat, there is a high chance that somebody will be sitting in your seat hoping you won't show up! Ugh, it's so annoying!

3. They subtitle everything! Dubbing can be quite common in certain childrens shows, as the children aren't developed in English enough to understand the text or the actual spoken language. But if something is in English, it will always be subtitled. I find myself reading the subtitles and sometimes will exclaim "that isn't what they said!", so often, the subtitles are a lose translation of what the dialogue is really saying. Hmm...But with that, Swedes are really great at speaking English, and most aren't shy about it at all! I love it! :)

4. Name days. Here in Sweden everybody with a fairly traditional name has a "namnsdagen". There is usually a male and a female for each day. Sadly, I don't have a name day. :(

5. The boy wears a wedding band during the engagement, as some of you might have noticed, Fredrik is wearing a band. At first, I didn't really like this idea, but now I think it's nice. I'm not the only one feeling all happy and new with my new ring. Fredrik (as much as a boy can) gets to feel happy and new with me! Equality equality equality! That's the Swedes moto! :)

6. You have to pay to park EVERYWHERE! The movie theater, the mall, the liquor store! It's crazy to me! But Swedes patiently and ever so willing abide by this rule. And it's usually quite expensive to pay! And maybe, coming from a smaller town, I'm just used to not having to pay and in a larger city is necessary, but man, it's a real drag getting out of the car, going to get your ticket from the machine, then going back to your car to put the little paper in your window. Small things, small things. :)

7. Swedes love curtains and window dressings, but more often than not, they serve no real purpose, other than to look pretty. Now with the sun going down around 4:30, the houses are very well lit up, but walking around outside you start to notice you can see right into everybody's houses! There is no attempt to hide your living room or kitchen from the outside world! You can walk by a house and look into a kitchen and nearly see what they are cooking for dinner! Don't get me wrong, the curtains are usually really nice looking and match the motif of the house, but they serve no purpose!

8. Swedes love candles and lights and lamps. Back home, I'm used to the overhead lighting system, here it's more of a lamp and candles everywhere system. It's really nice and for me, seems more like a romantic looking setting, but is definitely less invasive than a huge overhead light overwhelming the entire room. This is particularily nice when you are having your after dinner "fika" and the lights are low and you are eating a nice piece of sugar cake and drinking a coffee..mmm. :)

With this time of year, I'm sure I will be finding many more new traditions and customes and fun new facts I can update you all on. I'm looking forward to seeing how Christmas goes around here! I already found out they celebrate on December 24th, and on the 25th, when we are all celebrating, they are recovering! And obviously, they do not celebrate Thanksgiving, so we will see how they like my Thanksgiving celebration!

The Swedish word of the day is "ljus" which means "candle" or "light" and is pronounced "yus".