Facebooked

Not a lot of blogging for me lately. And I must admit there's a reason for it, my new addiction - Facebook.

It started a few months ago when I got e-mails from friends inviting me to join this social community. Finally, after a dussins of invitations, I gave it a shot and joined in. In the beginning I found it quite boring. Not much going on on this Facebook thing... What was the purpose of it?

Then I sat at home one night, searching for friends all over the world, and I found so many of them. People from my preschool, high school, uni and from my travelling. People whom I'd lost phone numbers too, and people I haven't seen in years!

I have to log on everyday and see who's written on my "wall" and who has added new photos.
I am so facebooked!

www.facebook.com

Some photos from Croatia

"Välkommen till Göteborgs enda Karaoke taxi"

I've had an awesome holiday. It started with 4 days in Gothenburg, visiting friends from Australia. We had BBQ's, went to an amusement park and went out partying. We even got to go with Gothenburg's one and only Karaoke taxi! It was so great to see Ted and Kaja (friends from Oz) again and fun to hang out with the old gang together with Ted's friends.

Friends reunited

Vaxholm, Sweden, July 2007


Fraser Island, Australia, July 2006

A week with a Cornish Rex

This week I've stayed at my sisters place. She lives on the south side of Stockholm, by Medborgarplatsen, an awesome place with tons of bars, cafés and shops. The reason I stayed there was to take care of her cat while she's on vacation. This was a true bargain - Stay in the coolest part of town, plus having a little Cornish Rex cat to hang out with.

But today I moved back into my little tiny apartment. Still nice to be home and not live in a suitcase. Wednesday morning I'm leaving for Gothenburg to visit Ted. It's me, Nat and her boyfriend going. We'll stay there until saturday. And on sunday I'm off to Croatia for two weeks! Whohoo!

Now I'm at Nat's place, we're gonna watch a movie and (hopefully) bake scones! We baked last last night and it was so good I hope she wants to do it again!

A culture shock you must experience

We have around 13 new employees at work. To make them feel welcome we arranged a little "get together" thursday night. First we wanted to take them to a really nice place in Old Town, but changed our minds the last minute and decided to go to place that was cheaper. One of the girls had heard of a place called Flamenco in the city. She said they were suppose to have cheap drinks and ok food.

We called the place and said we were about 20 people coming to eat and drink. The owner muttered and said in broken Swedish: "Eat? Nah...just drink. Can't be bothered": This was so weird we just had to go there...

When we got there we saw the owner, a tall man that looked kinda like the actor Peter Stormare. He was smoking a cigarette, wearing a golden rolex. had long hair and looked really grumpy.

We needed to cheer up and ordered a round of shots. They were about 3 dollars each which was pretty strange. Until we saw the bottles they came from. Clear bottles with home made labels saying: Strawberry, Melon, Blueberry...
We went downstairs where there was a sign saying: "Disko Klub". It was a small room with a bar, slot machines and the walls covered in posters of half naked Christina Aguilera and Roxette. Everything was covered in Christmas lights and the music was loud, playing hits from the 90's like: Be my lover and Informer. Apparently this bar was used in the movie Beck - Gamen. If you've seen it, you know what I mean!

The whole thing was so bad and looked so cheap, that it became good. We loved it and had a blast (since we had the whole Disko Klub to ourselves. I recommend everyone to go to Flamenco, maybe not by yourself, but if you're a big group. You'll experince something really different.

On a known Everything about Stockholm web site, the critics describe Flamenco as: "A culture shock you must experience". And "A place you go to if you want to hide".

Fraser Island Reunion

One of the stops on my east-coast-of-Australia-trip in July 2006 was Fraser Island. The largest sand island in the world, surrounded by sharks and stingrays and the home of dingoes. We were a group of 11 people, staying on the island for 3 days, driving around in a 4WD, camping and having a blast!

Now,one year later, 5 of us met up in Stockholm! (One of them was Kate, the "one in a million" story). Kate's sister came too.

We had such a great time and it felt like old times on Fraser, only this time in Vaxholm, Stockholm, where we had a BBQ and went to the local pub! So good to meet old friends again :)

One in a Million

Last night I had an experience that I think has the same degree of suprise-feeling you have when you win the lottery. I'm still trying to calculate what the odds are that this could happen.

This is the story:

In July 2006 I travelled the east coast of Australia. For a couple of weeks I travelled with a girl from Canada called Kate. Kate and I have kept in touch since then and recently she told me she was coming to Europe in July this year to do some travelling. We decided to catch up since she was going be in Sweden for 5 days.

Note: Her mum just got married to a Swedish guy in Canada so she was going to stay with her Swedish step brother that apparently lives outside Stockholm somewhere.

Last night when I got back from work I found a note on my door: (In Swedish) "I have an important message for you. Good News. Come by as soon as you see this. /Your neighbour next door".

I rang the door bell. Camera flashes. Laughter. KATE! I couldn't believe how she had found my address and came to surprise me! Had she gone to my neighbour and waited there just to surprise me?

No.

This is where she was staying! My neighbour is her step brother!

No what are the odds of that?
9,127058 million people in Sweden
1,925924 million peoiple in Stockholm
(Statistiska Centralbyrån Sverige)

Midsummer Madness

This midsummer can't really be explained in words.
To understand, I need to show photos. so I'll update shortly.

Midsummer in my family has always been celebrated in the traditional Swedish way. Every year we go out to the summer house in the archipelago. We eat tons of foods like herring, salmon and meatballs. We drink beer and schnapps. And when we where kids we even did the frog dance around the maypole!

As we got older, the frog dance just got sillier and sillier, so four years ago we started a new trend: The Runmarö Games. This is a competition between the three families (my mom and her two brothers + families). This year there were 9 parts of the competition:

- Potato Peeling (Longest solid peel wins)

- Frog Spitting (Spit the Jelly frog as far as you can)

- Mummy's (Fastest team to turn one team member into a mummy with toliet paper)

- Balloon Popping (Balloon on a string attached to your foot and try to pop the other teams' balloons.

- Bisquit Whisteling (First team to whistle the theme of Hemglass after eating 3 bisquits).

- Hammering (First team to get the nail into the log)
- Passing the Match box (pass the match box cover, with your nose...)
- Suit case (Open suit case, put clothes on, run, take clothes off).
- Quiz (a regular quiz, with extremely hard questions by my mum..)

At dinner time the winner was announced. My family didn't win. But everyone got prizes :)

It wasn't over yet.

When we were having dinner, we were asked to look under our plates, where we found a song with the same line on the entire page: "Jag är så glad!" (I'm so happy!").
We got one plastic bag each, filled with things that we were suppose to put on during the song. This was madness! Shot glasses on our eyes, paper teeth, plates with holes for our ears, and weird hats. You realise I need photos to describe this...

Laughed until my stomach hurt.
Yes, Swedes are crazy, at least my family! :)

Summer

Wild strawberries from mum and dad's garden

Recipe: Sunday Sunny Sunday

Ingredients:

Four good friends
A hot day in Stockholm
A café with outside couches
Brunch and coffee
Gossip

Start by mixing the four friends. Add the hot day in Stockholm. Mix it with the café with outside couches. Stir it all with brunch and coffee. Sprinkle the gossip on top.

And you have the perfect Sunday.

There are nice people

Sunday when I went back from the island, I realised my keys where gone. I was in the back seat of my parents car and started unpacking my entire suitcase. Nothing. So I called my brother who was in the car behind us and asked him to look in his car. Nothing. Called my grandparents on the island and they looked everywhere. Still nothing.

Thoughts went through my mind. Locksmith. Expensive. Too tired to deal with this.

I got a ride to my friend P's house where I put my stuff. Later I went to my apartment to just LOOK if I had dropped them somewhere...The last time I remember using them was to open upp the garbage room to throw away the mess Juni (my brother's pup) hade made (spew).

I went in and noticed a note on my mailbox. This gave me hope! And believe it or not. Some girl had found it in the garbage room, tried it in all the mailbox locks and found out it was mine! I found another note on my door where she wrote "I've got your keys. Don't hesitate to come by even if it's in the middle of the night. I understand you need them."

She's now my favourite neighbour! I should make her some cookies...

I'm happy she didn't have to look through my garbage bag to find out where I lived. She would probably die from the smell of puppy spew...

Relaxation

The weekend on the island was fantastic. Tons of good food made by mum and granny. Sun and rain. Card games. And just hanging out.

Destination: Runmarö

Today it looks like summer has reached Stockholm. It's probably just for a day or two but it's awesome. In an hour I'm going out to the summer house in the archipelago to hang out in the sun, play boardgames, go fishing, and drive around the three-wheeled moped. My whole family will be there: parents, grandparents, cousins and three dogs. Looking forward to it. My brother is picking me up in an hour so now I've gotta pack!

Can't stop

There's something I've been eating since I was about 6 years old. I saw the recipe on a kids show in the 80's and since then it's become like an addiction. I guess it's the chocholate in it...

Ingredients:
Oboy (like a sweeter version of Milo)
oatmeal
milk

MIX IT ALL!

Al Gore and heaps of laundry

Yesterday I stayed at home. I was tempted to go out like everyone else, partying by the bonfires around town. But I had stuff to do, tons of stuff. I actually felt a "sitting-by-my-self-at-home-on-new-years-feeling", but today I feel really good about myself! Cause this is what I did:

* 6 rounds of laundry
* Cleaned my whole apartment (including rugs and coats)
* Studied for my exam
* Watched "An inconvenient truth" (By Al Gore)
* Watched an interview with Kofi Annan

My "sitting-by-my-self-at-home-on-new-years-feeling" disappeared and now I just feel I did something useful! "An inconvenient truth" is really good by the way. Go see it!

Burn burn burn!

Today is Valborg. The holiday where we light a huge bonfire, stand around it, drinking and sing a couple of songs..
The whole ceremony's purpose is to scare off the wolves..so we can let out the sheep. Probably an old myth, 'cause there are just a few wolves left in Sweden.

Nowadays it's just a reason for people to get drunk and have a day off from work!

A moose sausage and a dog show

I know I haven't posted anything for ages. Felt like I hadn't done anything except for working. But actually I have!

During easter I went to a dog show here in Stockholm. I love going on dog shows, walk around and dream about what kind of dog I want... I still can't decide. It's between a Sheltie, Italian Greyhound, Whippet, Dachshound or a Dansk/Svensk gårdshund (like a Swedish version of a Jack Russel).

I've also been to three family gatherings celebrating easter, my cousin's birthday and my grandmothers birthday.

I've also been out quite much with my friends. Stockholm's nightlife is fun, but I tend to always go the same places every weekend. Except when I went out with my work colleagues last weekend. We went to a place in Old Town, to a pub inspired by the Middle Ages. Two heavy wooden doors led down to a cellar where there were candles lit everywhere and wooden benches to sit on. The waitress was dressed in old fashioned clothes and it really felt like we were thrown back in time (with our mobiles on the tables). We were served mead in earthenwarejars and ate sausages from moose and pickled herring. It was awesome!

Whoever comes to visit, I'll take you there!

If I could I would:

- Get my suit case out of the closet
- Pack some clothes
- Pack my family
- Pack my friends
- Get my passport
- Get a ticket to the land Down Under

Fly there.
Stay there.

Happy Easter! Glad Påsk!

To all my friends all over the world,

I wish you a happy easter and tons of good food and lollies from the easter bunny!