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!

I'm a Cocker Spaniel

I've been really lazy updating my blog...sorry about that. Well, part of it is because I got a job. At an animal insurance company (where I worked before, but now I'm back working full time). I'm working in sales and It's going really well. People in Sweden really love their pets and of course they want to have a health insurance incase the pup breakes a leg!

Thank god for the pampering-of-pets-era!

Today when the phone stopped ringing for a minute, I did a test online: "What dog would you be?" I answered the questions and I turned out to be a Cocker Spaniel. I reckoned it was a bit boring an changed my answers a bit, just slightly, and turned out to be: A Cocker Spaniel again! So I guess that's what I am...

An animal-insurance-selling-Cocker-Spaniel! Whoho!

What kind of dog would you be? (in Swedish)

Holy cow

Little India, Singapore, January 2007

Hurray!

Today is my birthday!

Hip Hip...

Hurray!

Hurray!

Hurray!

Hurry!

By mistake I missed an a on the last hurray which had terrible consequences. "Hurry" just stared at me saying: "Hurry up, start collecting your "grown-up-points".

I don't think I have many of those yet. Maybe one. But I can't come up with one now. I'll keep you posted.

Judged

Last week I started a new class at uni. It's a writing subject, once a week. We were just a few people in the class and we all had different backgrounds.

To get to know eachother the teacher asked us what we did for a living. All women. There was a police, a receptionist, a sales woman, three students. And one unemployed.

The unemployed woman was from Africa. She said (in broken Swedish):

- I'm unemployed here. But in my homecountry I was a judge.

I think we all thought what I was thinking. How could this woman be unemployed? She's educated, experienced and smart. But, an immigrant in Sweden.

She was a judge in her home country. Moves to Sweden and can not get a job. Goes from regulating peoples futures to driving a bus or cleaning up in a park. Because those are probably the jobs she could get here. She gets the same job opportunites (or more like restrictions) as a person with no education at all!

Now who's being judged?

Street art

Melbourne, Australia

Unzip the SMC File

- Here's a Bin file!

- No, we need the game in a SMC file!

- Yeah, since we have the SNEC emulator...
- Yeah, the bin file is for the Amiga emulator.
- But we need to unzip the file into a SMC...

- Yeah, I have WinRar, not Winzip

- Let's try that.

That's me and my friend P talking on a saturday night.

We're doing one of the two things we usually do on the weekends. Playing Nintendo 64 games on the lap top or going out to Café Opera, a hot night club in Stockholm. Pretty similar things? Right?! One night we're being "grown ups", mingling with a cocktail in out hands in cute dresses, the next night we're being ten, sitting in our PJ's, playing Super Mario Bros! I love it!

My article

I'm just finishing my internship at CIS. They wanted me to write an article about studying abroad, in Swedish (sorry mates). So if you understand Swedish and feel like reading it, here it is.

Kliv ur Ekorrhjulet

Folk säger att det är det bästa de gjort i sitt liv. Människorna på bilden i katalogen ser så lyckliga ut där de ligger och pluggar på en grön gräsmatta i solen. Det verkar ingenting annat än underbart, men varför åker du inte?

Du har kanske någon gång funderat på att plugga utomlands. Du tycker att det låter spännande men du kommer bara inte iväg. Det finns vissa saker här hemma som stoppar dig.

Det är lätt att bli bekväm i sin vardag. Man går till jobbet eller skolan, man har sin lägenhet och man träffar sin familj och sina vänner. Man slår sig till ro för man vet hur allting fungerar. Nödvändigtvis inte för att man tycker att vardagen är särskilt rolig. Men den är förutsägbar.

Jag kände mig bekväm i min vardag. Jag pluggade på universitetet, jag hade en lägenhet och ett extrajobb. Men samtidigt längtade jag efter någonting annat. Drömde mig ofta bort till varmare breddgrader och funderade på hur det skulle vara att studera i Australien ett tag. Ofta vaknade jag snabbt upp ur drömmen och tänkte: ”Det ligger ju så långt bort. Jag trivs ändå rätt bra här”. Men en dag såg jag en affisch om att studera utomlands och tänkte: ”Jag kan väl skicka in en ansökan då, jag behöver ju inte åka även om jag skulle komma in”.

Nu när jag studerat i Australien i ett år kan jag inte annat än rekommendera att man ska åka. Det går inte att med ord förklara hur roligt och lärorikt det har varit. Jag har vuxit som person, fått vänner för livet och sett och upplevt saker jag inte ens kunnat drömma om.

Visst låter det bra, men jag vet att det finns många anledningar som gör att man ändå inte tar steget och åker. Just för att man är så bekväm i sin vardag. Även om man drömmer sig bort i tankarna att bo i ett annat land och vet hur roligt det skulle vara, så faller man ofta tillbaka till den trygga verkligheten och struntar i det.

Alla är ju här hemma
Mamma och pappa, syskon och vänner. Man känner att man kommer att missa så mycket när man är borta. En flick- eller pojkvän kan också vara en anledning till att man inte vill lämna livet här hemma.

Har inte råd
Universitet i Sverige är ju kostnadsfritt. Det kan kännas onödigt att betala för en utbildning utomlands.

Kan inte så bra engelska
Tanken att studera på ett annat språk kan vara skrämmande. Även om man tycker att man kan prata engelska så kan det kännas komplicerat att studera på engelska.

Folk finns kvar
När jag var borta hade jag ständig kontakt med familj och vänner via e-mail och telefon. Vissa personer fick jag till och med bättre kontakt med när jag var borta. Det blev också ett tillfälle för vänner och familj att resa genom att komma och hälsa på. Nu för tiden är det ju inte svårt att hålla kontakt även om man befinner sig på andra sidan jorden. Och alla fanns ju ändå kvar när jag kom hem. Allt såg ungefär likadant ut och jag märkte att jag inte hade missat så mycket här hemma. Ingenting hade förändrats, förutom jag.

Värt pengarna
De flesta som studerar i Sverige tar studielån, vilket man även kan få om man studerar utomlands. Även om man lånar mer än om man studerar i Sverige så är det värt vartenda öre! Kurserna jag läste på La Trobe University var så fantastiskt lärorika och roliga! Förutom att få teoretiska föreläsningar så var kurserna praktiska. Jag som läste media och journalistik fick bland annat göra en egen hemsida, en dokumentär och skriva ett flertal artiklar. Kurserna förberedde mig helt enkelt för det verkliga arbetslivet.

Du klarar engelskan
Engelskan var inget problem. Klarade man engelskan på gymnasiet ska man inte vara orolig. Dessutom fanns det hjälp att få på universitetet om engelska var ditt andra språk. Man lär sig också språket väldigt fort när alla runt omkring en pratar engelska.

Mer än en utbildning
Utöver skolan så upplevde jag så mycket annat som jag kommer att minnas resten av mitt liv. Vardagen var så mycket roligare och mer spännande. Det fanns alltid saker att hitta på och jag var aldrig ensam. Jag åkte på ett flertal resor runt om i landet och jag lärde mig att surfa. Och ja, jag låg i gräset och pluggade med mina vänner i solen, och var så där lycklig som i katalogen. Minnen som inte kan värderas i pengar.

Var inte rädd för att bryta dina vardagsrutiner. Ta chansen medan du är ung och åk! Risken du tar är att du kommer att ha ditt hjärta i två länder, men det får man leva med.

The laugh button

I'm not a big fan of sit coms on TV. I just get annoyed with the laughter they add after every punch line (if it's not recorded infront of a live audience). It so structured, like: Now you're suppose to laugh. But I love stand up comedy. Because it's real. Real people laugh because they think it's funny.

Last night a couple of friends and I went on a stand-up-comedy-show at a bar in the city. Both professional comedians and total amateurs were on stage. The known professionals were really funny. People were cheering, laughing and clapping their hands. Then it was time for the amateurs, who were up on stage for the first time in their lives. I could see how nervous they were and even I felt nervous. And here is the worst part. Some of them were just not funny. People didn't laugh. I felt so bad and I really tried to laugh, but nothing came out. It's very uncomfortable, this silence that follows a punch line.

The whole thing reminded me of the old times when kings and queens were amused by jesters . People were just sitting there in the audience like lazy couch potatoes. Come on then. Make me laugh. Be funny. At those silent moments on the live show, I really wished someone could have just pressed the laugh button, like in the sit coms.

One of those days

Today I worked at my internship from 9-4.30. Left half an hour early to get in time to uni before the library closed. Needed some books for my evening class. Got there, found the books but wasn't allowed to borrow them. My library card had expired since I've been abroad and I needed to pay the union fee to be able to reopen the account. So I said I wanted to pay the fee but the librarian woman (who looked like she was bored to death) said I had to pay it at the union. Went there, they were closed.

So I thought, nevermind. I'm tired and hungry, so I'll just go home. Went to the bus stop but to my surprise the bus stop wasn't there anymore. Construction work. I was too tired to walk all the way to the other side of campus so I took another bus to the city to the stop where my bus to home departs.

But no, the bus took another route, so I had to walk a while to get to my stop, trudging my way through the snow. Too late... the last bus had left. Called my friend P, who lives close by, and she gave me a ride home.

I know I should have paid the fee earlier and I could have walked to another bus and walked rest of the way home. But it's just one of those days when you feel so tired and hungry that you don't even bother to lift your feet properly.

Fun in the Snow

Me and Juni (My brother's Beagle pup) February 20, 2007

Fat Tuesday

Yesterday was Fettisdagen (fat Tuesday!). A Swedish holiday where we eat a particular pastry called Semla, made of:

- a sweet bread roll

- almond paste

- a ton of cream

I was visiting my brother in Uppsala yesterday and we first went for lunch at my favourite burger place, followed by a Semla at a cosy café. I'm actually not crazy for this pastry. When I was a kid I said to my mum on Fettisdagen: "Could I have a Semla without the bread?" which is pretty funny because without that, all that's left is almond paste and cream... But that would be my ideal Semla :)

After being abroad for a year, I realise how weird the Swedish holidays are. Fat Tuesday is just one of them. Who else dances around the christmas tree at christmas, pretending to be frogs? Or builds a gigant pole made of leaves and flowers in the summer, dancing around it, pretending to be frogs again...

Lucky

Sometimes you feel lucky. Or maybe it's coincidence. Or fate.

December 13th 2006 I did a skydive over Lake Taupo in New Zealand. I had looked forward to this day for a long time. The skydive was amazing. 15,000 ft (5000 m) and I could see over both islands. We were 4 people jumping from that height and I was the last one to jump. The freefall lasted for 1 whole minute and was awesome. After that the parachute popped up and I was sailing like a bird in the air. It was dead quiet and I could see everywhere. I looked down and saw the other two skydivers heading towards the highway and asked the guy behind my back (it was a tandem jump): "Are we gonna land by the highway too?" He said: "No, just them". Then he turned the parachute so I couldn't see them anymore.

When I landed my friend E was standing on the ground. Shaking and in tears. She told me one of the camera guys had just crashed! She actually thought it was me. The atmosphere at the skydiving centre was calm but you could see the staff just tried to keep us calm when infact one of the guys might be dead.

Now, 2 months later, it's on the Swedish TV news.

http://www.tv4.se/nyheter/526602.html

Felt weird to see the video clip today knowing I was just above him... Anyway, he survived, miraculously. And I just feel lucky, or whatever it was that did that I didn't get the broken parachute.

Evermore - Running

Awesome New Zealand band...

Body Cakes

Three days ago I visited my grandparents, who also live outside Stockholm (in "Salt Lake Baths"). We had decided to make "kroppkakor" (translated: body cakes). This is an old Swedish food dish kind of like dumplings, filled with pork, onions and spices. It's one of my favourites and I decided I wanted to learn how my granny makes them!

It was a lot of work but they turned out delicious! It was so nice to hang out at their house with them. With my grandparents I always feel like a kid again. And it's such a cosy and calm feeling about their house.

It's funny how you feel like you're different ages depending who you're with.

With mum and dad: I don't age at all. It's like one constant age. I always lose things at their house and still look for lollies in the fridge when I visit...
With my grandparents: I feel like I'm around 8 maybe. I want to bake, draw and be childish.
Actually, I rarely feel mature and old. Maybe sometimes when I have to fill out my income tax or when I notice a tiny wrinkle under my eye. But that's pretty rarely...or...more like...never.

My tip of today: Visit your grandparents and/or other relatives more often!

Lupines

Lake Tekapo, New Zealand, December 2006

Blogging Time!

I've landed in Sweden. Actually I landed two weeks ago.

I spent 2006 in Australia and it's weird, cold and exciting to be back.

Since I've been so used to write in my travel diary, I thought I'll just continue the habit and at the same time be part of the blog era...

This time I'll write in English, so my non-Swedish friends can understand too (even though most of them have an excellent limited Swedish vocab!) However, I have to admit, I might squeeze in a few Swedish entries here and there. I'll see how I go.