Snow that sticks and other updates

One week til Christmas and we got snow! And its sticking! It is Tuesday, and its basically been snowing on & off since Saturday afternoon, so we have a few inches. Swedes know how to deal with snow, not like wuss Washingtonians. I had class at the Nationalmuseum today, and the buses were running on time, the museum opened on time, everyone went to work or school, and people were dressed appropriately.  Ok, I admit that living in the DC area, where they cancel school or the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT for a few flakes, made me think that one should always have vacation snow days when there is white stuff on the ground. But I am spoiled by my grad school lifestyle and can curl up in the house with cocoa whenever I want, so excuses to stay home are less attractive that when working 9-5.

I should have brought my camera when I went out today since there is much more on the ground than this picture above, but it was so windy, I probably wouldn't have gotten any decent shots.

 

I did make cookies (because what goes better with hot chocolate than more chocolate?!) and they were....a success! Finally, if you know how frustrated I have been! Thank you to Dark Fury and Blonde Justice for the baking soda, and to Nuk for the giant bag of Nestle chocolate chips. They don't have chocolate in chip form in Sweden, and I think the shape was crucial to success. When I tried to explain chocolate chips to our French friend P-BB, I said they are shaped like mini Hershey kisses, which went right over his head of course. He was also the one who was practically drinking our peanut butter out of the jar...I guess they don't do peanut butter in France the same way, either.

And, to add to the hot Xmas gifts of 2009, Lambi makes limited edition Christmas toilet paper. I thought this important to point out for no real good reason, but that Lambi as a brand makes me laugh. (I just realized I took a shot of the Christmas paper towels...rest assured, the TP does exist. It apparently isn't as photogenic.)

The exchange rate has gotten better over the last several weeks, which makes me indescribably happy. Still not as good as when we first got here in August, and no where near as awesome as the 9.2:-/$1 from March, but enough to make me feel better about most purchases.

AND, we made lots of travel plans for the next month or two or six.  I think I mentioned we planned a trip to London for my birthday in January, and a trip to Berlin for Stu's bday in February. We also just booked a week in northern Italy the first week of January, so we will be spending a few days in Venice and then in Milan. Not much warmer than Stockholm, but they get 9 hours of sunlight each day, with is double what we are getting here.  Seriously.

Annnnnnnd, we bought tickets to come back to the US!  We hadn't planned to fly back at all during this 2 year stint since it is so expensive (and we have no income!), but there are several big things happening at the end of June that make the trip worth it. I'll tell you about those later. We are missing our first Swedish midsummer, but maybe we'll throw a big midsummer party in DC?

Hot Xmas gifts for 2009?

 

For a non-Stockholmer, this subway advertisement might seem to be showing off products from the local S&M shop.

Nope, Teknik Magasinet is like Radio Shack.  I bought my European computer plug there. But apparently, they think everyone you know should be getting a Spike mat, a Clone-A-Willy or the Orgasmatron for Christmas this year. If I had the cash, I'd absolutely send you all back home one of each.

Full disclosure, I own 2 out of 3 of these items. I'll let you imagine which ones...

**Addendum: Stu made the good point that I didn't explain what any of these things actually are! You can guess what a Clone-A-Willy is (Swedes are an open, liberal people! The black logo next to it says 'Give a hard package'. )  The Orgasmatron is a head massager...its heavenly. And the spikmatta is some type of acupuncture/acupressure mat, with little plastic treads that stimulate or relax, depending on the placement. So there you go.

Picture post

A sunny day after a week of rain (okay, sunny for Stockholm in December is not exactly sunny for, umm, any place south of us)

 

 Kids skating at Kungsträdgården

 

A statute on the Royal Palace

 

 The NationalMuseum

 

Some nice street scene.

  Happy Holidays!

Okay, so I thought it said Happy Weekend the first time I saw it (Helg means holy/holiday AND weekend)

 

 

 Vs and Ws get a little mixed up to the Svedes.

 

And fika  at Saturnus

Throw in the Towel...

Göteborg gives up eight-year linguistic battle, joins a disappointed Munich. Hoping to regain it's title as most mispronounced city name, Göteborg was made the official international spelling in 2003. (Crown now goes back to Phnom Penh.) Now the city has realized, sighing, that it's just too painful to hear English speakers mess it up over and over.

"Yoda Boring? Is that it?"

"No, wrong again. We'll just say it your way."

The change is practical when you think about it. But, less romantic. Then again, is there anything romantic about the country's shipping hub? That sounds to me like the romance of... Baltimore. (Perhaps, but faded?)

Sorry, Gothenburg is the name again, standardizing to English... That's right the language which wouldn't know phonetics if it was hit in the mouth with a halibut.

Why a fish? Oh, just for the halibut.

But seriously, (I'll be here all week) what is the deal with English?

A little bit of home

We received our first care package from the US this week. A mere two week wait, speedy from the US... I must say, it's nice to feel the love (particularly considering the arm-n-a-leg postage! don't make that a habit, eh?) and to be reminded of little things that are simple back home but rare here.

Due to our baking woes, we now have enough baking soda to conduct underground trading in chef prison--Martha Stewart wishes she coulda got by with what we got. Also, big shout out to Shake-n-Bake, mostly due to the fact that I didn't realize I was craving breaded chicken until I was reminded of it's existence. Funny how that works, eh?

Dark Fury, Blonde Justice: why oh, why did you include the "Cheer--girls of the NFL" magazine? Well, that's a stupid question, huh? Cute. Likewise, yeast; hot sauce? Much appreciated. Mascara, I didn't know you carad! Way to read actively.

I must say however, what is undeniably the creme-dela-creme... (drum roll please...[clearly Nobel Prize fever has me excited about a sense of ceremony]...) The Marshmallow Fluff!

Marshmallow Fluff is very pleased to accept this honor on behalf of the care package, but would also of course, like to recognize the undeniable contributions of WonderBread and Skippy, without whom fluffernutters would not have been possible.

I'm sure I will be cleaning it out of my ears. Mmm, gluttony.

Nobeling in Stockholm

Its December 10th...the day Arthur Nobel died in 1896, and the day the world celebrates the fat check he promised to award outstanding achievements in the sciences, literature and peace. And to honor those achievements, they plan a giant party or two here in Scandinavia.

I say Scandinavia because Stockholm is the center of the awarding process, with a committee that selects 5 of the 6 Nobel prize winners, but Oslo also throws a big party, because their committee has the honor of selecting the Peace Prize winner.  And I think Oslo's single prize winner's celebrity this year is far surpassing anything here in Stockholm.

Regardless, the Swedes have planned quite an evening. This afternoon is the official awards ceremony, followed by a black-tie banquet with the royal family and about 1,250 other assorted big wigs. The Local (the fluffy English version of Swedish news) described a few of the preparations being made for the event. 2,692 pigeon breasts, thankyouverymuch.

Unsurprisingly, we are not partaking in many of the festivities. I could go stand in the rain by the concert house to catch a glimpse of some of the flower arrangements. But I probably won't. I am going to try to go to Swedish class tonight (I had skipped the last week or two) so I *might* learn some Swedish words to describe Nobelfesten. But I probably won't.  The university is hosting its own black-tie event, but we didn't bother to get tickets.  We will be going to a lecture by the Nobel prize winners in Economics at Stu's school on Saturday, which will likely be a snooze for me but could be interesting for him. All in all, we are pretty lame in our Nobel celebrating.  But congratulations to all of the winners, anyway!

Spoon Tickets already!

We got two notices for packages, and I have been working my butt off (sick children...11 hours yesterday alone!) so I only just got to them tonight. Well, I picked up one. For whatever reason, we got packages at two different convenience stores. Not very convenient, if you ask me.

A random aside about mail in Sweden: we pick the packages up at a store in our 'hood, and there are next-to-no post offices here. We get our regular mail and reklam through the slot in the door. Reklam = junk mail. Everyone else puts up a little sign on the door that says "Ingen Recklam Tack!" and the mailperson only gives them the important addressed-to-them stuff. When we moved in, we had an "Ingen Recklam Tack" sign under the name plate, but I took it off. I wanted to see what Swedish junk mail consisted of.  How else do you get the coveted Ikea catalog?!?  And it is how I found out that Sweden has Toy-R-Us.  Its been added to my list of weirdo American imports that are *everywhere* here, like 7-11 and TGIFridays.

So, anyway (I digress a lot) I picked up the package at the one tobak that was open after 6pm. Turns out it was the concert tickets we just ordered a few days ago, surprisingly soon from Ticketmaster! Ticketmaster GERMANY.  We are going to Berlin for Stu's birthday to see one of my favorite bands...they aren't coming to Sweden apparently.  Call me Eddie Vedder, but I hate, hate, hate Ticketmaster.  I hate having to pay their $12 per ticket "handling fee" when I print the damn things out at home using my own paper and my own printer ink (okay, it was usually my office printer and paper, but still, NOT Ticketmaster's.)  And the way shows sell out with them is suspect...I don't know how they allot tickets, but its not very democratic. In DC, I would far rather go to the venue at weird box office hours to avoid having to use Ticketmaster. And because I'm cheap.

So tickets for Spoon were 18 euro...not an awful price. And actually, unlike the US counterpart, Ticketmaster of Germany didn't have any extra BS fees, if you live there and can pick up your tickets at their Hamburg office (really?!?). We had to pay an extra 10 euro because we live out of the country, but they mailed them uncharacteristically quickly.  So all in all, we paid a whopping $70 for the privilege of seeing Spoon in Berlin.

But I'm excited anyway.  We had to travel to Norfolk, VA to see them after their shows got all effed up in DC in 2007.  Stu had to travel all the way to New Orleans to see them (okay, he got to see a ton of other bands at Voodoo Fest. And its New Orleans...any excuse, right? Seriously, for Stu, ANY excuse.)  We'll take Ryan Air's $20 r/t crappy seats, stay in a cheap hotel, and eat all the schnitzel, pretzels and giant German beers possible in that weekend to celebrate Stu's birthday.  In style.