Holiday On Ice – The Real Thing Mid January. Light is returning: it’s dawning around 8:30 now, but even if the sun keeps shining the next seven hours, it doesn’t yet provide any warmth to my face. The foot deep snow we had before Christmas disappeared before New Year’s Eve, and the ground lies barren, … Read more
I grew up the daughter of a Swedish immigrant to the US and for us, Christmas – jul – was the most important celebration of the year. In the days before email and Facebook and Google hangouts, when Sweden was so very far away that my mom called home only once a year, on julafton … Read more
If you are a Swedish woman with a husband and a family, on the morning on the 13thof December you will rise earlier than usual, leave the bedroom and quietly close the door. You’ll prepare a tray with candles, ginger bread, funny shaped saffron buns with raisins (lussebullar), and make a big pot of coffee. … Read more
Today, I spent extra half an hour in my favorite grocery store, eating a complimentary lunch from their julbord, which they put up one day every year a few weeks before Christmas. (Please see explanation of julbord below.) The julbord is open for all customers, free of charge. You’re invited even if you haven’t been … Read more
I’m just taking a break from my study “homework” to write this article. I’ve been battling with a bunch of questions while sitting in the wonderful biblioteket (library) of Medborgarplatsen. Well, time passes and I need to go to the toilet. What you would expect to do in a normal library of Italy is just … Read more
Wow. I was so lucky to get the chance to go back to Sweden in September for a Swedish wedding. I got to see my friends, the town I lived in, and experience even more Swedish culture (including hockey!). And it was heart-breaking, realizing I had to leave. Realizing the awesomeness of Sweden and what … Read more
(Disclaimer: I just want to clarify that I hunt in order to feed myself and my family for the winter. I think hunting is less cruel than raising animals on crowded farms only to be slaughtered. Hunting is one of the most natural and pagan things I think one can do, and I do not … Read more
And so it happened, one day I woke up knowing that I had a plane from Fiumicino di Arlanda. It was the day that one of my biggest dreams became true. I remember looking outside the windows of the airplane, from Germany on there was a layer of clouds which covered the whole ground. I … Read more
Since I’m about to get ready to move to Stockholm for a while, so I started telling all my friends and relatives about it. I happen to hear almost very similar reactions in the beginning, and since they are all very wierd, I decided to put them together and write them for you. There should … Read more