My birthday cake

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JenniferNote: This post entirely duplicates an album on Facebook, so if you're a friend of me there, you may if you like skip this. The whole thing about the cake was originally posted there, because that's where Cousin Carrie originally posted her recipe, and so I thought it was only fair to repost there so that she could see it. So, anyone else who's interested (*cough* MOM! *cough), please click here to see a slideshow, and be sure to read the captions, which explain what's going on.

My birthday picnic outing

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JenniferI took a long drive through the local nature reserve for myself to have a picnic on my birthday. Click on the photo gallery to see the pictures I took (too many), which are in order of the journey. I'd hoped to make a map of it but that function doesn't appear to be working at the moment... check back later, but I did want to get this up, before I forget. Most pictures are, sadly, unlabeled, but pretty. And I do at least list the picnic items on the picture shown to the here. Next up, a post about my birthday cake, which I had on the Fourth of July. It's a Whole Big Thing, as those of you who check Facebook may know...

A Glorious Fourth in Stockholm

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JenniferWe spent the Fourth of July this year in Stockholm. It was an unusually beautiful day, with clear skies and sunshine, and warm enough to go without a jacket. (Days like this have been rare so far this summer; it's been mostly cloudy, often rainy, and in any event too cool for shorts and sandals.) We bought food from Cajsa Warg (Stockholm's closest thing to Zingerman's) and picnicked on Korean beef, samosas, baguette and ginger beer in a tiny park overlooking the city, which has a rather disturbing monument (too many thumbs!) dedicated to Swedes killed in the Spanish civil war.

Midsommar 2012

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JenniferYesterday was Midsummer's Eve, in some ways the most important holiday of the whole year. Sweden.se, the official website about all things Sweden, has put up a variety of informative texts about it in English, like this one here. Or, you can watch this slightly snarky video, also made/endorsed by the official website (so you know it's not too off-base...).

Midsummer remains a somewhat perturbing holiday for us poor immigrants, because the cities shut down completely (the street scene of Stockholm on Midsummer's Eve in the video above is not an exaggeration!) and all the natives disappear. Nevertheless, we had a very pleasant day. The sun was shining, and we packed a picnic of spice-rubbed chicken, dill potato salad, grapes, strawberries, and homemade lemonade, and took it to a nearby field. Joe leaves soon for a workshop in Turkey, and it was nice to just hang out and relax for a day.

The Witches of Easter

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JenniferAnd now to start catching up on some of the stories and fun things that have happened in Sweden in Spring of 2012.

First, Easter, or in Swedish, Påsk. (Quick refresher: in Sweden, Easter is the holiday (well, Skärtorsdag, to be precise) when the witches come to beg for candy... and a couple years ago, a father came by with his two adorable little girls dressed in their adorable påskkärring costumes, and said, 'You can always give them a little bit of money, 5 or 10 kronor. Or fruit. Fruit is good.')

So this year, the witches came early. Before noon!, which is hardly fair. Needless to say, we had not yet gone out to get candy. I tried to delay the påskkärringar at the door while Joe frantically hunted about for something to give them. We had a couple wrapped chocolates sitting around but that seemed a little light, so Joe grabbed a couple of blood oranges to give them as well.

They took the oranges and looked... a little dubious.

I wanted to sneak a picture of them because their costumes were so fun, so I nipped out on the the balcony and looked back toward the door that they would come out of. I was therefore in plenty of time to see the older one, who was holding the door open for her companion, pick the orange up out of her bag, and give it a look that I will generously describe as one of disapproval.

Right. Note to selves for next year: "fruit" is not an appropriate present for the Easter witches. Do not listen to the advice of their dads!

I just hope we haven't earned ourselves a curse or anything.

For Easter dinner on Sunday we went over to our Swiss friends, and were joined by three other friends and a visiting mother (French, Swedish, French-Swedish, and French, respectively). Their citizenships are important because it meant a whole new group of people to introduce to cascarones! It's always entertaining, introducing this custom to new people... there are about ten seconds of hesitation, between picking up a cascarone and choosing a victim... and then the victim realizes that maybe they would like to avoid getting a confetti-stuffed eggshell broken on their head, and so they run away, and then the chase is on (see picture to the left). (And the exercise was welcome, because it was just above freezing outside, and started to snow a little bit while we played a very poor game of kubb.) This was also Baby N.'s first Easter, and I'm only too glad to have seen to it that she — a Swiss national born in Sweden, with a temporary French passport — should have enjoyed a Mexican Easter tradition that my Irish grandmother picked up America.

New Year's Booms

Joe I think we mentioned previously that New Year's is one of the big three annual fireworks days here in Sweden. New Year's is unlike either the first Sunday in Advent, when Uppsala has a large municipal fireworks show, or Walpurgis Night, when large neighborhood associations all over town have medium-sized displays. Swedes, or at least Uppsalabo, ring in the new year with a barrage of individual displays. There's generally a light peppering one or two nights beforehand, then on the day itself we'll hear increasingly frequent booms in the distance. But when midnight hits, suddenly there are fireworks going off everywhere.

Living right on the edge of town as we do, it's a pretty impressive display even from our balcony. This year, though, the night was cold and clear, and there was no snow on the ground, so it seemed like a good time to check out the nearest little gathering up close (we've previously seen evidence that the local football field sees pretty heavy use as a launching pad, we've just never gone over there as it was happening).

Video of the proceedings is above. The cluster of lights in the lower left hand corner is the local neighborhood children, who marched up to the field bearing torches just five minutes before the stroke of twelve. The foreground is the (semi-official?) neighborhood display at first, with some random locals joining in as it progresses. In the background there were at least half a dozen other displays going at the same time (you can see bigger stuff from at least two other locales in Norby in the video, plus a few small items from the farmhouse down the road). The best part is the unintentional ground display that starts at about 20 seconds in — don't worry, no one was injured!

At least he went quickly

Branns på födelsedagen!

Joe …and we woke Friday morning to the news that the goat burned down. On the night of his 45th birthday, no less.

Christmas is officially cancelled. At least that should make the cat happy.

Midwinter Sacrifice

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Clockwise, from top:
(a) Santa beard;
(b) head with one eye, single leg dangling;
(c) other leg; (d) assorted innards.

Joe Sunday was Första Advent, marking the opening of the official Swedish Christmas season. How has it been going so far? The advent fireworks planned for Sunday afternoon were cancelled due to wind. Norwegian weather reports that November, 2011 was the warmest November in 111 years (only because they've only been keeping track for 111 years, mind you). I'm nursing a sprained wrist, because I fell off my bicycle on the single icy morning in November. Oh yes, and the cat hates Christmas.

Trick-or-treaters unclear on the concept

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JenniferLast week was our fourth Halloween in Sweden, if you can believe it. As discussed previously, Halloween is not really a holiday here, but it is making small inroads. And every previous year, we have had candy on hand 'just in case.' (Translation: it's a good excuse to eat candy.) This year, however, I forgot to have some out on the actual evening of Halloween. Guess what happened?

What have we been up to??

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Glad Påsk!

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JoeToday is Annandag Påsk, a national holiday here in oh-so-secular Sweden, and for once at least it's a holiday we're spending in exactly the way it is intended: a day to recover from the excitement of Easter.

God jul 2009 och gott nytt år 2010

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JenniferHappy 2010, everyone! We had a busy time before the holidays, as Joe had exams and project due right up until the 23rd, and I have quite a lot to do at work just now, either in preparation for leaving my job soon (yes, it will be two years at the end of this January), or, preferably, preparing to carry on with the project for another year (fingers crossed). Joe has also had a cold for a while, and frankly we were just so exhausted by the time jul came around that we mostly sat around and complained. But a few nice things have happened, so here's a run down of the last two weeks.

Lucia Dag 2009

JenniferLast Sunday, 13 december, was St. Lucia day, which as you all remember from last year is an important holiday in this quite non-Catholic country. The day is marked with singing, and candles, and the consumption of glögg and lussekatter. School choirs earn a lot of money on this day, as they shuttle around from workplace to workplace giving carol concerts. Ours started at 09.30 on Friday the 11th, and this year I went early to ensure a good view in the high-ceilinged, echo-y central stairwell of the evolution museum. The concert was lovely, and was followed by a division-wide fika with the aforementioned glögg (yes, mulled wine at 10.00) and lussekatter (which do ameliorate the glögg somewhat).

Första Advent

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Jennifer Today is the first Sunday in Advent, and it has come none to soon to a city of people who could really use some cheering up. The darkness is closing in, and the weather has been miserable; even the older, more stoic Swedes of my acquaintance have admitted finally that this has been one of the worst Novembers they remember. But of course this is Sweden, and no one will dare to put up the cheerful jul lights and decorations until Advent. (No one here is religious, but no one will go against tradition either. In the workplace, the Friday before Advent is close enough, so my department decorations went up a little early.) We brought our jul things out around noon, and I was reminded that no holiday is complete without some annoying item that requires assembly—getting these paper advent stars properly bent into shape around a light bulb is enough to make a saint swear. Anyway, we had the tree up and decorated, and all the other decorations up in an hour or so.

Then it was off to town, and the Julmarknad, with people selling jul-stuff from stalls—pine wreaths and boughs and bunches of mistletoe. Other stalls were selling home-made julklappar, like home-knit socks and hats, hand carved pop-guns and animal figurines, jams and preserved fruit, honey, special goat cheese from one of the local dairies... there were also tables of charities giving out cookies and selling hot dogs, and other vendors selling candy and ice cream. We got our traditional stektströmming och potatismos med lingon from the fancy restaurant, a bargain at 45 SEK.

Then we walked up the hill to the castle to watch the fireworks (start time at kl. 16.30, by which time it has been safely dark for an hour at least), which are set off from the Botanical Garden. They have fireworks every year on first advent, but this was the 20th year in a row that the local newspaper was sponsoring them, so it was advertised that this year's display would be quite special. Did I mention that the weather has been bad? Well, it would have been much worse for spectators if it were raining hard, but I can only imagine that the fireworks engineers were frantically discussing whether to carry on, on account of the fog we had all day, and which was getting noticeable worse as the evening cooled off. They went ahead with the show, and it was very good indeed, though some of the higher mortars were quite lost in the murk. They coordinated everything to music—the first was something classical that I can't remember, than a catchy pop tune from last year, then finished off with "It's Raining Men," which struck me as funny, especially when the 6-year-olds behind us started singing along to the chorus. The finale included a long row of short-height magnesium stars that lit the place up almost like real daylight for a few glorious seconds, and was probably the highest number of bursts I have seen in the sky simultaneously. Even the Swedes hooted and hollered in appreciation. A fine end to a quite lovely day. Happy Advent, everyone!

Knut's Day

JoeYesterday was St. Knut's Day here in Sweden, named after King Knut IV of Denmark (r. 1080–1086). More popularly known in English circles as Canute (but not to be confused with his great uncle, Canute the Great, who famously commanded the tides to stop), Knut is now mostly remembered for his death: he was cut down in a church, while assembling a large invasion fleet of England. The first part of that earned him sainthood; the second marked the end of the Viking Age.

Nerd jul party

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Jennifer A lot of social stuff has been happening in the last couple weeks, along with the usual frantic increase in work as everybody tries to get projects completed before the holiday break and the new year. I was as busy as everyone else, but did manage to turn two manuscripts over to two completely different sets of co-authors on the day before Christmas eve. So here's some catching-up.

Julbord

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Joe Now that finals are over (whew!) it's time for me to start catching up on what's been going on the past couple of weeks. So, in celebration of the Jul Season, I'll jump back a couple of week's to a Sunday afternoon when we took part in a long-standing Swedish Christmas tradition: the Julbord. The Julbord is basically the Christmas version of the smörgasbord, the Swedish version of the buffet. It refers to the large meal that Swedish families normally lay out on Christmas Eve, but in more recent times it's also been popular for restaurants to have Julbord seatings around the holiday season.

Every Swedish girl's dream

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Jennifer As we were driving back from Harkeberga Church a few weeks ago, the conversation turned to the approaching holiday season, and I asked about what were particularly Swedish things to do and see. "You must be sure to see the Lucia celebrations," said P., "It's very beautiful, and quite a big deal." A pause. "I was never chosen to be Lucia in school," she added morosely. "It has scarred me for life. I sometimes think my whole academic life has been an attempt to overcome this."

Every year across this great nation, on 12 december, a girl plays S:t Lucia. The duties of this girl are to wear white robes and a crown of candles, sing the S:t Lucia song, and look angelic. What girl? you ask. Mostly it's a school thing—every class chooses a Lucia, and generally every city and town does too. But Lucia's not just for little kids. There's an official, country-wide Lucia, who is the winner of a combined talent and beauty contest. This year, Sweden's Lucia is a student from the ag school just down the road, so she's an Uppsalabo, a fact that the local paper went to some pains to point out at every possible opportunity.

Thanksgiving Hamkey

Jennifer We had planned to have our Thanksgiving dinner sometime last weekend, but what with all the excitement of the julmarknad on Saturday, and then the trip to Gävle Sunday, we just didn't have time. So we planned to have Thanksgiving on Monday. Joe had made mashed potatoes, baked root vegetables, green bean casserole, and the turkey leg that he mentioned before. I tried to make gravy from the few pan drippings, but it was bitter and didn't work at all, which we both blamed on the fact that the veggies also dripped on the pan.

Julmarknad

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JoeYesterday was the official start to the Christmas season in Uppsala, as the downtown lights coming on for the first time. The event was also marked by a profusion of street vendors throughout downtown, as well as a more official Julmarknad in St. Erik's Torg (an old square below the cathedral), and a number of sales. Eager to see Uppsala's version of Black Friday, we headed downtown in the afternoon to catch a bit of the excitement.

The streets and shops were indeed packed with people, and the lights were all on, so it was quite festive. It was around 2:30 when we got downtown, so we still had 30 minutes until sunset. We made the best of it by sampling some of the street food, stopping for a free cup of glögg offered by the Army Women's Reserve Corp, and a couple of donuts from the "American Donuts" stand (they were… closer than anything else we've had here). Then we hit a couple of shops, mostly looking to pick up a bit of seasonal decoration for the apartment—and did we ever succeed! On our way to the market, we ran into one of Jennifer's coworkers who mentioned that Uppsala's fanciest restaurant, Domtrappkällaren, was serving his favorite dish (stekt strömming med potatismos och lingonsylt) on paper plates from it's kitchen door. As it happened to be on our way, we decided we should risk it, and indeed it was really good.

The market itself was just the sort of Christmas crafty stuff you would expect, some of it nice, some of it a little cheesy, all of it out of our price range. So we watched the litte kids taking pony rides, listened to the choir singing on the church steps, ate a hot dog purchased from the Amnesty International booth, and basically soaked up the atmosphere.

Last night was also the last night of a month long art project in Uppsala, an attempt to brighten up the dismal November evenings by putting up a series of light-themed artworks around town. As it was now a couple of hours after sunset and the vendors were all packing up, we decided to walk past a few of the light displays. The highlights were the University building, dramatically lit in shifting colors; Valvgatan, an old building with a large archway over a pedestrianized street which was glowing with blacklight; and an art gallery down by the river, which was projecting artwork onto the river wall accompanied by atmospheric music.

By then it was getting on towards 6 o'clock, and in the cold and the dark things were really winding down, so we headed home. It was a lot of fun, though.