Midsummer!

Sorry that I haven't posted in a while.. There just hasn't seemed to be a whole lot to talk about. I have visited a few more places around here, such as some churches and stores. And of  course I have been working plenty!!

Yesterday I got to experience Midsummer celebrations! This is the most important holiday in Sweden, except for maybe Christmas. I wasn't really sure what it was, but Karin showed me this great video a few days before hand to prepare me. And it was actually pretty well spot on! (I was glad she had prepped me, otherwise I might have thought OMG WHAT!? At some of the things we did...)

After a bit of work in the morning, we went to farmor and farfar's (grandma and grandpa) house for lunch. I tried pickled herring for the first time, as well as a potato dish with herring in it. And some new potatoes, yum! There was also bread and meatballs and mini sausages. To finish it off we had Swedish strawberries and ice cream for dessert! 

We came home and got the hay wagon decorated and guests started showing up. Then we got to drive into Hamra in style on the wagon! In Hamra the whole community gathered to put up the Maypole. A small band came in and we sang songs and danced around the Maypole (yes I did dance like a frog)! After catching up with all of the neighbours we went back home.

We were served a delicious two course supper, the first course a repeat of lunch, and the second course some awesome barbecued meat and more new potatoes (seriously my new favourite vegetable..) and salad! We sang songs and raised our glasses for Skål (cheers) and spent the rest of the night chatting with good company. Some of the friends stayed over in trailers that they brought. (The legal limit for driving is only 0.02, so basically nothing.. and what fun is it to stay sober for the biggest party of the year!?)

Today we went out to lunch at the local place by the sea with some of the friends that had stayed over. I had the best smoked salmon ever, and some (guess what, awesome) new potatoes!

Overall, my first Midsummer experience has been great. I hope to celebrate it again, whether in Canada, or back here in Sweden!

A normal day

Yesterday seemed normal enough, so at Maggie's request I'll talk about it!

I started the day at 7:30 getting up and having some breakfast with the family. Then I went out to the sheds to feed the lambs. There are 2 pens in the new shed that I feed hay to and give water to. In the big shed there are 2 big pens, a smaller pen of "escaping lambs", a small pen of bottle fed lambs and another pen with a few ewes. I give everyone in there hay as well, and sometimes feed the bottle lambs if Karin is busy.

After that I went on to painting their picket fence white! It was a warm day but luckily I was partially in the shade for most of the painting that day. We stopped for a lunch break, then I got back at it!

In the early afternoon we went to Hamra to check out a community garage sale-out of peoples' trunks in a parking lot! What a great idea! I bought a bracelet and Karin bought some housewares and children's books.

Then I got back at the painting! (Usually my day isn't consumed by a single activity-for example today I did some gardening and cleaned the windows. They have this awesome vacuum thing so that there are no streaks, it was great!)

At about 4 I went out and fed hay to all of the lambs again. 

It was Sweden's National Day yesterday and all we did to celebrate was put up the flag and the cake that Emma baked had blue and yellow icing on it! I must admit I enjoy Canada Day a bit more ;). 

Annika and Bo (Markus's parents) had just built a special area to play Boule (I'd never heard of it before-- there's a small ball and you have to try to throw your big ball and get closest to the small one! We were in teams of three). So they had a party to celebrate! Our family and Markus's sister's family and some neighbours were there. We played the game for a while then went and had a dinner of pork and potatoes and quiche and salad! For dessert we had Emma's cake.

We came home around 8:30 (some of the others stayed to play the game some more). I read and got caught up with some friends via facebook, and went to bed around 10!

Other activities I have done this week: visited a neighbour and had a great chat over some tea, and made and cooked about 5 pounds worth of meatballs!

On the agenda for next week: planting the vegetables in their greenhouse garden, painting their newly renovated mudroom!

A weekend in Stockholm!

This weekend I was given the privilege of staying in Stockholm with one of Karin's cousins!

The weekend started early Friday morning when we left at 5:30 am for the ferry to the mainland. After a 1 hour drive we were on the ferry, which took another 3.5 hours. We arrived in Stockholm at about 11. We spent part of the day at Karin's other cousin, Erica's house in the suburbs of Stockholm. She fed us a most delicious quiche and we had some tea and snacks there as well. Therese, who I stayed with, met us there. Karin and Stina headed of on an adventure to bring home a new dog, so Therese, her assistant and I got a Taxi and spent the afternoon exploring the old town!

The old town of Stockholm is not unlike any other old European city centre. Cobblestone roads, cute little stores lining the sidewalks, with apartments up above, and hardly any cars! It was a beautiful day to just walk around and enjoy life. I got to see the Swedish Royal Palace, one of the largest palaces still operating. I even got a picture with one of the guards!

On Friday night we ordered in pizza and watched the Let's Dance (Swedish version of Dancing with the Stars) finale!

Saturday morning we headed into the city. The Stockholm Marathon was taking place in the city, so shortly after we got there we were stuck there for quite a few hours because all of the streets downtown were closed to traffic!

We visited the Vasa Museum. It's a museum based on one thing: the Vasa ship that sank in 1628. They rescued the ship in 1961 and after decades of research put it on display in his museum! It was amazing to see how much they found out about the ship. They even recreated some of the faces of the dead and gave them stories based on what they found in their research of the body. They spent twelve years researching the colours on the ship, wow!

Here is a picture of Therese and I in front of the model ship they built to represent the colours and design of the ship.

As we entered the gift shop, Therese noticed she had a flat tire on her wheelchair... She decided to wait with her assistant and take a taxi to find a place to help her. I went on to the Nordiska museum by myself. I found out later they weren't able to get anywhere because of the marathon, but I will talk more about that later!!

The Nordiska museum was totally beautiful inside and out!

It was a museum about the Swedish lifestyle, back as far as the 1600s. I learned that Sweden has it's own indigenous people, called the Sami. They even had a whole exhibit on hair, and one on doll houses as well! One of the strangest things was that they used to serve their meat in a swan...

I met back up with Therese after I had finished touring the museum. She had had her own stroke of bad luck.. Because of the marathon the taxi couldn't come pick her up until 4:30! So she sat at a restaurant with her assistant, because she really couldn't do anything else. It was also raining, just to make matters worse! Finally the taxi came and we headed home. The stores were closed by the time we got picked up, so Therese couldn't get her wheelchair fixed.  We enjoyed some AFV and Off Their Rockers, OMG why have I not seen that show before?! Seriously a great show.

Sunday morning I headed off with one of her assistants, Emma and spent the day with her. Therese wasn't able to come because of the flat tire. Emma and I went shopping at Kista, (Say Sheesta) and I was able to discover some of the awesome Swedish fashion! Apart from the obvious H&M, they had some other great stores such as New Yorker (which Ironically is a store only located in Europe), BikBok, and lots of others. After our little shopping venture, we took a sightseeing bus tour of Stockholm! We had quite a trouble finding the bus stop, and ended up chasing the bus for a couple blocks until it came to the next stop. But the ride itself was very lovely! We sat on top of the double decker bus (it was a lovely day) and saw a great view of the city. Stockholm is built on a series of islands, each with it's own "personality". We got to visit all of them and learn what was unique about each one! I also learned some interesting facts about Sweden, such as the income tax here starts at 30% and goes up to 57%. Ouch. They also touched on religion in Sweden. The country became protestant in the 1500s when the king and Pope couldn't agree on the bishop, so the king just had enough and switched! 70% of Swedes are members of the Church of Sweden, yet only 2% attend service!

After the bus tour I headed back to the ferry by train. After a long ferry ride and another bus back home, I arrived home at 1:30 am! It was a great adventure but I am happy to be back on the quiet island (and to get some sleep of course)!

It's funny how much better you are able to experience a place when you are able to see it with a local. Therese also mentioned the opposite, it's great to experience things about your home town that you haven't done before! So many of us need to get away when we vacation, yet few have been tourists in their own city. Therese made my stay absolutely wonderful. She was so eager and proud to show me around what she called home, and it made the trip a lot more sentimental for me. She had such a great spirit even though everything seemed to be going wrong for us! (We had many other problems but I don't want to sound like I didn't have a good time, so I will leave it at the story of the flat tire.) She has inspired me to live a little louder, and to be confident in what I want in life. Thanks Therese!

Overall, Stockholm was really great! I'm feeling more Swedish already :) At Maggie's request, sometime this week I hope to post about my "typical" day of work here. Hopefully it won't be too boring ;)