Christmas Surprise

After spending a cozy, traditional Christmas with my mom on Christmas Eve, I planned to celebrate Christmas Day dinner by surprising the rest of my family.

After a breakfast of butter streusel and tea, Mom and I drove to Malibu for a beach walk then stopped by Nik's house so I could give his parents their special bottle of Swedish Glögg with rum. 

After exchanging presents at my Dad's house, my brother Cody and I plotted how to best surprise my aunts, uncles, cousin, and grandma. 

As I was pretending to Skype with everyone from Sweden, I walked into the house and successfully surprised and confused everyone. Even though my dad is the worst secret keeper, after two months of planning, we did it!

Uncle Jeff then showed me the huge crock pot full of juicy brisket, smiled, and said, "Welcome back to America."

Red velvet Christmas cake.

Me, Jess, and Linds!

Christmas highlights include Cowboy Dan trying to speak in a French accent and pronounce "Veuve Cliquot," everyone trying to say "Glögg," stealing the $50 AmEx gift card from Jessica in the gift game, and actually surprising everyone.

It was a very merry Christmas.

Busy Season

I have been soooo busy with school recently but now it is time to relax. Christmas Eve-Eve calls for hot chocolate and the Mariah Carey Christmas album.

More posts and updates to come soon!

Winter is Here

The high for the day is predicted to be -8 degrees Celsius--that's about 17 degrees Fahrenheit. I am so cold.

More info here.

Santa Lucia

Baby Fia!

One of my colleagues brought her daughter to our Christmas potluck last week and she is absolutely the cutest child I have ever seen. I was elated when she decided to sit in my lap, but that only lasted about five seconds. This is my look of devastation when she decided it was time to move on.

Me and Fia.

Holiday Season

Belated Thanksgiving pics!

Green bean casserole.

Sweet potato mash (my contribution!).

Jasmine's turkey.

My plate.

The first snow!

Nighttime. 

Morning!

Me and Idil baking chocolate chip cookies for the Human Ecology Christmas potluck!

A for Awesome

Just got my grade for Human Ecology: Culture, Economy and Ecology and it's an A--and that's an "A" on the scale of A, B, C, D, E, F. 

After all the hours spent reading about Iceland's climate change strategy, reaching out to the Ministry for the Environment, and basically becoming an expert on the country's afforestation, revegetation, and wetland restoration practices it feels amazing to get that recognition. 

The next step is to send our proposal to the Ministry for the Environment in Iceland!

One of my favorite pictures of Iceland.

New Apartment!

I moved into my new apartment today! Everything is still a mess but I have a feeling it's going to be an amazing place. And it snowed for the first time today--that has to be some kind of good omen, right?

Tomorrow will be a day of unpacking, organizing, shopping for little apartment things (like the shower curtain we are in desperate need of). But for now I will get to sleep in my poorly made bed, surrounded by bags and boxes of things to unpack, exhausted from such a strenuous day.

The Holograms

Klara's brother is in a band that has been touring Europe for the last month and Thursday night they played at Lund's neighboring city, so Klara, me and a couple other friends all met up to go see them at this club called Debaser. Her brother had actually put us all on a list so we didn't have to pay the cover charge, which to me justified the cost of buying a drink at the bar. I paid 104 crowns for a drink! It was ridiculously expensive but super delicious. After they performed we hung out with the band and had a really good time.

One of their music videos.

The girls and the band.

Anton.

The Holograms.

Andreas.

Sushi Night

Last night a bunch of us got together to make sushi. Although I'm sure most Japanese people would have been ashamed of our preparation everything turned out pretty well. We were starving by the time everything was finally ready so dinner was filled with a content silence followed by a lively political discussion. It was a very "grad school" evening.

Fried salmon skin. Delicious.

A shot of the nearly three pounds of salmon.

Prep time.

I ended up having a super simplified version of what is called Chirashi (with salmon, sliced cucumber, soy sauce, and sushi rice) instead of a roll and was very satisfied. 

Darkness Falls

2:00pm

4:00pm

4:45pm

Bits of Stockholm

Beach park near Klara's house

Walking with Klara

Reflection pool at the cemetery

Greta Garbo's headstone

Mocha latte

Me on the ferry

Butterflies can't cry

"Normal" Stockholm Weekend

Today started off with Klara making Swedish pancakes for the both of us. Her mom, Monica, mentioned that she had made some lingonberry sauce. I asked "This morning?" and she replied "Oh, yeah, I was just out picking lingonberries and making jam." Her husband Anders continued, "Just a normal Swedish morning." They were both joking with me of course.


We then took the subway, which was actually above ground the whole time, to her cousin's birthday party. Her cousin is this pretty successful performance artist. Check out his website. The party was at his studio and was filled with all the crazy stuff he uses in his shows. We talked about art and the advantages and disadvantages of doing performance art versus photography. One of the coolest things I saw was this antique vampire hunting kit, but he had plenty of other crazy things.

It was pretty funny because Klara has been trying to help me have an authentic Swedish experience and here we were at a normal family gathering, but in one of the most unique and weirdest places I have ever been. I knew it was going to be a "different" kind of place when we walked up to the terrace and there was a wild boar pelt hanging over the railing, and from there things only got more strange and exotic. It was amazing.

Me and the polar bear head that guards the door, wearing a top hat and some kind of complicated spectacles.

We left the party and took the subway back to the city center. After a couple hours of subway riding and walking all over the city we made it back to Farsta and will continue the night recuperating by watching Swedish movies!

Hurricane Sandy

Flooded NYC subway. Three guys broke in and took this picture.

The size of Sandy compared to Europe.

In West Virginia the rain turns into heavy snow.

Ground Zero getting flooded with sea water.

Presentation Anxiety

So I have been working on this big research project about Iceland's climate change strategy since September and we were assigned by the Program Director to present our research tomorrow at 4:15. This is not a little assignment as we will be speaking for nearly two hours while also being educational and entertaining.

However, Friday afternoon, the Program Coordinator emailed the program saying that our schedule for that day should end at 4:00, not 6:00 like it would if my group was presenting. While we were able to email her explaining this issue, the director, like most Swedes, has been avoiding his office email all weekend, and is, as of 9:25pm tonight, still unavailable.

So now, we have this huge project and we don't know if we are presenting tomorrow or not. Two months of research to explain, professional outfits to wear, and hair to tame and it could be all for nothing. It feels a bit like preparing for Christmas to come, but not knowing if Santa will have dropped off the presents by the time you wake up, or if he has one more day of traveling to do.

Milestones of Today

Today me and my partners had a dry run of our presentation, complete with a working lunch. We shared a fresh, crusty baguette with butter, mashed potatoes, crispy salmon cakes, and apple turnovers. The meeting was both productive and delicious.


I also cancelled my housing contract for my student corridor. In about a month, I will be moving into a completely renovated, two bedroom apartment right in the city center with another Human Ecology student.


I also finally applied for my Swedish personal number. I don't exactly know what it is but it gives me more rights as a resident in Sweden, even though I already have my residence permit card.


Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I saw falling snowflakes today! I was out running errands and a few snowflakes, not raindrops, started falling. Swedish fall really is here!

Apparently this is what I have to look forward to:

The main square in Lund covered in snow.

Great success!

Pink!

Lund University main building lit in pink for Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Söderåsen National Park

Today I went to Söderåsen National Park. After a short train ride and bus trip we arrived. We decided on a 7km trail through the rift valley, which the nature guide said was a must-see if we hadn't been there before. 

Trailhead.

Natural spring, complete with ladle for easy drinking. I filled up a bottle and had it with dinner after the hike. Risotto, spring water, and the applemust that I bought on Friday.

Territory demarcation from the Iron Age in the valley.

Up on the ridge.

   

Me at the top.

Fall in a Swedish beech forest.