31 December 2007

Happy New 2008

Let us all gather round and cheer,
With a drink of wine or an ice cold beer

Perhaps you're like me and don't drink the swill,
Or your like my grandparents who live on pills.
Maybe this world seems harsh at times,
Or its just that most of us just like to whine.

I'd say that this is a great place to be,
It all depends on how we can see.

True we've had bad things in the past,
But we know in our hearts that these will not last.

If we try our best to be simple and pure,
There's nothing our hopes and dreams cannot cure.

So, I don't know the value this is worth,
But lets all try to be happy and heal Mother Earth!

26 December 2007

Christmas in Stockholm

We celebrated Christmas together at home this year, Hannah, Emma, Caroline and me. The weather was nothing to write about, generally grey and quite close to zero out side…no sign of the Swedish winter, no snow, no frost, not an icicle insight. In side, we had at least decorated the flat with Christmas lights in the windows and on the balcony, plenty of candles and a Christmas tree. I put up the tree, then Hannah and Emma decorated it on Sunday evening on the 23rd. Christmas Eve is the big day in Sweden and Germany, so we decided to stay with this and open presents in the evening. We started the day with the traditional Swedish morning dish of warm rice pudding with cinnamon. At 11 we drove into town and went to the German church in the old town for their Christmas service. This added to the German content for Christmas and I think Caroline was very pleased we all went along with her for this service, filled with children and a nativity play. In the evening we ate quite a Swedish dinner with pickled fish to start with and then cooked ham, red cabbage and a creamy potato and anchovy pie. Then we all sat down and opened the surprisingly large collection of presents which lay under the tree.
Christmas day was mostly spent preparing the Christmas dinner, with our 6kg turkey. We sat down to eat in the afternoon to eat our traditional English Christmas meal with roast potatoes, parsnip, sprouts, bread sauce, stuffing, and of course the turkey. After a short break, we all went to the cinema together to see a film, The Golden Compass, with Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig.
I think we had a good Christmas together with a decent mix of traditions… and it was another first, celebrating Christmas with Caroline and the girls. Now we just need to find a way to use up all the leftover turkey and ham!

20 December 2007

Planning a special trip

Some time ago, Caroline asked me if we could go on a long trip together. A special trip, one that will allow us to travel and explore and discover some new places, together. We discussed this subject from time to time, where to go, proposing locations and routes, as well as how long to be away. Soon we decided that Asia would be our destination, and after some negotiations with my boss at work, we decided on a six week adventure in Jan/Feb 2008.

Our plans focused on visiting Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia, with perhaps Laos, if our route would make this possible. Having decided the slightly cheaper multi-stop alternatives just weren’t worth the effort and trouble, we booked a direct flight from Stockholm to Bangkok, Were flying with SAS and even chose the seats we will sit in, via the online booking system, that’s cool! Our flight leaves Stockholm on Wednesday the 3rd January, and returns on the 15th of February.

Some weeks later, and we have spent ages trying to plan which route to take. The main point of concern is if we will try the slightly more complicated direction from northern Thailand over Laos and into Vietnam or Cambodia, or to fly up to Hanoi from Bangkok. We have several options, and at this point in time, we don’t know which way we will go. So we will start by taking the route north in Thailand and see how things turnout when we get there. It’s our plan to spend around a week there at first. We want to try out some cooking lessons and massage courses, that we’ve read about and sound like fun.

So here we are, just two weeks before we will leave… still lots to sort out, things to buy and bags to pack. But after a complex and emotional year, we’re both really looking forward to the trip and our six week adventure together.

14 December 2007

My first Lucia

It's Lucia on the 13th of December in Sweden.
This day was regarded as the shortest day of the year in former times. The celebration can be traced back to St. Lucia, a martyr who lived on Sicily in the 3th century.
Nowadays Lucia comes as the "Queen of lights" in a white dress with a crown of candles. She is accompanied by lightbearers and they sing the Lucia-song and some other songs to announce the returning of the light and to herald Christmas time. This day is obviously very important for the kids and it's celebrated in many families in the morning at home, in day-care and kindergarten, but as well in schools and at work.

For my first Lucia, Richard and I went to see a Lucia-concert in a big church. "En resa från mörker till ljus" - A journey from darkness to light.
There were two choirs, one dressed in black and one dressed in white and they started with a few songs in the dark church, apart from each other, until Lucia came in with the lightcrown. The singers in white followed her with candles and they lit all the candles in the church and mingled among the dark choir. They even lowered down two huge candelabra from the ceiling to light their candles, what had quite an dramatic effect.


It was a beautiful concert and I had goose pimples several times, sitting in this church that was only lit up by candles and listening to all these nice songs.
I really liked the Lucia-day and I am happy to add this celebration to the special days in the year.
It's nice to celebrate te returning of the light. It's kind of comforting to know that the days become longer again, even though it's not very noticable for a while. But in the meantime we just light some more candles to make the darkness a bit more cosy :-)

12 December 2007

Swedish for immigrants

School's out - for this year, at least!
The last three months I've spent a lot of time on learning Swedish. I started in September with a course in Folkuniversitet as I couldn't start straight away here in the local Sfi-courses, that are free for people moving to Sweden.
There I started in October, and as I wanted to make progress more quickly, I continued going to Folkuniversitet. So I ended up having courses every day for a few weeks, what kept me quite busy.

It was interesting with all these different people in these courses. I was always very curious to hear why they had come to Sweden and how they feel about living here. I was astonished about how many people from all over the world actually have fallen in love with Swedish people and decided to come to live here. Like me, with the only difference that my sambo (swedish for "living-together-with-person") is not Swedish ;-)
Anyway, it seemed as a lot of them have to cope with even more changes than I have to, coming from countries in Afrika or Asia. One guy from Sambia was about to see the first snow in his life...
I learned very soon, that I have quite an advantage with German and English in the background. I can deduce a lot of Swedish words from German, and English too, and some Grammar rules are quite similar. Not for the people coming from Thailand, China or Sambia, that's for sure. A lot of them need to learn another alphabet first of course, what makes it certainly much more different to learn a new language. And then the pronounciation - even more tricky. First of all for the people from Southeast Asia, they struggle really hard. I was pretty sure before, that this was only a rumour, that Asian people are not able to pronounce a proper 'r', but saying 'l'. I was often sitting next to a Thai girl in one of my courses who I could barely understand. Until I figured out that I have to replace some of the 'l's with 'r's in her words. ;-)

As I eventually started with the Sfi-course, I felt already a bit advanced, at least compared to many of my classmates. I had a few weeks "introduction course" until they divided the people in our group in different levels. I could join all the courses in the highest level of difficulty and after three weeks I did a test, some kind of pre-test for the nationellt prov, that is the completion of this course. This test was supposed to be one week later, but I wasn't expecting to be ready for that. But as the first test went so well, I thought I could give it a try.
It was a written part including an listening comprehension part for several hours and an oral part, that worried me most.
But I did well :-) No mistakes in the written part and the oral part was not bad either.
I basically run through the whole Sfi-course in four weeks. Not bad I guess, compared to others who spend there months or even years. I had almost the feeling I became some kind of a "model-immigrant" because of my successful studies. Several times I could hear my name in combination with the words "nationellt prov" and "noll fel" and "jätteduktigt" (= very good) ;-)

However, that have been some further steps in my learning-Swedish-project. I am about to get a feeling for the language and I understand already quite a lot. But it's not enough. I am planning to continue my courses in the middle of February, when we come back from Asia. Until then, I have to make sure, that I won't forget half of what I learned so far again. Therefore a Swedish book is already on my list of the things to pack and Richard and I should plan a daily Swedish hour during our trip.

01 December 2007

My advent calendar

On the 1st of December, Caroline asked me to go and check out something in the living room! I was so surprised when I entered the room… the ceiling candelabra was decorated with a hanging advent calendar for me. She had made all the small packets, some with gifts, some with special messages and numbered each one. I would open them one by one during December… what a very special advent calendar it was.
Thanks Caro.