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!

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!

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.

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 :-)

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.

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.

The earliest Christmas market ever!

This weekend we have been to Öregrund, a small place at the sea ca. 150 km up north from Stockholm. We had booked a hostel for one night and set off Saturday morning. The night before it had snowed for the first time, and everything looked like slightly powdered in white.
As we arrived in Öregrund we took the ferry to the close Island Grasö, as we couldn't go to the hostel straight away. The Lady from the hostel told us, she would be visiting the Christmas market at the hostel on Grasö, and so we decided to go there too. Even though we thought it might be strange to go to a Christmas market in the beginning of November.
But in the end it was not so christmassy as we expected. A few stands of locals selling all kinds of homemade stuff like jam, cookies, sausages and knitted socks and fancy Christmas decoration.

In the evening we could choose between two places to have dinner. Everything else was closed. Places like this just seem to go to sleep during wintertime. We then had a nice and cosy evening in our hostel that we had just for ourselves.

On Sunday we took a long walk after a great breakfast with ham and eggs, before we set off back home. It was so nice being outside, cold but sunny. On the way home, we stopped in Uppsala and had a look in the huge cathedral there. The largest church in Scandinavia with a long and interesting history.

A short but nice trip, and once again I got to know a bit more of my new country.

Mission without success

One of the very swedish things to do at this time of the year, is probably going out in the woods to pick berries and of course, mushrooms.
On this Saturday it was cold, but with blue sky and sun, so that we decided to wrap us in warm clothes and to try our luck.
It's not very much that I know about mushrooms and I have never been out to pick them myself. So Richard was in charge to find a good spot and to explain me, what signs and hints I should watch out for.
Equipped with plenty boxes and bags we started our mission. We left the path and made our way right across the trees.

But we were not very lucky. We found lots of nice things in this beautiful forest, like places covered up with pretty moss in different colours, but not a single mushroom. At least none that looked in any way eatable. And no berries either.
We might have been just a couple of weeks to late. But it was a nice excursion anyway, with a yummy picnic, sitting on a big stump and enjoying the late autumn sun :-)

Week away

I’m away from home this week on a business trip in Jönköping and Poland. Two rail exhibitions in the same week… someone should really plan these things better so they don’t coincide. Jönköping was ok. We were involved with a big event with the Swedish rail group, and organised a dinner and visit to an ice hockey match for some 120 customers and partners. That was actually quite good fun and only the 4th time I’ve seen a live hockey match in Sweden after all these years here.
Now I’m in Gdansk in Poland for another rail exhibition and head back to Stockholm tomorrow evening.
Caro has been on her own with the girls all week, and as far as I can tell from my phone calls, she’s been coping well with that, as I thought she would actually. It’s obviously another first for her in the process of living with me and the girls. It’s a new experience for her to live with two teenage girls in the house and I think she is doing a great job of getting acclimatised to that.
I’m very much looking forward to seeing them all and to see Caro tomorrow. She’s coming to the airport to collect me… mmmm, I get hugs and kisses as soon as I land :)

Swedish autumn light

I think I am more a summer girl, but I love the autumn too on days like this week. It's sunny and a clear blue sky! Many trees are already coloured and everything is bathed in a beautiful warm light of the sun that is already quite low.
I love riding my bike back home through Haga Park, the huge Park just around the corner from where we live. I took some pictures today.

Hope you all have some lovely sunny autumn days! Go out then and enjoy all the colours, marvel at the long shadows of the trees, find some conkers and smell, it's autumn :-)

First trip back to Köln

A long weekend in Köln, long planned in advance as I wanted to be there for my friend Friederike's leave to her 7 months trip around the world. I arrive Thursday evening. My friend Katja picks me up and soon we are on our way to Köln-Nippes to meet Tatjana in a restaurang. Now only Friederike is missing to complete the great four. She is still at home, busy with travel preparations, but we need her with us. We command that he has to take a taxi to join us and soon we are united again - after three months!
Friday, I finally manage to visit Tatjana in her new shop that she has just opened in the beginning of August. I haven't seen it so far and I am absolutely curious how it looks like! And of course it looks fantastic, just as I expected ;-) I spend a couple of hours there, watching her dealing with the customers and it's very obvious that she loves it! The shop is very pretty and nicely renovated, selling fruits, vegetables and some other selected yummy items like wine and italian desserts. A little paradise!
Later on I go to see Andrea. We spend a cosy evening in her kitchen, eating and drinking together and catching up with whats happening in our lives.

Saturday morning means packing! I assist Friederike and try to advise her what to take and what to leave. I can remember well how difficult this was for me when I went travelling... We argue a bit about the amount of pants and socks, but in the end there is even some space left in her backpack - good job ;-)
After that I meet Steffen for a late breakfast in one of my favourite cafés in town. He has his computer with him and he shows me pictures from his trip to Canada this summer. Now Canada is even higher on my travel-list!

In the evening Friederike has invited some friends to a pub and many many come for some Kölsch and to say good-bye. It reminds me of my saying-goodbye-evening three months ago...
Some close friends and I are taking her to the airport early in the morning. Friederike is sad and tearful, but eventually she goes courageously through the security and disappears into her great adventure...

Tatjana and me have another mission on this Sunday. We have a performance with Lamäng, the playback theatre group I have been a member of for the last 2,5 years. One of our members Albert celebrates his birthday and we are playing for him and his friends. I have been a bit unsure whether I would manage to just join in again after some weeks without rehearsal. But we are all in a good shape and the audience delivers great stories for us to play! We all have fun and I really enjoy to perform with my group.
After a calm and cosy evening with Katja in her flat and another night, it's already Monday morning and I have to pack my bag again. I have still one bike in Köln that I want to take to Sweden on the plane and it has to be prepared and properly packed for that. Fortunately I have my friend Cornelia to help me, as it turns out to be a bit more tricky than expected... But eventually, after overcoming several hurdles at the airport, we manage to get rid of the huge package and I catch my plane back to Stockholm.

Both my bike and me arrive safely in Arlanda and Richard already waits for me to take me home. Well, yes, it feels more and more like home here. My first trip back to what was my home for a long time has been really good. I enjoyed it very much and I managed to see nearly everybody who is important for me.
But I am also very happy to be back here! And that's probably a good sign, isn't it?!?

Together in Poland

A new chance for us to travel together again, as I have to go to Poland for a sales conference in Warsaw and we have the chance for Caroline to come along with me. We fly to Warsaw on Saturday morning and arrive before lunch at the hotel. We throw our bags in the room and head out as the suns shining. We walk along the main street which is a pedestrian shopping street full of shops and café’s. We pass many of the churches along the way, which are all busy with weddings. It’s fun to go into one of them and see part of the wedding service and all the guests. We reach the old town and see a little of the main square and the old houses before we head back to the hotel. In the evening we eat out in a popular lounge bar and restaurant called the Living Room, nice. On Sunday we take breakfast in bed and enjoy a lazy morning while the rain stops outside. We take a walk in the city, have lunch and checkout the new shopping centre by the central station. In the evening we try an old restaurant in the old town and test some traditional Polish dishes. On Monday my conference starts and I get an introduction to the Polish railways while Caro gets her hair cut and relaxes. In the evening she joins me at the conference and after a mingle we go on with the other company representatives and the Swedish trade Council to a restaurant for another traditional Polish meal, but this time with more courses. Tuesday was the last day of the conference, which ended just after lunch. In the afternoon we had a few hours to walk into the centre again and visit the imposing Palace of Culture and Science, a huge building complex which was a gift from the Soviet Union from the 1950’s. The view of the city from the panorama level on the 30th floor is worth the small entry price to get a feel for the layout of the city. We head off for the airport and catch an evening flight to Stockholm… all in all, an interesting trip and a fun weekend together away.

This is England

Emma, Caroline and I went together to see the film “This is England” on Sunday. The film is set in the north of England in the 80s, and is about a young lad who’s Dad has died in the Falkland’s war and is being bullied at school. He meets a gang of skinheads, who befriend him and take him into their small gang. Life starts to look up and he enjoys their company and adopts their style. When an ex-gang member returns on the scene, things start to go wrong in a big way. At this point the film turns sharply in direction and the gang have difficult decisions to make as the nationalistic ideals of the new leader threaten to destroy the statuesque.

The film made me laugh at times, but is quite disturbing in many ways. It’s filled with great actors and loads of great northern accents… one to recommend, if you can take the bad language and sometimes serious violence.

On my way home

A week away and I’m looking forward to getting back home… longing for my girl and her warm embrace. Caro’s been alone all week and I know we will be spending the weekend together, catching up on together time and all that.
After a very busy week here in Chicago and Pittsburgh I’m at the airport and trying to phone, mail and MSN all at the same time before boarding. Having run for the plane from Pittsburgh to Chicago and caught it!, I am for once at the airport in time here in Chicago. Plane leaves in an hour and a half… eight and a half hours flight… landing at 7:45 tomorrow morning.

Away from home, in the US

It was only a matter of time after the summer before I would need to be away from home on a business trip, and here I am, away in the US again for a week. Caroline is at home alone in Solna for the first time since she moved. We're both having to get used to a new set of feelings and missing each other. And Caro has to cope with being alone in her new Swedish home. Its not so easy I’m sure, not having her friends around the corner for support, but I think she’s getting to know Stockholm now, so I hope she’s managing being alone.
I flew to the US on Tuesday and started the trip in Chicago. I think it’s a nice place and I have some time on the day we arrive to do a little trip round town with Bo, a guy from work who’s with me on this trip, and who hasn’t been to Chicago before. We take in the city views in our hire car and it’s a hot day. The lake looks great in the sun and such a contrast to the high city skyline. We eat a steak for dinner, as you do in Chicago, then we go into the Hancock Building and take the lift to the 94th floor and the observatory level to see the city by night. Cool to view the city skyline at night.
Wednesday, and an intense customer meeting, which I’ve been preparing hard for. It goes unexpectedly well… what a relief, it makes the trip well worth while so far. Then its lunch, and a drive to the airport and we're lucky to catch the earlier flight to Pittsburgh. We land at 19.00 and drive straight to the PNC Park to see the last half of the baseball game! Cincinnati Reds vs the Pittsburgh Pirates, it’s a fun thing to do and it’s another first for Bo.
Time for bed now… only 2 more days to go.