I'm Back

The past four and a half months have been very hectic. We visited our home in Colorado for three weeks as part of the festivities associated around my oldest son's wedding. Click here to see some pictures from the visit. Some are for family only so you may not see everything if you don't share some DNA with either me or J.



On returning to Stockholm, we immediately had to move from our furnished apartment in Vasastan to another in Södermalm. It is nice because we have two small balconies: one facing east and one west so that we get sunlight on both ends of the day - that's a summer thing. We're also close to lake Mälaren, Långholmen and Söder Mälarstrand. There's lots of pictures of these areas here.

We are beginning to explore all the nooks and crannies (I'm still looking for a nook without a cranny or viceversa) of Stockholm. Our friend BJ showed us a very special jazz bar, reminiscent of Nissi's in Lafayette, called Fasching. World class jazz musicians play there.

Our furniture and household things were delivered some five weeks after being loaded on the truck August 22 in Colorado. We lived like college students (sans beer, textbooks, and other things I'd rather not imagine because I have college age kids). We had an air ma tress for a bed, an old sofa and two stools left by the landlord.


J and I took Saturday Swedish classes in the fall. We enjoyed them hugely! One funny thing happened. The teacher asked me in Swedish what I do in the evenings. I answered is grossly mispronounced Swedish that I take off my clothes. He said, "You mean change clothes." "No, take off clothes." The class is laughing thinking I'm walking around naked. When you're weak in a language it's hard to say what you mean and hard to understand what's being asked.

J also took five days per week, two and a half hours per day intensive class. They take no prisoner's in this class. We were looking forward to taking the second part of the Saturday classes but it was cancelled due to low enrollment. Hopefully, we can take it in January.

The nights are extraordinarily long, as is to be expected this far north. November and December have been dark and dreary. I really miss the Stockholm summer and now appreciate why the Swedes relish summer so much. We have visited several Christmas markets in the Stockholm area where locals sell handmade or homemade things from Christmas decorations to foods to toys to antler knives to sausages, herring, etc.



Sweden has also celebrated Lucia. I am constantly amazed by how much tradition is here. One tradition I find interesting is pepperkocker. It's a ginger cracker that is supposed to make you nice. It derives this reputation from the days of old when people ate them in the dark winters and felt that ginger improved their moods or so I'm told. I've found that just about any cookie with a tall glass of milk improves my mood.

I hope to have more frequent posts from now on. Stay tuned...In the mean time you can browse my photos which I've been collecting the whole while here.