LearnSweden Blog

The Way We Continued

First let me wish all of you a gott nytt år (happy new year). Since I last visited this space the great holiday of Jul descended upon us and then there was after Jul better known as "God Forsätning". Yes on December 26th the Swedes continue to party or shop more like it through another day of celebrating. Everywhere one goes you can hear "God Forsätning".

 

For us we are still "continuing". With all of the children home from school and work, it's like this holiday season will never end. Here's a little recap:

Jul was at my house. We had a full Julbord (Christmas table) both on and off the table. It just depended where you wanted to fill up your plate. 

 

The big news of the day however was the snow. That's right, we had a huge snow storm which let us play outside in snow mode for days.

 
We've enjoyed our time together and many people in this family are sad that school is starting again today and the late nights of games and movies must come to an end. All of us here are wishing you a very splendid new year. Thank you for stopping by this space and for sharing our love of Sweden with us. Without you, we simply could not be. Tack så mycket.

 

Transitions/övergångstid

       
 

I want to thank everyone who has been emailing me asking what is going on and if everything is alright? Things couldn't be better. Per saw his son Johannes get married to the very lovely Anna in September. He has gone back to teaching and is currently moving flat and getting ready for an extended stay in Thailand.

I moved my youngest daughter to Nashville to go to University there. It's been a big transition for her being away from her family. My eldest daughter is finishing up her degree and involved with many exciting projects, one of which is having her very own TV show. It's a very fun time for her. Little "O', my son, spent the summer with me on Gotland and has already made plans to return next summer and my sweet husband took us on a trip to Maine and has been making many fun things from our garden.

 

Recently, Per and I have decided to close down the language portion of LearnSweden. We are going to keep the blog going because we still love everything Swedish and have much to say on that front, plus we have many projects in the works that we can't wait to share with you.

 We are going to change the format a little bit. We will be posting to the blog every Tuesday and Thursday. We will be incorporating Swedish words into and at the end of each post to help those of you who are studying the language.  For those of you who would like to still study Swedish, I can think of no better person than Torbjörn Bergsdal, one of the original founders of LearnSweden. He is a fantastic teacher and completely molds each class to the student(s) he is teaching. I know because I was one of his students for a couple of years. You can find Torbjörn here or here.

I'll be back on Thursday.

Today's Word is: övergångstid or övergangsperiod which are the words of transition or transtion period, transition time, or transition.

Kreativ Blogger Award

  
 

Julie from Swedish House has awarded the Learn Sweden blog a Kreativ Blogger award. Julie and I became fast blogging friends when we both discovered that we have a love for red houses in common, besides other things.

Part of the Kreativ Blogger award says that you have to tell people 7 things they may or may not know about you. So here it goes:

1. I have three children. Two girls aged 20 and 17, and an 11 year old boy.

2. I'm a concert pianist. I've played music all of my life. I studied music in Austria for four years. Two years in Vienna and two years in Salzburg.

3. I've visited over 30 countries. Travelling is one of my favorite things to do. Luckily, my love of travel and my music have worked hand in hand to let me view this planet up close and personal.

4. I love to knit, craft, and sew. I love really anything which has to do with creating.

5. I speak 7 languages, two of which are Arabic and Japanese.

6. I love old things. Antiques, vintage, attic treasures, whatever you want to call it. If it's old, I'll love it.

7. I can yodel. While I  was growing up in Oregon there was a Swiss restaurant. At 16 I became a singing hostess there and befriended an accordian player who could also yodel. She taught me how to do it and it's been a fun skill to pull out during parties. It's a real ice breaker.

Julie, thank you so much for awarding us this piece of kindness. As tradition dictates I must now name a few other blogs with a Kreativ blogger award. Here are my picks. Please visit them and enjoy them for yourself:

• Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods
• Fröken Skicklig
• Med nål och träd
• My Scandinavian Retreat
• Marmalade Moon
• Mousy Brown House creating, crafting , and collecting
• The Swede Life

 

{This Moment} Finally Spring

After the surprise snow of Easter, the signs of winter are finally melting away.

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

A Walk on the Sea

Following the ski trail.....

we find people walking unintentionally in a line.

Some fine a solitary moment.

Some walk way, way, out.....almost to the other side.

And what's this? What do you see boy?

Yea!!!!! hot dogs, Korv,  hurry hurry....let's go quickly.

Eating our hotdogs we watch the others, still walking in a line.

But all the while, all of them, all of us, are walking on the sea.

   

  
  

Snow.....Still

By Per Svangren    

Still there is so much snow here in Sweden. There is snow everywhere and it is very beautiful but we now are longing for spring to come.

Maybe that is why we are buying a lot of tulips. All of us. Yep,that should  give us a feeling of the coming spring.

Long icicles are climbing down from the roofs and we all are very afraid of what will happened when the snow is melting and all the snow will fall down from the roofs. Then we will have a dangerous period, walking on the pavement. 

 For now, we just have snow and the beauty that it brings but oh how I wish for spring.

Puppy Sitting

By Per Svangren

 

This weekend I took care of our sons dog, Ninja. She is a 12 week old Rhodesian Richback. Though she is a very quiet animal , she needs so much attention and care. It has been a full time job making sure she won't chew on everything, not to jump on the sofa, not doing outdoor needs indoors etc. On Saturday there was a puppy meeting in Hagaparke, a big park just north of the city center of Stockholm. It´s the same park where the Crown princess Victoria and her husband are going to live after their wedding this coming summer, at Castle Haga.
It was a very lovely day but very cold, minus 20 degrees Celsius. So I was dressed well. The meeting was with Ninja's 9 siblings and their mother. It was really a party. 10 puppies playing, digging, jumping,and barking in the snow. The mother tired quite early on of all the lively "children" and tried to find a place to rest while all  the puppies were crawling around and playing.

 
 
  
Back home again, Ninja fell asleep and slept for three hours before she wanted to have something to eat. Such is a dog's life.

Winter White on Gotland

  

Winter everywhere in the world, well not everywhere, but on the news they tell us about record snow in new places where they usually don't get any snow, like Peking, southern Europe and so on.
We're staying on Gotland for a couple of days. Just relaxing and doing nothing. Well we do things, walk and play in the snow, bathing outdoors in our tub and sauna. It is so lovely with all the white lovely snow and we all like it except for our dog Diesel, who won´t come in. He just wants to be out from morning until late running, and digging in the snow. It doesn´t take long until he is as white as the surroundings.
The temperature here on the island is quite low, just a few degrees under zero. Not like the rest of Sweden where temperatures are between -20 and -40 C.

   

Not Just Any Job

By Per Svangren

During the last few weeks, Stockholm has had more than it's usual share of snow. In fact we've had more snow in the recent few weeks than we've had in the last few years combined. The streets, pavements and the roofs are full of white lovely snow. With all of this loveliness comes a few problems. The most important causes a lot of work for a lot of people. One job that has to be done and I am very happy to say that I don't have this one, is to take away the snow from all of the roofs. That job is important so people walking on the pavement won´t have any ice and snow falling down on them.

So today we honor the roof cleaners of Stockholm and all of Sweden. Hear Ye , Hear Ye, let it be known that today is roof cleaner day.

Diesel in the Snow

by Per Svangren

Our dog, Diesel really loves snow. He loves to run around in deep white snow, dig and chase snowballs that we through at him. In a short time in turns from brown to white.