Still here

This short post is just to assure everybody that we are still here, living happily in Sweden. There was not that much going on the last few weeks except for nose-to-the-grindstone work, but we are still enjoying our life here. The snow has now almost completely melted, here and there you may see a little ice heap where a few weeks ago was a mountain of scraped snow. It is beautiful to see the flowers come out. Everywhere you can see bright coloured tulips and other bulbs sticking out their heads. The birds are also coming back and a cheerful colourful spring is starting everywhere... the quiet, white winter wonderland is just a far off memory now. We are looking forward to some exciting developments and happenings in the near future so stay tuned. We are moving in a weeks time to a new flat which we need to furnish from scratch. To move house can be a bit of a predicament if you dont own a car. But we will tell you everything about our 'setting up house' adventure in our coming post. Coinciding with our relocationing is a big festival celebrated annually in Sweden but especially in Uppsala - Valborg (aka Walpurgis Night). I include a link to the Wikipedia article about Valborg if you want to read all about it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walpurgis_Night). Our coming blogs, however, will have first hand footage.

C&R

Påsk i Sverige

Easter in Sweden is celebrated more seriously than in South Africa. The reason for this may be the long tradition of pagan festivals predating the christian festivals. These festivals are in celebration of the coming spring and the re-emergence of life after the long dark cold winter. The festivities starts on Skärtorsdag (Maundy Thursday) with children dressing up as witches (see picture below) and going from door to door collecting candy in metal teapots. This is based on the myth that all witches flew to the mythological island Blåkulla to dance with the devil.

Långfredag (Long Friday), is traditionally a very somber day and celebrations are frowned upon. We spent the day cycling to the city to feed a colleague's cat, stopping with some coffee to enjoy the scenery.

Saturday is a normal day and most Swedes are out in preparation for spring and summer. This includes cleaning their gardens, wiping away the last bit of snow and ice and buying or dusting their bicycles.

Påsk Sunday is spent with the family with a traditional Easter dinner. An important part of the dinner is food that signifies the re-birth of life and the coming of spring such as boiled eggs with caviar and lamb.

Today (Monday) is also a holiday and people can recover from the Påskafton gluttony. We planned (as many Swedes probably also did), to have a picnic to consume the leftovers and watch the last snow melt away. However, when we woke up this morning we were greeted with a beautiful new coat of snow. We decided to spend the day indoors with hot coffee watching movies, which is just as nice.

Still looking forward to spring.

R&C

Times are Changing.

Today we switched from winter to summer time. This coincided with Carina's birthday which therefore lasted only 23 hours. We celebrated the day by going for a brunch buffet at Skarholmen restaurant with a beautiful view of lake Mälaren (for some reason brunch are severed from 12-4pm). With the increase in temperature the ice on the lake became too thin to skate on. The following pictures were taken on the deck of the restaurant showing the lake where we skated only a few weeks ago.

Finally after almost 10 months of continuous winter (starting in South Africa and now ending here) we are entering summer again.

R&C

"I want to ride my bicycle..."

Spring is coming meaning that the snow cover is slowly disappearing. Currently all the roads, including the cycle pathways, are almost completely clear from snow and ice. We therefore bought bicycles and started this week to cycle into work. I spent less than 14 minutes on the road to work (but 19 minutes going home since we live in Malma Backe, which translates to "Malma hill"). Carina have an average travel time of 20 minutes.

Here we are before our weekly trip to the stores.

However, before anyone think of us as cyclists we should highlight the differences between people using bicycles in Sweden and South African cyclists: Here anyone can travel by bicycle and not only fitness fanatics. Also the dress code for cycling is more relaxed and although helmets are encouraged no one wears spandex inspired superhero clothes when mounting a bicycle. The big difference however is that cycling is a basic transport and not a sport, therefore bicycle users gives way to other road users. Being fair, all road users are more polite here.

(Just a note on the weather: the pictures were taken in a very nice +5°C)

R&C

There and back again...

It has been one and two weeks respectively since Carina and I returned from our trip to South Africa. We left on the 19th of February from a snow covered Sweden and arrived the next day in sunny South-Africa. The change in temperature was a bit more than 30°C from a chilling -10° to a warm +23°. Thinking that the heat was going to be a shock we were prepared for it (and it was not so bad after all). We were, however, completely unprepared for the visual shock we experienced (see the following photos, no color adjustment were made).

(Friday 19/02/2010, 12:00, -10°C)

(Saturday 20/02/2010, 11:00, +23°C)

More color commonly found in South-Africa

The best part were of course the time we spent with our families.

Celebrating the arrival of the small one in green,

and trying to convert some of them to Swedes.

But we are very glad to be back and are looking forward to more real seasons with noticeable changes. Currently the temperature is +4°C and all the snow is slowly melting. This means that the landscape is still mostly white dotted with increasing patches of brown and green and puddles of slush puppy water everywhere.


R&C

Semla

We were pleasantly surprised when both Carina and I had semla buns at work to mark the start of lent. This bun is filled with cream and sweet marzipan paste and the taste is well correlated with its unhealthiness.

For more information the different buns consumed throughout the year and their cultural connection see the following article in The Local (an online Swedish newspaper in English):
http://www.thelocal.se/25018/20100216/

R&C

Visiting South Africa

Next week we are leaving for a two week visit to our home country. It is with mixed feelings that we return. We are of course very exited to see our families and this is the main reason for the visit. Although the weekly use of Skype, online newspapers and the occasional letter or parcel has helped us keep in touch with the people back home, it does not compare with a family gathering and the traditional South African braai. We also missed droe-wors en biltong, Mrs Balls' chutney, boerewors, fresh fruit, red meat, salt and vinegar chips, Spur and the occasional KFC.

On the other hand we will be slightly bleached relative to the rest of the population and are not looking forward to the current heat. This may make us miss our weekly skating trips on the lake of ice and our morning strolls to work through the lovely snow covered country side.

We will thus work hard this week to finish as much work as possible to go back to streets filled with lions, giraffes and elephants*.

R&C

*Note to the non South-African readers: You should not belief everything you read about South Africa.