Christmas

We had a lovely, quiet Christmas this year. The pro of being abroad for the holidays is that you get to do whatever you want and eat whatever and when you want on Christmas Eve/Day. You're not beholden to anyone else's agenda, traditions or obligations. So to celebrate not having to navigate my dear family's eating requirements (low carb, vegetarian, no red meat for those who DO eat meat, etc.), we had roast beef with gravy and creamed horseradish, potato and mushroom gratin, yorkshire pudding, green beans with bacon and red peppers and chocolate mousse pie. Can you tell I was being reactionary?! The cons of being abroad are not being able to hang out with your family laughing about silly things, and not having said family around to watch children who might be a little crazed from, say, too many presents and too much mousse pie.
The kids were of course very cute opening their presents on Christmas morning. Ava was all about the unwrapping and less about the presents and Julian just ate raisins like a maniac all morning. I offer him raisins all the time, but somehow the raisins that Adrian gave me (yes, he gave me raisins) really floated his boat and he carried the red pot around with him all morning until Adrian finally took it away fearing some, er, repercussions later in the day. Anyway, many of the other pictures involve me having a very bad hair morning so I won't post any more here. Those are Julian's favorite PJs, by the way. He loves them. Those and his Italia T-shirt from my Mom. Choice.
On Christmas day we went sledding, or sledging as Adrian calls it, on some frosty grass at the park around the corner. Being from San Francisco, it would never have occurred to me to sled down some grass, frosty or otherwise, but that's why you marry a non-native I guess and it worked out perfectly. After that we strolled downtown for some people watching and went out for hot chocolate before coming home to watch Peter Pan. It was great day.

I make a quip or two on this blog, but quips aside, Adrian and I feel so blessed to have each other as partners and such wonderful, healthy, happy children, and to be experiencing this time abroad together as a family. So far Sweden has been a terrific adventure.

We wish you and your families happy holidays and a peaceful, joyful New Year. We hope you all get to spend time with the people you love. See you in 2009!!

Shortest day of the year

Sunrise was at 8:55am and sunset at 3:26pm today. Total length of the day (officially): 6 hours and 31 minutes. Total amount of sunshine (unofficially per Nevada): 23 minutes.

End of school blues

Ava and Julian had their last day of school of the Fall term on Friday and don't go back until January 7. ABC (Ava's school) had a little party for the parents a week ago (see pic above). Good thing they decided to do it a bit early, because shortly thereafter a vomiting epidemic broke out at the school and all but closed it down for the remaining 5 days. At one point 9 teachers were out and Ava was one of about 30 kids at the school, which usually houses 92. We thought Ava and Julian had escaped, but on Friday Julian started puking and last night the barfing came a knockin' on Ava's door ... at 2am, 3am, 4am, 5am ... you get the idea. Unluckily for us, the laundry room is booked until the 24th, so we have a huge pile of barfy laundry just sitting in the corner of our room. Merry Christmas!!

On a positive note, we got word that Julian has a spot at ABC beginning in February. The only reason we got a coveted 1-year-old spot was because the school is expanding and decided to add 2 more classes for the littlest pupils. Ava is a "Lion" and Julian will soon be either a "Panda" or a "Bunny." I'm pulling for Panda. Much cooler than Bunnies for sure.

Swedish TV

Some argue that the reason Swedes are so good at speaking English is that the TV stations don't dub their English programming. It's not unusual to turn on the TV and have the majority of what's on be in English with Swedish subtitles. The exception is the plethora of Swedish reality shows, such as "Farmer Seeks Wife," "Swedish Idol," "Single Moms Looking for Love" and, my favorite, a show called "The Ferry," which chronicles Swedes getting really drunk and out of control on ferries cruising the Baltic Sea where the booze is much cheaper than on shore.

So there's plenty of shows on for us to watch if we're so inclined. To Adrian's delight, there are lots of British cop shows on BBC all the time like Waking the Dead, Spooks, the State Within and Afterlife. There's only so much torture and serial murdering I can handle in a week, so it's nice that Grey's Anatomy and Mad Men are there to give me some respite.

Trailing spouses

The women who follow their husbands around on expat assignments (and let's face it, it's still mostly women doing the following) are apparently called "trailing spouses." So I guess I'm a trailing spouse (and as an aside is it just me or is "spouse" just too close to words like "mouse" and "louse" for comfort?). The big question for most trailing spouses is how to make some money and stay engaged in their careers while the husbands are working (and if applicable, and it usually is, the kids are in school).

I knew one woman in SF who asked me why I was worried about my career moving to Sweden, when I could just "spend my time exploring!!!!??" (include broad sweeping hand gestures with this comment). Well, exploring is all fine and good for the first month (or perhaps three if you live in Copenhagen and six if you were in Paris or Rome), but after that, I would argue, it's human nature to a) run out of money, b) want a routine and c) feel useful.

Pursuing (or should I say desperately trying to hang onto) your career is of course a challenge when you don't speak the language fluently and you aren't, say, a world-renowned musician whose calling is free from the constraints of language. Since this is Sweden, it's probably more forgiving than any other European country if you can't speak Swedish but can speak English, but it's still difficult for many women to find some way to make money and stay engaged in the working world.

I know women who teach yoga, clean houses, make hats out of recycled materials, work remotely for companies in the U.S. doing urban planning and graphic design, and teach at English-speaking preschools. I also know some who started their own businesses and a few who have "regular" jobs at Swedish companies where they speak English. And I know many women who are home full time because it's been too hard to find a job in Sweden.

Whatever their situation, I say let's hear it for all the trailing spouses out there who are finding ways, in the immortal words of Project Runway's Tim Gunn, to just ... "make it work!"

Lights of Liseberg

When I was little we used to drive by the Chevron refinery in Richmond off of I-80 on our way back from Sacramento late at night. The oil refinery was lit up with a million lights and I'd say "Mom, look, there's heaven!" Well, I think Ava feels the same way about Liseberg right now, and probably more appropriately so. It looks great right now, with lights, fake snow and Christmas booths everywhere. They also have these great BBQ stands filled with glowing coals that are just for warming your hands. Love those. For the kids there's an ice-skating rink, learn-to-ski slope, reindeer sleigh rides, and the regular kiddie rides, of course. I never thought I'd be going on a roller-coaster in the snow, but there you go!

SFI, check!`

I passed the final test of Swedish for Immigrants level 4 this week. Hurray for me! Can I speak Swedish? Well, better than I could in August... but no, not really. I can understand most of what I read (like simple books and newspaper articles) but my conversational Swedish maxes out at making a waxing appointment or ordering a turkey on the phone. All the certificate really means is that now I can start the advanced class called Swedish as a Second Language (SAS-G) in January.

Advent

Advent is here and you can't miss it because nearly every window has either an electric "ljustake" (triangular candle holder thingy) or advent star in it these days. In fact, there are candles and lights EVERYWHERE, including, I might add, in the daycare centers and preschools. Young children and candles don't mix in MY mind, but there are so many darned candles in Sweden I guess you have to start them out young.

The statue in the picture above is of Poseidon on Götaplatsen, just a stone's throw from our apartment. They've been showing a surreal outdoor "Christmas movie" on the facade of the art museum behind him a few times a night over the past few days. The movie involves mermaids singing merry Christmas, trams, crabs and some heavy metal band doing a Christmas tune. I'm not sure I get it, but I like it.

Adrian and I are digging Christmas in Sweden. I love the Christmas markets filled with slightly creepy stuffed gnomes, saffron-spiked lussekatter, pickled herring, sweet-roasted almonds, and glögg (spicey drink with raisins floating in it). Here's me appreciating said glögg (while chewing a pepparkaka) in Haga:
Everything is just so darned cozy right now. The lights, the candles, the shearling-lined boots ... Good thing, because otherwise the fact it's full-on dark at 4pm would be downright depressing. (As an aside, we have been eating dinner around 5:45pm because it feels so late by then. I think I finally get why Midwesterners are famous for eating early.)

Ava's school had their Christmas bazaar today (spelled bazarre, which I found bizarre) and she was not sure about her face-painting:
Otherwise, the kids had a great time (read: ate lots of cookies) and played for a long time in the "pillow room" together, which was very cute. People keep commenting that Julian has really grown. It's true of course (I mean, kids do that), but I think it's more that he's turned the corner from baby to little boy recently, which the picture below captures pretty well. I walked passed him the other day at school and didn't recognize him because he looked too old to be mine!

Swedish Community of Facilitators

I presented at my first conference this past week. The conference was a meeting of the Swedish Community of Facilitators. Is this funny to anyone else but me? For some reason, saying it always makes my giggle, perhaps because I get some image in my head of lots of consensus-oriented blond people chatting in a big circle every time I hear the phrase. Actually there were lots of consensus-oriented people in circles, but most weren't blond and even fewer were real blondes.

At any rate, the title of my presentation was "Strategic Visioning Using Simple Graphic Facilitation Techniques." Fancy, right? I had 2 sessions, each 1.5 hours, and they went really well, if I do say so myself. We talked about what a vision is, what makes it compelling and how to help groups to tap into their creativity. I showed some examples of my visioning graphic facilitation (like the two below), then had the group use a simple template I designed for creating their own personal visions. They dug it.
The conference was a marketing opportunity for me and lots of AstraZeneca folks were there, so I'm crossing my fingers that it translates into some business in the coming months. Since Adrian was denied to expat tax break we applied for, said business would come in handy.

Happy (early) Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving meal on Saturday. Gen (in the polka dot top) and Tor were there with their daughter, Milena, as were Merel (with the blond hair) and her husband Denis. Julian and Milena are classmates and have a special relationship that involves a lot of kissing and hugging, which they were happy to demonstrate for us.

The turkey turned out great, thanks to brining and lots of butter squirted under the skin before roasting. The pumpkin pie was also a hit, which sort of surprised me, as Adrian is pretty adamant that it's gross and I've begun to think of it like peanut butter and root beer, i.e. only something you like if you're American and you've grown up with it. So I was happy that our non-American guests liked it (or at least humored me and pretended to).

Of course the best thing was the lovely company and lots of chatting about nothing in particular (my favorite topic). I loved Merel and Denis' description of Dutch Christmas, which involves black men from Spain on boats, wooden shoes, big ginger cookies, and no presents on Christmas itself.

I don't know if we did much to convince Merel and Denis to have kids because Milena had an allergic reaction to something, poor thing, and got red and puffy, Julian was up until midnight because of his recent "I hate my bed" attitude, and Ava insisted on sprinting everywhere the entire night.

Julian "I hate my bed so get me out now" Johnson

Look how cute he is. It's so deceiving. Julian, my sweet, good sleeper, has turned into a mad man who thinks bed is for crazy sadists since turning 18 months a week ago. Every night for the past week we do the same thing we've been doing with success for 10 months (say night night, read books, tuck in and kiss). Except that now, instead of rolling over and peacefully drifting off to sleep, he cries for up to two hours in a really pissed off sort of way. Tonight we tucked him in at 8pm. It is now 9:43pm and he is still wailing. Of course Adrian and I are totally stressed out because we really have no idea if we are doing the right thing by letting him cry (we're going in to "reassure" him every 15 minutes or so as the books suggest). He is teething, but he sleeps fine at school, so I don't think that's the problem. I think he's become aware that there is life going on on the other side of the door after he's in bed and that is N-O-T OK with him. Sigh. We spend the first part of evening dreading putting him to bed and the second part stressed out because he's crying. We've been putting Ava to bed in our bed because Julian's screaming and that's not super conducive to getting a 3-year-old to sleep.

Turkey Day

Thanksgiving is technically next Thursday, November 27, but we are celebrating a little early this year. We'll be hosting friends this Saturday for a semi-traditional meal. Semi-traditional because Adrian is not a fan of:

• Turkey
• Cranberries
• Pumpkin
• Sweet potatoes
• Stuffing

In short, he dislikes all the crucial ingredients of a traditional Thanksgiving feast. He is, however, the only person I know who actually likes brussel sprouts. We are compromising and having turkey and pumpkin pie, but regular potatoes and a chocolate dessert in addition to the pie. Brussel sprouts are permanently outlawed.

Finding the ingredients has been less of a goose chase than expected. I bought a nice Swedish turkey from Saluhallen. He must have been nice because he cost 470SEK (about $60). And all the other key items are available at the ICA store around the corner (see picture of $7 canned cranberry sauce above), just way more expensive than they'd be at home.

I had to post a picture of the "American" aisle at the ICA. I can understand not being able to live without molasses, Pam, or Karo syrup, but are the following truly necessary to have when you're abroad??:

• Fluff
• Baco-bits
• Jell-o
• Pop-tarts
• Stove top stuffing

I think not. Except maybe the Stove top ... or the Jell-o. But definitely not Fluff.

Swedish dance bands

Our friends Eli and Claudia sent us pictures of some Swedish dance bands from the 70's and I just had to share. The pictures are sooo good that the fact the bands have names like "Schytts" and "Simsalabim" is just icing on the cake. You can see the whole, sordid selection here. To any Swedes reading, please explain yourselves.

Paj and pie

Paj, pronounced "pie" is a staple of the Swedish cafe menu. Somewhat confusingly, paj can be either the savory thing we'd call quiche or the sweet thing we'd call crumble or cobbler. Sometimes the savory variety is called "matpaj" (food pie) to distinguish itself from it's sweeter sister. I am guessing the term "food pie" only sounds unappetizing in English because people eat a ton of the stuff here. I haven't seen what we'd call a pie (getting confused?) filled with fruit or pumpkin or, drool, pecans, around, so I suppose cobbler is a reasonable, if less visually appealing, substitute. It is slightly intriguing to think what they might call our type of pie. American paj? (Sorry, I just couldn't help that one). Luckily I like pie, paj, quiche, cobbler, AND crumble, so any paj is pretty much welcome at my table.

Roma here we come!

We are going to Rome right after Christmas for five nights. Wahoooo! I've never been and I'm so excited. A great chance to practice my Esperanto. Ska vi andare a die Spanischen Treppen? If anyone has any great tips for visiting Rome with kids please let us know! And if anyone can do anything about the exchange rate in the next six weeks, please get busy. Mama needs some new clothes.

Sweden loves Obama

The happy ladies in the picture above are Pascale (Canada), Sandra (Hawaii), Vivian (Texas) and Deidre (NY) at Pascale's house for a celebratory Obama breakfast. Breakfast made the most sense since the election wasn't called until around 6am here (although it was looking pretty good by 4am when I got up). That's why the newspaper headlines refer to Barack winning "this morning" or "over night." I have to say I would have killed to be in Chicago, or even back in SF for the victory. When I saw Jesse Jackson and Bill Clinton crying as Obama made his wonderful and appropriate victory speech, well, let's just say I was feeling very proud to be an American after a looooooooooong spell of embarrassment.

I've had all sorts of people want to talk about Obama's win with me the last couple of days. Even the lady at the bank who kept apologizing because her colleague didn't show up for an appointment (what is UP with Swedish banks anyway -- you have to hound them to give them your money?) said how happy she was that Obama won and wasn't I pleased. (Well, yes, but I'd be more pleased if your bank actually functioned.) The other day the paper said that 85%+ of Europeans in 13 or so countries supported Obama over McCain. It's a funny thing to be surrounded almost entirely by politically liberal, um, I mean progressive, people after leaving the same type of environment in SF. I was telling Adrian that I'm not sure I know a single Republican. While that's comfortable, it's not exactly great in terms of having to defend and debate your beliefs. But for today... who cares! Gobama!

Yes We Did!

Swedish pizza

I've been meaning to write about this for awhile. There are a ton of pizzerias in Gothenburg -- some horrible, some delicious, just as you'd expect. Our favorites are a Frenchie place called Cyrano and a take-away place called Il Gambero. The vast majority of pizza here is of the Euro variety i.e. individually sized with super thin crust and a light basic tomato sauce under the toppings.

The beauty of Swedish pizza is that the pizzerias are often combined with kebab shops. Because of this, kebab meat tends to sneak over onto the pizza menu, along with some other fascinating ingredients that were probably best left on the tree, on the animal, etc. Here are some of my favorite pizza topping combinations to ponder (not eat) from the place around the corner:

Verona: tomato, cheese, mushrooms, beef, banana, curry, peanuts
Reale: tomato, cheese, beef, egg, bearnaise sauce
Rhodos: tomato, cheese, pineapple, banana, ground beef, curry sauce
Tzatzikipizza: tomato, cheese, kebab meat, fresh tomatoes, onion, pepperoni, tzatziki sauce

Pineapple AND banana AND curry sauce, really?? Why not just throw some plum sauce and shredded coconut on there and make it really special?

Halloween

The Halloween season is my favorite time of year. I love fall colors, fall foods and fall weather (no jokes about San Francisco not having any seasons please -- we have seasons, they're just sort of casual, like Californians). And I love a good 'ol American harvest fair, complete with pumpkin patches, scarecrows, hay rides, pumpkin pie and little craft booths filled with stuff you'd never actually buy. And then of course there's Halloween itself, which when you're a kid is the best night of the year except for the night before Christmas morning because of the ridiculous amounts of candy you get to collect and consume in a single night.

Anyway, long story short, there's no Halloween in Sweden and I'm confused. I'm not ready for the stores to have all their Christmas Crap on display yet. In the U.S. we have the Halloween Crap and the Thanksgiving Crap to prime the pump for Santa. I'm like: "You want me to think about Christmas? Hello! I'm still mourning summer! Give me a little candy corn and pumpkin pie and then we'll talk." The American Women's Club of Gothenburg did a nice job of putting on a fun kiddie event at a local school (complete with crafts, mini trick or treating, games and a "cake walk," which I'd never heard of before coming to Sweden) the Sunday before Halloween. Here's Ava and Julian peacefully enjoying the decorate-a-skull craft table. This lasted all of 2.32 minutes by the way:And here's a shot of the main hall:
Ava's school, ABC, also had a little Halloween party on the 31st (see pic below), so the kids weren't totally Halloweenless this year, but I think Ava and I were feeling a little down about the whole thing.
It was probably NOT the best idea then to show Ava online pictures of her buddies Everett and Miles celebrating Halloween (in, I must say, very excellent home-made tiger and bat costumes). The slideshow went over like a tone of bricks and you could just see her face droop and her eyes start to tear up. She was fine 20 minutes later, but that was definitely a bad-mama move.

Now what could possibly cheer us up after missing our Halloween traditions? Hmmm. I'm thinking, just maybe, the one thing that could do it would be... GOOOBAMA!!!!!!!!!!! TWO MORE DAYS! TWO MORE DAYS!

Cold

It's gotten cold this week. At the moment it is 39 degrees and snow or hail (if I'm not misreading the Swedish paper) is a definite possibility tonight. In October! Lord! This means stuffing the kids into their snowsuits in the morning and afternoon for the journey to and from school and arguing with them about hats and gloves (and yes, despite his limited vocabulary -- he can only say "ball," "mama," and "dog" -- Julian is good at arguing using high-pitched wails and grunts). Since most of the Americans I know here are from Illinois, Michigan, and other frigid places, I'm getting no sympathy for my frozen tootsies from them. Only Sandy from San Mateo and Stephanie from Burlingame feel my pain. Luckily I look good in hats. Small mercies.

IAASE

I am going to form a new and important international organization, which I will call the International Association for the Advancement of Swim Etiquette. All you swimmers out there know the important work we have before us. Fundraising to support this crucial issue should be no problem given the complete absence of pool etiquette the world over. Our mission will include increasing awareness of:

• Stopping at one end of the pool if someone is swimming up your ass and is obviously way faster than you
• Moving to the left or the right at the end of the lane. The middle is for flipturns my friend
• The correct method for passing. Hint: it does NOT include swimming into the person coming the other direction
  
• Eliminating fins and snorkels from lap lanes. You wanna snorkel, find a reef
  
• The need for those cool swimsuit spinning machines. Not technically etiquette related, but sooo important

Should you wish to donate, please contact my development assistant at circleswimdope@yahoo.com. Thank you.

Cafe Culture?

A year ago "cafe" was not the first word that came to mind when I thought of Sweden. But as it turns out Swedish cafes are just great, running the gamut from sleek-modern halls decked with flocked wallpaper to cozy little shabby chic retreats. Here's one of my favorites (of the shabby chick variety), Le Petit Cafe in Haga:

And yes, of course Ava's drinking a latte.

My other favorite at the moment is called the Språkcafeet, or the language cafe, happily located on Esperanto Platsen. They do a mean vegetarian buffet lunch for 69 SEK ($10) and there are nightly language exchanges where you can come and speak your language of choice. It's a bit crypt-like, which is perfect for escaping a grey day.

I try to avoid the American-wanna-be Espresso House (complete with odd 10-ft-tall photos of lonely paper coffee cups posed in urban locations: cup on a newspaper vending machine, cup on a wall) as much as possible. It's one of the few cafes (perhaps the only in town?) that serves decaf.

Liseberg's last day

I think I mentioned we have an amusement park called Liseberg two blocks from the house. This is good except for the fact we have had to pass it every day on the way home from school and discuss with Ava at length why we can't go today despite the fact a) it's open and b) we have an annual pass. ("Um, er, Mom doesn't have the right shoes on?") Except for the somewhat scary bunny mascot(s), Liseberg is the most kid-friendly amusement park I've ever seen with all sorts of kiddie rides that Ava can go on, including baby bumper cars, which cracks me up. They also have some crazy skilled face-painters:
At any rate, the Liseberg summer season ended on October 9 with a great fireworks display which we watched from our balcony after first thinking the U.S. had redirected planes from Iraq to Sweden. Apparently the park actually opens again for the Christmas season on November 14 with a nice holiday market, complete with purveyors of mulled wine, elk sausage and roasted almonds wrapped in cones. Yum.

She came, she ate meatballs, she left

My Mom is gone again after a very short week in town. And yes, thanks, I did take her to the airport on the right day (at least I think so but I haven't heard from her so ...). Mostly we went for walks around town, drank coffee and generally schlepped her along to school drop-offs and pick-ups, grocery shopping, and playdates in the park. Ava adored having Grandma here and they were very busy with a big box of craft supplies Mom brought. I should also acknowledge my Mom for bringing 51 lbs. of other crap for me with her, including chocolate chips, hot sauce, hair dye, Christmas toys, lots of Amazon.com book orders, and 6 boxes of flipchart pens. Julian was convinced Mom was going to steal him away to California, so he wasn't especially charming until the very end. I told him he wasn't making a very good impression, but he just signed for more cheese. Good thing he's cute.
While Mom was here Adrian and I were able to sneak out to a really nice dinner party on Saturday with my Canadian friend Gen and her Norwegian husband, Tor, and then again to the Bishop's Arms for some quiet beers on Monday night. I think we may be able to do it again in ... hmm, aiming for May 2009.