Life outside of town

Living smack dab in the middle of Gothenburg, we sometimes forget that there is life beyond the city walls (if there were any left standing). So it's good that friends invite us out to their homes in Billdal, Näset, Torslanda, and other suburbs now and again. In December we visited Ava's Dutch classmate Laura and her family in Billdal and took a walk to the water where we skipped stones, climbed the rocks, poked jellyfish and wondered how those sheep got on that little island.

Bad baby

... or baby bad (shower gel for kids). Why did I never notice this was sort of funny? Oh, and it's organic baby bad.

Manchester

I was in Manchester, or rather in a posh suburb of Manchester, for work a couple weeks ago. My job was to create a visual record of a 3-day meeting of senior managers talking about their information management strategy. There were Brits, Americans and Swedes in the group, and you gotta feel for the Swedes, who wait patiently for a break in the conversation to add their .02$ ... and it never comes. Being in Britain reminded me I am not funny at all. Really, do they teach comedy in British schools or what because the Brits can make anything, even information management, hilarious. The pix above are of a couple of the posters I did for and at the meeting. Sometimes I can't believe I get paid to do what I do.

Plopp

Yes, it's a candy bar called Plopp. And yes, I've tried it and it's slightly better than the name implies.

The Sing-along Wedding

After surviving the winter bazaar at the kids' school Saturday morning (think tons of people, games, auctions, crying children, bake sale, bead explosions, etc.), Adrian and I went to Trevor and Malin's wedding in the evening. (Trevor and Malin are the owners and lead consultants at the small firm I work with called Lorensbergs). The ceremony was at Utby Church -- very oldy-wordly-Swedish and cozy on a dark December night. The ceremony was in both English and Swedish, and except for the time when the minister said Malin and Trevor were now of one fish when I'm pretty sure he meant one flesh, it was very traditional and tear-enducing.

The fun began when we went back to their house for dinner. I sat next to a zesty British woman named Leigh. Even after she told me for the fifth time: "Nevada, couples have to grow TOGETHER, not APART. Graham and I grew TOGETHER. K. and A. grew APART" (and boy do I wish I could write that with her West Midlands accent), I still loved her. Here we are before dessert:
Some time after the first course little sing-along booklets were passed around, a guitar player jumped up, and the singing started. A sing-along wedding! We sang Sailing by Rod Stewart, Love me Tender, a Swedish song called Främling that everyone seemed to know, and on and on. At one point Olle, another Lorensberg consultant (and psychologist) got up and sang this incredible Swedish a cappella song about 3 flowers representing faith, love and trust (I think). Watch for Olle on next season's Swedish Idol.

My pictures from the wedding suck, but I blame that on a) what is probably by now an antique digital camera and b) not being able to move from my seat between 5pm-10pm. So every picture I have looks like this (Malin and Trevor are, sadly, right behind the flickering candle in the middle of the frame), but you get a sense of the cozy atmosphere: Swedes really love singing, and especially group sing-alongs (allsång), so I shouldn't have been so surprised by the musical wedding. There are huge televised sing-alongs from Stockholm (Allsång på Skansen) and Gothenburg (Lotta på Liseberg) every summer. If you knew the songs and could sing I could vaguely imagine finding this fun, but since neither applies to me, not so much.

Advent

You can't grow up attending a Waldorf school and not love advent. The scent of beeswax and pine needles, apples turned into candle holders, visits from St. Nicholas, almond cookies and Christmas stories all made this time of year one of my favorites. But my mom gets props for the best part of advent: the advent ribbon. Every year, my mom hung up a thick red ribbon onto which were pinned 24 small presents, goodies like stickers, mini tea sets for my dollhouse, and chocolates. Working from the bottom I opened one present a day until Christmas morning, when the ribbon was tossed aside in favor of bigger, more exciting things happening under the Christmas tree.

Last year I started the advent ribbon tradition in our house for Ava, who sweetly and joyfully opened 1 present a day just as I remember doing. This year I decided to do a ribbon for Julian as well. For those of you with 2-year-old boys, warning bells might be going off in your heads right about now. Perhaps they were for me, too, but I decided to ignore them because I had too much glögg -- who knows.

In any event, I did a ribbon for both kids and this morning they ran over to their ribbons with happy faces. Ava opened her first present (some princess stickers) and all was good. Then Julian opened his present (a squeezable snake that sticks out its tongue). Then Julian wanted to open all the other presents. Then we said no, you open 1 a day. Then Julian grabbed at the presents and started screaming. Then we moved the entire ribbon. Then he tried climbing the bookshelf to get the ribbon while screaming "nej, nej, nej!!" (this is the extent of his Swedish, used only in times of crisis). Then Julian proceeded to have a temper tantrum for the next half hour and we had to force him into his clothes and snowsuit and out the door. So much for a peaceful beginning to advent. I think I need some glögg to get through 23 more mornings that include the advent ribbon.