In Which I Learn the Swedes like to Sing with their Schnapps!

Hello to everybody again and

Happy New Years!

I am still enjoying Sweden, and we have been lucky as far as weather goes. My grandmother insisted before we came that this was the worst time to go to Sweden because it rains all the time! But so far I was happy to report (knock on wood) that while it has rained a little bit, not while I have been out walking around.

The Christmas Season was definitely full! They basically celebrate it three times, little Christmas Eve, Christmas Eve, and Christmas day (which although is not as big a party, still has its fair share of fish) I thought I'd share some of the foods that I've tried since being here: reindeer, eel, pickled, fried, and smoked herring, caviar...in a tube and out, cheese in a tube, home made mustard (which I did myself!) anchovied scalloped potatoes, sweet cheese (pudding type thing), lutfisk, and lutfisk pudding (lutfisk is made by soaking fish in lye for a while and then in water...giving it a rather slimy, and I though unpleasant, result), fried cabbage, jul ol ( a Christmas beer), julmost (a Christmas soda), and glugg (a Christmas hot spiced wine). Another exciting first included meeting Santa Claus who came to our door on Christmas eve complete with a sack full of presents for the children, of which I am still included.

Since I last wrote I have finally made it out of tiny Eslöv to Kristianstad (pronounced kri-wans-ta) and also to Gothenberg (pronounced ye-ter-boy) I know crazy! Anyways, Kristianstad was beautiful! I visited an Great Aunt of mine, and we went out for lunch and looked around a beautiful church. They have this tradition of lighting candles for loved ones who have passes, so we light a candle for my Morfar (grandfather on mum's side) and placed it in the special holder with all the others. (which is basically this round iron ring with a large candle in the middle and spots for others around it) Anyways, this aunt of mine, Ija is here name, is a little odd... her apartment looks like a museum though with antiques everywhere, its gorgeous!

Next off to Gothenberg where I connected with a couple, 80+ years old, who are quite possible the most energetic of anyone here. They drove me all around the city, and out walked my grandmother (who is ten years their junior...) We went to the Universeum which follows a Swedish stream from Northern Sweden. It was great because I got to see all the wildlife and fish from up there. And since I won't get to that part of Sweden this was much appreciated! We also went to a place called the Feskekyrka (which means Fish Church). It has no biblical ties, other that the fact that it is built like a church on the outside. The inside however is a fish market! Beautiful fish, and every kind imaginable, including eels! and humongous Arctic Crab! We had lunch here, where I got a shrimp sandwich which definitely came with more shrimp than bread...

Too soon, back to Eslöv for New Years Eve. New Year's is huge here, everyone plans way ahead of time and goes to all sorts of fancy parties and such, and me, who just crashed in on everyone, of course didn't have any plans.... so I spent the evening with my grandmother and my great grandmother! woo hoo! But actually it turned out all right. I got a little nervous when they opened the champagne at 10 in case they couldn't stay up till midnight, but they both made it and we were given a fantastic fireworks show! Literally the most amazing show that I've ever seen. Everyone over hear just stocks up on fireworks and shoots them all off at midnight. Well actually they were going off right away when it was dark, but the real show started at about quarter to midnight, and lasted till everyone was burnt out. The sky above Eslöv was alight with hundreds of fireworks, 360' around me all I could see was colourful lights raining down. It sounded like a war had broken out, but it looked amazing!

Today I spent finding some of my grandmothers memories, including a duck pond... and a rock which apparently used to be able to have 100 men standing on it, but now holds maybe 5... We also drove all around the countryside, and despite the fact that I was repeatedly being told how beautiful it is in the summer when all the fields are full of flowers and the trees are green and everything is beautiful, I enjoyed it anyways, and fully appreciated the only barely "rolling" hills of the countryside. The fields were green and the hundreds of windmills were blowing and the sky was even blue! (like I said, I've been lucky with the weather, because later than afternoon the storm clouds rolled in and everything looked more than a little grey.)

So now I am looking forward to a trip back into Copenhagen to pick up my mother from the airport. She will be joining us here until I depart for Paris. It will be excited to have someone else who speaks my language, and I will have the added bonus of having her complete the generation gap. I now will have have my great grandmother, grandmother, mother and me here in Sweden!

Hope everything is great with everyone of you and I wish you the best in this New Year!