Godjul hos Jan och Irene

What a good Christmas. :)

Merry Christmas to All

I present to you a compilation of my photos of the Christmas season in Sweden. Merry Christmas to my family and friends, far and wide.

Godjul i Sverige

It's official...

Göteborg Daily News reported this week that this year is the longest period of freezing temperatures in Gothenburg since 1875.

Consequently, they also report a climbing number of broken bones and emergency room patients this month. Which doesn't surprise me since the cobblestone sidewalks are literally little pathways filled with tricky mini glaciers (I hate them). I've seen three old ladies (to date!) eat it on the pavement in these conditions.

I, myself, am waiting for when my feet finally tell my brain that enough's enough---go buy winter boots. Too bad my head is often too stubborn to listen to every other bodily system... :-P

Christmas Special 2.0: Julmust och Glögg

There is a fantastic Christmas tradition in Sweden that revolves around hot, spiced wine---or, glögg, på svenska. Like the pitchers of water you'd find in the good cafes in Seattle, in the wintertime in Gothenburg (and I presume everywhere else in this country), you can often find a vat of this stuff steaming near the cash register for a small price. You get a small cup, put a few raisins and almonds at the bottom and fill 'er up for about 20-30SEK (2-3USD). 

Hot. Delicious. Glögg: please don't ever leave me. 

You can find glögg in both alcoholic and non-alcoholic versions throughout the city. Some people actually  make it themselves every year, fermenting the wine for a month in advance and adding the spices... But usually, people buy something called julmust which is a glögg premix and heat it on the stove themselves. There are some serious debates between Swedes over which brands have offer the best taste, as well as fighting over who has the best pepparkakor to supplement it (see Christmas Special 1.0). 

Amusingly, you can also find julmust in the form of sodas, for children I suppose. This little number I snapped while in Swedish class. My Swedish classmate says it tastes pretty unique; I say it tastes like Santa-endorsed cherry coke.

And, of course, pepparkakor. You know those thin little cinnamon cookies? Anna's? 

They're everywhere, and I'm rejoicing.

Christmas Special 1.0 : Julmat and other Goodies

So, here starts an onslaught of the Christmas-themed descriptions of Swedish life that I've been promising for a couple weeks. With the turn over of the city into the holiday season, there has simply been so many new and charming changes that I haven't been able to keep up the blog fast enough! But, since I've sent a number of you cards, I figure I should probably update (and classes are done)...

Like the States, a big part of Christmas time in Sweden is the holiday food. I know in the States it's all about peppermint lattes, gingerbread houses, ham, peanut butter kiss cookies, chocolate bark, eggnog---the works---but Sweden has some delicious staples of their own (yes it's not all herring here). I'd say most Swedes also enjoy a ham on Christmas, but Christmas cheeses and sausages are a popular holiday addition in most grocery stores and Christmas markets come end of November. But the deeper you get into December, the more your life starts to revolve around holiday foods and where to find them. Below is only a taste of the tastes what I've seen this season...

Sweden's Christmas Markets are loaded with holiday food. Most of the time, these markets are held in the historical districts of the city (which, I guess in Europe, is the oldest and most charming place they can find) and are swarming with crafters, artisans, music and food peddlers. You wander with the crowd of families, couples with dogs, mothers and fathers with prams, grandparents with baskets, and odd ladies with fur coats, looking at all the tables under white Christmas lights and decorated awnings. 

Almost always at these markets you can find someone selling Swedish fudge and other Christmas candies. They're usually not as rich as some American fudges (basically, you're not biting into butter), but boy, your teeth sure do ache from the sugar. I'm a fan of the Rum Russian and pistachio recipes. You buy a hectogram of these guys, and they'll slip them into a little triangular bag for you for home.

The bakeries here set up tables laid with checkered tablecloths, Christmas tree bows, oil lamps, and are usually heaving with baked goods. Saffron-infused breads and buns, almonds, peppermint hard candies, fudge, and gingerbread wafers.  

Anyone recognize this? :) 

In Gothenburg, there's a bakery famous for having the biggest cinnamon buns (kanelbullar) in Sweden. Here, I present to you a picture: they're about as big as your head, and if you order one, you're expected to finish it in its entirety---no doggie bags.

Elin and I last week tried to make our own version of kanelbullar. We used an American recipe at the start, but when I was looking, she dumped a bunch of saffron in and the rest were prepared the Swedish way. They're not like the cafe's, but I think we were happy with our cross-culturally baked products.

So today is St. Lucia Day.

So, like many of my early experiences with Swedish culture, my first St. Lucia Day when I was eight was far from perfect or culturally correct. After thorough re-reading of my American Girl Doll books (Kirsten's Surprise: A Christmas Story), I determined that for my first St. Lucia Day I needed (1) a crown with candles, (2) a long white dress, (3) increased braiding abilities, (4) a dozen bagels, and (5) a proper lesson in how to use the family coffeemaker. Due to a test the following morning in school I didn't want to go to, I also decided December 11 was a great day to be Lucia, and at 5 in the morning, I toasted all the bagels in the house, put the family advent wreath on my head, and knocked on the door of my parents room.

Later on (when we got AOL), I learned that St. Lucia Day was actually on December 13 and bagels weren't usually served. Later I learned that Lucia was actually Italian. And when Dad got a CD of cheesy Swedish Holiday songs when I was twelve, I was devastated to find that Lucia was supposed to sing a song when bringing treats (trust me, at that age, if I had the opportunity to loudly solo people awake, I would've). So, I feel like by the time St. Lucia Day actually rolled around here in Sweden, I had waiting for fifteen years for someone to give me the proper experience. I mean, not even the Internet could help me. Look at the stuff that YouTube came up with when I searched "St. Lucia" or "Lucia Song:"

First, the very traditional, "essentialist" picture of Sweden:

I have no idea what this is.

Extremely happy to find this.

And my favorite. Adorable, and contemporary.

Anyway.

I had two friends in a local Göteborg choir that were going to be singing that morning, so at eight in the morning, I went to one of the school buildings for free coffee and lassebulle. I was laughing and joking with others at the table, when, the lights dimmed, the crowd hushed, and I quickly turned around to watch Lucia and her followers file in, singing, from down the hall.

It was plain but beautiful. No, it wasn't in a cathedral, and no, I actually don't particularly like saffron, but it was my memory and I established it in Sweden. With the holiday break coming up fast, I had been feeling like homework and homesickness has been rather piling high. But after the procession filed out, I had that old, elated feeling of being in a completely new country come back to me again. There is quite a difference between looking the cover of an imported CD or a over-produced American children's book than actually hearing voices coming from down the hall... What a good opportunity to remind myself of why I chose to come here.

Excursion to Tjoloholm Castle

I have to say, Gothenburg has certainly been living up to its reputation this holiday season. When I moved over here, I kept hearing it was the best place in Sweden to celebrate Christmas. And with the downpour of snow we’ve had lately (sooo glad I took my thicker socks back with me), the beauty of the whole thing has been mindblowingly aesthetic. 

I think, knowing that I'd miss Thanksgiving (or the American one, at least; we celebrated the Canadian one here in October, thanks to a couple well-intentioned classmates), I started looking for the Christmas stuff to occupy my tourist time in late November. So, I have a lot of things to post when classes have wrapped up and I'm sitting on my various trains for the Christmas holiday...

I'll start with this one though: a couple weeks ago, I went with three friends to Tjoloholm Castle in Halland, Sweden for a massive three-day Christmas Market. We drove for 45-minutes through snowy fields of dried-yellow grass and red Swedish cottages to this great estate with three barns, a small cottage-village, a sandstone chapel, and a grand brick villa near the water. There, even before December had dawned upon us, vendors from all around Sweden were selling julost, julkorv, julchoklad---juleverything. We roamed and feasted on fantastic roasted almonds, handmade jams, traditional candies, and smoked hams in the estate barns; sat in the pews of a small church and listened to local Christmas jazz; had a snowball fight on the terrace of this old, Swedish country house; and sipped glögg near candle-lit lanterns as the field got dark.

And after it was done, we migrated back to civilization, where we dined again on our souvenirs and listened to Swedish artists all night long. Beautiful night. Beautiful memory.

More to come on my Swedish Christmas experience...it's just beginning, so stay tuned.

Tjoloholm Castle

Facebook Updates from the girls in Vegagatan 14...

(7:52pm) Nina: WTF is that noise??

(8:15pm) Elin: För en stund sedan fick jag lära min inneboende att glassbilen som tutar runt i området inte är en ambulans. Kulturutbyte!

which, in English, is...

(8:15pm) Elin: A moment ago, I taught my roommate that the ice cream truck that toots around the region is not an ambulance. Culture exchange!




doDO dedoDO. doDO dedoDO---doDO. doDO. doDO.
"Get out of the way. I'm having a heart attack. doDO. doDO. doDO."


For my own credit...it was playing at ALL hours of the night. It's 3 degrees here! How is there still ice cream trucks around??

"You think museums are old-fashioned? Well, so are your preconceptions..."

Winter has arrived in Göteborg

Now, I didn't think winter in Sweden was going to be that bad. Wikipedia promised Göteborg to have the same temperatures in December as Seattle does; same kind of rain, too. But apparently, Göteborg is also on the same latitude as Siberia, so...

Last year, my Swedish friends told me that Göteborg had one of the coldest winters they had seen in fifty years, and it's rumored that this year is to follow suit. For the past two weeks, it has been a blistering 13 degrees. Every morning, the snow that landed on us about a week or so ago is still here, simply because the temperature has never gone high enough for it to disappear. Today, it was 7 degrees; I had to wear all my coats, two scarves, a hat with earflaps, and gloves, just to beat the windchill that made it about -2. Let me tell you, these mornings, when you want to be back in bed, it takes all of your strength not to just flip out in the middle of a sidewalk-turned-windtunnel and curse out the world.

But I can deal with cold. My Boston-blood has made me impervious to these types of things. What is difficult to get used to is the dark.

Sunrise is at 8:00am. Sunset, around 3:30pm. There is a very small window of opportunity here, people. It messes with your sleep: people get tired at 5pm and, if they're not careful, faceplant into their dinners by 7pm. I'm starting to think that the general trend is to adjust your sleeping schedule while in this dark phase; I might start getting up at 5am, just to make full use of the daylight. We'll see. For now, I walk the streets with my hands in my pockets at 4pm, looking at the dark old buildings bursting with lamplight from the inside...

But with all cold and darkness of a Swedish winter also comes a wondrous onslaught of a very cozy winter social scene. Knitting lessons, collective studying, boardgames, movie nights, dinner parties. The dark seems to draw people to host get-togethers inside more often, and it's absolutely lovely. More opportunity for talking and finding out more about your friends; for discovering new hobbies and eating different foods; and for drinking a lot more wine, spirits, and beer. I'm telling you, there's nothing quite as good for numbed cheeks than entering a small, warm, brightly-lit Swedish flat---where the coat rack is literally sagging with jackets and there's a sprawling puddle of wet and gritty shoes before you. You can strip off your things, tuck them away, and slide in your socks over to the kitchen where someone pats you on the back, asks how you are, and gives you some hot wine in an IKEA cup.

Wonderful.

But either way, I'm going to Barcelona for New Year's. :)