It's a girl!

It snowed a lot the night between Saturday and Sunday, so on Sunday morning we took ourselves out to the Himmelstalund field for a walk. We attacked each other with snowballs, had a snowball-throwing contest, and tried to see who could make the largest snowball. That's when we came up with an great idea.

New, thick snow + large field with a slope = recipe for building a large snowman. Or snow-woman, for that matter.

That's my girl!

From a tiny runt of a snowball, she grew quickly to the voluptuous snow lady that she now is. She's even taller than I am, and more, uh, curvaceous (a closer look at her shows that she has a deep cleavage and, uh, panties)! "Raising" her was a pain in the ass though. You can't believe how heavy that giant snowball base was (which is now, I guess, the snow woman's ass). When the snowball had become too big, both of us had to push it downhill with shoulders and legs and we had to rock the snowball to get enough inertia so that it would roll down and accumulate more snow. The snow woman's upper body had to be made by gathering and patting snow in place; a snowball of that size would have been too heavy to lift to chest level. We also rolled a giant snowball beside her as a "lookout point", from where we attached her head.

We didn't bring the camera with us when we made her, but we decided to go back the next day and see if she was still there. Sure enough, even though the other snowmen in the field were beheaded during the afternoon, our big lady still stood there with a smile – or what was left of it – on her face. Respect!

...That's not to mention that there was some dog poo at her side, though (visible in the bottom right corner of the photo above). That would rub the smile off my face too, come to think of it.

One more for the camera! (Petri, with arms around our girl, almost stepped on the dog poo. Marcus, the protective dad, looks over their shoulders.)

P.S. Pictures on Multiply. Pictures from two weeks ago, when we invited Jeline for a ski, and the Trondheim pictures from last week are now in my Multiply album. The skiing pictures are here, and the Trondheim pictures can be seen through this link.

Warm greetings from Hell... err, Trondheim!

Tuesday, 17 February. A hotel in Trondheim, Norway, 7PM.

Lest you think I'm just being crass by making fun of Norway, here's proof that I literally passed through Hell today:

... at exactly 11:23 in the morning, too.

I wasn't the only one taking a picture of this small Norwegian town station when the train took a stop there this morning. Actually, you could tell who were native and who weren't by observing which groups were exchanging Hell-jokes in the train coach and which groups seemed uninterested. A cargo loading bay, which in Swedish and Norwegian is called “gods expedition,” becomes even more interesting in this small town where a yellow building was labeled: “Hell. Gods expedition.”

“Ho-hum,” the Norwegians were probably thinking as they observed their fellow passengers. “Here they go again.”

Yet, here I am. I passed through Hell. It wasn't my last stop after all, and here I am writing to you from Trondheim, Norway's third largest city, where I'm attending the second part of the course on disability policy (1st part was in Oslo last November). At around 400 kilometers under the arctic circle, this is the northernmost point on earth I've ever been to so far. It's surprisingly not as cold as I expected it to be. Since Trondheim lies very near the Gulf Stream (a warm stream of water carried to the northeastern Atlantic), land temperatures are much warmer here than than in Sweden on the same latitudes. The Trondheim streets, on the other hand, are heaping with snow, and I hear that it still doesn't get light here until 7:30 in the morning, even on a mid-February day.

The trip here began Monday evening. A colleague and I caught a train to Stockholm that connected to a midnight train going north. It was my first time in a sleeper train, which was an experience in itself. I shared the space with 5 other women, in triple-decker bunks on opposite sides of the aisle. I'm not especially tall, but there was hardly any headroom to sit upright on the bunks. It was a good thing that I was too tired to think about staying up, and I slept well despite the interrupted sleep.

In the morning, we connected to another train at Storlien in the Swedish mountain ranges, where it was -21 C. The views from the train windows were unbeatable – and I don't just mean the exoticity of passing through Hell station. We seemed to have gone up a mountain and passed right under the tree line, as we passed flat snow-covered fields with shrunken bonsai-like birch trees. Then from Storlien to Trondheim, we passed through tall mountains and deep valleys, winding rivers and a scenic fjord scene with small fishing boats.

No wonder the Norwegians I know are pure outdoors people. Seeing nature like that – even from inside the confines of a train car – explains it all.

Thursday 19 February. Home in Norrkoping, 11:35AM

There was definitely no time to pre-blog yesterday. We had a course the whole day and magically managed to squeeze in some city sightseeing before catching the train out of Trondheim. It was very hectic – I still have a head that feels stuffed with cotton balls after a full day of activity and a not-so-restful evening in the homeward-bound sleeper train.

Decided that I should see a bit of Trondheim despite the tight schedule, I got up yesterday at 7AM to walk around the dark city. The city was only beginning to get to life, just as the weak sun against the cloudy skies. It must have been plus-degrees already – the heaps of street snow were quickly turning into dark pools of muddy slush. Later in the afternoon, I even fell calf-deep into a slush pool that was pretending to be a puddle. Thank goodness for Goretex boots. Norwegians, incidentally, all seem to wear robust-looking footwear.

Both in the morning and afternoon, I got to see what Trondheim was famous for: the old town bridge that overlooks a row of buildings on stilts, and the Nidaros cathedral, an impressive example of Gothic architecture that used to be an important site of pilgrimage during the Middle Ages. Unfortunately, the opening times of the cathedral had passed when we got there. It should have looked equally impressive from the inside.

Old storehouses that stand on stilts flank the river Nidelva

Gotham city? It's Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim

It was a bit of a pity that we didn't have time to explore Trondheim more. It seemed to be a pleasant little city, surely with small secret areas to be discovered, if only we had time to hang around and be guided by the locals. After falling into that slush pool and changing to dry socks, we just had enough time to walk back to the train station and catch the train that would later connect us to the sleeper train down home.

But first, back to Hell...

In our hurry to get to the train station on time, I had completely forgotten to send two already-stamped postcards to my family. Immediately when I sat down on the train to feel my pockets, the postcards were there – stamped, unsent, worthless. I considered asking a kind Norwegian soul in the train for a favor... but who know when they'll be back up there? It seemed my only option was to re-stamp them with Swedish stamps and send the postcards from Norrköping. Too bad. I kind of fancied the thought of the postcards being sent all the way from the top of the earth.

But I thought of something better. I sent them from Hell. The train conductor was so kind as to oblige.


Warm greetings from Hell, folks.

Pictures to be posted in Multiply soon.

Exercise, semlor are here!

No, the lenten season isn't actually very near, but it is where bakers around Sweden is concerned. The last of the New Year's dust hardly has time to settle before the lenten "fasting buns" are sold all over the country. Supposedly eaten on Mardi Gras before the long period of religious fasting, they're in bakeries by mid-January and selling like – don't mind the pun – hotcakes. When we went to the bakery today, the lady at the counter apologetically explained that they just ran out of regular sized-buns. And when we settled for a family-sized bun (about 4 times the size of a regular), it seemed that we weren't the last customers going in there looking for the very-in-demand semla (pl. semlor) desserts. If this trend continues, the buns should be called by their proper name: the "fattening bun" instead of the "fasting bun".


I'm convinced that there's no dessert as dangerous to your midsection than dollops of cream and almond paste sandwiched between two (in our case) plate-sized cardamom breads.

But oh my, is it good. Indulge now, repent later!

I have to be absolved from my sins of gluttony. And for my secular version of penitence, there's no other way but to start exercising. Sadly, since getting a job and moving to an apartment farther from the gym, I've gained some weight. My exercise had been cut down from to one measly time a week (I missed a couple of innebandy sessions), and sitting in front of the computer most days isn't helping. Besides, with fruit provision at work and our new big kitchen, I think I'm actually eating a lot more.

I'm thinking of coming up with a 4-day a week exercise plan that I can fit into my schedule, and I'm even thinking of possibly influencing my colleages to exercise with me. We have different levels of fitness and different personal goals – what could be a good group training for us?

African-inspired dance?

Boxing?

Jogging after work?

Any ideas? Remember, it should be big-time calorie-burning.

I need your ideas because I really feel guilty for eating that semla. Kind of.

See Tags: Food

Small informal housewarming thing!

Since we moved to the new apartment, the question of whether we should hold an "official" housewarming party came up in my mind. Who should be invited, keeping in mind that I had English-only speaking friends, Swedish-only speaking friends, and friends who are bilingual? What should we eat? Should it be lunch, dinner or fika? Potluck or all-home cooked?

In the end, I just thought to just invite groups of friends over informally, as we have been actually doing since our move here. After all, the most important thing in a housewarming is that our friends find their way to the new place. Besides, the word "party" rings of booze and loud music, and people might have all-too high expectations of a housewarming "party". Personally, I prefer the word get-together. It has an informal family-and-friends ring to it, and it means that I don't have to cook "party food" for 20.


So Saturday last week, I invited a group of friends over, mostly as an excuse for me to meet them again after the Christmas break. I made salsa for tortilla chips and chocolate balls, which seemed to be a winner (I put both rum essence and some coffee in them, and moulded them into pointed measuring cups lined with dried coconut). My friends also brought food contributions. Jenni had Finnish rye bread and Finnish chocolate cookies – apparently, there's a Finnish specialty food store in town, which I can probably blog about later. Kirsten bought a home made bacon-and-leek quiche, and Lara and Jeline brought a bottle of wine, which we later ate which cheese. We seldom have any kind of cheese in our refrigerator, but by some telepathic vibes on ours and Jeline's parts, we felt for cheese that week but hadn't been able to buy wine .

I think Jeline suspected the horns and tried to avoid them! Heheh!

As I said before, tex-mex food, like salsa and tortillas of the type that had been served last Saturday, is a Swedish staple (a survey of our cupboard reveals boxes of taco shells and saches of taco mix). So when another friend came over yesterday to check out the new place, we squeezed all the creative juices out of us thinking of what to cook together (they ran out), and ended up eating tacos. Which is not to say that tacos are bad. That everyone has to assemble their own meals is conjusive for conversation and that informal, friendly feel.


Besides, leftover tacos and tortilla chips make for a good, filling breakfast! We broke the shells, slabbed the leftover meat, salsa and cheese over them, and topped them with the leftover cheese. Tex mex brunch!

On another, unrelated note: This week was a week of shopping finds. I'm on the hunt for office clothes, so not only did we go to a surplus store where they had 50% off their already-discounted prices (it was a great resource!), we also went to a second-hand store, where I grabbed these boots for a total of 175 kronor for both pairs (new branded pairs cost anywhere from 600 to 1,200):


Second-hand stores are as a popular waste of time here in Sweden as in the Philippines, where these stores are called "ukay ukay" (a word which suggests the act of digging through piles of clothes for a find). In Sweden, the most popular of such stores is Myrorna, which is visited by poor students and retro-fashionistas alike. Swedes love their finds (even the established are regular visitors to flea markets), and so do I. Now, let's hope they're into good foot hygiene too. Heheh ;-)