International Women's Day
Today I finally got to see Anna who is very busy at school, so I don't know when I'll see her again now that I'm in Stockholm. We went to a place called Muffin Bakery a place with amazing muffins and it was awesome seeing her again! <3
Then I decided to use this beautiful day to go shopping and put some Spring in my wardrobe. White Converse (on sale) and a sweater and top. Love it!
I was supposed to meet Marina (another former au pair) but she got called in to work, so we had to reschedule...
Other than that I've had a pretty productive day by the computer. Living it up on a Friday I am!
Hope everyone is having a great Friday and will have a great weekend!
Cheers <3
My Boston Tea Party
So yesterday I finished and wrote my last entry on my first blog:
It took a while, but finally.
Hopefully I can write half as interesting things here!
I'm off to work now!
Cheers
Stockholm
And now to the chapter I'm at right now. Stockholm.
A spur of the moment decision to help a friend and I'm now working for a while in Stockholm, at a café called Froots.
Also I finally got to Skype with Alistair, Anne and Whit (and a sleeping Ainsley) after a month of being back and it was amazing. I'm missing that life so much, haven't really had time to let it sink in that I'm not there anymore. Been keeping myself too busy I guess. But Skype makes it easier, seeing that little smile spread across his face lightened up my heart. Now that I have time and internet it's gonna be a lot more often that I can see him :)
♥
Babies, hockey and babies
I had two days back in Linköping before my next stop. First thing I did was seeing my cousin Natalie who was leaving for New York that Thursday and we needed to catch up! Also there was Sixten, her nephew with his parents, so I got to see this cutie again!
On Tuesday me and Tamina was finally watching some hockey again but before that we went to a place called London Café (some new places has opened since I left) that had delicious scones with Daniella. Missed those girls ♥
Then we were off to Cloetta Center and watching LHC play Luleå Hockey. We had seats right behind the players, which was a lot of fun. Got to see them all up close for a change. Smelling the sweat, you can say ;)
The game didn't go very well for LHC, they actually lost pretty bad. 2-6...but we had a lot of fun, it was good being back. And after the game they have a thing called Meet the player with one of the players coming out to talk to the fans and writing autographs. And Tuesday our favorite Mattias Weinhandl was the player we could meet. So of course we for the first time went there and waited for him. Star struck? Maybe a little!
Before taking the train to Stockholm on Wednesday after noon I stopped by another great friend who had a baby a week before that. Unbelievable and incredible. Such a beautiful boy that Leon, and I'm really looking forward to getting back to Linköping and seeing them again!
♥
SKI TRIP to Vemdalen
I love skiing so much, but for the last like 4 years I haven't been able to do it. And more than a one day's trip with my family, it's been way longer than that since that happened. So for my dad to take me and my sister (our brother joined on Thursday because of school) for a week (6 days) of skiing was one of the most exciting things I looked forward to coming home.
Realizing before it started my body might not like using up all that leg strength, and possibly being half paralized half way through since I haven't worked out all that much in preparation for it. That sure happened and the mornings of the 3rd and 4th day was such a pain! Though when you started to move around it got easier and easier. But I have to admit we did do some half days, because of risk management (it would have sucked getting injured...) but I still loved it! After Ski some of the days and towards the end it got really good. They had an awesome cover band playing and it was a lot of fun! And we had a dinner out (welcome home for me and birthday for my dad) which was amazing. Never ending fondue, what more can you ask for?
We had one day with awesome weather so the most beautiful pictures are from that day!
This is the road up to our cottage/apartment, which was 300 meters from the slopes. Awesomeness!
Sunday Fun
Started the Sunday in the suburbs of Stockholm where my mother's cousin lives and also his daughter (my second cousin) and her family. Emma, the second cousin, had gotten her and her husbands third child during my stay in the States so I was anxious to see them and the addition to the family!
A poser already at 5 months!
After lunch and a great time as always my dad picked me and my sister up to take us to go skiing for the week!
So the rest of the Sunday was spent in a car driving to Vemdalen, which is about 5,5 hours away from Stockholm. Fun, fun, fun!
♥
Stockholm Gospel Day
Saturday the 16th, otherwise known as my father's birthday, me, my sister and mother woke up early to spend a day singing in Stockholm. Sorry dad!
I'm not a religious person, but my mother sings in this gospel choir and invited us to join her. I've always wanted to try singing in a choir so why not! Started at 9am and had two concerts in the evening, last one ended around 9pm. So it was very much a day packed with singing! We obviously had breaks, don't worry. My voice wouldn't have survived otherwise!
Me, my sister and her friend are all under 25 so we had some extra stuff to do together with other youngsters. The best part of that was singing together with a group called Panetoz, most famous for their song Dansa Pausa which makes you want to dance so bad. All their songs does so it was mostly a big party! Since I had been away this past year I had missed the song, which got popular during the summer, but I had heard of it. But the first time I heard it was when they preformed it live. Awesome!
This song we actually got to perform with them on one of the concerts.
Singing went surprisingly well and some of the songs gave me goose bumps. So I'm really happy I joined my mom! I have to add that we were 1500 singing people during the day. Pretty powerful stuff!
Another thing happening that day was the tickets to Tomorrowland 2013 being released, so I used one of the breaks to try and get some. But even with Elisabeth on the phone doing the exact same thing we only got these results:
and then like an hour later:
So no luck there. But we're not giving up and will at some point go there. Even if it will be 5 years from now!
♥
Valentines Day
So my Valentines day was not as you can imagine. I've never really celebrated it and this year was not very different.
Instead I went out to my grand parents and made Isterband with my grandpa and mother's cousin. It's something my granpa has made forever and they are delicious so I'm determined to learn how to make them myself! It's a lot of fun and greasy and messy. They taste a lot better than they look I can assure you!
I'm not gonna describe the whole process here, but if you're interested in more details just let me know!
They were done (smoked and ready, like they look in the middle) me and mom went out there again and had a delicious dinner. I've missed my grand parents!
♥
Pre Valentines Day
Lunch at IKEA, which was so darn good, with Eric, realizing my friend Anna now lives in the same area as me and dropping by there, breakfast and semla with newly-returned-from-Thailand-Olivia, meeting my cousins baby for the first time, and a visit to Norrköping and Emil (where one of his roomies turnes 27 so we got cake) was my pre-valentines of that week. Eric and Olivia now live in Olso, Norway, which I'm not too happy about. At least I got to see them!
Sooooo much chocolate!
Falköping/Tibro/Skövde
After a spur of the moment decision during the week I had bought my self tickets to go to Skövde for the weekend. Because my friend Elin (from my au pair year) was going back to the States that following week and we decided to have a weekend together before that happened. Sandra (another awesome friend who ended her au pair year at the same time as me) was with us too. Those two live pretty close to each other so it was easiest for me to come to them!
When I arrived in Skövde I got picked up by Elin who drove to Falköping and Sandra. We were all staying in her grand mothers apartment which was awesome. Friday consisted of a Girls Night In. Delicious dinner, great company, candy (SWEDISH CANDY!!!!! <3)
and snacks and tv. None of us had really gotten back to Swedish time so we stayed up a long time!
Super cozy night with a huge amount of laughter!
Saturday started with Elin going back to Tibro to start packing and some other stuff. Me and Sandra headed to her mom's place where we'd be eating Semlor (another one ;)). It was really fun meeting her family! Then we had some business to attend to in preparation for that after noon and night. I went shopping for the first time at Systembolaget, the liqour store in Sweden where you have to be 20 to buy alcohol (only place you can buy that in Sweden) and since I turned 20 in Boston I made a big thing out of it in February instead :)
Then we bought some flowers and headed to Tibro when we had been invited to Elin's sister birthday celebration. Super nice! Oh, and that town is even smaller! But after another delicious dinner, cake, song and some Mario Kart (which I admittedly sucked at...) we had to head back to the apartment to start getting ready for the night. This night we were not staying in. But going out!
After a fun pre game party in another even smaller town with some of Elin's friends some designated drivers drove us to the closest city (Skövde) where we went out! After a great night me and Sandra headed back to Falköping and we said bye to Elin :( Had the best late-night-food ever and I slept like a baby!
Sunday was not a lot to talk about, super lazy getting up and then going on three buses to get home to Linköping.
Love to these two beautiful ladies that made the weekend awesome. And a reunion soon! ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Keeping busy
After that awesome start I had filled up my calender with awesome things, most of them consisting of meeting friends for the first time in a loooong time. Though some of them came on Monday, but I didn't know that when I made plans with those sneeky people. I also watched another movie at one of my favorite places in Linköping:
where we this time watched "Hitchcock", I probably wouldn't have seen this if my mother hadn't gotten us preview tickets for free (perks of being a member of their club). It was really good! Saw it with Anna my neighbor and my mother and her friend. Lots of fun!
I didn't take pictures of everything I did and all the great lunches or dinners I had, it's a lot easier to do when you are abroad. But I did take a picture of one thing I ate. the Semla, because that Tuesday was Fat Tuesday and on that day we eat semlor in Sweden. I like to call it Fat Week instead. I had 3 or 4 in total that week, haha!
Also I got a picture of my friend Frida, a girl I met at the training school (at the beginning of my au pair year) but she ended her year early and started studying in Linköping, yay!
Oh, and as you can see it's really snowy in Linköping (and the rest of Sweden). I came home to a Winter Wonderland! (Though around this time my dear Boston got snowed on a lot too).
Before the weekend I even had time to do a classic taco-movie-girls-night with Tamina and Madelene (and my sister).
So many things and people I've missed so much!
<3
Surprise
Started off my Monday thinking we'd have a nice evening having like a delayed Christmas with my mom and sister. But after dinner someone rings the doorbell and I open, not suspecting anything. There 7 of my friends where standing (two more arrived later) and it was now my turn to be surprised! My sister had come up with the brilliant idea of having a surprise party when I came home (this was the day that I had told them I'd come home) and my mother organized it. Then when I surprised them I think they thought "Back at you!". I realized my reaction to surprises like that is denial, because my reaction was something in the lines of "No!" and turning away from the door...But then coming to my senses and having a big hug party. I was sooo happy and have always wanted something like that. After a looooot of talking and some eating and more friends arriving, one of my friends brought out a little special surprise that he had made:
A freaking cake of the Golden Snitch. And not just any Snitch. THE snitch that Harry caught during his first Quidditch game. I was in heaven! Unbelievably grateful to Alexander for taking the time making this for me! Thanks again! I wasn't the only one impressed and no one really wanted to eat it because we'd have to destroy it. But we did and it didn't just look good, but tasted good too!
That night was so amazing, and I couldn't have started the week in a better way! Thanks to everyone who came and the ones that were supposed to come! Love to you awesome friends!
<3
Sweden, Sweden, Sweden!
So I thought I'd start from when I came home. And go from there.
I hadn't told my family (except my dad) that I was coming home on the 1st of Feb, the others thought I'd come home on the 4th.
So after the smoothest flight I've ever had (9 hours in total with 1 layover in Iceland) I landed in Stockholm at 11.30 am. After a little bit of confusion at the arrival gate I finally saw him and tears filled my eyes (that's the most I've "cried" since I left which is soooo weird!). He had made plans with my brother who lives in Stockholm to have lunch, so I tagged along to surprise him. That was fun!
My head had not switched to Swedish yet though, cause during that lunch I read "drag" (Swedish word for pull) in English and that didn't make sense in my head to write that on a door!
We then headed home to Linköping. My sister was at the house so I just stepped in and that was even more fun! "You are not supposed to be here!" "No! I wanted to pick you up!" "I'm mad" were some of the things said. Another dear reunion was with our dog Troja. That was so amazing, she remembered me and was so happy (she guarded me that night and even wanted to sleep next to me!)
After realizing my mother wasn't at her apartment, we skillfully figured out where she was, have to say it was mostly my sister's doing. We drove by the apartment building where the friend she was visiting lived and then I had to figure out which apartment. But after a while I just called her, and got her to go out of the apartment. I then ran up to her and that was more of a chock than surprise for her. Her face was like a huge questionmark and she couldn't really grasp what was happening. I had to run pretty soon after seeing her, so that didn't help her. That reaction was priceless!
With reactions like that I knew my dad had been successfull in keeping it a secret. Hurray!
But my day didn't end there. My sister wanted to go to the movies, so the movie lover that I am I joined her. Zero Dark Thirty got the honor of being the first movie seen back in Sweden! I thought since I was still on Boston time that I would be fine. But my day had taken it's toll on me and with a movie where nothing really happens until the end I couldn't help but sleep like 5 minutes..but still, it was a good movie but see it well rested!
Anyway, first day back was a hit!
The rest of that weekend (1st was a Friday) I spent at home with my dad and sister. Didn't feel like doing to much, just soak in all that was familiar. Watching cross country skiing in the mornings and walking Troja, driving stick again, eating pizza with kebab on it, watching "Melodifestivalen" (which still is sooooo bad!) and just hanging out. I even got a surprise visit from my awesome cousin Natalie! <3 Ended the weekend with lunch with more family. My grand parent's and some of my grand dads siblings plus my mothers cousin. My grand dad's sister, Essy, I've actually Skyped with a bunch during the year, but the rest I haven't really spoken to since 2012 or even 2011 so that was a lot of fun. Though I stood for most of the talking, I guess that's how it goes when you've done the amazing things I've done ;)
A perfect weekend to charge my batteries and face the packed week ahead of me!
<3
So, a new blog?
So here I am, a month and a day since I came back home to this beautiful country called Sweden.
I've been meaning to write a lot sooner, but I really haven't been able to settle down and take my time writing these things. I didn't think "mybostonteaparty" was a blog I could write about my life not in Boston, so here it is:
A new blog for my new (old too, I guess) life in Sweden. Or as Alistair says "Sverige".
Welcome and I'm sorry my life won't be as interesting as it was during my year abroad. But I'll try ;)
♥
