December
December ended up being pretty jam packed for us!
We started off the month with a long weekend trip to Stockholm with our friend Julie. We jumped on Trainy Mc Train face for a smooth and comfortable journey, most trains have a cafeteria carriage with drinks and snacks, very different to the VLINE in Aus.
With some must do recommendations from our Swedish friends and hoping to hit some good restaurants to, we had a busy schedule ahead. On the first day the three of us grabbed a macka (sandwich) and strolled through the city centre to the harbour where most of the Musuems are and checked out the Vasa Museum.
The Vasa is the worlds oldest, best presevred ship from the early 1600s. We learnt that it also has a pretty extravagant skincare routine, covered in glycol for over 17 years to help with the preservation of the wood. The most moisturised ship around! It is also massive, standing in front of it you really get a sense of the scale. Truly incredible for the timeframe it was built in. An interesting story that is worth reading up on.
After that we walked back along the harbour and got to enjoy all of the lights (because it was now getting dark at 3pm) that were on display for winter and Jul (Christmas). We had dinner at a wicked mexican restaurant with self serve salsas. I loved it!
The next day we walked through the old town, visited the Julmarknad (Christmas markets) and saw an incredible light show through different parts of the city, which were on for St Lucia day! One of the celebrations was a procession of kayakers covered in fairy lights paddling along the water, one person in a creek boat was doing some flips, no gloves or pogies to be seen, these Swedes are tough! -6c air temp and water had some ice floating in it, would have been freezing!
After enjoying the lights we went to a pub near our hostel and got to see some swedish bogans doing mainy’s (driving up and down a main st with friends repeatedly) with christmas lights wrapped around their modified Volvos and Saabs. We sat out the front and cheered them on, which they very much appreciated.
The following day we strolled through some other areas of the city and decided to visit the Fotografiska Museum. It is housed in the old customs house on the outer edges of the harbour. We were welcomed with free bryggkaffe, a jazz band and a great view of the harbour and city lights. There was some amazing imagery there, I’d highly recommend anyone visiting Stockholm to check it out. Also a really cool restaurant.
After the Fotografiska Museum, we jumped on the Tunnelbana (Subway) system to visit some of the beautiful artworks that have been integrated into the different stations. Each has a different theme and a very different feel, there were some really cool works, not a bad view for the local commuters!
We returned from Stockholm to an absolutely gorgeous sunset (a real treat when you forget what the sun looks like). A few days later we met up with Osmond and Julie to go and see an ice hockey game, Julie’s hometown team ERC Ingolstadt (in Germany) had come to play Frölunda, so naturally there was some pretty funny banter going back and forth between those two.
Before we knew it, it was the week before Christmas. Luckily for us we had bullied Osmond into letting us come to his family Christmas, so all three of us had an official invite to a traditional Swedish family Christmas! Osmond’s mum had requested that Lil and I do dessert and to specifically bring a traditional Australian Christmas pudding. All of the Australians reading this will know, that making the Christmas pudding is generally reserved for the matriarch of the family and is no easy feat.
After a few calls to her mum and a four hour deep dive down an australian-christmas-pudding-corner of youtube (we are never getting that time back). Lil was feeling ready to step up and take on the pudding! Without a pot big enough Lil fashioned a steaming setup in the oven that worked perfectly. Our other friend Mattias got the first one (the tester, but we won’t tell him this) and the second was wrapped up ready for Christmas Eve.
Julie, Lil and I were very excited to see what a Swedish Christmas looked like. We were welcomed in and got to meet the family. Name cards made out of gingerbread were spread around the table, this was very sweet to see. We went outside and got to meet the family chickens and more importantly the racing pigeons. Osmonds dad, Davide breeds and races these pigeons and was very excited to show us. Julie who was very excited even got to hold one!
We had a lovely evening of singing, dancing and lots of schnapps drinking. We even sat down with the whole family (along with the rest of Sweden) to watch Kalle Anka (donald duck) on national TV. It was pretty funny to listen to it dubbed with Swedish, fun for the whole family.
The food was incredible! Lots of Sill (Pickled herring) done many different ways, cabbages, köttbullar, cheeses and knäckebröd to choose from. It was funny to notice all of the drinks being kept on the balcony outside (to keep them cold), a bit different to back home.
Dessert was thoroughly enjoyed by everyone (pheww) we had been busy making rum balls, lamingtons and the pudding especially was a hit. Lil even lit it on fire much to Farmor’s delight (Osmonds grandma) who thought it looked pretty amazing (we hope, she did not speak much english haha).
After a pretty hungover and relaxed Christmas Day, the weather was slowly improving. So a few days later Lil, Osmond and I took our bikes on the ferry out to Styrsö. We got a fire going with some coals we picked up on the way and cooked some snags, or korv as they are called over here and watched the afternoon sunset with a few beers (at 3pm). The water looked deceivingly inviting, air temp was around 2c. Would have been a pretty icy swim…
We brought in the New Year surrounded by new friends, good food and watching a once in a lifetime fireworks display; they’re illegal here, yet there didn’t seem to be anyone regulating this as every swedish child and their parents were letting them off all around us.
Well what a year it has been, lots of new experiences, friends and places. I hope you have enjoyed reading along from home.