I love the Fourth of July. I’m willing to say it’s my favorite holiday. As an expat that makes for a hard time. This year we celebrated in Sweden. That is sans four day weekend. I mean I’m off, but the rest of the country isn’t. (Petition to the King still pending).
We made a great day of it. Grilling, American flag decorations galore, and lots of red white and blue clothing. I hope our little one will enjoy the Fourth of July as much as I do. As often as we can, I hope we celebrate it in the States. It does make all the difference.
Here’s hoping your Fourth was full of fantastic fireworks, good company and tasty food.
Merry Christmas to you and yours! Here in Sweden we had our celebration yesterday. Good food was eaten, toys were opened, and the merriness was abundant.
Here’s hoping your day is full of love, peace, happiness and joy.
Speaking of summary activities (see my memory lane series), this August my Dad and I caught a ball game together.
As you may have picked up on, I live in Sweden. I don’t know if you know this, but Sweden is not close to Boston. I mean relatively, it is close, when you take into consideration the expansive universe in its entirety. But it still takes me like 10 hours to get there door to door, so in my tiny human world, it’s far.
For Father’s Day 2015 I got us tickets to see the Red Sox play the Yankees in the major league baseball’s oldest ball park. Opening in 1912 Fenway Park….actually, you know what, you can Google Fenway park if you like, and this isn’t a public tour of the stadium. So back to the game.
My Dad is a die-hard Yankees fan, yet despite his best efforts his first-born was influenced heavily by the local atmosphere and became a Sox fan. This always ends in my embarrassment as we ride public transit in Boston and my father is fully decked out in Yankees gear. He has yet to be assaulted though, so that’s the up side.
Play ball!!
We enjoyed the evening thoroughly with good seats, great company and a little stadium food. Plus, with a 4-3 win for the Sox I was a very pleased Boston fan that evening. Though on the ride home my father became quite the surpuppa (as we say in Swedish). Surpuppa is not only a really fun word, but it translates to sourpuss, which is also a really fun word! Good times all around.
Only you have to say it in French…”Fraaance”. Also feel free to be a little snooty about it, but that’s optional.
Balcony views
In October Evelina and I travelled to Paris. My cousin has been living there for about a year with her husband and daughter and now their new-born son. Though his arrival was after our visit. Evelina and had a great time visiting with them and catching up. The last time I had seen my cousins daughter she was only three months old, so it was quite different to get to play with her as an almost three-year old in the parks of Paris and bounce up and down on a seesaw beside the Notre Dame.
Notre Dame
Evelina and I loved Paris. As they say the city is for lovers.
Eiffel Tower in the sunshine
After we got home I took the opportunity to work on number 15 on my 30 before 30 list. I made a map matte.
Here’s the example picture I found on Pintrest:
And here’s my crack at it:
I just loved the idea of using a map as a matte! I got in almost everything in the matte that we did/went to. We stayed by the Eifel Tower, visited the Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay, as well as strolled along the Seine eating baguettes in the sunshine.
As my fifth and final installment of my memory lane series, please join me in the summer of 2011.
It was my first summer living in Sweden, and the Malloy clan crossed the pond to experience the Swedish good life. I say the good life because Sweden in the summer really is the good life, and there is no denying that.
We visited the Royal Castle in Stockholm. Unfortunately we were not invited for tea with the royal family, but we did get to see their treasure. Before entering I forced asked my family in a charming and convincing way to pose for pictures with a guard. Now I didn’t test this, but the guards here are not like the guards in London, and they will assault you if you stand and yell in their face. Feel free to test that for me next time you swing by the castle.
There are 3 museums in the royal castle, and since it was pretty rainy that day we gladly went in and saw the sights. We first entered some sort of cathedral. Upon further investigation, I now know that we first entered the royal church. A castle simply would not be complete without its own church.
We then went on to the treasury museum and got to see all the jewels. Followed by a tour through some very intricate rooms. As you can see they have some pretty great art in the castle.
Finally we went into the armory. You were allowed to try on the knight’s armor. My brother wasn’t breaking any rules. We think.
The very last thing was to catch a ride home.
It was good fun exploring the castle. Now I just want to do it at night when no one knows I’m there. Like a ninja in the night. Now that I’m a citizen they can’t throw me out of Sweden for “breaking the law”, so it’s totally fine.
pictured: brown beans, potatoes (in the silver pot), Janssons frestelse and västerbottenpaj (cheese pie)
If you find yourself in North America, and unable to enjoy this smorgasbord don’t fret!
Side bar: Smorgasbord is one of the few English words deriving directly from Swedish.
Head over to your nearest IKEA in the coming days, and you too can enjoy all this goodness. Though there’s no guarantee it will be as tasty as the homemade food here in Sweden. Actually it’s highly unlikely, but you’ll get the Swedish experience at least!
Dessert may vary, but yesterday we enjoyed a wonderful Christmas cake. It tasted like peppermint! As per the Swedish usual, dessert is always accompanied by strong coffee.
There was of course the classic ris a la malta. Enjoyed with lingon berries and saftsås.
A Merry Christmas drawing I received on my last day at work before Christmas break.
Today is Christmas Eve! That means that we’ll be celebrating today here in Sweden! In Sweden it is tradition to watch Kalle Anka (or Donald Duck) on Christmas Eve before opening the presents. Kalle Anka is a Christmas special that I don’t believe has changed in the past 50 years. And yes, you heard me right, in Sweden we wait until the night-time to open gifts.
This really bummed me out until I realized that we still open gifts a whole day before we would were we in the U.S. So to all the Swedes out there: God Jul! And to all the Americans that have yet to open your gifts: SUCKAS!
