Traditional Swedish Odds and Ends

Here are a few Swedish traditions that we've tried out during the past few months. 

In case you don't follow Swedish royalty and missed it, Princess Estelle was born in February.  She is second in line to the throne behind her mother, Crown Princess Victoria.  The country celebrated the birth by eating lots of Princess cake.  We bought some from the corner grocery store and thought it was pretty yummy-- whipped cream and jam between the layers.

Princess Cake

Another traditional food we've tried are Semlor.  They were originally Sweden's Fat Tuesday food, but now are sold from January through Easter.  It is basically a roll spread with an almond flavored jam and a bunch of whipped cream.  It's a bit surprising because the roll is really just a regular roll-- not a doughnut, pastry, or sweet roll like you might expect looking at it.  Semlors got mixed reviews from our family.

Semlor

Another food we've tried and liked-- chocolate bars with black licorice in them.  It sounds like a bad idea, but it tastes really good.




It's funny how some things are just done differently-- In the US a sandwich involves two pieces of bread with stuff in between.  Here people usually eat makas (I may or may not have spelled that right).  One piece of bread (or half a hard roll) topped with ham, cheese, jam, etc.  Orange marmalade and jam is very popular.  You don't put a top on it. And peanut butter? Never.

Our Påskris

And just to prove my mind isn't only on food....

At my friend's house the other day, I saw my first Påskris--a Swedish Easter tree.  It was good I did because it helped me understand all the twigs and feathers for sale at the store. You put a bundle of branches with buds (usually birch) in a vase and decorate it with bright colored feathers.  You can also hang other Easter decorations like eggs, chicks, etc. from the branches.  At the store, you could buy a bundle of plain branches or buy branches with feathers already attached.  I just bought the feathers and a few other decorations and cut some branches out of the overgrown hedge in my yard.  Attaching the feathers was even easier than we expected. Turns out they came with wire already attached for hooking them to the branches.  I'm enjoying having this crazy patch of color in my living room.  I tried to look up the source of the tradition and found a number of ideas-- from brooms for spring cleaning to witches-- so who knows.  I'm also told that on Easter the kids dress up like grandpas and grandmas and go from house to house for treats.  Hopefully some kids will come by our house.

Let's get out of the house! Visiting Kulturen in Lund.

We were excited to have all these cute spring flowers pop up in the yard.

We are all a bit cabin feverish after the winter and wanted to get out and play this weekend.  We've had some decent spring weather off and on. There are flowers blooming all over the yard and we have actually seen quite a bit of sun. Unfortunately, Saturday was a little cold, cloudy and drizzly.  Not really go out and play or bike ride sort of weather-- unless you are Swedish.  (They seem absolutely oblivious to the weather and do whatever activity they want anyway).

More spring flowers under the apple tree

We decided that we'd drive to Lund (a little over an hour away) and see Kulturen-- an open-air museum. It is sort of like a Swedish Greenfield Village.  Over the years, culturally and historically important buildings from throughout southern Sweden have been moved to this museum.  The result is a tour of how people have lived in Sweden throughout time, with everything from the middle ages through 1930 represented. It turned out to be a great activity for a marginal day-- you ducked in and out of buildings never being either inside or outside for too long of a stretch.

The main building had exhibits on the middle ages in Lund.  We were very impressed with the organization and the artistic ways the rooms were arranged. 

Stone carvings

A map on the ceiling showing a flat world with Jerusalem at its center.

Cool sword.

This hall had hundreds of artificats arranged by type-- a cabinet of beads, a cabinet of shoes, etc.  The kids liked that there was a computer.  You could type in the an objects number and read more information on it.

Lots and lots of keys.

We thought it was fun to see that dice haven't changed much in hundreds of years.

 

Shoes

A whetstone at a blacksmith's shop.

Another building had fishing and farming equipment.

Nets and boats

Hay Wagon

Model of a mill

One of my favorite buildings was this 19th century vicarage.



M really liked the round, curvy clocks like the one on the right.



I'm tempted to try and make something like this.

The walls and ceilings of the house were all fairly rough lumber, but then they were painted quite elaboratedly.

The Burghers' house showed examples of middle-class furnishings from the 16th to 20th century.



Stained glass pictures in the window



A snake plate?



There were many different examples of tile fireplaces



 

Beautiful paintings painted on the walls-- I would so love to do this do my house. Trouble is I don't know how to paint!

 

We enjoyed seeing many interesting, old musical instruments.

The gardens and grounds were really pretty-- even in the leafless early spring. 

 

The bell tower of a church. We thought the design was very odd.

 The church was built in 1652 and is still in use.  We saw a sign that said you could reserve it for weddings.  It had all the typical elements of a Swedish church-- organ in the balcony in the back, pulpit on the side, altar in the front-- but it was very small and more roughly made.  In a way that made it more beautiful.  You could imagine a community coming together to build it.

 

A clogmaker's workshop

Check out the sod roof.

On our way back to Kristianstad, we finally stopped and visited Västra Vrams kyrka in Tollarp. We'd admired it from the motorway many times. It makes me think of a gingerbread house. It was built in 1869 so it is relatively new.  :-) The inside is very bright and light.  There were beautiful stain glass windows behind the altar with rainbows and colorful birds.  Unfortunately, the back lighting makes it hard to capture the beauty with a camera (at least for amateurs like us).

Flat Jake Visits Sweden in Winter

I realize I haven't written anything in a while.  Mostly because life has been quite ordinary--school, work and church.  It is somewhat amazing how quickly you can adapt and how things that once seemed strange and foreign feel everyday and normal. 

In January, my six-year-old nephew sent us a construction paper figure named "Flat King Jake." For a school project, he was supposed to send Flat King Jake on a trip someplace and then share the pictures of that trip with his class.  Since we are his only close relatives that don't live in Utah like he does, we were the obvious choice. It was too late to take him on our Greece and Italy trip (that would have been great fun) so I started trying to think of what to take pictures in Kristianstad.  The kids, who are usually much better at this sort of thing than I am, were no help at all.  First off, they say they can't tell what would be odd to an American anymore.  :-)  Secondly, Flat Jake arrived during the coldest weather we've experienced yet in Sweden so they weren't interested in being outdoors more than necessary. It has warmed up a little again and I finally took some shots and figured I'd post some here.

Outside G's school.  He has enjoyed ALWAYS going outside for recess, irregardless of the weather.  The school even has some plastic sleds they can use (on a very small hill).  Since all his previous schooling has been in VA, it is his first experience playing in snow at school.

Movies in Sweden-- most are from the US though they also get some from other European countries and a few that are made in Sweden.  Typically, children's movies are overdubbed into Swedish while most adult films are left in English with just Swedish subtitles added-- one of the reasons why Swedes speak English very well and with very little accent. Television is the same.

Oy Godiis!  Pretty much every grocery store has a big aisle of candy by the kg. You can also buy nuts, dried fruits, etc. that way.  We're told that it was traditional for kids to only get candy on Saturdays.  That isn't done so much anymore but some families still do it. 

 

Our neighborhood

Our house.  We've had a very mild winter-- only a few snow storms with just a few inches of snow each time. The litlte bit of snow did stick around for a while because we experienced colder temperatures at the same time-- several weeks of temperatures around -10 C.  The rest of the winter we were just hovering right around 0.

Just as many bikes at the train station as ever, even with snow.  This is just one of three big bike racks there. M has continued riding to early morning seminary, school and other activities.  We put studded tires on her bike so we wouldn't have to stress so much about slick spots.  They do plow and salt the major bike paths. 



 

Heliga Trefaldighets Kyrkan--The church in the center of Kristianstad.  You can also see the cranes for a big building project going on.  They are revamping the area to consolidate the main bus terminal and train station into one location. 


A close-up at the church.  The church was built in the early 1600s.



At the train station-- a central part of life here.  T always takes the train to the airport in Copenhagen (family, too, for trips).  It is so convenient!  M has taken trains for church activities and to visit school friends.  Several of her classmates take the train 45 min-over an hour each day to get to school. 

Lots and lots of buses as well.  We generally use our feet or bikes instead, but you can use them to go about anywhere.

Movie posters in Swedish are always kind of fun.  Book covers are also interesting. The more Swedish we understand, the more we see that a lot of things are not directly translated.

A fountain in Lilla Torg (small square).  During most of the year, this square is full of farmer's markets stands every day.  At the moment it is down two die-hard tents that sell plants.

Bell carillion in Lilla Torg.

A cool model of old Kristianstad.  You can see all the walls and canals around the perimeter that protected the city.

A cannon in Stora Torg (the large square). It is in front of a building that used to be a military barracks.

 

One of the old city gates.

This is a cool old bastion.  There is a bend in the canal and all along it is a high soil enbankment and then cannons all the way around the bend.  It really helps you to visualize how the town was defended.  (The Danes and Swedes fought over the area for quite a while).

More of the canons. 

I like these old stone buildings.  You often see old barns constructed this way-- sometimes still with thatch roofs.

Ducks in the canal near our house.  There are MANY of them and they stay year-round inspite of the fact that the canal is completely frozen. A busy bike path runs right along the canal down to the center of town. You sometimes have to dodge the ducks who decide to sleep in the middle of the path.  :-)

Swedish Kronors.  Much more colorful than US bills.  Also, they are different sizes-- smaller denomination equals smaller size.  1, 5 and 10 Kronors are coins.  They no longer have anything smaller than 1 Kronor. One US dollar is worth around 6 1/2 Swedish Kroners (SEK).

A random statue outside the library

We went ice skating at the ice rink near our house.  It's interesting because everyone has to wear helmets.  It was also interesting to see lots of very small children skating.  They had orange cones laying around on the ice and the little kids would push them as they skated around to help their balance. There were a few toddlers who looked barely old enough to walk, let alone skate.  G also went to the rink one day for school.  He has also been to the pool a number of times with school.  In fact, they took a swim test.  If you didn't pass it, they offered you 6 weeks of free swimming lessons.  They want all their kids to be able to swim!

Just a few other odds and ends that we've experienced.  Parent/Teacher conferences were interesting.  Its actually more of a student/teacher conference with the parent along for the ride.  No print outs of grades.  It was much more subjective-- in each subject are they showing creativity, participating well with others, grasping the point of problems, etc.  Then the teacher asks the student, "What can I do for you?" It is very much viewed as a cooperative effort-- what will the child contribute, what will the parent contribute, what will the teacher contribute.  It is hard to explain but it is just a very different attitude.  M has started flute lessons and a flute ensemble here and has run into the same type of thing there.  Rather than just assigning her what to do next, the teacher asks "What would you like to work on?" She found that very weird. And even in ensemble, "What does the group want to play?"

I also learned that when the kids (at age 15) chose what gymnasium they want to attend and which program to do there-- programs range from a variety of academic programs with specific emphasis to vocational programs--it is completely the student's decision.  No parental permission is required.  They expect and allow the teenagers to take responsibility for themselves at a younger age than we are used to in the US. 

OK, that was a very random post. Oh well.  It is getting lighter and lighter and we are glad.  The sun setting at 3:30 PM in December was a bit much.  :-)  I think spring is coming.  Then we'll start doing more road trips again and will have more to write about.