November 21

I am a pitiful blogger, but today I will write a post about what I am grateful for. I will write about the holidays in more detail later. I find I don't have time to both blog and add pictures, but perhaps I will during a school break.

-Kladdkaka: Translates to sticky cake. It is the Swedish version of brownies. It has no leavening, Depending on personal preference, you take it out of the ugn/oven before it quite gets baked. My host mom baked this for my birthday/födelsedagen, and I ate far too much of it.

-Warm sweaters: My host dad owns a knitting factory. He has kindly given me five new sweaters, and I am just starting to enjoy their warmth.  They are extras or samples that he has. Today I am wearing a beautiful Norwegian (not Swedish) sweater in a deep blue with light blue and white designs. It is wool. It was actually made by a company in Norway, that my host dad partnered with them a few years ago. I feel so Scandinavian!

-Friends and Family: I have a wonderful host family here. I just celebrated my birthday and I received some beautiful wool and alpaca yarn to knit a hat, as well as some metric measuring spoons, and a gift certificate to a shopping center in Jönköping. I feel my host mom knows me quite well.  Today we had my host brother and his girlfriend and my host uncles over for an early Thanksgiving.  The turkey/kalkon turned out well but baked much faster than we expected. I made pumpkin pie, stuffing, and cranberry sauce.  My mom sent some pumpkin and dried cranberries since those are difficult to find in the stores. The cranberry sauce was a bit too sweet, I think, because the cranberries were already sweetened, but oh well. I also made the pies in two smaller rectangular pans, because we didn’t have the right size pie pans. I think the family enjoyed Thanksgiving. No one had had pumpkin pie before this, and they were pleasantly surprised. I think the pies turned out well, but my crust wasn’t quite as flaky as my mom’s. I am grateful that my host parents let us celebrate. A few hours after the meal, my host dad was off to the airport to Romania.

-I am also thankful for family and friends back home! My parents sent me a nice birthday package. The card was one that my grandma had had printed with her pen and ink drawing on the front, and we inherited a bunch of them. That reminded me of her and I felt proud to be the granddaughter of such a beautiful, talented, artistic, and musical person. In the box I received some Thanksgiving foods as well as a Ghirardelli brownie mix and some candles. Receiving a brownie mix in the mail is kind of funny, really. I am perfectly capable of making my own brownies, but it is a nice reminder of home. I also received some nice birthday messages from friends back home. I really appreciated these messages, I feel I have started to find a community of people here in Sweden, but it is comforting to be reminded that I have people back home, away at college, or abroad who care about me and who I love.

-Lucia: Lucia is a Swedish holiday occurring on Dec. 13. I will do a bigger post about the tradition.  Right now we are starting to have more choir rehearsals to prepare. My school does many Lucia performances around the community and I am glad I get to be a part of this. The music is in Swedish, unlike at our last concert. Lucia is a beautiful tradition. My host mom jokes/is also probably truthful that Lucia comes at the darkest time of the year, and Swedes need to have something to look forward to.

-Jul: Without Thanksgiving, Christmas is in the air here. Yesterday, Naomi, my host dad, and I walked across the road to a small woods and cut down a small julgran/Christmas tree. We now have it outside on our front lawn with some little lights. We will cut down another tree for inside closer to Christmas. Christmas in Sweden is much less tacky and commercialized. You can find plastic santas and gaudy decorations, if you desire, but not overflowing amounts. I prefer the simple white electric candles people have started putting in their windows, the handmade tomten/santas, made of little more than some wool and a small wooden nose, and the straw julbock/Christmas goat. My host mom brought us to a jul market in the landskap of Småland one evening (it took about 2 1/2 hours to drive there), and it was fun to explore food booths (I tried moose and wild boar sausages) and I enjoyed admiring nice handmade goods.  I have also enjoyed eating pepparkaka, and drinking julmust. Julmust is a soft drink that is kind of similar to coca cola, but has a slightly different taste. I have also tried glögg, which is mulled wine. It is a sweet cider-like drink that is served hot and has some delicious spices like cinnamon/kanel and cloves/kryddnejlika in it. You put almonds and raisins into the drink and eat the pepparkakor with it.  There are several other jul drinkar as well. I think I will do a more thorough Christmas post during my break.

-Jane Austen: When I have a moment’s pause, which isn’t that frequently right now, I am enjoying my host mom’s Jane Austen collection. She has all six of the books in English. I am trying not to be so immersed in the English language, but sometimes right before bed, it is comfort. I am currently re-reading Pride and Predjudice, and I am appreciating the book more the second time. Jane Austen has an excellent sense of humor.

In other news, I know now who my second host family is going to be. I will be moving in mid-January. I have not met the family yet, but I think my host mom is a Rotarian, and I will have two younger host siblings between eleven and fourteen. I love my current host family, and I am sure I will be back to visit frequently, but I am also excited to see life in a new family, plus I think I will make significant strides with my Swedish. Instead of living in the country, I will be in town. I also learned I will be having a third family, which I was not aware of until last week. From my current understanding, Naomi and I will be flip-flopping host families at around Easter time. The third family lives in the countryside again, and one of the host sisters is in my choir at school. The idea of switching host families is a bit nerve-wracking and I will miss the lovely village of Grönahög, but the moves provide a bit of structure to the rest of my year and gives me two more things to look forward to.