Surströmming

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Moving and Killer Slugs

Monday was moving day for us! The truck came on time, only a few minor damaged items, and we're slowly unpacking! For being on day three, I'd say we've done good though. It's great being within walking distance of the kids school. I've done the math, and since they get out at different times, I end up walking 2.5 miles each day just for school. No need to have a treadmill anymore! I'm posting the pictures of the house with all of our boxes on day one. When we get settled, I'll post updated ones. I'm also enjoying my walk to the kids school. It's all wooded, quiet, and peaceful. Except you have to dodge GIANT slugs. Eww! Below are some slug pictures. They are called killer slugs. They eat other slugs. That just adds to the grossness.
    

              

Swedish Public School Comparison to US Public School

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Jack's First Day of School

Jack's first day! He loved it so much!

Slut

I've checked out a bunch of easy readers from the kids section of the library for myself to practice reading and thought this was funny.

This book is about a cat and a teddy bear competing to see who is the best at all different activities. It ends with the bird coming in and saying he can fly up high, can they? And then there's the last page. Perfect ending! 😂
(for the record though, "slut" in Swedish actually means "ending" or "final")

Olivia's First Day of School 2016

Olivia enjoyed her first day of school today! She made a house of Legos, sang songs, and played. She did great! So proud of my big girl!

Article about Sweden

This week will be a big one for us (prepare for some posts coming your way) but Johnny found this article today and from our experiences so far this article is spot on.

We've always considered ourselves Libertarians (but lean a little more to the right occasionally), but I think our view on Socialism, as it exists here, isn't what we thought. Do we think this system would fly in the US? Nope. They pride themselves on being rule followers and trusting their government. That doesn't describe the American people. People don't protest or challenge authority, and America LOVES a good protest.

Check out the article and get a taste of Sweden.

http://www.vox.com/2016/4/8/11380356/swedish-taxes-love

Another Update from Johnny

Going off my last post I figured I would update some more differences between Sweden and US.  I will discuss food because I am hungry.

1) There is no grape jelly and you can’t find it.  When I bring it up some Swedes kind of find the thought of eating grape jelly gross.  Only strawberry, raspberry, and lingon (very tart) berry.  Also going on jelly they only put strawberry jelly and whipped cream on their pancakes, no maple syrup and butter.

2) Coffee:  You can’t find any flavor creams ( i.e. French Vanilla).  Also coffee “cream” is just regular milk, not cream like we use in the States.  The "cream" they use is actually heavy whipping cream..

3) Italian Sausage is very different here and we don’t care for it.  Don’t get me wrong the Salami and other sausages are great, but the Italian sausage that you grill, put in red sauce, or on pizza is NOT the same. I can’t put my finger on it, but I do know it is very dense, less fat, and the flavor isn’t there.  I talked to an Italian who owns a pizza shop ( it also turns out he lived in Jersey for a few years) but he told me that Swedes and most Europeans  don’t like all the hot spices in sausage and the US puts too much sugar in the sweet sausage.

4) The butter is awesome…period.  They even have sea salt in one of the brands!

5) BBQ = Grilled foods.  It isn’t BBQed food.  They are just as confused about this as the North is in the states when it comes to calling grilled foods "BBQ".  Also no ribs, just burgers and chicken.  However, they do like their pulled pork, which isn't sold there...figure that?

6) Cheese:  No Velveeta, or canned squeeze cheese…..UGH!  It is also not as common to fina a whole bunch of different shredded cheeses. you can easily find full, half, or quarter wheels…yes wheels.  I felt odd buying a quarter wheel of cheese, but the cheese is very good.

7) Hot dogs are not that good.  To me they are very bland and have no flavor.  It is also very funny when they try to advertise “Chicago Hot Dogs” at the fairs…not even close.  Who puts dehydrated onions on a Chicago hot dog?

8) As for quality control, the food is regulated and has strict guidelines.  The food has to be free range, no hormones, organic, etc.  However, they do allow GMO’s and they are not all up in arms about GMO’s as Americans are.  All in all, because of this even fast food tastes better than the US.  We even tried McDonalds a few times and it was much better than the States.

9) No diced Garlic…I prefer doing myself anyways.

10) Pizza…only thin crust…very very thin crust.

Later---Johnny

Chilly Day at the Pool

We enjoyed another day at the pool. We went very early in the morning and we basically had the place to ourselves. It was quite chilly, but the kids didn't mind until they came out to eat lunch. Then everyone froze and we quickly changed and headed home. Unfortunately, that day Olivia hurt herself and started bleeding. She ran to show me and I put a band-aid on it and she said she felt scared and that everything sounded far away and she was seeing flashes of light. Yikes! So she laid down, ate an apple, and was much better. Apparently, blood makes her woosy like her mom and dad!

Astrid's Baby Shower

Today Olivia and I went to a baby shower for a girl from our church. She moved here from Germany about 5 years ago. She is due in October and it'll be her first baby. There were so many languages and cultures represented but since English is the common language among everyone, we were lucky and we could talk with everyone! Yay!

Vallby Open Air

Another day we went to Vallby Open Air Museum. We've been there before, but last time Olivia found the stinging nettle and it cut our trip short since at that point we didn't know what she had on her and she was in some pain. This time we avoided stinging nettle and we had a lot of fun. We ate a picnic lunch (again) and instead of ducks bothering us this time it was chickens. Emma was absolutely petrified of the chickens. The kids and I also went on a horse drawn carriage ride around the park. This place is free (which is great!) and it has lots of old buildings and barns and fun stuff to check out.

Picnic with Ducks

As you will see in the picture, we had a night where we had a picnic dinner at the park and we were swarmed by ducks. It was fun and cute until we seriously couldn't eat because they were following us. That all quickly changed as the kids at the park saw the ducks out and promptly chased them around the park. Needless to say, the ducks were preoccupied with keeping all of their feathers and forgot about our dinner. Nice! I've never been big on eating outside until now. There's always bugs and bees and it's hot etc, etc. But here, yes there's bug and bees, but they aren't quite as bad and it just isn't ever hot so it's so enjoyable to lay under a tree and eat lunch or dinner and just enjoy the surroundings.

Skansen

This last week, Johnny decided to take off Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from work. There has been no one in the office lately since everyone (like seriously, everyone) is on vacation. He can't do a lot of his work since there is no one there to work with, so we figured we would do some things as a family for a few days. We went to Skansen in Stockholm on Wednesday. It was so fun! It's like a cross between a zoo and a history museum. There is a small aquarium, elk, reindeer, birds, lemurs, etc and also a bunch of buildings that they moved there many years ago from the 1600's. Johnny got a pretzel that was baked in an oven used in the 16-17th century, we walked cobbled stone streets, looked inside houses and barns, rode carnival rides, and enjoyed the beautiful view of Stockholm from up high. One of the things we thought were so cool were the mile markers (these were in both Vallby and Skansen) I included a picture of the sign that explains them. A Swedish mile is equal to about 10 km. and these were put up to tell people how far until the next inn. It's just crazy to see these things dated to about the time the pilgrims were coming to America. We think that was so long ago and Europe has stuff SOO much older. It's neat to see it up close.