Free day in the sun

Dessert made out of berries from our garden

I have litterary done nothing the whole day except relaxing in our magnifique garden. I was in big need of some rest after last week's 70h of work (and some partying).
It's high pressure all over the country for the moment and the weather is really nice (if your not sweating your ass of at work). The strawberries have started to pop up in our garden due to the nice weather and i've probably intaken my weeky vitamin C dosage just during today.

I started reading a new book today called Montecore by Jonas Hassen Khemiri and it really got me hooked. The language is an amazing mixture between "immigrant Swedish" with very advanced Swedish words, English, French and some Arabic.

At least i got to be social in the end of the day when Moa (a friend from Strömstad/Skagerack) joined me for a glas of wine while the sun was setting.

A quick break

I haven't been able to write for a while and the reason is spelled WORK! A guy just quit which means that the rest of us has to cover his hours. I work about 75h this week. And this is in 28 degrees heat. For all of you who doesn't know how Swedish weather works; this is really good and if you're happened to be on the westcoast take your chance (because there isn't too many) to get out on the ocean sunbathing and swimming in the ocean. Too bad i work. Well i really like my co-workers which makes it alot easier to go to work on days like this. I "only" worked 8 hours yesterday and a couple of us took a ferry to an island right outside the Strömstad harbour. Good times. Now i have another 12h work ahead. Have a good day!

Frustration!

Thought i would change layout today. I downloaded a new one but realized quick that i didn't like it at all. So when i tried to go back to my "old one" alot of the old information was gone. Yey! Thank God my old posts were still there. So now i'll try to get it back to how it was before... or acctually i'll go to bed now, it's pretty late and i will work 14h tomorrow. I think i ate a whole bag of chewing gum while i was frustrated with this so my stomach isn't too happy right now...

Cutest hot dog ever! Couldn't help but put up this photo! Good night.

Cutie!

Midsummer celebration

Midsummer "pole"

Typical midsummer flowers

Strawberry cake

herring pie

Midsummer smargasbord

It's midsummer's eve today, one of the biggest swedish celebrations. It's supposed to be the longest day of the year; the day with the most sunny hours. We normally celebrate it by dressing up in nice clothes and the girls make a garland of flowers to put in their hair. We also dress up a kross with to rings in leaves and flowers and dance around it. We eat herring, egg, radish, strawberry and drink snaps. This might be the biggest party day for young people (and old) of the year. So when the evening comes it's big party all around. Strömstad is one of the towns in Sweden where you go to celebrate and party.

It is nornally very imprtant to get good weather on this day and unfortunately it seems like it will rain this year. I will work from 6pm so i don't mind but for all of those who planed a vacation on the westcoast with picknick and dance, it's a shame.

(the pictures are from last year)

Long time no see..

In the Strömstad harbour

Spending time in our "always-sunny" garden

Had a great visit from my old friend Sanna for a couple of days. I think we haven't seen eachother for 2 years so we had a lot of catching up to do. We first met at a track and field camp about 9 years ago and kept in contact ever since. Sanna now lives in Gothenburgh with her boyfrind but is home staying with her parents in Uddevalla during the summer. It's about 1,5h drive from here so i'm sure i can manage to visit her at some point this summer (my work schedule is brutal though...).
Anyway she is a great person and a good friend and it was a pleasure having her here!

Kick-off!

At the Koster islands

Grilling hotdogs and playing games

At the spa-hotel to eat and relax

and then drinking champagne..

We had Kick-off for all the staff at Skagerack yesterday. We took the ferry to the koster islands outside Strömstad and spend the whole day in the sun playing games, grilling hotdogs and drinking. Then the ferry picked us up and took us to the spa-hotel were we relaxed in the many pools and hot tubs before having a nice dinner together. We ended the night at a night club for some more drinking...
After all a great day, but i'm pretty tired today.

Visiting Lidköping and Örebro

Läckö castle, Lidköping

Me, Chris and my parents took a little roadtrip to Örebro this weekend to celebrate my cousin's baby daughter at her "name-giving-party". This was acctually just the beginning of Chris 1120 km drive up north to Storuman the folowing day. Anyway it was a way to break up the drive for him and a chance for us to meet up with relatives we don't see so often. We made a stop in Lidköping on the way there to see one of the most beautiful castles in Sweden, Läckö, and to get some nation wide famous pastries.
Chris left this morning and i wont see him until his parents get here in about 5 weeks. This is the longest time we've been parted for 2 years.

When the sun doesn't want to shine

Made saffron buns with white chocolate and pinjenuts! There isn't too much else to do a rainy day. Reading my new book "lifetime" by Liza Marklund and watching the last Arrested developement episodes. Tomorrow we are leaving for Örebro to attend a name-giving-party to my cousin's daughter, Cornelia.

Short trip to Smögen

Smögen

Hållö/Kleven

Excellent sportclimbing right next to the sea

Me and Chris took a quick trip to Smögen, an island 1h south of Strömstad. We did some sport climbing at a wall right next to the water, really beautiful!

Welcome home philip!

Back were it all started...

Philip arrived yesterday night after 9 months of travel. It was great seeing him again even though it was less then 3 months ago we saw each other. His 2 last months was spend in the USA were he stayed with both Chris brother and parents. Haven't had the time to talk alot to him yet but i'm happy he is here!

Got to try new things!

Weird but good

I'm brought up on Singoalla cookies (you can acctually buy them on any IKEA store in the world) and this year they've made a new one with liquorice. It's sounds super weird but the taste is really good! Swedish people love liquorice compare to other nations so this is probably nothing which would sell abroad...

We went climbing today and i didn't climb especially good. I actually fell pretty bad and scratched myself all the ways on the legs. Not going to look good in a skirt for a while...

Worked a couple of hours on the school prom. It was my last day of work for a while, next time will be in a week and a half and then it's starting for real with 65h/week...

I think me an Chris are going to Smögen tomorrow to climb. Chris is leaving on Sunday so we have only this week left in each others company until the end of july.

Cleaning, voting and watching tennis on a rainy Sunday

I beleive this substance is called mold

I'm not proud of it but i found this teacup under my bed when i was cleaning earlier today...
It's raining so Skagerack is closed today and i'm free. Besides cleaning under my bed i've been voting for which swedish party we should send to the European Parlament. Sweden is in the EU but has still got it's own currency . We need to decide wether or not Europe should become a "power" nation, how much influence the EU will have over each country and how easy it should be to work, move adn make business over the borders.
Just realized the tennis final have started! Robin Söderling against Roger Federer, not to be missed! By the way Sweden lost against Danmark yesterday....

Sweden's nationalday

I almost forgot today is the 6th of june; Sweden's nationalday! It's not a huge deal, not even close to the celebrations in Norway on their nationalday, but still a reason to get together and maybe eat some good food.
One tradition is to put up the swedish flag. My parents are looking for ours now and my guess is that they probably wont find it...

Sweden is playing against Danmark later on today (soccer) and that is a big reason to celebrate, if we win of course.

A good friday

First of all Robin Söderling did beat Fernando Gonzales yesterday! Unfortunately i only watched the first 4 sets and as Robin was on his way to loose the 5th i decided go to work (it was about time anyway). The final is playing on Sunday and it's going to be a good one!
I also made a super good carrotcake! I mixed in some limecest in the frosting and had alot of ginger, cardemom and cinnamon in the cake. It tourned out very well!
Work was good, i didn't work so late and there wasn't too many people. Going to work in about 1,5 h but before that breakfast!

Sports event coming up

Robin Söderling is playing semifinal in the French Open today...It was a long time ago a Swedish player went that far in a Grand Slam tournament.
The Swedish national team in soccer plays against Danmark tomorrow to qualify for the World championship next year. Zlatan Ibrahimovic who just won the Italian goal league is playing from start. To bad I'm working and can't watch it...

Shopping day at Nordby

So they've opened a new shopping mall 29 min from Strömstad, on the border to Norway. It's been one there for a while but now it expanded to twice the size. They call it Norway biggest shopping mall even though it's in Sweden...Anyway we went there today to check it out and do some shopping. It was acctually pretty good! I found 7 books for only 10 dollars, table cloths and a dress.

Learn english!

Sorry germans but this is really funny! Laughing every time i see it...

Fantastic Pie!

Last friday i made a Lime and Merengue pie and according to my mum it was a 10+/10, the best i've ever done!

Pepsie

Couldn't help putting up this photo of our little cat Pepsie. She was almost dying in februari of some kidney problem but now she is back to her normal self. Life of a cat isn't too bad according to Pepsie; sleeping, eating and hunting during the night and then sleeping some more!

Lost!

A plane with 228 people have disappeard! Jeez, i'm not taking Air France in the future. I know i have a bigger chance of dying in a car accident but stories like this freak me out! Maybe they found a LOST island though....

Rhubarb cake

This is what i baked today to celebrate the summer! The rhubarbs were picked from the garden and together with marzipan and cinnamon made it an excellent cake!

June = summer

1st of june and summer is here! Celebrated with sunbathing in the garden, reading and eating cookies. It got really hot in the middle of the day and we moved inside and so did Isa, it's hard to be all black in the sun!