acquisitions

I recently acquired a purple cardigan. It was from the 'lost and found' box at my local dancing hall. Everything that had been left behind and not reclaimed in 2011 was left in boxes for people to sort through, find their own stuff, or claim stuff that they wanted. I don't normally wear purple of this hue, or cardigans buttoned up. But I am very much enjoying this one.

In other news, baby type person is growing astoundingly quickly. I am once again blond, having bowed to Swedish peer pressure. I have decided that I don't hate pumpkin anymore, so long as it's not great hunks of it. More to come.

Of bread

So I was reading over at soozs about baking no knead bread in a dutch oven, cue laughter, and was inspired. I've always enjoyed baking and really wanted to bake some more bread. We have fortunately inherited from some dear friends all of their kitchen wares which include a cast iron pot with lid that is perfect for the task of making this no knead bread. I've made several lots so far and have found it to be delicious and crusty and all things wonderful. Please see below for take 2 of the bread.



We have friends coming for lunch tomorrow who we haven't seen since October last year. They moved to Oxford so that M could study and have only got back recently. I've decided to make a double batch of the dough tonight and see how we go tomorrow. Crossed fingers and toes here that it'll be as tasty as the previous loaves and perhaps even better because there is more of it.

Anyway, I should go and do that starter dough now before it gets much later. I've finished pumping some milk for the wee one, ready to go in the fridge for tomorrow's consumption. So all that is left to do is to get the dough ready, brush my teeth and fall into bed. I live in hope that I will be able to sleep from midnight-ish until 5 or 6am without a break. I very much doubt, however, that this will happen. The small one enjoys a 3.30am feed recently, and if not a feed, certainly enjoys stirring as though she's going to wake properly. She makes just enough noise to make me think she's going to wake fully and get her some food organised, before settling back to sleep. Sneaky monkey.

Long time no write

So it's been a long time between posts. I don't even remember what the last thing I wrote was, so I'm just going to start writing whatever I like and those who read this (hi Mum, wise old aunt and husband!) will probably know half if not all of what has been going on in any case.

Today, the smallest one and I went to a friend's house in Mölndal for fika. We were offered rhubarb pie with vanilla sauce, coffee and soda water. It was delightful. It was one of those lovely summer days in Sweden that is much nicer than you could possibly imagine. Something like that anyway. The sun was shining, there were a few clouds in the sky and there was a light breeze. Comfortable to sit in the sun or shade and just relax. Not humid, like previous days this summer have been. Lovely.

We got to meet my friend's newest addition to the family and show off the smallest one to her. The new baby S, has lots of hair and looks like she'll end up a redhead. She mostly slept and ate, but finished up with a giant poo, just as we were leaving. The smallest one was exceptionally well behaved, having a feed, a nappy change, a bit of a play with the newest addition to the family, Sophie the giraffe (see below) and then fell asleep in the sling before we raced off to the bus stop to start the long journey home. We also got to play with E the 2 year old who is currently being toilet trained to greater or lesser success. She had an accident on the deck and spent the rest of the visit underpantsless telling us about her trip to the park recently.

No crafty adventures to speak of here at the moment, apart from a half finished sock for a friend and some facewashers that I knitted for a new baby, but failed to photograph. Will try and post more regularly here, if only for my own records of the smallest one's achievements and development.

Skill that is currently favoured by her is grabbing her feet and sucking on her right big toe. I am reminded of Fergie every time she does it. I'm not sure that's a good thing.

news and happenings in the world of Kate part 1

So, I haven't posted on here for about a million years. Life gets in the way of blogging. Life and facenerd. I think I spend so much of my time on telling people what I've been doing there that I forget about the good old blog.

In recent news, I have turned 30, found out that my PhD thesis sat in Canberra in an office for 4 months instead of being sent to my examiners, moved apartment and started to appreciate the Swedish summer with all the light that it brings.

For my 30th birthday the boy and I travelled to Oslo to celebrate. Much the same as we did the year before. We stayed in a lovely hotel, walking distance from the center of town. I was suffering from terrible hayfever that I believed was actually a head cold, so much of the trip was spent sleeping. I find hayfever absolutely exhausting for some reason. Pollen is evil and should be banned.

But the good thing about all the pollen I guess, is that it means that the flowers are blossoming and spring/summer is here. It's outrageously beautiful and transformative in a way that Australian spring cannot compete with. The total difference from winter is apparent as within two weeks the entire outside world transforms from brown and grey to GREEN! Flowers start appearing everywhere and the Swedes start emerging from hibernation. More about that in a bit.
So we visited our favourite frognerparken on my birthday, went to see the Munch museum where one of my favourite paintings was one of Nietzche. I tried posting linkage and/or the image and failed miserably, so if you are interested, google image search works pretty well.

My family called on my birthday and I got to chat with them for a little while.
We went out for dinner both the night before and the night of my birthday. The first night was at a Bahranian restaurant for a friend of the boy's birthday. Once it got past midnight I got a piece of birthday cake with a rocket sparkler in it and an Arabic version of Happy Birthday played over the loudspeakers. The food was pretty tasty, but as with everything in Norway, expensive.

The next night we decided to do something relatively cheap and go out for some Thai food. We looked up the closest restaurant to our hotel and decided to walk there. We ended up getting lost, but found the strangest Thai restaurant ever. It was in the basement of a building and was decked out as though you were in a beach bar in Thailand. There were UV lights everywhere and the tables were made out of bamboo. Halfway through our dinner there was a 'thunderstorm' with flashing lights and a soundtrack of tropical rain. It was hilarious. This combined with our Swedish waiter, complete with Swedish moustache as sported by the guy in the front of this photo. This stype of moustache is all the rage here in the Swedens and is found on many of the young hipsters. The boy has dubbed it the Swedish moustache and keeps on threatening to grow one. The waiter also had the large 80s glasses that are also quite popular, see here. So in any case, it was a lovely evening and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

After my birthday, the 'cold' that I had meant that I spent most of Sunday asleep. But it was nice to get a rest and know that I had nothing I 'had' to do.

The next day was Norway's national day and we made our way into town to watch the parade and check out the royal family waving from the balcony. I will post some photos soon to show all the cuteness of the kiddies dressed up and all the national costumes. We then decided to have lunch with a friend of the boy's and played Rock Band on the Xbox. I had a thoroughly good time playing 'drums' and listening to the Norwegian, which is like Swedish only different. The Swedes always say that the Norwegians always sound happy when they speak. I'm not 100% sure I agree, but I became aware of how much Swedish I understood when I was in Norway and suddenly couldn't follow the conversation as easily.

Anyway, it was a pretty good trip and I enjoyed myself. It's now getting kinda late and I have to be up at some undogly hour to go to Stockholm, so I'm off to finish my washing and pack for tomorrow.

Winter versions of those trees

So as promised, here are the photos of some of those trees from yesterday as they are seen now. They are sans leaves and occasionally with snow in the branches. I also tried to get a photo of what the snow looks like when it's been sitting there for a while. It looks like leaves or feathers sticking up. Very pretty. But I don't think that my photo really did it justice, will have to play around with the conditions.

So heres the tree outside the lunch place





And here's the tree outside my window





And here's my attempt to capture the snow from this morning




Perhaps this afternoon will be a discussion of mores stuff from Xmas and hopefully some more photos.

obvious season changes

It's a cold winter here this year. The temperature hasn't been over 0 for a very long time. I'm not sure I can remember when it was last above zero. Maybe sometime before the new year. In any case, now that we are heading towards spring, I have started to notice the days starting the lengthen. 3 weeks ago it would have been fully dark now, 4.45pm. But looking out of my office window (praise be to the spaghetti monster that we've moved out of the basement) I can see a vague little remnant of red on the horizon. This would have been unheard of back before NYE. It was dark at 3.30pm.

The other thing I've noticed is the changing of trees and plants. I have some photos of trees around my work this autumn. I'm going to take some photos tomorrow when there is some sun to show you the snow that is currently blanketing everything.

So here are the autumn photos. Let's see if I can be organised enough to get up the winter ones soon.

Here is a tree that is across the road from our flat. This photo was taken from our kitchen window.




And here is a tree at work.




And the last one, outside my favourite lunch place.



I think they are so pretty. It was sad when all the leaves went away.

Good continuation!

So here in the Swedens, they say (translated of course) good continuation either between Christmas and New Years Eve or in the new year. I guess it's supposed to be an hope that the new year will be as good as the old, or better or something good in any case.
I was at the doctors on Monday talking about gut issues and results from my gastroscopy, all normal you'll be glad to hear, and he asked about what we say in English at this time. I honestly couldn't think of anything. In fact, it's now getting to the point that even if we did say something at this time of year, I wouldn't remember it. My english skills have fallen by the wayside. I can't remember simple words like cash register.
So, to the news of the post. Today I was a consumer whore (and how!). Those who have watched the cartoon rejected will get that reference. In any case, I am in the position that all my items of considerable worth are all kinda dying at the same time. My black knee high boots that I've had since January 2004 have repeatedly had the heels peel off and have a hole in the sole. They also are all worn in a number of places. They need replacing, desperately. My coat, which is even older, possibly dating back to 2001 or 2002. It's getting thin and it's definitely not windproof. My laptop is dying in stages and will eventually crap itself and die properly. Finally, my ipod is no longer stereo and because it's got a harddisk in it, it means that when I'm running, it's probably not doing the ipod any favours.
So today I solved two of those problems, the coat and the ipod. My new coat is superb. It's about -10 outside at the moment and I went outside wearing normal clothes with no jumper, just a t-shirt under this enormous down jacket. I was toasty warm. In fact, if I had had a jumper on, I probably would have been roasting. It's fabulous. It's from peak performance, which is apparently a swedish company. It has masses of pockets, a hood and feels like I'm wearing a doona around. I've only had it a few hours and I love it beyond all measure.
The second problem I solved was the ipod. I'm now in possession of a pink nano and an armband to wear it while running. I will be testing out the running capabilities tomorrow or possibly Friday. I've just found out the gym is closed tomorrow and due to all the ice on the ground, running outside isn't really an option.

I'm trying to think of news to tell the interwebs. My brother and his friend Wombat came to stay with us for Christmas this year. We had them here from the 18th until last Sunday. We had some amazing weather while they were here. It snowed, a lot. And it was really cold and relatively clear for most of the time they were here. The three of us (the boy doesn't like the series in question) watched all of the Green Wing on the projector and a good amount of other TV shows and movies. We baked pepparkakor and the boys decided to make them a little rude. There were many penises and animals humping one another.

See here for an example :

Odd things that happen when in Sweden

Today I was in the supermarket getting myself a lussekatt and the woman behind me has a very old phone with 'polyphonic ring tones'. Her phone rings, it plays Walzing Matilda. She is definitely not Australian. Weird.

While I'm on a roll

Updating a-go-go for me tonight. I'm proud to announce that my PhD thesis has about three lines that are required to be added to it and then it's ready to be printed and then bound. I've even written my abstract and acknowledgments. I just need to work out exactly where to get the printing and binding done. There is a place I've found that should be able to do it, but I have to make sure that my three-colour label figures show up okay. I have some worries about them. I think that sometimes adjustments made on a computer screen quite often end up looking different on the printed page. I'm worried they'll end up looking too bright, too overexposed. If they do it'll mean quite a bit of reworking for me, but it will be worth it. I really look forward to being able to look at the final book. Then it might actually feel real that I might one day be officially allowed to do the job I've been doing for the last 7 months.

Observation

I am a social person. I am a social person and I don't like to live alone. The boy is in southern Sweden for some work thing from yesterday until Saturday afternoon/evening. While I'm not feeling 100% what with having gut problems and my period at the moment, I'm still usually fine to go out dancing etc in the evenings. Last night and tonight I decided to stay home. I don't know why I can go out dancing late into the night when he's at home but when he's gone I don't want to go out. That's my observation for tonight.

The Health Report

You would think with a title like the health report that I'm going to tell you of being ill and my recovery. But no, this post is about the health report from Radio National. I listen to this podcast every week. I've just downloaded it and am putting it on my ipod to listen to while I work on my flies. And I've come to the realisation, I have a massive voice crush on Dr Norman Swan. I could listen to that man for hours. This is not a new thing, I've loved listening to the health report for ages, but today I realised that I was actually excited to listen to Norman. Oh dear.

long time no write

I'm sitting in my office, there's no-one else here. I'm listening to NPR's fresh air on my ipod and contemplating work. I'd like to have a fabulous reason to not have written in my blog for a while, but it all sounds kinda lazy. I was busy, on holiday, sick and out of time. But I'm going to endeavour to write more.

Brief update: went to a wedding in Germany, was rather fun. Went hiking in the Bavarian Alps, to Berlin, had my parents visiting my house, went to London for a blues dancing weekend, came home and caught my husband's cold.

I'm just back at work after almost a week off for illness. Bah! But in good news, I'm feeling like I'm at the tail end of it and will be fighting fit by the weekend.

More writing and photos to come, I hope.

Spoke too soon

I spoke too soon. I'm not really at home in Sweden.

Today I tried to see a doctor about my bloated belly. It's been huge and uncomfortable and I've been feeling like I need to burp all the time, but not being able to burp. So I went to the local health center and was told that I could see a nurse at 10.10am. While I was waiting to see the nurse I went and sat in a garden and read my book. While I was sitting, I had a seagull shit on my bag, my ipod and just missed my leg because I moved out of the way. I got a coffee at a cafe and the guy there helped me clean up my stuff. The coffee was nice and he even gave me a complimentary biscuit because my day had been so crap. This was the highlight of my entire day.

I went back to the health center and somehow the nurse managed to miss me. I was told I could wait. I waited for another half an hour before they told me that it'd take too long to wait and I should go to the acute/emergency center that I'd been to before. I did that and waited another hour to see a doctor who was able to tell me that while he could understand there was something wrong, that center didn't send you away for any tests or anything. They were just an acute center. So that was 200SEK down the drain. He was very understanding though.

So finally, the nurse from the other place called me up and asked what was wrong. She called at 2.30pm. I explained the situation and she got me in to see a doctor tomorrow at 11.30am. So, it took me from 8.30am to 2.30pm to get a doctors appointment for tomorrow morning.
This whole thing reminded me that I don't know the swedish system and frustrated me endlessly. I'm sick of feeling constantly like I need to burp. I'm sick of starting the day looking relatively normal and by the end of the day looking like I'm 5 months pregnant. I'm sick of worrying that everything I eat is going to provoke more bloating. The only upside of it is that I have managed to pretty well establish that lactose probably isn't the cause (I've excluded it for over a week).

But the good news for today is that is delightfully sunny outside, the sun is warm and friendly and the sky is clear, there are birds singing and I'm going to be able to go for a walk in the sunshine and relax a bit. And truth be told, I'm probably okay with Sweden, today was just a bit of a trial.

Oh so many things

You will be pleased to know, if you were following the continued saga of my lactose intolerance that my gut is somewhat back to normal today. Certainly the shirt I am wearing today (a new one from Lindex) which didn't fit over the weekend is now doing up nicely and I'm not feeling quite as big.

I have a number of things that I wanted to talk about here. The most pressing in my mind was that I have come to realise that I'm actually settled in here in Sweden. I was thinking last night as I left dancing, walked home and got ready for bed, I have friends. I have a number of people that I have met that I really like and enjoy talking to. Thinking back to just 3.5 months ago when we first arrived I was really worried about doing just that, making friends. I was homesick for a place where I knew people and they knew me. I didn't want to have to make new friends and make all that effort to get to know people. But it's happened. I don't have any best friends yet, but I do have some people who have that potential.

Truth is, while it was super hard in the first few weeks of settling in, it has become so much easier. I don't know why I worried about it that much. I think I am possibly one of the most social people I know. But I was missing having people I already knew and didn't have to play the get to know you game with. But anywhoodle, it struck me on the way home etc, I have managed to integrate myself a little into Swedish society. I feel kinda at home here. I put the kinda in there because there are times and things that happen that make it abundantly clear that I'll probably never be completely at home here.

Other things that have been cogitating in my noggin will have to wait for a little bit, I have to do some kind of work today.

more information than you'll probably want

I should probably state upfront, if you don't want to hear about ladyparts, don't read on.

I had a PAP smear this morning. This is partly due to me gaining a personal number here in Sweden. About a week after my personal number was granted and I existed as a person in Sweden I got a letter. This letter stated that I was due for a PAP smear and should present myself at the appropriate clinic at 8.30am this morning. I guess that on becoming a person who really exists they all of sudden have a need to look at your genitals, or something like that.

I turned up on time and although I had an appointment time, I had to take a number. B this I mean a number like you take at the deli counter of a supermarket in Australia, so they know which order to call you in. Taking a number is an important part of Swedish culture, I am sure. When I signed up for SFI (Swedish for Immigrants) I had to take a number to talk to someone so I could get another number to actually enroll. But onto the cervix story. I took a number and waited. The lovely nurse Annika came and collected me. I got to have my legs in stirrups for the very first time, all very exciting!

The one thing that I want to note in this post is the following, it was not at all uncomfortable. I've had real problems with PAP smears in the past, all kinds of semi painful scrapings of my cervix. But today, I barely noticed it at all.

Huzzah for Swedish healthcare! Please return to your normal life, I've got experiments to do.

Guess where I'm going in three weeks

So, I hope that you can see that that is a lovely beach and is a small hint. The boy and I are going to Tuscany for a wedding, huzzah! We booked the hotel, flights and other stuff this afternoon and I'm terribly excited. 4 days and 5 nights of relaxation in a Tuscan village, a wedding of a good friend and hopefully some of his (the good friend's) mother's cooking.

Don't you just hate me?

Lessons to be learned

Evidently I don't understand what contains lactose. Either that, or I don't care. I ate 'Princess cake' today. It has cream in it. I am once again bloated like a mofo. I hope this means that I've learned this lesson and will avoid all lactose in the future. I was going to go out dancing tonight but I think I might have to stay home for a while and hope that my stomach deflates enough for me to do up my pants again.

I'm now off to drink a truckload of peppermint tea and rub my belly for luck.

Here is a picture of the cake that did me in:

Taken from tartelette.blogspot.com

Bloatsville -population me

Recently I think I mentioned that I had discovered that I was lactose intolerant. Well, I kinda ignored that tonight and now I'm paying the price. I did the very silly thing of eating a lot of vienetta:



That was very very silly. I went for a run after dinner tonight. It was lots of fun and I think I ran for about 40 mins or so. I didn't time it exactly. It was a good run. But when I stopped running I noticed my belly was feeling a little sore and a little rumbly. This is approximately what it looks like (taken from pedro.bitterpill.org, a pregnancy blog):



So I anticipate some feeling a little rumbly and gassy over the coming hours. Lucky the boy is away this week learning about his job. He won't have to suffer the noise, or the smell.
Right, I'm off to have a shower and amuse myself with my pseudo pregnant belly.

el procrastinatoratron

Today is a public holiday in Sweden. Something to do with Easter and some Christian thing. I really don't know exactly what it's for. But it means a day off, so I'm pleased.

I'm using the opportunity of a day off to do some work on my thesis. It's so tantalisingly close to being finished. But there are so many fiddly details to fix up. I can definitively say that there are 2 chapters that are done and dusted, completely finished. 2 more that are close, but not quite there. And 1 that is yet to be sent to my supervisor to be commented upon. The 2 that are close are driving me nuts. There are all these pissy details, like references that I didn't think I needed, and small changes to figures to make. I totally understand why those changes need to be made, it's just frustrating that they aren't quite ready yet.

So with these things I'm feeling a little like doing almost anything else. I've put some of our bottles that we've been collecting for a future beer brew into boxes, ready for the move. Did I mention we're moving? Yeah, we're moving about 800m away from where we are now, but has a separate bedroom and a projector. Anyway, I've done that, I've packed up my mum's birthday present up ready to be sent, I've made a shopping list for lunch and dinner tonight, I've called my family (brother just graduated, woo!) and I'm now preparing to head to the shops to buy things for lunch and dinner and put my plastic bottles in the recycling dealy that gives you a discount on your groceries. I have also done some work on the thesis, but it hasn't been huge. I shall attempt to do better after lunch.

Cortege

Every year for the last 100 years Chalmers students have organised a parade with floats depicting the happenings of the last year. It's held on the 30th of April and turns into a bit of a drinking fest towards the end, or so I've heard.
This year it was the 100th year, so there were floats depicting stuff/important happenings from the last 100 years and not just from the previous year. The boy and I went along to check it out. He's placed a few photos up on his flickr photostream. We saw all sorts of funny things, a car filled with water (car pool) a couple of guys on a couch that had wheels and a motor, lots of girls doing marching band kind of things with flags and sticks, some guy dressed up as Obama with a ridiculously large paper mache head, and girls dressed as police officers complete with penises made out of stockings filled with socks. I'll try and get the boy to give me a copy of a photo of these girls to show you all.
One member of my lab decided she wasn't going to go to the parade, because 'You never know who's been to Mexico there and there are so many people. I'd rather stay home'. So as with everywhere else, Sweden is also filled with people worried about swine flu. I haven't felt sick yet, so I'm guessing we're safe and sound.

Friday was a 'red day' here in Sweden. It was May Day and we were able to have the day off work. We (the boy and I) went to lunch at a co-workers house with the German guy who's visiting our lab and his family. We ate lots and lots of Persian food and lots and lots of lollies and chips and consequently did not need anything for dinner. It was a lovely sunny day too, so combined with the food overload and the sunniness of the day, we had an early night in the Burgermeister household.

Right, I should now go and do something fun/productive. I've completed the writing I wanted to do today, sending chapter 5 back to the supervisor for further reading/reviewing. So, now this afternoon will be knitting and possibly baking a pie, possibly plum and apple, or strawberry and apple. Mmmmm pie.