Målarting

Per, working on his blacksmithing projects.

As I understand it (and if Olov is looking at this blog entry at some point, he might want to correct me or elaborate on this), the village of Långhed has for four years now staged a set of annual courses called Målarting. It started in the 90s in the nearby village of Alfta, and moved a few years ago. A week or so before the Midsummer celebration, villagers and visitors alike take part in artistic courses. Given the surroundings and the weather, it's no surprise that these are worthwhile undertakings. The participants acquire new skills, stretch themselves creatively, and come together as a community.



Leana at the smithy.

Conrad's cousins are all quite involved in the courses. The younger cousins, Olov, Leana, and Per (and I really hope I am spelling those names correctly!) were all doing the blacksmith course along with Leana's boyfriend Stefan. I will digress here and state that Stefan and Leana are both accomplished motorcycle racers and won races earlier this week in Gävle while we were watching the soccer (sorry FXK: football) match. Olov's girlfriend Mia was taking the watercolour course in the meantime. Kersti and Ivar operate a sort of bed and breakfast, and three guests from Gävle were staying on to also take part in the Målarting, two in oil painting, one in woodworking.



Ivar, on the right, and another villager (whom we met, but whose name I cannot recall - sorry) with the charcoal mound. Is that even the right expression for it in English?

The participants get lunch provided (and this morning Kersti was down at the community hall making up coffee and sweets and lunches), and there are one or two dinners for them as well. Conrad and I spent the day yesterday with Kersti sightseeing down in Dalarna, but we were back in time for the dinner outside the smithy. Ivar was one of the men charged with making charcoal for the Midsummer celebrations (and in past years, this, too, has been a course), and the charcoal mound was outside the smithy as well. We feasted on pancakes in which pieces of pork and pork fat were cooked, then all was topped with lingon. Tasty, and absolutely healthy! It also gave us a chance to watch the blacksmithing class in action, admire their work, and ask questions. It's all quite impressive, and I think that taking the courses would be a terrific way to pass a long weekend in Sweden!



Conrad and his cousin Kersti after dinner outside the smithy.



With Mia, who was immensely fun and very knowledgeable about football and other things Swedish! Thank goodness the whole bunch of them had the patience to explain things to us in English!



Stefan at his anvil, with Olov in the background. We did not ask them to wear the Swedish colours deliberately, I swear!

sweden: flowers

Midsummer flower.

Jeph and Steven, this is a challenge geared mostly for you two since you both have such passionate interests in gardening: some photos of the wildflowers blooming in the countryside. We enjoyed marvellous weather in Sweden, and the roadsides and fields were full of many small flowers. These are the ones that people gather for the midsummer celebrations; in fact, this morning there was a big bunch of the small yellow ones shown in this entry gracing a vase on the dining table.



We took a lot of photos of the flowers (and I can almost hear Francis roll his eyes and say, "GAY!") while over here. Why not? I recognize some from northern BC as well, mind you, though we don't call them by the Swedish names, of course. I'm not adding in the Swedish names with the photos here either - I can't even recall them, just some of the translations.

So, some flower shots with a challenge to the gardeners reading this to provide the North American names!



From our little sidetrek down a road to a village called Mössön.



On our drive to Hudiksvall, the one cloudy half day we had!



I think these escaped from a garden nearby.



Butter flowers, as they call them in Sweden.

Midnight sun (well, almost)

A photo taken two nights ago in the garden at Kersti and Ivar's. Conrad is sitting with their youngest son, Olov. What's really cool is that the photo was taken without a flash at 12:12 AM. Just after midnight. It wasn't getting fully dark the past few nights in Långhed. The village is roughly as far north as Anchorage, from what we could figure out. It was an issue for sleeping, but Conrad had wisely brought along eye-masks, and with them, we slept well. The photo is a little blurry because they couldn't sit still enough for the long exposure!

From earlier that week in Stockholm:



I believe that it was around midnight or so, and there is still a pink glow visible from our hotel room window over in the western sky. Stockholm is a few degrees of latitutde south, and it seems that makes some real difference. It was light fairly early in the morning just the same!

Incidentally, I'm posting this all from the train south from Söderhamn to Stockholm. Free wireless in this car. I really can get into this whole Sweden thing!

Vi är Svenska fans allihopa

A short posting: though we have wireless Internet out here in the country thanks to Olov, it's slow getting Blogger to take photos. Just this one for now, though, with a nod to Francis who will be amused to know that Conrad was GLUED to the entire game!

stockholm: food

A few shots before I go to bed. The first was my dinner of pike-perch that I had at Den Glyldene Freden tonight.



Conrad's appetizer of pickled herring at the same restaurant.

Smoked turkey sandwich with Swedish mustard and the cold chocolate drink at the Chokladkoppen yesterday.



We obviously have more photos: come on, it's us, after all! Conrad is abed, however, and I must join him if we must be up very early to pack. Merde! I may not have Internet access for some days. How on earth will I survive?

stockholm: tourist attractions

We are doing our part for the Swedish economy.

Gads, I'm tired. Day 2 was harder than day one. To bed last night around 1 (and the same thing tonight). Awake around five. Back to deep deep sleep for a few hours again. Ugh. We have a train at 8:00 tomorrow morning. I should be glad that there are no connections on it en route to Bollnäs, and that the train station is across the street.

So, a photo of us being total tourists on day one, about to embark on the 50-minute water tour around the Djurgården. Lovely day to be on the water. We need friends here with a sailboat.



Speaking of boats, we visited the Vasamuseet today. The Vasa was a seventeenth century warship that sank in Stockholm harbour some, oh, five minutes after launch. It was salvaged in the mid-twentieth century and turned into quite an impressive museum. Better than the Nationalmuseum, I must admit.

What was sooooo not better was the bus ride there and back. Oh yes, people laught to think we're vacationing way up north in Scandinavia, but it's warm and sunny out, and the bus was a little greenhouse on wheels, filled to bursting with all the ripe aromas of Swedish humanity in summer!

We've done a bunch of walking today, taking in the National Library (no big deal, or not from what we saw) where we stopped for a truly awful couple of cups of coffee across the street. Don't be fooled by the photo - we took three sips and decided to leave.



Great shirt, though. Which reminds me: yes, we have H&M in Chicago, but the clothes there never fit. I bought two pairs of shorts and a shirt at a store today, though. We also took in a couple of food halls and choked at the ultra high prices in the NK department store.



Conrad outside the Vasamuseet.

A terrific day all around, though. I'll post a few food photos and get to bed. Points for correctly pronouncing the words in the last photo!

stockholm: people

Meet Lars. Well, meet Lars and what looks like a big jug of hooch but is a generations old jug filled with one of his recipes for punch. And not the fruity party kind either.

One terrific thing about the Internet is that you get to connect with people. So, there are friends of mine far away, whom I have met but do not see often: Greer and Jeph have recently commented on this blog. And there are those whom I've not met but now hear from regularly and happily: Steven, for example. And then there are those you make contact with and do meet. So it is with the Stockholm Dolphins swimmers.

Conrad and I like to eat, as you may be aware. A lot. And good food (but that's another blog entry). So when we travel, we try to get some swimming in. In advance of this trip we contacted the Dolphins. Could we swim with them while in Stockholm, and please forgive our lack of Swedish.

Mats responded.



Mats is sort of the coach/coordinator for the small Stockholm team. All told, there are fewer than 20 members, no women, one straight man. Lars and Mats have been married ten years, by the way.

Anyway, yes, we were welcome to swim. Did we also want to come for dinner with the team on Saturday night. We told Mats we'd be glad to, if we weren't meeting up with Conrad's cousin Kersti who was in town for a seminar. Kersti, however, was busy, and we'll see her later in the week anyway. Off to Gamla Stan it was last night, then, meeting some unknown gay men for dinner at a place called Mandus.



Not a very big group, but a pleasant one - utterly - and a good meal. Lars and Mats are next tome, then on the other side it's Cristen (I hope I have that right), Timo, and Kevin. Kevin was a swimmer visiting from Belgium; I was delighted to learn that though he lives there, he's reallyl from Victoria. We talked Canadian a bunch.



Also there was Fredrik. He got missed in the previous shot.

After dinner, we went to a bar called Torget, had a drink with them, then made it home by midnight. And let me tell you, we slept well last night: 9 hours!

Mats and Lars also invited us to come dine with them tonight at their home in the lovely suburb of Alvik. Why are Swedish suburbs so nice and non-suburban? It seemed like a handsome neighbourhood. We rode out there after swimming and enjoyed a dinner of chicken and broccoli pie, a spice cake and ice cream for dessert, and plenty of wine. Very good company, and we'd be glad to meet up again. Their three Airedales are magnificent, spirited dogs as well.



We stayed about 4 hours or so and had a terrific evening of food, drink, and conversation. Much nicer than finding any old restaurant in town, really. Any of the Dolphins we met are utterly welcome to come visit us in Chicago; we rather hope they might!

stockholm: buildings

It's surprisingly suultry here tonight. 11:37, the sky is a deep indigo, and I'm thinking of lying totally unclothes atop the bed because of the warmth. Ah well, it has been a beautiful day. And the dark chocolate flavoured with black currant kicks butt!

Lots to say and show in these entries, but I'm not sure how long Conrad will put up with me being up tonight doing them. Let me toss a few photos out there at least, though.

So, from yesterday, a photo as we crossed a bridge to go over to Gamla Stan. We've walked on and off that island - the Old Town - a few times now.



A shot from about 11:15 or so last night in Stortorget, also on Gamla Stan. We have seen other parts of the city, I promise. We made our way back there early this afternoon, both to shop on Gamla Stan, and to have a drink at Chokladkoppen. That turned into a small lunch and was yummy, indeed.

We took a boat tour around a bit of the harbour. Lovely trip, past some parks and good neighbourhoods, seeing a lot from the water, which is a good perspective. Stockholm has a working port, 14 islands, I can't remember how many bridges, and loads of pleasure craft. A shot from the water of some cityscape:



Finally, just to show how good the weather is, a shot from the aquatic complex where we swam with the Stockholm Dolphins today. Incidentally, Conrad and I each bought a team suit from them, so now we can parade in a vivid blue with yellow printing across the ass!

:-P

We swam inside, in fact. A massive complex with several pools. The outside shot here shows the throngs around the outdoor 50m pool. We took the quiet, indoor 50m pool and managed a good workout!



And just for Jeph and Steven (well, for anyone, but given their gardening activities...): a lot is in bloom here. The lilacs are at their prime, in fact. Their scent is on the air, and it's delightful. It's a very green city! A shot of Conrad with the lilacs by the Nationalmuseum (no, that's not a typo):

quick food porn shot

It was the Sweden trip in 2002 that got us started on this, and we're certainly not stopping now. I have limited battery power on the laptop until we buy an adapter, so only a quick food shot for a teaser and more reporting at a later time. I will say that hotels with free wireless rock!

Lunch yesterday at the National Museum:

Bin 36... again

Yes, we were just there last Friday. I think it was better this time, though that may be due to the food I ate. I stuck with the fluke sashimi, but this time went with halibut instead of rabbit. A lovely meal.



Above, fluke sashimi. Below, halibut.



More about the meal at the other blog....

Yes, I know I have to choose one or the other. It's getting to be a nuisance toggling between the two blogs. Hmmmm. We'll see when I get back from Sweden.



Karin with her Italian versus Spanish whites flight.

Much packing and the like to do, but being the social creature I am, I'm mostly hankering to add comments to others' blogs....

:-P

Oh, for Steven's interest (in case he reads this): the other two wines not noted in my Yahoo! blog were the 2003 Merlot, Michael Sullberg (California) and the 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon, Cycles "Gladiator" (also California, Central Coast). The Merlot promised much on the nose but fell a bit short. The Cab was lovely, and we bought a bottle of it and of the Zin to bring to the cousins in Sweden. Meanwhile, the pink wine I sipped while reading Anansi Boys and waiting for the others was the NV Brut, Cava Rose, Cristalino, Penedes, Spain.

Below: Conrad gives the well-known signal.

43 hours

Less than two full days until we leave. One more work day to go. Not that I'm counting.

May was exhausting. Work has been getting to me, and increasing the swimming to a total of some 53 miles last month alone was wearing me down physically. In other words, I don't know when last I've needed such a break.

Lots to do here at home. I'd post up to date things, but frankly, this week has been all about getting through it, not doing anything special or fun in a tiny way. Dinner out tomorrow night, but that's tomorrow.

And I'm neglecting the Yahoo! blog, I know....

A couple more Sweden photos for you. The second one is the dish of reindeer that was my meal on the flight home on SAS. We had used miles to travel business class, and it was this trip that really got us photographing food with wild and silly abandon. The next photos to come should be of sunnier, spring/summer scenes!



I should add (though it's a little hard to spot): the butter pat has been stamped with the Swedish (or perhaps it's Danish - we were on a flight out of Copenhagen [further digression: I love how the Swedes pronounce that city name, like "shoopen ham"] after connecting from Stockholm) word for butter: smör.

Not love either...

... but it seems I'm getting lots of practice in with my swim team mates on faking it. When in doubt, go with the image of me and the handsome man with a little less hair, wearing glasses and a striped shirt!

By demand

I'm a little miffed. First I go looking for a particular recipe that Jeph and his NGBF Steven have been nagging me for, and I can't find it. My recipes are pretty organized, so no telling where it's gone to. Merde. Call my Mum. Get her to recite it to me over the phone.

Then I go browsing through the thousands of photos on the hard drive and nope, no photos of these particular cookies. Bugger. So, like it or lump it, this post will be otherwise embellished. The top shot is me and our friend Bradley doing our annual Christmas baking, this year at home here (Conrad samples but otherwise gets out of our way). The bottom shot is the result of some of the baking: jam tartlets and butter tarts.



The recipe follows:

Mum’s ginger cookies

3/4 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup molasses
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp clove


Cream the shortening and sugar. Add egg and molasses. Sift dry ingredients together. Add to wet mixture. Shape into 1” balls. Roll each in sugar. Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes. Don’t overbake. Cookies should be slightly soft when you remove from oven. Makes about 40 cookies.

Notes: I never have shortening on hand, so I just use unsalted butter. It makes for a crispier cookie, but still a good one! The recipe is easily scaled up.

What does love look like?

Here's a quiz for you. Assume you didn't know me, had never read my profile or other entries. You just saw the photos below. Which would you think was what love really looked like?

Is it this?



Or is it this?



This is not a trick question, nor is there a correct answer. Just tell me what you think the camera shows....

More photos from a June morning wedding

(The Smelts in attendance at the wedding this morning (well, most of them!))

In my Yahoo! blog I posted about the wedding this morning. We missed practice, but so did a number of our teammates, so no matter. I did 53 miles last month anyway: don't I deserve a few days off?



(Rudy and Conrad, both taken - one by me! - sorry....)

We'll soon be off to the reception, but first, some more photos from this morning. I wish we'd enjoyed the sunny afternoon some, but duty calls, and our home is a little cleaner now, happily!



(Conrad, Channing, and Deborah)

Ah, and there was the guilty pleasure of a cupcake for Conrad and a caramel-filled brownie for me from Sensational Bites!



(Zane gets a ride in the air from his Dad, Adrian. Yes, Zane does have a head.)

can I go yet?

It has not been an entirely fun week of work. Heck, it's had some moments that were firmly, deeply in the merde.

But this is not a work blog, no.

An enjoyable evening at Bin 36 tonight makes up for a lot, I will say. Better still is the knowledge that 7 days from this very minute, we'll be somewhere over the Atlantic en route to Sweden. 3 nights in Stockholm, 4 nights in Alfta with Conrad's cousin, and a last night in Stockholm.

I do not know how I will get through next week at work. My eyes are on that prize of overseas travel and a break from quotidian reality. I'll do what I can, with nice things like a wedding tomorrow and another Bin 36 dinner with friends next Thursday.

So I don't mean this as gloating (though goodness knows the NBF has had to put up with hearing me moan on about the trip for weeks and weeks now). I'm simply, totally, cravenly keen to board that plane and get there....

Photos from the quick visit to Alfta in 2002 to celebrate Conrad's birthday.