Make sure your IKEA dressers are fastened to the wall! We all know and love IKEA for being super Swedish, and super cheap. At least they have cute, affordable furniture. I love the story of the founder of IKEA (which obviously I need to do a blog post about, as I just realize I have not!). … Read more
Halloween is coming soon. It may not be a native Swedish holiday, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t celebrated in Sweden, and it also doesn’t mean that your Halloween can’t have some Swedish in it! Here are 7 great costumes for a Swedish Freak like you for this Halloween. Viking Warrior Nothing says Sweden like … Read more
Today is Sweden’s National Day. A day Swedes are proud to be Swedish! They just don’t gloat about it 🙂 Read a great article about how Sweden’s National Day came about, and do something extra Swedish today!
2013 Ice Hockey World Championship This year’s Ice Hockey World Championships were held in Stockholm and Helsinki (arranged in cooperation by Sweden and Finland). Those of you who are interested in ice hockey have of course followed the reports from the games, many of you with despair and raised eyebrows. For you who didn’t keep … Read more
The hambo is a traditional dance with origin in the 19th century. It is a couple dance in ¾ time; the music has a strong accent on the first beat and a tempo that varies from moderate to fast (100 to 120 beats per minute). The hambo is a dance with a fixed pattern and … Read more
Earth Day is next Monday! Wow, that went so quickly! I’m still looking for folks to help us inspire people to love the earth through Sweden. The event is simple. Invite friends and family to a pot luck in your home, at a local community house, or in a park (I’m doing mine at a … Read more
Between the Powers of East and West By the middle of April, spring has usually arrived in the southern half of Sweden, garnishing roadsides with yellow sun-like flowers of tussilago (coltsfoot, Tussilago Farfara), filling meadows and clearings with vitsippor (wood anemones, Anemone Nemorosa), and spotlike occurences of the increasingly rare blåsippor (blue anemones, Anemone Hepatica). … Read more
A dryer is something that I grew up with in California, and I didn’t ever imagine that one could go without it. How else would you dry your clothes? Well in Europe, and in Sweden, drying clothes one doesn’t necessarily use a drier. Usually you hang them to dry outside when the weather is nice, … Read more
Thank God for the food! This pious exclamation comes from reverend Nils Lidskog of St. Clara parish in Stockholm’s downtown. He has just been told that the church is about to receive 5 tons of lasagne. Remember the European horse meat scandal a few weeks ago? The content of beef in frozen and canned food … Read more