Swedish delicacies

As I told in my last blog post, I went to Ikea to buy some food to make a dinner for some of the friends here, to give something back since I have got to try so much nice food from them and also just to have a good time all together. So on Friday night we all went to one of the kitchens in the brand new buildings where Felix is lucky to live. As there was quite many things to do at the same time I was immidiately asked, mostly by the girls, if I needed some help, which I did. In the end they had taken over all of the cooking, and even though I tried to contribute with something they didn't let me, and I've learned here not to go against an Italian woman in the kitchen. So I arranged the plates and the small aperitifs that consisted of schnapps cheese, pickled cucumber and reindeer salami on a piece of crisp bread, and the main dish of Swedish meatballs and potato in cream sauce with lingonberry jam. I must say it was a big success, and all of the food was gone when we left to go out clubbing.

Felix also took on the deadly challenge of eating a knäckebröd in less than ten seconds. Something a Dutch man has never ever done before! How it went you can see in the video below:

Little Sweden

Yesterday I handled in my last summative essay for this year in the Social and Cultural Geography module. It was about 'race' and racism, which I have found very interesting. Sometimes you struggle with an essay to fill out the words you need, but this time I really had to limit myself as five pages is not that much. There were lots of things I could have expanded and written more about, but in the end I'm really satisfied about it, and that's what counts the most for me! So after that I gave myself a bit of reward and took the train to the Newcastle Metro Center to visit Little Sweden, Ikea!


It was the first time I visited an Ikea store abroad, and I must say it was a really weird experience in a way! I have heard, and seen big posters in Bukarest, that all the furnitures and stuff have the same Swedish names as at home, but once I started to walk around looking at everything I got a bit overwhelmed with all of a sudden all the Swedish around me! Kind of an linguistic overdose! Then when I checked the book shelfs I found that all of the books also were in Swedish (even Nick Hornby!), so shocking!!


I was there by myself, as it wasn't gonna be for a long time, so had really no one to share this crazy experience with. I felt like I was sneaking around and knew this secret that no one else knew. Almost wanted to jump up to people and yell like "I know what all the words mean!! You want me to tell you?! Or maybe read one of the books in the shelfs! I can read it, I'm Swedish!!". Of course I didn't, would had been a bit inappropriate, so I had to curb my enthusiasm a bit.
My main purpose with this trip was to visit the Swedish food store they have there, and I had hoped they had frozen reindeer or elk meat, but they only had small sausages so I bought a lot of meatballs instead. So tonight I'm gonna serve Swedish meatballs with potatoes in cream sauce with pickled cucumber and lingonberry jam, with a bit of reindeer sausage and knäckebröd with snaps cheese and of course ginger cookies!!

The Roots 'slow jam' the news

Last night it was the premiere of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, which he took over from my favourite late night show host Conan O'Brien. Jimmy Fallon has been really funny in Saturday Night Live for years now so I was happy to see that he was chosen to host the show. But I was even more excited, although with mixed feelings at first, when it was announced that my absolute favourite group and probably one of the world's greatest live act, The Roots, was gonna be the house band. This means though that they are not gonna tour as much as before (which was a lot), especially not Europe. They always did a stop in Stockholm, and fortunately I had the luck to see them once. I've seen a short clip from the first show, and I must say it passed the test. Especially the 'slow jam the news' bit, where Black Thought aka Tariq shows again that he not only can turn a mic on fire but also sing really great! I hope it starts to show really soon in Sweden so I get to see more of it.

The Kaiser-concert

Since a picture say more than a thousand words, here are some photos from the concert with Kaiser Cheifs Saturday Night in Newcastle.

Signs of spring

Since I came here I haven't really cared about the temperature at all. In the morning, or before I go out, I just look out and open up my window, and if it seems a bit chilly I put on an extra sweater or something. I have checked the weather forecast in Sweden and heard from friends that it is still cold and around 0°C. Here it is around 9°C and a bit gray and and cloudy, but it gets milder and milder everyday and you can really feel that the spring is on its way. I have found some nice signs of this as well, and in the footsteps of the great Swedish botanist and fellow Uppsala University student as me, Carl Linnaeus, I have gathered evidence in form of pictures. However, unlike him I don't know many names of plants, so If anyone know the names of these flowers either in Swedish or English, or both, please tell me. (Also, unlike him I don't find it right to apply the taxonomy system and race, which is something I study now, to humans, but that's a completely different topic.) It would be really nice if I would be able to bring the bit warmer early spring weather here with me when I go back to Sweden in a bit more than 3 weeks.

Barista

When i work in the college bar I mainly serve beer, cider or easily made mixed spirit drinks, so not really any cocktails or such. One drink I do very well though is my own special coffee drink. It's very simple: you just take a glass and put it under the coffee machine and press 'cappuchino', then when the coffee and milk has poured down you press 'espresso'. Then you just let it be for a few minutes, and voila, you have your own very luxury looking coffee drink, and which surely will get you awake and ready to start studying or do whatever you're up to!

Cappuchesso

Just nu: Vasaloppet

Gårdagen blev inte alltför blöt, men dock rätt seg när jag vaknade (ett inlägg kommer senare). Så vad passar då bättre än årets bästa bakis-tv, Vasaloppet, som går att streama live på SVTs hemsida. Har många första söndagar i mars genom åren legat i fosterställning i soffan halft apatisk och lyssnat på Jakob Hård komma med kommentarer som "...och nu ska vi se hur mycket han leder med...vi tar tid på den där tallen... (bilden är helt stilla, ingenting händer på 1-1.5 min) ...och där kommer dom jagandes bakifrån!". Kan inte bli mycket bättre och slappare en Söndag! Fick förresten nyss höra Hård tala om att årets kranskulla är en 19-årig gymnast och cirkusartist, låter ju inte dåligt.