What happened to this week?

Where did the week go? It's Friday already, and I feel like I'm still on Wednesday. For that matter, what happened to August? The first week was a nice leisurely vacation, then I came home and tried to catch up, and now it's almost over?

Last weekend we had a party here for my husband's coworkers. All of his co-workers are men (engineers). Two of them forgot to inform their wives, and thus had other plans made for them causing them to back out at the last minute. Two more of the wives suddenly felt feverish the day of the party and decided to stay home. We ended up with 13 adults, 2 kids, and 1 baby.

The co-workers are all city-people, most of them apartment dwellers. All of them thought we lived in the middle of nowhere with a ridiculously long commute to civilization. Aparently the tradition with work-related socialization here in Sweden is that the spouses are never included. This includes things like the company Christmas party. I found it a bit frustrating that I never knew who my husband was talking about. I also found it frustrating that it's rather impossible to meet people and make new friends.

Because of the unpredictable weather here, I planned on serving the meal in the little barn (that I use as my gallery). Half of the barn is now filled with my husband's junk, so I cleaned and hung some of my photos in the other half. Cleaning the barn took several hours even though it had been used just a few months ago. There were dead insects all over the floor, and it seemed like a spider had moved into every nook and cranny. Good thing we have a shop-vac! I worried that city-folk would be uncomfortable eating in a place like this, but by the time I was done cleaning and decorating, it looked quite inviting.

Of course people would want to see our house also, so even if we weren't spending much time there, I put in a lot of hours trying to tidy up the place. I'm glad I was able to schedule the cleaning lady for the day before, but even then, she just dusts and vacuums around our junk. She doesn't put anything away. My husband decided that the bathroom needed repainting (it definitely did!) so we did that too. It's nice to have something still looking nice now even after the party.

I made venison stew, fruit and veggie plates, and provided chips, dip, and drinks. We almost ran out of drinks since it turned out to be beautiful warm weather (much better than forecast). Other people brought potato salad, pasta salad, green salads, rolls, and desserts. I guess the concept of a pot-luck isn't very clear here, since some people brought enough to feed an army. I think we have leftover bread in the freezer to last us a month!

We had a bunch of garden games like badminton and croquet, but nobody chose to play. For entertainment, my husband loaded people on the trailer behind the ATV and took them on a tour of the forest. Our daughter was a great host to the other kid, a 3 year old girl. They enjoyed the trampoline and my daughter's electric car. We all enjoyed watching them play.

So it turned out to be a very nice gathering with pleasant company and lots of good food. I consider it a success, and I think the others did too.

Surprise!

The evening after I got home from vacation, my husband came up to me and said, "I got something for you." He takes me out to the barn (where he said he'd stashed my car) and I see something covered with a car cover. He got me a car cover, I think to myself, not likely to use that. Then he pulls it up and I see something white--my car's not white. Wait, my car's not a Mercedes either. He reveals a 1972 Mercedes 350 SL convertible. WTF, he bought another car! We have more than enough cars already! We don't even have room to park them all! What was he thinking?!!! My business is way down, and even worse, his contract runs out next month and they have not told him if they plan to renew it or not. It's not like we have money to burn.

"It's just what you always wanted," he said. I was still in shock. "Um, thank you," I mutter. Now it's my fault in some way. It's true that I have always liked the Mercedes SLs, but I test drove one when we lived in SD and was very disappointed. It looks like a cute little sports car, but it drove like a tank. I also made the mistake of admiring one at a classic car show this summer. That brought up the discussion that while the 1960's and earlier models (as well as the 1980's and later models) were expensive, there were still bargains to be found among the 1970's models. I considered this an abstract discussion since there were at least a hundred good reasons why we weren't going to buy another car anytime in the forseeable future.

"I got it for you since I didn't really get you a real birthday present." He got me a lens for my birthday. It was exactly the lens I wanted, and I was happy with it. OK, it's not exactly a romantic gesture to buy me a birthday present on the company, but I'd long since given up on such.

The car needed some work, among other things a gas pedal. Last week he obtained the gas pedal, and last weekend he installed installed it, so I was out of excuses. I took the car out on Tuesday. I guess this is where I'm just not a car-guy. It drove ok. I thought the enormous steering wheel was a bit wierd, and I felt there was a bit of play in the steering. I heard all sorts of funny noises. I didn't feel so comfortable with my daughter in the front seat (there is no back seat, but there's no airbag either). Really, I'd rather just drive my regular car. It's not as cool, but it's just fine.

So what am I supposed to do with this thing? If I don't love it and drive it at least occasionally, my husband's feelings will be hurt.

Miracle Chocolate

Last night I went to a chocolate tasting at a friend's house. It turned out that there were only two kinds of chocolate to be tasted, and a whole lot of marketing to be swallowed.

They're starting to market Xocai here in Sweden. It's a "healthy chocolate" made of cold pressed cocoa, acai berries, and blueberries. I don't doubt that it contains lots of great antioxidants. In fact, one piece of chocolate contains about as much antioxidants as are recommended for an entire day. So far so good. Unfortunately it didn't taste that great. The "nugget" had the mouthfeel of Hershy's kisses, but it was harder. The flavor was ok but not great. They say this product is for everyone who likes chocolate, but in my opinion, as someone who really loves chocolate, it doesn't measure up. The nugget is filling, and they say if you eat one before each meal, you'll eat less and thus lose weight. That's plausible, but certainly not the lifestyle change recommended for keeping the weight off. I wouldn't mind having a few around to eat before going to a party where I'd be tempted to graze on unhealthy stuff.

I also got to try the "power" dark chocolate square. Again, it was okay, but nowhere near as good as high quality dark chocolate. It's something I might eat occasionally because of the antioxidants, kind of like an extra multivitamin, but I wouldn't want to eat it just for the taste. They say you should eat 3 pieces per day which would be about 3 times as much antioxidants as the average person needs, and this doesn't count what you'd normally be getting from sources like food. (Funny how people selling supplements never calculate food into their schemes.)

I was thinking I might support my friend and buy a little (even if it's not that great) until I heard that it cost about 10 SEK ($1.25) per bite-sized piece! Yikes, mediocre and expensive too! But that's not how it works. To get your chocolate, you have to subscribe to get it monthly (assuming 3 pieces per day), and you also have to recruit two other people to join the multilevel marketing program, and help them recruit two people, and so on and so on. Eek! Pyramid scheme or not, it's my worst nightmare. I would hate selling stuff to my friends, and I could never recruit anyone.

Vacation on Ärö, days 6, 7 & 8

On Thursday, we once again took it easy then took the kids to the beach. At home, we struggled between our desire to open all the doors and windows to let the fresh air in, and the need to keep the flies and wasps out. My friend's son had been stung by a wasp last summer when one flew up his sleeve, so he totally freaked out at the sight of a wasp. My daughter, the drama queen, wasn't much better. While we had only seen a few wasps at home on previous days, they were now out in force. With my trusty fly swatter, I became the official wasp killer too.

In the afternoon, my friend took us to a couple of cemeteries where she paid respects to her relatives. Her family goes back a long way there, and it was nice to hear their stories and share her memories.

On Friday, we drove out to Söby volde, the remains of anther old fortress. This one also had a great view. There were sheep grazing there, so we had to watch our step. At a table by the parking area sat a group of retired people, men and women, drinking beer. I thought this was noteworty because it was 10 AM. In Sweden, they probably would have been drinking coffee, regardless of the time of day.

Having driven pretty much everywhere on this island already, we took back roads to the beach. Ärö was a great place to drive around because everywhere we went there were cute farms, quaint little houses with beautiful gardens, and the beautiful bright greens, golds, and blues of the harvest season farmland and the sea.

This time we went back to the beach with the cute little houses, and while the weather was still sunny and warm, the water was cold! This made our last outing to the beach a short one, and while I'm not at all a beach person, I found this a little disappointing. We spent the afternoon cleaning and packing, then we went to the Chinese restaurant in Marstal for dinner. We had the buffet which was relatively simple and featured a lot of fried foods, but it was pretty good. I thought my daughter would love it, but she was in a mood where nothing was right. At least we didn't have to cook, and it was a lovely evening for a drive.

We got up early on Saturday morning to finish packing our stuff and clean the house. The kids were getting tired of each other and fighting more and more. We eventually just gave them each their movie players and sent them to the car so that we could get done in time. Cleaning proved to be a bit more work than we'd anticipated (probably because we ended up leaving the place considerably cleaner than we found it), but we got out pretty close to on time. We parked the car in line for the ferry and went to say our farewells to Ärö with ice cream. I love Danish soft serve ice cream, and this was the best yet!

The ferry ride was quite scenic, and as a special treat, we happend to pass the Danish Royal Yacht shortly before we got into port. The drive back to the airport went smoothly, then my daughter and I took the train back to Sweden where my husband picked us up.

Vacation on Ärö, days 4 & 5

My friend was coming down with a cold, so we spent a lazy day around the house. It didn't help that the weather was cloudy and cool. I'd brought a puzzle with the intention that we could all work on it together, but it turned out to be too hard for the kids. My friend and I had a great time with it, and by afternoon we were on a quest to get a new puzzle. We went to her aunt and uncle's house to borrow one, but it turned out to be for toddlers. We were amazed to discover that it was sunny and warm there, only a few miles away. We proceeded into town on our puzzle quest. The only store in town that sold puzzles didn't have any good ones. We treated ourselves to the local specialty ice cream: walnut ice cream (sort of like butter-pecan) in a waffle cone with whipped cream and maple syrup. It was okay, but not something I'd get again. Unfortunately, the waffle cones leaked, so the maple syrup ended up all over us.

As with all farms, there are flies in the summer, and our house was no exception. As the harvest progressed, the numbers of homeless flies increased. My friend was really grossed out by the flies, so swatting them became a full time occupation for me.

Wednesday was sunny and warm, so we were determined to get out of the house. We went somewhere where my friend had not been before: the ruins at St Albert's and the neighboring burial site on Lindbjerg bakke. St Albert's was the ruins of an old fortress that was later converted into a church. It wasn't much to see, but the view from there was very nice. We didn't stay long though because of the ladybug invasion. The swarms were coming so hard that we were being pelted by them to the point where it hurt. Some of them even bit (I didn't know that they did that--it didn't hurt much, but it was annoying.) I was able to snap a few pictures while the others sought refuge in the car.

We could see the burial site on top of a hill as we drove, so we went there too. The ladybugs weren't so bad there, so we could enjoy the view. After that we took the kids to the beach. This time we chose a different beach with fewer people and more seaweed. We came to refer to it as the stinky beach, but it really was quite nice. There were a lot of clear jellyfish (the kind that don't sting) that the kids played with. The water was very warm and shallow. The kids were allowed to go out up to their belly buttons, which proved to be quite far.







That evening my friend made the local version of pancakes according her grandmother's recipe. I believe this was a precursur to what we now call donuts. They were thick, deep fried, and had a hole in the middle. Traditionally they are eaten with sugar or jam. My daughter suggested maple syrup, and we agreed they were even better that way.

My friend's husband had been sick, and that developed into pnemonia, so he decided not to come. That meant my husband would have to come by himself, and he decided it really wasn't worth it for the few remaining days. I know he was disappointed, but nowhere near as much as the kids were.

Ärö, day 3

On request, I made American style pancakes for breakfast. We were horrified to discover that the maple syrup we bought had cranberry juice concentrate. I don't know how it did it, but it actually made something as sweet as maple syrup unbearably sour. After breakfast, we went to Voderup Klint, a cliff with a trail down to a rocky beach. The cliffs have had a tendency to collapse over the years, but instead of falling into the sea, they've created a sort of terraced look. The kids had a good time collecting rocks.

After that, we drove to the western tip of the island where they have a nice lighthouse. I took the kids up to the top where swallows were zooming around eating ladybugs. Heights don't bother me, but the swallows made it a rather dizzying experience. My friend thought it was blasphemous that a golf course had been created around the lighthouse, but it looked like a great place for a golf course to me. She took the kids down to the beach while I took some pictures, but the ladybug swarms were so thick that they turned back. Even the trail was red with ladybugs.

We went home for lunch then to the beach. We went to the most popular beach in Ärököbing where they have beach houses that the locals consider rather unique. (They have similar houses at some of the beaches around here too.) The weather was perfect, the water was warm, and the kids had a great time.

In the evening, we watched them harvesting rye fields near our house. My friend and her son thought this was quite interesting.

Ärö, day 2

Sunday started particularly early for my friend. Before I even woke up, she went to the bakery and came home with fresh baked bread and pastries. Unfortunately we were both disappointed that everything was a bit dry. There would be no more trips to the bakery. We started the day by grocery shopping and stocking the house. The weather was cloudy and about 70 F/20C--not exactly beach weather for this Californian, but Ärö is all about the beaches, so my friend took the kids to the beach. She dropped me and my camera off in the adorable town of Ärököbing.

Vacation on Ärö, day 1

I've had a bit of catching up to do after my week-long internet-free vacation in Denmark, but here comes the story.

For my daughter, vacation began a couple days earlier when I dropped her off with our Danish friends who have a son her age. I took the train to the Copenhagen airport where we met up. The trip was to start out with just the moms and kids; the husbands had to work but would join us later in the week. With perfect timing, I emerged from the airport just in time to see them pulling into the short-term parking lot. After a couple hour's drive, we arrived for the ferry with plenty of time to spare. The ferries must be booked long in advance, so missing one could be a catastrophe. As we walked around the dock, we were entertained by ladybugs. They walked all over us, and we were careful not to step on them. The fronts of the cars were red with ladybug carnage. Even the windows of the ferry were crawling with ladybugs. The ferry ride went smoothly, and we arrived in Ärö about an hour later.

Ärö is an island in the Baltic Sea just east of the Danish peninsula and north of Germany. It has a long history as a commercial shipping center. From all I'd heard about it, I imagined it was bigger. It's only about 35 km long and 9 km wide, so over the following week, we saw pretty much all of it.

After a short visit with my friend's aunt and uncle where the kids feasted on chips and candy, we picked up the keys and went to explore our rented summer house, and old farm about 5 km from town. The house was both large and quaint, tastefully decorated in a combination of 1950's farm house and shabby-chic.

We spent so much time exploring the house and garden that when we got to the grocery store, it was closed (4 PM on Saturday). We drove half way across the island to the other grocery store to find it closed too (5 PM on Saturday). Luckily aunt provided us with a couple of pizzas from her freezer, because eating out on the last night of the local Jazz Festival would not have been a fun thing to do with tired kids.