Glad Fettisdag!!! Bon Mardi Gras!!! Happy Fat Tuesday/Mardi Gras everybody. Here in Sweden you traditionally have semla (pictured below) with tea or coffee. It's a cardamon-spicked bun with the top cut off and hallowed out and then filled with a mix of the bread crumbs, milk, and almond paste, topped with whipped cream. Then the topped is put back on and dusted with powdered sugar.
You can find them at all the grocery stores and all the bakeries around town. These are from coach's bakery. I went to a grocery store to find stuff for dinner and they were being put together in front of people in the middle of the store. Lots of them. I went by a little bakery and there was a line of about 12 people out the door. Popular I suppose. Well that's me droppin' a little knowledge on y'all. I'm here to educate.
Make sure to listen to the President's address tonight (3 am Sweden time). Important stuff. We'll catch the highlights in the morning.
(The world's largest spherical building but not where we watched the game)
Sorry for not getting this up sooner but I've been battling a cold the last couple days. Last Thursday we went with a couple friends to a hockey game down in Stockholm. Our first Swedish hockey game was a between Djurgården (a Stockholm club and home team as well as one of the clubs that the 86'ers played against this past season as our astute readers will no doubt realize) and Färjestad who was the top team in the league coming into the game.
Now we've only been to a couple hockey games in the US, both minor league hockey games in Spokane and Boise, but it seems like the games are more of an event here, more like college football maybe. Here are fans waving flags with the Djurgården colors. These folks are more of the classy supporters with the nicer, more expensive seats along the side of the rink. We sat in the end near the more rowdy supporters who were calling the flag-waving supports "peasent mother f^%#ers" before the game. You stay classy Stockholm.
One thing people may notice about these pictures is the amount of sponsers on the uniforms. This is really common here in Sweden to have like 50 sponsers logos on uniforms and a stark contrast to sport uniforms in the states (aside from soccer and Little League). In addition there are logos on the ice surface in addition to along the boards. So that's different to. It's hard to tell in the above picture but the player names are in yellow below the numbers on the Djurgården uniforms. Above the numbers is the sponsor logo for Bauhaus which is the equivalent of Home Depot here in Sweden (I think they are a German company).
Now it was hard for me to root for Djurgården since we played them in football but they did have an American on the team. The little guy on the left is #4 in your program and #1 in your heart - David Schneider. He's a defenseman that even had a goal on the night. So good for him.
We have a keeper down!!!
This thing is the Djurgården mascot. Some sort of rabbit/dog/wolf thing with a hockey helmet and ninja-like quickness in it's hands. Even with ninja hands it's pretty lame. Doesn't even do anything, just kind of walks around. This guy ain't got nothin' on Butch.
This picture is here so you can see that the photographers in the background have to wear helmets if they are going to sit rinkside. However the coach/trainer guy to their left does not have to wear a helmet. Interesting...
It ended up being a pretty good game in the end but it started ugly. Färjestad was up 4-0 in the first 5 minutes of the third period. Djurgården came back in the third though with three goals and a frantic last few minutes but they just couldn't get it done and lost 4-3. Like I said before Färjestad is at the top of the league and Djurgården is in the lower third so the result was not unexpected but it was fun either way. Our friend Andreas above in a Djurgården sweater was took the loss a little harder than the rest of us. Poor guy.
For our entertainment we got to watch some peewee hockey between the first and second periods. It was fun to watch and there were even a couple girls on the teams. So there you go.
This sign was found on an overpass after leaving the subway station and heading to the areana. Basically it says: "This way for a restroom don't pee here."
Below is a random video taken from the hockey game that shows our enthusiasm early. Best. Camera. Work. Ever. Enjoy.
Hej all. It's still snowy here in Sweden. Then it's sunny. Then it's snowy. Then it's sunny. But it's always cold.
Last week we celebrated our one year anniversary in Sweden. We celebrated by enjoying a pancake breakfast at SLU. We didn't have the traditional bean soup with it but the pancakes are always good, with the strawberries and cream. Good stuff.
In a related note, we had a party on Friday to celebrate our new apartment/one year in Sweden/Ragen's new job/farewell to us. We had some friends over, made some tacos and refried beans and fresh black bean and corn salsa and guacamole. It was good. Put a couple pictures up for your amusement. Here's a picture of some folks around the coffee table for chips and salsa and guacamole. The blurry girl is our friend Sanna who was bouncing on an exercise ball. And the guy in the back is not using the corner as a bathroom but going to get a cold beverage from our extra large refrigerator/balcony. Conversation at the dining room table.
This was our going away gift from our friends. It's an Amerikakoffert. These were used during the big Swedish emigrations to the US during the mid and late 19th century and into the early 20th. We're not sure how old this one is but it was definitely used on some trip across and has someone's name on it even. It's pretty cool. It's made of wood with metal flashing and then some wood ribbing on the outside. We were going to get one and then decided that we weren't sure how to bring it back with us and trying to save some money before we go so our friends bought it for us. That was incredibly nice of them and cool. We are actually making an arrangement with Ragen's new job to have some of our stuff shipped back to the US for us so it's perfect. We now have our own Amerikakoffert for our journey back to the US. Somewhat poetic.
We have been househunting, talking to mortgage brokers, making temporary hotel arrangements, I'm sending out job apps, and we're trying to finish everything here. Things are moving along towards us moving along. We bought our plane tickets and now have our moving date of March 9. So we are down to a couple weeks. Things are moving man. Soon I guess we will have to start having our cultural facts about St. Joe, like CiS St. Joe cultural fact #11 - St. Joe is where the pony express started and Jesse James ended. That's like some sort of marketing slogan or something.
Just for fun Ragen and I went to IKEA the other day to take some pictures of things we want to do in our house and found this "thing" below us. So for a little contest let's see who can guess what it is. Winner gets a shout-out, made fashionable by a woman who could've been VP during the VP debate (an embarassing moment in American politics from a season chock full of 'em). Lycka till!
$1 = 8.3554 SEK Here's a picture from the 86'ers team Superbowl party last night at O'Leary's (a Boston themed sports bar) here in Uppsala. We had a good time outside of the Stealers taking home another title. HELVETE!!!
It is definitely a different experience watching the game in another country. For one thing, no commercials. Every commercial break here was spent listening to three very boring Swedish commentators in the studio show, one of whom is the OL/DL coach of the Stockholm Mean Machine of the Superseries (the highest league here and what we aspire to be) and happened to play here back in the day with some of our coaches as well as another team called the "Pink Chargers" who happened to wear pink uniforms with the lightning bolts on the helmets. Quite ridiculous to be sure, but well ahead of the trend for NFL team apparel for women.
Also the game didn't kick-off until after midnight so we celebrate Superbowl Monday here. I got home around 4:30 in the am. But at least the game was entertaining.
Check out the Conan O'Brien bud light "Only in Sweden" commercial (even if they didn't actually show it in Sweden). Jätterolig!
In other news...
Sadly our time in Sweden is about at an end. One of the reasons we were in the US so long over the holidays is that Ragen was going to a job interview in St. Joe, Missouri. She was offered the job and we decided to take it. It is a great opportunity for her because she will still work with dogs and cats and will still have the chance for international travel given that her new company has operations around the world. The pay is good and the cost of living is much lower than it is here in Europe. Also, my chances of finding work increase significantly when I can speak the same language as everyone else, so I got that going for me...
It was a tough decision. The people have been great, and I have loved being around football all the time again. It's been difficult for us to tell people because we feel like we'll let them down but everyone understands we have to do what's best for us. I know I'm surprised at how some of my players have reacted, especially some younger guys that just moved up from the U17 team and that I've only been around for a couple practices with. I don't know, it's nice to know you've had an impact on someone's life, even briefly. It's enough that I'm thinking maybe I should get into teaching and coaching when we get back. Something I've never thought about before but it seems like if I can have an impact with young men who speak English as a second language than I might be kind of good at it. Crazy.
It would have been one thing if everyone here had been mean to us but that's not the case. Things have not been exactly smooth for us in the year we've been here, but that's part of the adventure. We wouldn't change that for anything. We did just get into a nice apartment so it will kind of suck to have to leave it so soon, but we should be able to buy a house in St. Joe within a couple months which is really exciting. Kind of grown-up like for sure. And hey, St. Joe is kind of cool, in a Lewiston, Idaho kind of way (there's even a Lewis and Clark state park in the area).
We'll put some info up about it as we go. I suppose we should keep the blog going and all. We'll head that way the first week of March so if anyone wanted to come visit, you got four weeks to get here.
So pour some out on the sidewalk for our time here and we'll see you soon.
This is the true story of two Cougs, leaving Pullman, and starting a new adventure in Sweden. And then leaving Sweden and starting a new adventure in St. Joe, MO.
Glad Fettisdag!!! Bon Mardi Gras!!! Happy Fat Tuesday/Mardi Gras everybody. Here in Sweden you traditionally have semla (pictured below) with tea or coffee. It's a cardamon-spicked bun with the top cut off and hallowed out and then filled with a mix of the bread crumbs, milk, and almond paste, topped with whipped cream. Then the topped is put back on and dusted with powdered sugar.
You can find them at all the grocery stores and all the bakeries around town. These are from coach's bakery. I went to a grocery store to find stuff for dinner and they were being put together in front of people in the middle of the store. Lots of them. I went by a little bakery and there was a line of about 12 people out the door. Popular I suppose. Well that's me droppin' a little knowledge on y'all. I'm here to educate.
Here's a picture from the 86'ers team Superbowl party last night at O'Leary's (a Boston themed sports bar) here in Uppsala. We had a good time outside of the Stealers taking home another title. 
