Mikico

So this past Sunday I and Daniel celebrated the first of advent.

Advent is the four Sunday's before Christmas.

Traditionally you celebrate it by reading a poem and lighting a candle in a special candle holder, which of course holds four. One for each Sunday.

 So this past Sunday we had the honor of celebrating or very first advent together and lighting the first candle.

 

The first snow came today.

 

 

Here's a little guided tour through our new apartment so that you get to see how we have it :) Know it's a bit far to visit from California or even from Umea some times, but this is always something.

 

And of course "the royal party coordinator" had to throw a big Halloween celebration, all according to plan.

Had a lovely night with the Cinderella cast and crue! Think I may let the pictures speek for themselves.

All of this results in too many pictures and too little time to put them out on the blog.

So prepare for a update chock, cause I've got loads of them coming up!

 

These pictures was taken not to long after Daniel's birthday when we had a day off. We decided to have a look around, did some shopping and Daniel took me to a truly awesome café he found in Södermalm.

 

This past week:

1.we went grocery shopping

2. I had a koloskopi (cheeked my intenstence with a tub and a camera. Weirdest feeling I've ever experianced. Felt like I had an alien in my stomach.)

3. made salsa.

4. celebrated Daniels birthday.

5. worked hard.

6. went partying with a friend.

So after two weeks in the appartment we have really started to make it look like a home. I've been working hard at AnneBlom and Daniel have been working hard at school, and I'm glad to announce that he has also found a job as a light technician at something called Zebra Dans and Junibacken! He has his first workday tomorrow :)

 

Just thought I should share some pictures of how beautifully colorful the Swedish fall gets. Unfortunately we have a lot of the grey weather that is shown in the picture as well, even though this fall has been rather nice and sunny.

 

One morning I and Daniel got up really early to have time to take a morning walk in the mist and sun before rehearsal at 10 am. It was a truely beautiful morning. The world was sleeping and the nature shimmered with a unnatural, calming gold. A true escape from reality and one of those moments you can live on for a long time, which takes you back to that same moment every time you look at the pictures. Thank God for cameras!

Took Daniel to a beautiful lake, located not to far away from where my grandparent live. Truely felt like some sort of Snow White fairytale when we even encountered a deer not more than 20 m away from us. It didn't even notice us at first. If this wasn't a good way to start the day, then I don't know what is!

We soon learned how to navigate around Stockholm by bus, train and subway due to all the rehearsals we went to for Dracula. We also looked at some apartments and searched for jobs at an awesome jazzcafé which had free wifi that I mentioned before.

We usually take the subway right next to Globen (the globe) wich looks like a giant golfboll and is one of Swedens largest indoors arenas.

Fall started to arrive right after our arrival in Stockholm in the middle of Septembre. It usually starts right before the 11^th of Septembre (my birthday), but this year we had sunshine and warmth until the beginning of October.

Daniel was very fascinated with all our weird mushrooms that grow everywhere in the beginning of autumn. Here’s the so called Flugsvamp (Flymushroom). 

Well, if I didn't say so, me and Daniel have now moved to Stockholm. (Sorry for not updating, we haven't really had good internet) But now we've found this awesome internet café/recordstore/jazzclub! a truely amazing place where we've spent many hours while searching for jobs and appartments, and for some playing League as well ;) So now I thought it would be the perfect time to take a break as well, before Dracula rehearsal at 17.00 (5 pm), and update a bit. At the moment we're living with my grandparents and it have worked really well, but I do belive that it's important that we find an appartment asap! Otherwise it could probably become complicated. But for right now it's a good solution :)

Either way, we are currently employed by the so called Promenadteatern i Gamla Stan (walking theatre in Old Town) for their production of Dracula. But that's something I will have to get back to later.

Got to go!

After Cosmonova we took the subway to old town and the central part of Stockholm to go on a vinyl hunt.

We also got to witness some sort of accident on the canal.

We didn't find any vinyles but we got a really nice walk of sightseeing.

Today we went to Cosmonova in the Museum of National History.

It's a big round movietheatre with a moviescreen that surrounds you on all sides. We saw the movie Sea Rex, a movie about the dinosaurs of the ocean. It was really good and that it was in 3D as well didn't hurt.

After the movie we also got to visit the museum and after that we took a trip to the centrum of Stockholm to look for vinyles.

 

Tonight we flew to Stockholm. Second time me and Daniel flew together and first time to fly in Sweden (for him I mean). When we landed at Arlanda we were greeted by my grandpa' and later welcomed with toast, cheese, shrimps and white wine by my grandma' at their place.

Yesterday and today we've been preparing for my mom's big party, which I'm really looking forward to ^^

So today I've been cleaning and folding napkins all day.

Was really fun though! Got real creative and started youtubing a bunch of cool ways to fold a napkin.

Think I learned about six.

But at the end of the day I stuck with the beautiful and clean fan and my family's trade fold.

Totally going to give myself an opportunity to try out the others in the near future though.

Daniel got a job!! And not any job, he gets to work with what he loves most, light and sound.

On Monday I took him to his interview with Umeå Audio. He was nervous of course, but I knew he had nothing to worry about.

And what do you know, 6 hours later he's not only employed but had also been offered to go as a light- and sound technician to a jazz festival in Norway. I will miss him on mom's 50 year old birthday party on Saturday, but that offer was to great to turn down!

So I talked to him earlier today on the new phone we bought him before he left and he's having a blast! Go figure.

Really got to get it going now with my career as well now.

 

Sorry for the absence. Daniel and I have been jobhunting lately.

Last Sunday I, Daniel, mom and dad went out to pick blueberries. That's actually something I love about Sweden, that our berries have no parasites and grow in abundance so you can pick pounds and pounds of them wild in the forest. Blueberries, lingonberries, cloudberries, raspberries, black- and redcurrant, wild strawberries (hideaways), blackberries and so on, all without extra charge... or any charge that is.

I think Daniel was very fascinated with the berry picker we use to pick the berries with, but he truely enjoyed it!.. Especially eating the berries I think. But either way me and Daniel actually managed to pick a whole bucket of berries between taking pictures, eating blueberries and masskilling mosquitoes.

Afterwards we went home and ate some more blueberries, but this time in form of a pie.

 

Yesterday we climbed the Skule mountain, along with my cousin Oliver, uncle Håkan and his girlfriend Ann-Cathrine. Daniel was convinced that we were just going for a hike, so imagine the surprise when he saw the steep mountain wall we were actually going up. My dad was kind enough to buy us all climbing gloves so that our swetty hands wouldn't slipp as easily while grabbing on to rocks and the metal wires we were attatched to. Later when we all were dripping because of the hot sun and the climb I think we all were very greatfull to be wearing them.

It was truely amazing! We climbed up the yellow trail along Via Ferrata and now both me and Daniel have a very nice T-shirt with that name printed on it. Something my dad also tearted us with.

So thank you dad for the beautiful gifts and some wonderful memories, it was more than great!

In Sweden we actually have a pretty sweet tradition called the names day.

It means that basically every day of the year we celebrate people with different names. Like Mikaela and Michel on the 29th of September for an example.

Either way, yeasterday we had the pleasure to celebrate my dad, Per, on his name day. We did this by going with the whole family to run orientering in the forest (it's when you run in the forest, following a map and tracking down certain controlls) taking turns to tracking the controlls. It was a very nice and enjoyable run.

And after that we had cake.

Today it just so happens to be my and my aunts name day, Karin, so happy name day to us!

So today me and Daniel had lunch with my dear friend Josefine at Eastern Palace, took a trip around town and I bought myself a very nice book to write down all my recipes in.

Now we're about to eat a delicious blueberry cake that I just made and watch a movie.

Tomorrow we're going to climb in the mountains ^^

On Thursday we just spent a few hours in Oslo, the capital of Norway, before going home to little Sävar. Here are some pictures from one beautiful and sunny day.

First off was the opera.