Day 81: Happy Halloween

A girl I work with drew this. Aww.

Since I work with international kids, they are quite keen on Halloween and trick or treating. Swedish children are becoming increasingly more interested in Halloween thanks to Americanisation, but mostly they are in it for the sweets and not the costumes.

I've never seen a nation so obsessed with pick N mix sweets!! A powerful bribery tool against children.

Day 77: What it means to be liberal?

In the fridge at school today. Maybe a teacher was having a rough time?

Day 74: Do you have a flag?

Today is "FN Dagen" or UN Day.

There are several days in the Swedish calendar which would pass by completely unnoticed if not for the little Swedish flags that appear on the tops of buses and on the flagpoles of the more observant members of society.

Day 71: I think they want me to buy things

I've received a lot of coupons and offers in the post for various services in my area...What could it mean?

They must know I've recently moved here because I only just got my person number, see how easy it is for them to target me as a consumer now I'm just another number on a government list...

Day 69: Fun with letters

Need I explain?
(I was looking in the dictionary as part of a Scrabble game which, considering I have only been here 2 months, was very successful!)

Day 67: Catch 22

I need a day off to take a SFI (Swedish for immigrants) test and show that I'm learning Swedish, but I need a heck of a lot of Swedish to know how to take a day off!

In England I was shielded from a lot of bureaucracy by my employer taking care of such things for me. No more such luxury here! As a colleague said to me about clearing away my tray in a cafe "It's every man for himself here, didn't you know?"

Day 65: It's like a party in my mouth and everyone's throwing up

Why?
Why combine two of the most despicably disgusting Swedish sweets into one hellish combination?
And then advertise it prolifically on my commute route?

I'm talking about bilar - a famous Swedish foam sweet with a distorted fruity flavour - and polly - chocolate covered foamy stuff with the taste of arrak. If you like the flavour rum&raisin then you'll probably like polly, but they're not for me.

If you like parties in your mouth where everyone is throwing up, then you might also like to try arraksrullar, otherwise known as dammsugare (vacuum cleaners). You may have seen these in Ikea.

Day 64: Sucks for concessions to cross the border by train...

Day 61: WTF Finland SRSLY

My blog is about things which I find unusual or noteworthy in Sweden so technically this post it an anomaly but ...

WTF Finland srsly.

This is an English textbook taken from a Finnish speaking school in Sweden. There is no way you would find these kinds of expletives in an English classroom!

Day 57: brittsommar

Ha. An Indian Summer is called a British Summer. That sums up all you need to know about how warm it actually gets here (Essentially not very).

Day 54: Cinnamon Bun Day

Getting a bake on for Kanelbullensdag (Cinnamon Bun day)

It's always clear that Swedes are fond of cinnamon buns but now they have a set day to eat buns with an excuse. It's apparently a recently made-up day established by the hembakningsrådet (home baking council). On one hand I could be fooled into thinking that baking is so important here that they've got a council for it, but on the other, more likely, hand, Swedes have a council for everything and this fact merely points to how bureaucratic the country is.

AAaaanyway, baking is fun and buns are good. As testament to how popular it is to bake breads and buns, fresh yeast is readily available in the fridges of all shops, something which is very rare in England. It is a small clay coloured cube that smells like beer and flakes apart when you break it. Here is a recipe for a cinnamon bun cake should anyone feel inspired:

Recipe for Buns

Ingredients - Buns
225ml milk warmed to body temperature
75g butter
425g plain flour
70g sugar
1tsp cardamom
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
25g yeast (half a cube)

Ingedients - Filling
75g butter
50g sugar
2tsp cinnamon
(optional) dash of vanilla sugar

1. Add the yeast and sugar to the warm milk
2. Put this mix into the centre of all the combined dry ingredients. It should make a slightly wet dough
3. Leave this dough to rise, covered with cling film, for 30 mins
4. Combine the filling ingredients together.
5. Roll out the dough into a rectangle. Spread the filling over the rectangle (see my picture at the top for inspiration)
6. Roll up the rectangle from the long end (like a swiss roll)
7. Cut 1inch thick circles from the roll and arrange them in a 22cm cake pan with removable base
8. Leave to rise for at least 30 mins until they grow monsterous (I left mine overnight and they got huge) then bake at 200C for 20 mins

Weird Ingredients and Measurements

Fresh yeast - can be bought in 50g packets in Sweden. You can supplement dry yeast according to this really detailed site about yeast this recipe needs 20g of dry yeast.

Vanilla sugar - Icing sugar/powdered sugar with ground vanilla added. It's very strong and you only need a little for a lot of vanilla flavour. Use vanilla essence or fresh vanilla if you want.

Grams - I use ounces in England and they use cups in Sweden (which I think are different to American cups). So to save any argument this recipe is in metric measurements.

Day 51: What? No drinking culture?!

"Therefore we say No! to Friday drinks after work"

Sometimes it's hard to meet people and make friends as an expat.
 Especially in a culture which loves being "mysig" (comfy), going to the gym with earphones in and staring at phone screens all day long.