Back in Sweden!

After two wonderful months visiting family in Florida and getting married (!) we are back in Umeå. We are all moved into our new apartment and slowly trying to make it look more homey. Our bike ride to school is only twenty minutes now (compared to 45 before) so we are loving the new location! School has begun for us both and I have just been doing some lab work for my thesis and Alex is writing a big paper. Today the temperatures changed dramatically, all of the sudden the highs are in the forties instead of the sixties! :O I'm not ready. But it is really beautiful out with all the leaves changing color again, it's just hard to get excited about it when you know winter is coming afterwards. I've been going to swedish class a couple times a week as well and it seems to be going ok! Sometimes I think I'm really understanding the language and then the next day I won't understand a thing so it's a frustrating process but hopefully it will pay off! Here are some pictures from our time here the past month! And a few from the wedding as well!

We seem to have a seventies theme going on, we were given the comfy armchair by our old neighbor and we bought the couch for about 30 dollars. It's really comfy and we love its quirkyness.

Alex's birthday was last week so I made him a kladdkaka cake and it was so yummy. It's like a giant brownie.

I made my first loaf of bread! But it tasted pretty bad. I realized too late that one packet of yeast in the US and Sweden is not the same thing...so this tasted wayyyy too yeasty. But sweet Alex still ate it.

The trees starting to change on our bike ride home last week. They are even more yellow and brown now.

The really great view from our laundry room. It's hard to see in this pictures but there are some pretty mountains in the distance.

We saw the northern lights again finally! The moon was super bright but you could still see the northern lights moving across the sky, it was pretty awesome.

Our perfect wedding day in Florida!

I will try to take more pictures and start posting them here more often again! :)

April showers bring May...snow?

Yes, that's right. It's snowing again.

Everyday so far in May. Our trip to Florida in June is looking very good right now :).

In Sweden on April 30 and May 1 they celebrate the beginning of spring and the end of winter with a giant bonfire and by singing songs about spring and summer. Alex and I went to one of the celebrations near where we live and it was great!

The bonfire before it was lit.

The singers! :)

The bonfire! It was a very cold

night so the warmth of the giant fire felt very nice. Until we had to leave the nice warm fire and bike home in the cold.

Today is also a special day for Alex and I because we mailed some of our wedding invitations! We decided to document the event. Or I should say, I decided to

document it and Alex was a good sport. :)

Putting them in the mailbox! 

Our Easter was very nice too :). Alex had found a special coupon thing for us to have a delicious dinner at a new restaurant in town, Gothards Krog, inside a new hotel so we went there for Easter dinner :).

The really cool Harry Potterish staircase.

Since Alex is vegetarian, most of the dinners we make don't include meat simply because I'm too lazy to cook meat for just myself. For dinner I had lamb, and it was delicious!! As you can see, I couldn't even take a break from eating for a picture.

Alex and his dressed up handsome self in the restaurant. 

It's been a great couple of weeks, busy with school and life and wedding stuff but we both can't wait until we leave for Florida for a much needed break. (Even though I'm not sure the month before your wedding is very relaxing, but at least it'll be exciting!) :)

The birds are back!

We have a little bird feeder hanging on our balcony, but since crows were the only birds really left in Sweden in the winter, and they would fight over the food, I put it inside until today. Then this morning I saw some tiny little birds in the tree outside so I hung it up again and almost immediately they came and started eating from it. It's a good sign I think that hopefully winter is over! 

You can kind of see the birdy in this picture, Alex says it's called a "great tit". I thought he was messing with me so I googled it, but he was right! 

Today I took an early morning bike ride into town, and it was so beautiful outside. Here are a few pictures from this morning:

I know it looks kind of brown but it really was so pretty. It was like a Swedish ghost town. I'm also really just happy that most of the snow has melted. If it's not enough snow to sled on, then it should just melt. I told Alex I would never get sick of snow since I never saw it in Florida, but I did. I will admit it. But I do love sledding. And snow men.

Today has just been a lazy Saturday, but I thought I would try to start writing more often! Next weekend is Easter so I will definitely write a post next week about my first Easter in Sweden. I hope the Easter bunny knows I moved...

Our sweet next door neighbor made these bulle (Swedish cinnamon rolls) for us yesterday, they were delicious. 

Also if anyone has any good recipes for this:

Then let me know! I thought the picture on the box looked like tabouli, so I tried to make tabouli with it but it didn't really work out. 

We have been trying to watch the James Bond movies recently, we want to get through all of them eventually. We're on Live and Let Die. Also, making your own popcorn on the stove is so delicious, who knew? 

I've been reading some blogs lately about other peoples experiences moving to different countries when I started missing home a bit and I read one about Costa Rica since it's one of my favorite places (and where I met my sweetie). But after reading about all the giant spiders and break ins it reminded me that Sweden really isn't too different from where I'm from, I have actually never even seen a spider here! *knock on wood*. And I feel so lucky to be in a place where I'm comfortable and where I'm with the person I love and studying to do something I enjoy. :) but who knows, Florida or even Costa Rica may be in our future! ;)

April! And veggie burgers.

Its April and it is soo light out! Especially in the mornings, it wakes me up at 6am everyday (which I hate) but it's light until at least 8 or 9 pm now (which I love). 

Some pretty Eastery flowers Alex brought home from the market in town this week. Notice the fancy coffee mug vase. 

Alex and I have both started new classes which has been nice, my class is just basically writing a big paper for two months, like a mini practice thesis. My paper is on permafrost and how it affects dissolved organic carbon in surface waters if anyone is curious ;). We bought our tickets to go to Florida in June!! We can't wait! Woohoo!

Some things I miss about Florida!

I thought I would post a few pictures showing how the view from our apartment has changed. :)

And hopefully I'll be able to post a super green summery one soon. We have started biking to school again! And we now realize how out of shape we are. I only biked halfway to school today with Alex and then biked back home because I worked from home today but wanted some exercise. And I almost had to pull over my bike on the way back. I was soo tired. When I got home I just layed on the floor out of breath. But it felt good to be outside for so long! My new swedish class is still going well, I'm feeling a bit more comfortable with it and I understand a lot more when other people speak. However me speaking it is a different story. I don't think I'll ever be able I correctly pronounce ä å ö. 

Tonight Alex and I are cooking veggie burgers. Sometimes it hard to plan meals together besides quiches and pasta and vegetable and rice dishes because Alex is a vegetarian and I am allergic to beans. So it became our goal to make a delicious veggie burger without beans...and we did it! It has corn, mushrooms, onions, red peppers, garlic, breadcrumbs and eggs! So easy and cheap and delicious. At least to us they were, but our standard of delicious may be lowered since I started cooking. But here they are:

And Alex made homemade burger sauce, which he really likes, as you can see from his burger ;). 

Have a nice day!

Snow snow go away

Hello!

Well it's the beginning of March now and I'm ready for spring. The snow really isn't so bad or the cold. 30 degrees Fahrenheit now feels normal to me. But it's grey and cloudy everyday and I miss blue skies and sun and the color green! :) and I actually really miss biking! Mostly because I need to start working off all these candy and semla calories I've been eating so that I can fit in my wedding dress haha. Semla day was yesterday (well Fat Tuesday), but in Sweden they eat these desserts called semla between Christmas and Easter, and they are amazing!!! 

Above are some store bought semla and semla we made on our own, I bet you can't tell the difference can you? ;) They are cardamom buns filled with vanilla whipped cream and almond filling stuff. Now you can understand why I need to start biking. 

School has been ok, I passed both my exams! And these tests I took were really hard and not my cup of tea having to spend two days working on a computer program, but I did it and its over! Now we just have a project left with a group.

Alex's parents both came and visited and it was great having visitors the past month and to get to show off our city that we love so much.

A picture of me standing on top of a snow shovel pile! They are pretty fun to climb. 

Well, that was just a little post that I'm writing from the bus on my way home from Swedish class. 

Have a great day!

February update!

Sorry it has been so long since I've written! School has been very busy recently, I started my newest class about two weeks ago and before that had finals for the last class. I figured out that the academic calendar at Umeå University is split up into quarters instead of two semesters. So when I applied for only one class for spring I was a bit worried when I found out I needed two! But it worked out :). So my class I'm taking now will end in March and then my next class will go from March until June! This class is analysis of ecological data which is mostly like an advanced statistics class and learning how to use a computer program called R. Anyways. On to more exciting things!

First, Christmas! We spent Christmas at Alex's dads house in central Sweden and it was nice and relaxing and I ate lots of candy, meatballs, and drank lots of swedish Christmas soda (Julmust) which tastes like a better version of rootbeer. They celebrate Christmas and open presents on December 24 in Sweden which was a bit weird for me because I felt like I was cheating opening presents before Christmas!

This was a picture a few days before Christmas. This day for a few hours was beautiful, but every other day was rainy and cold with no snow! 

Now onto New Years! Alex and I were back in Umeå for New Years and celebrated at home with some homemade spanakopita and saganaki (and yes, we lit it on fire, on the balcony, and it was AMAZING) and some wine and ciders. It was a great night watching movies and eating and relaxing. Then when it turned midnight the fireworks were insane. We live on the top floor so everywhere we looked people were shooting off fireworks and it was beautiful.

This spanakopita was so yummy and easy! Since its my birthday tomorrow I may actually make some more tomorrow! And Alex made a wonderful tzaziki sauce.

Our dinner setup! Notice our fancy wine glasses haha. We found some for just a couple dollars a week later so we now have real wine glasses which feels a bit more classy. :)

We dressed up for dinner too, just for fun!

This is the day after New Years, started snowing and hasn't stopped!

Then this past weekend was Umeå's "opening ceremony" for 2014 because Umeå is the European Capital of Culture 2014. There was a big show called burning snow with a concert on the frozen river in town where they set snow on fire and had fireworks. They also had lots of cool things around town like a snow castle and ice sculptures and reindeer!

The snow castle in town day and night with and ice slide that we of course had to try.

This was in the center of town, they had bonfires where the Sami (indigenous Swedish) were cooking reindeer stew. Suspiciously the reindeer from earlier were nowhere to be found...

This is when we were watching the show. It was sooo crowded and cold.

In other news, I got a sled. And sledding is the best! As well as very useful for carrying home groceries.

 The end!