Örebro wildlife

I feel somewhat sheltered from living in Yellowknife. There are no really typical animals-insects-whatevers that live there. We have the animals that are uncommon to the vast majority.
Örebro on the other hand has everything that I shouldn't be enthralled with, but I am!

First specimen: Snakes.
See older post.... there are zero snakes in the NWT, yet balls of them here.

Second specimen: Slugs.
There are no slugs in Yellowknife. Or well, none that I have ever seen... Anyways, while raining and right after, the side walks are covered with slugs! They just sloowly move around. I think they are scavenging for other slugs that have been stepped on. Apparently some slugs eat their dead slug companions, they suck up the juices from them, and earthworms. I hardly notice as many earthworms as I do slugs, have they all been eaten by slugs? I remember when we would go to Brantford and there were always dead worms on the driveway at Nana and Papa's after it rained... but I have no recollection of slugs? They thoroughly intrigue us, and every encounter brings up new questions! Being the nerds knowledge seekers that we are, we go home and research them. Our latest quest informed us that slugs are asexual and lay eggs larger than themselves. (Slight exaggeration).

Third specimen: Snails.

I have had some experience with snails before. They lived in our fish tank and we used to collect them from Rat Lake as kids. Up until field school I had only ever seen them as water animals. When I lived in Newfoundland, they covered the fields, which was very unpleasant for myself to walk through. Every morning on my way to the site I had to plug my ears and run through the fields so to lessen the amounts of crack crunch crack that I heard as I crushed poor little snails. Slugs have no shell, I cant hear or feel them dying below my shoes. Snails hold less of my attention, girls at field school cooked up periwinkles for lunch, and I quite enjoy escargot. Mind you I didnt know that escargot were the same snails I see puttering around on the side walks. I thought they were water ones. I digress.
During our first few encounters with slugs here, there were no snails. I honestly thought they travelled hand in hand, but there were never any snails. Well, not until last weekend! The snails came out in full force, and it was Cailan's first time seeing a snail! She had slugs all over when she lived in BC, but I guess not snails.
Now we make quite the pair. Walking to the store or bus after it's rained is like going on a safari... We slowly walk to make sure we dont step on any, and every few feet we stop to examine them. We look like fools.

Fourth species: Hedgehogs
So, hedgehogs are wild here! They do not live in Canada, so I have an excuse for never running into one before.
Cailan had informed me when I first arrived that hedgehogs lived around here, but she had yet to see one. I just assumed that they lived in the forest, and I knew they were nocturnal from when Erin had pet one and it was so boring during the day. The nocturnal factor would lessen our probability of seeing any.
Anyways, on Saturday we were walking to the centrum with our friend Sophie and one ran across the side walk! Holy! I was so excited, hoping it would run and morph into a ball and roll across the street like in Alice in Wonderland when the queen is playing croquet! But it didnt. It just scurried into a fenced flower garden. Haha, needles to say, Cailan and I were thrilled! Sophie just thought we were idiots, and informed us there are tons that live in Brickebaken (our ghetto). I guess they are a lot more common in town than I believed. Picture someone in Yellowknife going ecstatic after seeing a squirrel... that's what we came off like here. THEN when we got home later that night there was one just hanging out next to the sandbox in front of our building! Eep! Obviously, we tried to follow it around but it outsmarted us in the dark. I kept wondering why they made Sonic roll everywhere if the two that we have seen never rolled. Is it like lemmings walking off cliffs? Disney and then Sega skewed my perception of hedgehogs and they dont really roll everywhere?

I wonder what other animals I'll encounter here, that my life in the North has eluded me from.

Sarah vs. Thor

Today was an exciting day! Summer has arrived, above 20 and sunnnny!
Happy anniversary to my parents!

Besides that I went on a little day trip to a town called Eskilstuna to search for some Norse rune stones. Word on the street is that it is super easy to get to, so I figured, I have nothing to do today, I'll go hunt for some Vikings!

I took the train to Eskilstuna, it's an hour away from Örebro. Then took a bus 12km down a rural road towards a small rural town, hopped off at a small dirt road and walked through some very green trees. Past a vegetable garden, some orchards and crossed a small wooden bridge over a creek. Where I came across this view to the right. The bedrock out crop behind the trees is where the infamous rune stone that I was hunting lay.

Sigurdsristning!

This rune is next to an old bridge. That small creek that I had previously crossed used to be a much larger river and there was bridge erected over it. The rune is there to explain why the bridge is there - it was built to commemorate the dead soul of a rich man. Apparently this was all the rage in the 11thC. You know, build a bridge in honour of the dead. That explains the runic writing at the bottom of the image.
What makes this rune special is that there are drawings as well as the runic message! The drawings depict a well known saga from the time, Sigurd Fafnisbane (Sigurd the Dragonslayer).
The gist of the saga is that: Fafnir was a otter who at some gold and turned into a snake. Sigurd stabs the stomach of the snake Fafnir, to get the gold treasure in there. Sigurd roasts Fafnir's heart, but burns his finger and gets Fafnirs blood on it. Sigurd puts his finger in his mouth and tastes the blood then can suddenly understand birdsong. The end.

Kind of an odd story to draw with the bridge? Oh well. What was cool was that as I was there admiring the drawings, and trying to figure out how the drawings have stayed red over time thunder started ... thundering ... in the distance. Oooo! Norse god Thor was pleased (or not) that I was checking out Norse sagas! Or as my brother put it, I got to feel the wrath of Thor in a meaningful place!

So after my spiritual moment with Thor and the rune stone, I decided it would smart to walk back to town instead of waiting for the bus back. Yes, the 12km walk in my sandals (ugh), along the curb of the rural highway. All along being accompanied by thunder ... thundering ... It was a long, hot, sticky walk along side farm fields and horses back to town, but I got to watch a thunder-head form, cool, and I made it to the train station about 20min before the rain came!
Hooray for my day!

Sun makes it alll better

What can I say about this past weekend? Fun. Higher expectations and some irresponsibility. Fun.
After arriving late in Stockholm on Wednesday we went and met up with Terry and a friend of Cailan's at a bar named after the Beach Boys album Pet Sounds. The bar was decorated with all sorts of 60's surfer records and posters. Kinda odd, but it was a good time. The place was really small, from what I can tell, bars are cafés by day and around 1930 split to be half bar half café and slowly rid themselves of food patrons by 2230.

Thursday and Friday we spent aimlessly wandering the streets of Stockholm. Stockholm is comprised of 14 islands, each island having its own draw. We spent our time on only two and a section of mainland. Our hostel was on a small island, Gamla Stan, which is the oldest part of Stockholm. Where the royal palace and parliament are. It was nice, narrow cobbled streets - very "European". The palace was nothing to gawk at, really, I couldn't tell it apart from other buildings, cept there were a whole bunch of blue clad guards out front. We surprisingly arrived right at the changing of the guards, which made me wonder, do palaces actually do that, or is it a tourist thing that palaces have all adopted and modified to be theatrical and draw crowds? I think yes.
We continued to walk around and made our way to the mainland which is the commercial district/area of Stockholm. The highlight of that was seeing cherry blossoms! In the midst of the cherry blossoms were a bunch of people meditating. Turns out it was a Falun Gong silent protest, for what? We couldn't figure that out, but we got a pamphlet of the meditation steps, but no answer as to why they were there.

Stockholm I found to be very bland. It was just a lot of big concrete buildings that all looked the same. Nothing had character. Mind you the fact that it was overcast and intermittently spitting throughout the days might have had some negative impact on my opinion of the city. Regardless, I still was not as impressed with Stockholm as I was anticipating I would be. Though we did find a fantastic restaurant, it was a traditional beer hall from the 19th C where they served Swedish meals. Oh my goodness was it good. I got Swedish meatballs and lingonberries, forget pickled herring, this is now my idea of Swedish food. Mmmm. Cailan got salmon, and when it came out, that was exactly what it was, nothing else. Raw salmon at that, though Terry is certain it was soaked overtime in lemon juice. Jumping back to the lingonberries, I am certain they are partridge berries. They are delicious and Swedes eat them on everything. They look just like cranberries but are sweeter, hence my speculation they are partridge berries.

Friday night we boarded our ferry trip to Helsinki, advertised as a booze cruise. We had heard many horror stories about how intoxicated the Finns get on this trip. That was total bullsh*t, everyone on the boat was ridiculously intoxicated, be it Finns or Swedes, or the super nice Italians, or Iranians. Everyone we met, young and seniors, were indulging heavily, it was pretty unreal. Thinking we should differentiate ourselves from the others, we classed it up and went for a nice meal of reindeer and wine, followed by some karaoke (not sure if this fits into classy or not?) One of the advertised highlights of the trip was an ABBA tribute band. They were terrible, and sang only 5 songs. We were severely disappointed. To make up for this we befriended Italians from Brescia and danced the night away.
The next morning however was not as much fun.
We docked in Helsinki at 930, ugh. But it was already +18 out! The nicest weather since I've been in Europe! Sooo we pushed through our tiredness and walked into town. Already, I was enjoying Helsinki ten times more than Stockholm. We walked through a huge open market where they sold everything! I bought an amber ring there, sadly there are no flies in it. There was loads of fresh fruit and veggies, hand knit and felted clothing, furs and wood crafts galore, it was a super neat market. There was a large park through the centre of town where I'm pretty sure half the town was basking in the sun. We walked around for about 15min and decided we should do this as well. Who needs to see more churches (though they were neat ones). That's what we did allll day, well, until our boat returned back to Stockholm that evening. As we were sailing away, we passed by an old fort which covers six islands. I am kicking myself now for not going there and basking in the sun. It looked so nice and was full of picnickers. Suomenlinna was built in the 18thC to keep out Russian expansion, but wasn't really effective.
Anyways, we decided the return trip would be low key, we would hang out in the sauna and then go to bed. Unfortunately we missed arriving at the sauna by 10 min and they closed. Argh! So we checked out duty free, where the Swedes were buying multiple shopping carts full of cases of beer (because of how expensive it is in Sweden) and Toblerone, ate some more Swedish meatballs, and woke up back in dreary Stockhom, where Cailan and I proceeded back home to Örebro :(

Check out photos if you want.

Stockholm!

Well, after our snapps night, Cailan and I scored free tickets to another Örebro SK football game. This time it was super fun. We were no longer sick and we sat in the section with all the hardcore fans. They had a drum and tons of flags, they never sat and were constantly chanting and cheering. It was fun! 
We learned some cheers and some new Swedish words. ÖSK was playing Djurgårdens IF, an apparently goo team from Stockholm, nick named Stockholms Stolthet (Pride of Stockholm). The teams fan groupies came with them, and unlike the last game we saw where there was maybe 25 fans, Djurgårdens had hundreds. Impressive. The game was good, and close! Örebro choked on about five goal possibilities, but surprisingly managed to pull out a win. The fans section was thrilled.  After the game the team came over to thank the fans for being so supportive and then did a cheer for the fans. It was pretty cool. Nice to see how they appreciate their fans. They might have done that too at the last game, but we skipped out early.
After the game we went with a friend of Cailan's to grab some food and drinks. They don't serve alcohol at the football matches. Its funny considering all sporting matches in Canada serve alcohol. By all I mean professional.  I can't imagine what these guys would have been like under the influence. They were so exuberant to begin with. 
Today is the beginning of a new adventure: Stockholm and Helsinki!
Cailan and I are training out to Stockholm after her work tonight. She has a long weekend because here in Sweden they celebrate The Ascension or Krisit Himmelsfärdsdag. Mind you that is only tomorrow, I have yet to figure out why she has Friday off as well, but I'm not complaining, we get to go on an adventure! The basic plan is that we're heading to Stockholm tonight, staying until Friday afternoon, jumping on a boat to sail across the Baltic to Helsinki. Spend Saturday there, sail back Sunday so that Cailan can make it back to schoolio. 
Hopefully it won't really rain in Stockholm like the forecast is predicting, and that it will be +20 in Helsinki as predicted!

Happy Mother's Day Anaana

Snapps! Skål!

Last night was the heavily anticipated schnapps night. Cailan and I made maple syrup schnapps and brought spinach-artichoke dip to add to our North American theme. Everything else was going to be extremely Swedish, so we wanted to bring our own thing. The Maple Snapps was a hit, the spinach dip I think not so much.
There were lots of flavours, lemon and vanilla, blackberry, rhubarb and aniseed, cobra and ginseng, ginger and lime, cinnamon, pomegranate - that's all I can really remember. There were a few more...
So, with our shots of snapps, we also indulged in Swedish snacks. The foods that all the people brought were based around fish, caviare and dairy. I must admit though it was all super good! I am thoroughly amazed at what I ate last night, considering how unadventurous I am when it comes to food. I figured that I might as well take part none the less, I didnt want to offend anyone by being picky, plus I would have otherwise starved and not eating whilst consuming large amounts of snapps didn't seem too smart.

Soo... this was my plate! Clockwise from the red stuff on the side - home made Basque salsa, delicious. At the bottom is a slice of pickled herring and onion on dried flat-bread. The most typical Swedish snack, and it wasn't gross. I was super nervous as I bit into it that I might up-chuck on the plate (I am not a fan of fish) but it was surprisingly sweet and did not have the fish texture that I despise! I was pleasantly impressed by it. Don't go jumping to any conclusions though, I will not be purchasing pickled herring in the stores anytime soon, but should I be in another social gathering and that is there, I would not hesitate to give it another go.
The next one, I am not sure was exactly it was. I would describe it as an onion quiche, but I'm certain it wasn't. I asked the girl who made it what was in it... all she told me was onions and cumin. Sooo I have no clue what it was, but it was good. Above that, in the centre was a spanish omelet. It was wicked thick and had chucks of potatoes in it. Next to that was my favourite of the night! An interesting pastry - the centre was filled with this creamy cheese and sour cream concoction which was very sweet, topped with a layer of red onions and a big blob of caviare. I don't know how common this kind of snack was, but if I see anything that resembles it in any bakeries, I will be ordering it. Mmm.  The little circular thing at the top was also good, it was some sort of a little pastry shell filled with a cream of some sorts, topped with a piece of salmon and a green onion. It was sweet, like possibly a dessert?
All in all it was a night of good food, and strong drinks. I has assumed that we would casually sip the snapps and take in the flavours, comment about the different tastes etc. like we did at the wine tasting, but I was more than wrong. You just down the drink, glass after flavour after glass. Some were strong, like the lemon and vanilla one. Hola! I'd say that my favourites were the blackberry and this other one, but I cannot recall what the flavouring was...  the worst was the beetroot and the cobra/ginseng.
Yes, cobra. One of the girls there is Vietnamese and her dad brought back this medicinal alcohol which has a little cobra in it. I can't think what magical powers cobras posses, but I can believe that drinking it might scorch any bacterium in your throat. Or  cure any other ailments that you might have because it tastes like mould, and possibly act like a liquid penicillin? I really have no idea, but it tasted like dirt. Yech.
Along with drinking these snapps, everyone sang as well. There are hundreds of little Swedish drinking songs, that people know all the words to. They generally appeared to be traditional songs. I tried reading some of the words to increase my Swedish capabilities, when I would ask what some words were, they had no translations or any idea what some words were because they were 'old Swedish' and no longer used. The songs were fun, but there is a rule that one cannot have an empty glass if there is going to be a song sung. Regardless if you just had one, its like a national offence to sing a Snaps Vise and not have a snaps in your glass. After the little jingle, everyone says SKÅL and has their drink.
Last night was great and I stepped up my Swedish by learning the songs and trying to follow everyone's conversations. I managed to follow the gist of some conversations. Swedish is still a wicked hard language and I will be lucky to have a full conversation with people by the time I leave. I am at the point now that I can ask basic questions, but when they answer me, it is just waaay over my head... I need to learn to understand. I can order a drink or food, then they say something else and I just lose my grasp of the language. Drat.

Örebro SK vs BK Häcken

Yesterday, Cailan and I dragged ourselves, along with a roll of tp each for our noses, off to see our first football match in Europe. Örebro has a football team in the Swedish Allsvenskan, and a teacher at Cailan's school works at the pitch and gets free tickets for the students and teachers. So off we went, kleenex, cough candies and all!
They played a team from Gothenburg, who had some pretty amazing shoes, every florescent colour imaginable. Anyways, not only was it our first European match, but it was actually my first outdoor football match, other than watching Team NWT at Canada Games. I know I might offend some people, but... I found it kinda boring. Well, maybe not, just a lot of passing and not a lot of shooting at the net. There were a lot of head shots, I think the most was four head passes to another. I found that surprisingly cool.

The game went on... numerous yellow cards, no red cards, only four substitutions and after 90minutes of passing, Örebro won. 2-0.
The stands were actually pretty empty, and the Örebro 'cheer section' was protesting the owners decision to schedule the games at bad times. Kinda like how the NHL schedules games which it thinks are good but none of the fans agree - like a game in the middle of the afternoon rather than on Saturday night. So, they protested by staying out in the parking lot tailgating for the first 20min. When they returned they were so loud! They had a drum and flags and a chant for every player on the field and they just never were quite. Compared to the 17 fans that the Gothenburg team had it was impressive.
That sums up my first football match. Next weekend they are playing a team from Stockholm, who is being accompanied by a minimum of 2500 fans. Were trying to get tickets for that, the match up is supposed to be quite good.
Cold be gone by then!

White Rabbit!

Well last night, April 30th, was Valborgsmässoafton / Walpurgis Night / Valborg in Sweden. The "Welcome back Spring!" party, which also seems to have something to do with witches, but we couldnt figure out what that was... it's not like at Midsummer's when they burn a fake witch. 
Anywyas, Cailan and I walked down to to the Castle and met up with some of her co-workers to watch archers shoot arrows of flames from the castle walls into a big floating raft of tree branches. After a choir that was also standing on the castle sang traditional spring songs for about an hour which was followed by tons of fireworks. It was cold out and started to ran. Cailan and I hoped that we could go to one of the surrounding cafes to watch the fireworks, but we were slapped on the wrist for suggesting something so preposterous, we needed to follow tradition and watch them in the rain. Ugh. They were super impressive though. Directly above us, the ash from them ended up in our hair. 
After standing in the rain, oooing and awing at the light show we headed off for a drink of pear ciders and then home. Standing in the cold rain was not doing wonders for the cold that I have contracted. Unsurprisingly enough, I woke up this morning to discover that I thus passed my congestion on to Cailan. Awesome times. Now we are both hanging out in our one room apartment drowning in kleenx. Ugh.

The science fair went well on Thursday, I toughed it out, despite how sick I was, as you can tell by my extremely unflattering picture to the right. 
The projects varied in talent, like always. I was a judge for the grade nines and the winning project blew me away. They designed and built an iBike. Seriously, they took a bike, wired a generator to the back wheel, which when the wheel was turning generated power to a small battery which thus charged the ipod which was attached to the handle bars. They made two different generations, one with a diode to save energy and one with out. They made commercials for it and have them on youtube, unfortunately I couldnt find it or I would have posted it. These kids were so smart! Of course I gave them all Excellent's. Not only was their project smart (they wired a bicycle!) but they were also excellent presenters and had terrific English.