We went for a walk

My parents live in a georgous area in the outskirts of Stockholm. It's like a fairy tale, especially winters like this one when everything is covered in snow. Just have a look at these pictures. Isn't it beautiful?

My parents live very close to Mälaren, the third biggest lake in Sweden. We went down to the shore to have a look at the ice, to see if it's posible to walk on it. Well, it's not. In spite of the temperatures (today it was 12 degrees Celsius below cero, so it's COOOLD!, but due to the snow the ice won't freeze properly.

People swim here in summer...

Once you start walking you don't feel the cold as much as in the beginning, but it was wonderful to get back in after being out in the cold for an hour. I hope the sun will shine tomorrow as well (it doesn't happen every day in winter) so we can go for another walk. I'm getting a bit tired of doing nothing....

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In Stockholm

Today I took my kids to Stockholm, the capital city of Sweden. It wasn't as cold as other days and it didn't snow, so it was quite nice to be outdoors actually. We were to meet with my brother at noon, but we got to the center of Stockholm early so we had a look around first.

We had to get off the train at the Central Station and had to take the subway the last bit of the way. These are some of the photos I took while on the subway:

What you can see in the photos is the old part of Stockholm, called "Gamla Stan" in Swedish. It was built in the Middle Ages and is the oldest part of Stockholm. It definitely is my favorite part of Stockholm. Just like the rest of the center of Stockholm, it's built on islands. There are lots and lots of bridges in Stockholm, so you can cross from one part of the city to another. That's why Stockholm is called "The Venice of the North" and "The City on Water". Stockholm really is a very beautiful city!

When we got to Medborgarplatsen we went to Söderhallarna, a mall with a real food market, like in the old days. There are very few markets left in Stockholm, people tendo to buy their food in plastic boxes in the supermarkets instead, unfortunately. My favorite shope in Söderhallarna is The English Shop, where you can find lots of things you can't find anywhere else in Stockholm, since they import everything from the UK.

We also took a quick walk around Söderhallarna to have a look at Medborgarplatsen..

If you look closely you can see a tower in the background with a half moon on it, it's the Stockholm Mosque.

One of the entrances to Söderhallarna.

One of the public librarys.

If you bring your skates you can skate in the very heart of Stockholm.

This tower is the highest appartment building in Stockholm.

We really had a great day with my brother. It's a pity we don't meet very often. First of all we went to an Indian restaurant to have lunch (yummy!! I LOOOVE Indian food!) and then we went to the movies to see the new Harry Potter film. It was really good and we enjoyed it very much. After that we were ready to go back to the peace and quiet at my parents' house.

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Traffic and snow

Snow is really beautiful, especially on a postcard or through a window. *lol* I do not ever want to spend a whole winter somewhere where there is snow more than a few days a year.

Going home from the mall we saw this accident:

I read an article a few minutes ago, that there's a traffic accident every 3 minutes in Sweden right now, due to the snow. There really is a lot of snow this year! I don't think I've seen this much snow since I was a kid.

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Christmas dinner

Here in Sweden the Christmas dinner is celebrated on Christmas Eve, the 24th, and usually after the annual Disney show on TV. As always we had too much to eat since my mom loves to cook and plans the Christmas dinner several weeks in advance.

My monm, my brother and my DS13 prepared the food and I layed the table:

These are some of the things we had at the Christmas table this year:

After eating all that food I feel really dizzy... The rest of the family are playing "Monopoly", I sat down with the computer...

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It´s Christmas!

Finally, it´s Christmas!

The kids and I arrived in Stockholm, Sweden, yesterday evening. If you´re following me on Twitter you probably read about us leaving home one hour late, so I didn´t think we would make it to the airport on time. Well we did... And the plane actually took off one hour late due to the cold weather in the north of Europe.

I´m using my mom´s computer and it´s terribly slooow! I already miss my own.... Anyway, here are some photos I took this morning:

Now I´m off to hit the shower and get ready for CHRISTMAS!!!!

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Now what...?

It's raining - again.... And since we're going to Sweden on Thursday and will be away for 2 weeks I really need to do at least 3 more loads of laundry before tomorrow morning. Otherwise there's no chance it will be dry before we go and I just don't want to leave the laundry out on the balcony for a fortnight. That's like inviting the thieves over for tea....

I have sooo much to do today but all this raining just makes me want to snuggle up in bed instead... :-( Maybe a nice breakfast (with several cups of sweet tea) will do wonders? I'll give it a try, because I really do need to do lots of things... Two more days before we leave and my To Do list is getting longer by the hour and not the other way around.

Well, it sounds like it's not raining as heavy anymore.... Maybe my clothes will dry anyway... But just in case, I'll get the iron and iron those items I really really do need to take with me.

Time to get going!!!

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Countries I've visited

I love travelling! I wish I could travel a lot more but unfortunatelly my financial situation doesn't permit me to travel as much as I'd like.

I found this map over at The Travelling Suitcase:


visited 6 states (2.66%)
Create your own visited map of The World

If money was no problem I'd love to go to:

• Europe: Vatican City, Itsly, France, Russia and Ireland.
• Africa: Benin, Cameroon, Gambia, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Senegal, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, South Africa, Tanzania and Togo.
• Americas: Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Dominican Republic, Panama, Paraguay, Uruguay, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Mexico.
• Asia: India, China, Japan, Cambodia, Vietnam

Oh my, I still have a lot to discover.... ;-)

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