The Lindahl News: Abroad Edition

 Certainly we ate a lot of our meals (and fikas!) in cute/memorable restaurants out and about while in Sweden. However, the most memorable meals were spent in homes as guests of our hosts. It is just the best to get inside these lovely homes and take in all the Swedish-ness of these special tables. I purposely will not name our hosts to protect their privacy (except for our relatives) and here wish to send out a huge THANK YOU/TACK for inviting us in and serving us delicious foods and providing us with sweet and much-appreciated fellowship!   AUGUST In this home, we were served a delicious salmon meal and were introduced to a group of very interesting people who shared our love of travel. SEPTEMBER   We started the month off with a much-needed dose of family togetherness- not our family exactly but  one very lovely family who had us over for the best fika to date! ONE WEEK LATER: We were treated like royalt...

The days are passing quickly and by the end of this week we are heading home. You might find it most interesting that I put this on my Bucket List: Have a winter picnic in the woods. Why?    I am not really a huge fan of snow and winter except in December. (That White Christmas thing, you know?) Here in Jonkoping we have only had a couple of dustings of snow so far. When we learned of  more snowfall to the west of us, we decided to take a drive, pack a picnic and  just go for it. Snow is not a deterrent for this bike rider in front of us! Some 40 minutes later, we pulled into the empty parking lot by the Aras Nature Reserve. With the picnic stowed away in a bag, we headed off to explore.   WARM SOCKS: check HATS: check TOASTY GLOVES: check STURDY BOOTS: check We opted to take the blue trail with 3.4 km to walk. Did I mention it was lightly snowing during most of our...

When we first found out we would be coming to Sweden for this school semester, I could only imagine what a thrill it would be to see the festivities on December 13th as the country celebrated Luciadagen. What I didn't expect was that one day of celebrating is more like one week of celebrating.  And I have loved it! Our first Lucia concert took place on the second Sunday of Advent on December 9th. It was held at Kristinekyrkan in Jonkoping. We found out about this concert from Anne's SVF roommate, Elin, as she is a member of the choir performing at the church. This church is very old with its consecration taking place in 1673.  Waiting in line (the concert started at 3:00 pm and was open and free to the public) was cold but the time passed quickly as we watched the adorable antics of the young children in front of us. It reminded us of our own barnbarn. Once inside, the sanctuary filled up quickly. Isn't the sanctuary beautiful? (I took a...