Calling 112 (AKA 911)

Swedish people do tend to enjoy their alcohol.  Especially since at the ripe old age of 18 can an individual start legally consuming alcoholic beverages.  Oh boy!!  Well, just because they like it, doesn't mean they can handle it, and definitely doesn't mean they should be imbibing it!

So at like 1:15 this morning I'm laying in bed reading Brisingr (Book 3 of the Inheritance series about dragons and stuff). I like to read before bed, it helps me wind down and shut my brain off from the chaos that is life.  I need to get up at 10 am to get ready so I can go to a camaro club car meet with my boyfriend (that's a WHOLE set of blogs of it's own one day).  We have no AC so I've got the window open and considering how close we live to town centrum(a whopping 5 min stroll) we often get to listen to harmonic sounds of drunkards stumbling home from the bars in the middle of the night.  Tonight was no exception...or was it!?!?

Well (see above stated time), I start hearing drunken swedish screaming and then some weird thumping noises.  I pondered what it could be, but then the noise stopped.  So I went back to reading, and about 1 min later I hear glass shattering everywhere.  My first reaction is someone just broke into one of the cars on the street, so I run to the window to look out and check if I can see anything.  This way if a crime is being committed I can attempt to help the police or victims out.  I realize the glass wasn't from a car when I notice someone walking out the entrance to our apts downstairs (I live on the 3rd floor of a building with 5 separate entrance doors).  I stick my head out my kitchen window, see a drunk dude stumbling across the yard in front of our building walking away from our door and I noticed the sound of crushing glass as he's doing this.  Oh and he's screaming in drunken swedish all the while too.  Did I mean I don't fully understand spoken sober swedish?  So drunken swedish is way out of my ball park!  

Anyway.  So then I'm kind of freaking out.  I'm fairly positive a crime is taking place, the building next to us is dark, the only people I see outside the building are the ones involved in the scuffle and random drunk people stumbling in and out of shadows.  I'm home along as my boyfriend was at work.  So I'm like oh crap! Do I call the cops? Unsure of what is the appropriate response, I tried calling my boyfriend to tell him what happened and ask if I should call the cops.  Of course is work phone is busy, and his private cell is still in his truck while he must be making his delivery (he's a truck driver..wow lots of tangents huh?).  So I keep trying and trying to no avail.  All the while I keep an eye on whats going on out front.  The drunk dude in the white shirt (who I suspect is the culprit) was then sitting on the curb in front of the building across from us and a girl was with him trying to calm him down.  Then I see a taxi pull up about 10 ft from them, and I think oh good they are going home now.  But NOPE!  The guy then got up and started charging for our building and our entrance screaming!  His female friend was chasing him down and trying to stop him and pull him back while he's screaming (I think) "Magnus kom hit! Kom hit!" Translation: Magnus come here! Come here! 

So it becomes clear this little tiff isn't over and if I ever want peaceful sleep tonight I'm going to have to call the cops, with or without my boyfriends opinion.  Here you dial 112, which I did.  Thankfully the guy who answered spoke english, so I explained what was going on, then he transfers me to the police and I explain to them what's going on.  And about 30 secs after I hang up the phone I pop my head back out the window and see a cop is already talking to the drunk fella down stairs.  So I suspect someone else must have called before me.  

Long story short!  The drunk dude and his 2 female friends left in the cop car.  After that I went down stairs to see what the glass breaking noise was that I heard.  Part of me thought just maybe it was just a beer bottle.  WRONG!  All 3 glass panels of the front door to our apartment building were broken and laying on the floor inside the building.  Which means some tool (idiot person, not instrument) from the outside smashing in our door.  Wonderful!

Now, let me say this.  We don't live in a bad side of town.  Not that there are many of those here in our town.  Not in comparison to anywhere of mediocre interest in the US.  But anyway.  It's relatively calm and normal here.  Yes we have the drunk people walking home from the bar at 2 or 3 in the morning who like to sing as they walk along.  But not usually an issue with violence or anything to this degree.  

So here's the irony.  My boyfriend has lived in this building for like 10 years, and has never had an incident like this happen here before.  And in his 31 years of life, he's NEVER called 112.  I've been here 1.5 years and I beat him to it.  Lucky me.  lol.

So there's my excitement for the evening.  Hope everyone out there is have a safe and responsible time this weekend.  And people.  Please know your limits with alcohol and under that things made of glass, can break!

Land of the Midnight Sun!

So hopefully as most of you readers know.  I live in Sweden.  Granted I live in central Sweden, so it's not like I live up in the arctic circle.  But one of the things that comes with living in this part of the world is LONG summer days.  When I say long, I mean LONG!

I originally come from South Florida.  And there, the sun goes down between like 6 pm (18:00) and 7:30 pm (19:30).  I got quite used to that.  So 3 summers ago when I came to Sweden to visit for the first time, it was midsummer weekend.  Which is actually the long days of the year!  Here in Sweden, people like to party and get plastered to celebrate midsummer.  It's actually the biggest holiday of the year here.  But I digress.  So, my 2nd day here in Sweden (3 years ago), we went to a party.  I was kind of drunk from drinking snaps (Swedish booze with herbs, and quite strong) with dinner.  Another Swedish tradition.  So we go to a friend of my boyfriends to party some more.  Well people came and went throughout the night, but at one point I noticed only a handful of us were left.  Through blurred eyes I looked out the window and saw how light it was outside.  I freaked!  I thought during my drunken stupor I lost all sense of time, and it was like 5 in the morning or something.  So I freaked and told my boyfriend we had to go, and we had to go since it was so late.  Everyone just kind of laughed at the silly ole American.  Then I stuck my watch in my eyeball to try and focus to read the time.  Only to discover it was like 2:30.  That's right, I said 2:30!!!!

Well my this being my 3rd summer here, and next month being my 3rd midsummer here, I do believe I have finally gotten used to the wacky world of time and days and nights that go on here.  In fact, I found myself really enjoying the long bright and sunny day today.

Some of the random thoughts that the weather today triggered:

1. Wow, I really am the whitest Italian girl to walk the earth.  (I'm actually and Irish/Italian American mutt, but I have Italian skin).
2. Oooh, my plants and seedlings are probably really happy today!
3. Thank god the snow is gone!!

So needless to say I felt a picture was necessary. They do say it's worth a thousand words right?  Well I took this picture at exactly 8:59 pm (20:59).  I apologize for the blurriness and the dead balcony plants (we are moving so going to dump them when we move everything out).  Notice how bright the sky is.  This picture just doesn't do it justice.

So if your a vampire, and albino, allergic to the sun, or just hate long days...well Sweden is not for you!  At least for a few months of the year.  :)

So as I'm winding down and getting ready for bed, I can't help but think now....Thank god for blackout window shades!!!!  Hahahaha. 

Happy Blogging All!

Indoor Garden Part 2

Welcome back! So it's been a week since my last gardening post.  And 2 weeks since my little seedlings have been planted.  It's amazing what a difference a week makes!!!!

Since I'm living in an apartment in Sweden, I have decided to divide up this years crop between the kitchen window (north facing), and the living room window (south facing).  The living room window gets probably the most and strongest sun but only really in the afternoons/evenings (don't forget land of the midnight sun).  The kitchen gets easier morning sun.  We don't have a massive amount of room on the sills in each window, so it's hard to decide which plants get the sunnier side and which ones get the more moderate sun.  So here's how it stands. 

Kitchen = Radishes, Chili Peppers, Basil started plant, Parsley started plant, Parley seeds, Dill seeds, and Chives seeds.

Living Room = Rosemary started plant, 2 x Green Bean seeds, Sugarsnap Pea seed, and seed starter box

Now onto this weeks progress report and pictures! :) 

We decided to move the beans and peas seedlings from the starter box to proper pots, as those bad boys were growing super fast!  So now we have two pots dedicated to green beans, and 1 pot for sugarsnap peas.  One of the bean pots is the seeds that were planted right away into the seed starter box, and the other pot is the seeds I pre-soaked.


Closest Pot = Pre-soaked (only one seed seems to be growing)
Farther Pot = Seed starter box (they are flourishing)

Above:  Sugar Snap Peas

My radishes seem to be doing alright.  I'm fairly positive I planted them too close together.  Big fail for being lazy!  lmao.  But I'm still hoping to see one or two little red gems.  :)  

The chili pepper plant is doing alright, but nothing seems to be ripening.  Am I doing something wrong?  We bought it with chili fruit already on it, and more babies growing.  I read online somewhere that you should take  a q-tip or your finger and rub the open flowers every day between 2-3 pm (when polenation is at it's most optimal) to self-polinate plants like this that are grown indoors.  So that's what I've been doing most days.  I'll admit, a few days I got lazy and figured eh, who cares if the flowers aren't getting any.  I'm not sure how long it takes for the green peppers to turn red.  But my understanding is Apache Chili peppers should be red (for optimal strength).  I'll give it another week before I start scratching my head.

Above Image:  Closest is radish pot, with pepper plant behind.

Next up...herb tray!  In the kitchen, we have an herb tray where we directly planted some seeds (I didn't include pictures last week as it was just a pile of dirt).  Over this last week all the seeds planted have started sprouting!  We planted parsley, chives and dill.  I have another pot on the tray that will hold some green onions if I can ever get them to grow!

Parsley (Persilja), Chives (Gräslök), Dill

As for my seed starter box.  Well Basil and Chives are doing alright.  I think the chives are growing better inside the herb tray rather then the seed starter box.  And my green onions...well they are proving to be the most difficult little runts!  In all fairness, I did buy the seeds last spring, and tried to plant them on the balcony box last year and when they finally started to grow like 4 months later they were all funky shaped.  Maybe I got the reject seeds or something.  But it seems that out of the 4 seeds planted, only 1 wants to grow.  I'm debating on how much more I should let the Basil grow before taking them out and putting them into pots.  Hmmm.  Any suggestions?  

Left to Right: Basil, Chives, Green Onions

So, long story short!  Mostly everything is growing wonderfully.  Having a few hiccups, but not too bad.  I'm on the verge of giving up on green onions.  But at the end of the day I'm just glad nothing is dead yet!  Woohoo!!  So far already a vast improvement on last year! :)

There's this weekends update on my attempt at indoor gardening! 

Happy Blogging All!

Gluten-Free Sourdough Bread

Woohoo!! Kudos to me for not making a total failure!

I just made 2 loafs of "sourdough" bread, gluten-free of course.  I got the recipe out of a gluten-free swedish cookbook.  I'm not sure if this is exactly how it was supposed to be, but I do think it turned out alright.  I'm not the biggest bread eater to begin with, so i'm not the best judge.

I did start off by making a sourdough starter.  I used yeast, GF Flour, and water.  This particular recipe did not say anything about needing to feed the starter.  So I didn't do that.  To the left is my starter, after 3 days in a plastic tub w/cover.

Even though I was sure I totally screwed it, as it smelled so foul and looked so loose, I kept on with the recipe.  And here (to the right) is the dough sitting in the bowl attempting to rise.  Which it did, pretty much double in size.

The recipe is actually for 2 loaves of bread, so after an hr of rising, I went ahead with the kneading process and then divided it into 2 pieces and formed.

And let them sit and rise for another 30 mins.

After that, popped them in the overn for 30 mins to bake.  I did get the harder outside crust.  And I found the inside to be rather soft.  It didn't crumble to pieces upon slicing or holding, which I think is always a major plus when dealing with gluten free baked goods.  I thought the consistency was perfect for gluten-free bread.  The outside didn't really color much.  I notice that seems to be rather common with gluten-free breads.  So if your looking for the darker toasted outside, keep wishing.  lol.

Ratings (out of 5)
Ease of making: 3/5
Taste: 3.5/5 (Again, I'm not the best judge, as I'm not a big fan for bread)
Consistency: 4/5
Overall:  3.5/5

If anyone is insterested in having this recipe, I will be happy to do a blog post with a translation of the recipe.

Happy Blogging All!

-FXA

This years attempt at indoor gardening

As I live in apartment in Sweden, my best option for growing things is in the window.  We do have a balcony but as it's way too cold here most of the year (summer is like end of June till end of august), I can't really grow much out there.  Or the time frame for growing is too short.  Last year I attempted to grow onions, carrots and green onions out on the balcony.  Yeah, my carrots grew to about 2 inches long.  lol.  Failed!

So this year I'm going a different route, and keeping everything inside.  We even bought one of those seed starter boxes to mimic a greenhouse kind of environment to help the seeds stand a better chance of me not killing them. Did I mention I have never really been able to grow much in all my years at attempting to be a gardener.  I guess I just wasn't born with a green thumb.  So what the hell, lets try again.  If at first you don't succeed try try again, right?

So on this years attempt list, we have......

Herbs

1. Rosemary
2. Parsley
3. Dill
4. Chives
5. Basil

Vegetables

1. Sugar snap Peas
2. Green Beans
3. Chili "Apache" Peppers
4. Green Onions (2nd times a charm?)
5. Radishes

I bought mostly seeds, but I did buy the chili and rosemary already as a plant.  Everything else is starting from scratch.  We started off by planting all the seeds in seed soil.  Some we put directly into the pot they were meant to grow up in.  Some we planted in the seed started box, and some we planted in both (such as the chives and green onions).  I also pre-soaked the green bean seeds and the parsley seeds for 2 days.

Everything was started on Monday May 3, 2010.  It's only been 5 days and already we've got little babies growing!!!  It makes me so excited!  So far nothing is dead, I think.  Which means I'm already off to a good start!

From left to right:  Unmarked is green beans that were pre-soaked, then green beans that weren't pre-soaked, basil, chives, green onions, and then sugar snap peas.




Left:  Chili "Apache" Pepper Plant

Right: Radishes

So there are my little babies.  I hope this is the beginning of a beautiful garden!  We are moving into a bigger apartment this summer, and I'm hoping if these all turn out to be successful, then I can expand and grow more things at the next apartment.  As the babies grow, I'll continue to update on their success or my failure.  Haha.

Welcome to my blog!

Hey everyone!

If you'd like to know more about the author, then click on the about me page to the right.  :)  As for my blog.  Well it's all about my life here in Sweden.  The ups, the downs, and everything in between.  :)  I'm an immigrant here, having moved here from America 1.5 years ago.  So I figured this would be a great opportunity to document my journeys starting a new life...on the other side of the planet.

Warning:  I'm not the most savvy html user these days, and I haven't quite figure out how to divide up my posts onto different pages to allow for better organization of the posts.  So for now...all the posts about all different subjects will fall under this main page.  Some of the subject areas will be, politics, social health care, indoor gardening, books, movies, cooking/baking (gluten free) culture, language, my obsession with makeup/beauty, and just general gripping and praising of life.  :)

So I welcome you all to follow me on this often interesting and sometimes boring journey.  Thanks for reading, and please feel free to comment.  I'm all for hearing your stories as well!

Thanks!

-FXA