I’m off to Chamonix for a week of hiking and relaxation. My friends were ambitious and created a website (which we then never subsequently updated). Still it’s my first vacation with its own website (and its own google calendar, and its own google spreadsheet…). Exciting!
Comments (View)I moved apartments yesterday. My new hobby is considering furniture on Sweden’s version of Craigslist. What’s striking—and to my American eyes, bizarre—is the style of photographing the furniture outdoors. I would estimate 5% of the postings I’ve seen have outdoor shots. Photos below are representative, and are from 3 separate posts.
Is it the Swedish love of nature? sunlight? A reaction to the impropriety of others seeing one’s home? Or perhaps it’s a wry comment on the Stockholm housing crisis.
Permalink: “ I used to be a totally competent adult. But now that I live here I have to have my [Swedish] husband pay my bills!
—Pia
My bank has no English web interface, there are no such things as checks in Sweden, and trying to pay a bill at the bank cost about $11. But today, Roger taught me how to pay bills online. It involves using a different interface than the one I had previously been using to pay my rent. Since most of my previous attempts at paying bills have ended with me in tears and my bills unpaid, this is very much a good thing.
Fresh potatoes (left) are noticeably moister than old potatoes (right).
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It’s a little late, but I want to wish you a “glad midsommar”. Midsommar is (as far as I can tell) a major Swedish holiday. It’s celebrated on the closest Friday to the summer solstice. So, in this case, last Friday. Apparently, only tourists stay in Stockholm for midsommar, and I was lucky to have been invited to my friend Morton’s house on a lake in the middle of bucolic nowhere (outside of Knivsta), half-an-hour north of Stockholm. The setting was spectacular, the company was excellent, and the food was delicious. Morton is Danish, and we started with the traditional midsommar herring. Each type of herring is associated with very particular accouterments, and eating herring required strict adherence to the proper pairings. Onion herring is eaten with curry or mustard sauce and hard boiled eggs whereas pickled herring is eaten with fresh potatoes and capers. All should be accompanied by schnapps (Morton makes his own!). I didn’t get to take any pictures, but Roger did (including, I think, my getting a little silly on Morton’s trampoline). hopefully I will be able to post one soon.
Comments (View)Permalink: “ Let me be blunt: “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan” is the finest post-Zionist action-hairdressing sex comedy I have ever seen.
A.O. Scott. (I couldn’t agree more.)
