Seasons in the Sun

In Umeå, I have now learned that the changing of the seasons are a little bit different. Having spent almost a full year here now, I can say I have fully experienced these changing seasons. Coming from Edmonton, the seasons are so distinct and really mark the progression of time throughout the year. Although I sometimes fantasize about it, I cannot really imagine living in a place that does not have this distinction.

In Umeå, the changing of the seasons is even more dramatic than what I was used to in Edmonton. It is strongly accentuated by the fluctuations in day length and the changing of the sunshine time throughout the year. The fall and the spring seasons are the times when the daylength is changing so fast, time moves so fast, it almost makes one’s headspin. Then when the light-changing slows down, either in winter or in summer, it seems like these seasons stretch out forever. Everyday being the same, a kind of stability is felt that is missing in the spring and fall.

In Swedish the seasons are vintrar, vårar, somrar, och höstar.

In Umeå I have learned that we don’t really have spring (vårar). The progression from winter to summer is so speedy it is actually called vår-vintern, which means spring-winter. It happens because there is so much snow that it really takes FOREVER to go away (still waiting…).

It has been spring-like weather for some time now, but of course we still have about a foot of snow, hence Vår-vintern. And once the snow finally goes, it takes only about 1 or 2 nice days, and then it is summer!

We are so excited for the summer here now! It will mark one year of living here for us, and we are excited for the things we enjoyed to do last summer but needed the long hard dark winter to make us really appreciate it.

Our plans for summer: we will picnic and barbeque every day, spend our evenings having a fire by the lake, do lots of hiking, cycling, gardening (we got an allottment in the community garden), staying up late when the sun won’t go down, playin kubb and Brännboll, swimming in the Baltic sea, and maybe even learning to kayak. A busy somrar ahead and I plan to enjoy every single minute of it!

Daring Cooks Challenge: Brunswick Stew

The 2010 April Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Wolf of Wolf’s Den. She chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make Brunswick Stew. Wolf chose recipes for her challenge from The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook by Matt Lee and Ted Lee, and from the Callaway, Virginia Ruritan Club.

Rustic and warm, and it made a tonne! Even my favourite picky-eater liked it!

get the recipe here: http://thedaringkitchen.com/

Daring Bakers: March Challenge: Orange Tians

The 2010 March Daring Baker’s challenge was hosted by Jennifer of Chocolate Shavings. She chose Orange Tian as the challenge for this month, a dessert based on a recipe from Alain Ducasse’s Cooking School in Paris.

It was tricky but delicious! I made mine with blood oranges. Next time I might try Grapefruit!

Wish I had more to update you all about our adventures in Sweden, but we are just running off to the High Coast in Sweden for Easter Weekend!

Daring Cooks: March Challenge: Risotto

Since I love to eat, and I love to try new things, I joined something called the Daring Kitchen! It is a group of food bloggers that have secret cooking challenges every month to try new things in the kitchen!

The 2010 March Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Eleanor of MelbournefoodGeek and Jess of Jessthebaker. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make risotto. The various components of their challenge recipe are based on input from the Australian Masterchef cookbook and the cookbook Moorish by Greg Malouf.

I made a Hokkaido Matpumpa Risotto, with my own home-made vegetable stock. It was my first time making risotto (surprisingly easy, you just need not be in a rush) and a first for making my own stock! It turned out quite good! We enjoyed a lovely dinner with wine, risotto, and actually I also tried making pizza with my own homemade pizza dough (first time ever using yeast), and that turned out well too!

I also joined the Daring Kitchen’s group for Daring Bakers, so stay tuned to see what baking surprise I am working on for March!

The Scientist

Ever wonder why we moved here anyway?

Umeå Universitet - with a specific shout-out to Umeå Plant Science Centre - holds the number 4 spot on the list of The Best International (ie. outside US) Places to Post-doc. If you look carefully you can even spot me in the picture for UPSC.

http://www.the-scientist.com/2010/03/1/49/1/

http://www.the-scientist.com/fragments/bptw/2010/postdoc/bptw-postdoc-top.jsp

Crazy Pants, or lack thereof.

Things I’ve learned from the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver

It has been a strange experience to watch the Olympics as an expatriate.

I have realized that national pride is proportional to the distance from said home country multiplied by the length of time away from said home.

Such that under regular conditions:

NP = d*t

But under Olympic conditions, this equation takes on a whole other derivation.

ONP ≈ (∑Gm + ∫CC_oc*Hc + [∂(P)/∂t]) * {ω}

where:

ONP: Olympic National Pride equals the

∑Gm : sum of the gold medals plus the

CC_oc : Canadian Content of Opening Ceremonies multiplied by the

Hc : ‘Hallelujah’ Constant for when an epic Leonard Cohen song is performed by another epic Canadian performer. Can also be substituted by any other song from k.d. lang’s ‘Hymns of the 49^th Parallel’ or Joni Mitchell’s ‘Both Sides, Now’ or ‘A Case of You’ because it mentions Canada directly.

plus the

[∂(P)/∂t]: ‘crazy pants’ derivation (see Azerbaijan)

multiplied by

ω : Wayne Gretzky.

So, as you can see, this year the Canadian Olympic National Pride shall be quite high, although I think we could have done better on the pants. Right, Azerbaijan?

Speaking of fashion, there was one thing that I saw in the opening ceremonies that gave me such a pleasant surprise.

When Clara Hughes was carrying the flag for Canada’s entrance to the games, she was wearing a Hudson’s Bay Company scarf. You know: the ones with the green, red, yellow, blue stripes. I was surprised by the Canadian nostalgia I felt just by seeing a simple scarf. It felt like I was seeing a little Canadian secret…to a non-Canadian it was just a scarf, and quite a plain one, at that.

But to all Canadians, they see those four stripes and it immediately conjures up classic Canadian images, whether it is of the modern day department store, or the olden day fur traders, it is definitely a symbol firmly entrenched in Canada’s history.

It makes me think of home. And there is no better symbol to have of a home, than a nice, warm welcoming blanket.

Except maybe also a Timmies :)

Blue Monday

Can it really be the last day of January already?

People have said that January is the most depressing month of the year. Scientists have actually calculated ‘blue Monday’, January 18, which is the most depressing day of the year due to a complex mathematical equation which factors in the distance from Christmas past, Christmas bills coming due, broken New Year’s resolutions, and the length and breadth of the winter still to remain.

But I’d have to say that here in Sweden, blue Monday doesn’t exist.

(or maybe it still does exist but it lasts the entire month of November).

January, however, was a fantastic month- solely for the fact that already it felt as though we were no longer living in the dark. About a week into the month, the days were already noticeably longer… which in turn makes me noticeably happier! We are now gaining over 6 minutes of sun each day, which, if my math is correct, is about 42 minutes each week. Winter has been great so far. We’ve had a ton of snow here, without it being very cold. The perfect winter!

Of course even with all this snow, most people (not me though) are still riding their bikes everywhere. It is so funny to me to see people biking through the snow and carrying a set of cross country skiis under one arm.

My first adventure with cross country skiing took place last weekend. I went out with a co-worker and we skied out on the frozen lake, Nydalasjon. How did I like it? …well…it was *OK*. I wouldn’t call it ‘fun’ any more than going for a walk is ‘fun’. I kept wanting to go faster…I guess I still have a bit of downhill skiing in me. I think I will try it again though. And if anything at least I have gained much more respect for the skiers in the Olympics this year. (Go Canada! I can’t wait for the Olympics to start!)

What else is new, you ask?

Our time in Barcelona was great. I guess I didn’t post much about it, but it was pretty awesome. Barcelona is a great place to go just to wander. We saw so many strange and wonderful little things that we will always remember. Like this one tiny bar which was basically only as wide as the door to get inside it, which was crammed with so many people that not a single other person could fit inside. (In the picture, the bar is only as wide as the door on the left. The one on the right is an entrance to an apartment).

Or like how every night we would invariably end up getting lost in El Raval, only to end up at the same sketchy back alley EVERY SINGLE TIME. Or the naked man at the beach that we saw not once, but twice. Or the cat that hated tourists.

After a week of wandering the city, we were still finding cute shops and restaurants that were tucked away in the strangest places. It was great to get away, but after a week in hectic Barcelona we were definitely ready to come back to face a quiet winter in Umeå.