Some things I miss about Australia

In no particular order...

-Friends & family
-Pets
-Surf beaches
-Sound of Cicadas in Summer time
-Smell of the Monterey Pine (Xmas tree) at Xmas time
-Cadbury chocolate
-Chicken Twisties
-Lipton Chai Latte sachets
-Sausage rolls, party pies, meat pies
-Fish & chips, steamed dim sims & potato cakes
-Custard tarts
-Hot Cross Buns
-Mint Slice biscuits
-BBQ/Savoury shapes
-Cool mints
-Glucojel jelly beans
-Decent Sushi rolls
-Mrs Field's Cookies
-Having a wide variety of cereals & fresh produce to choose from
-Cheap groceries, cheap petrol & cheap hairdresser visits
-Driving/road trips
-Having a car
-Having a front & backyard. 

Easter (Påsk) in Sweden :)

Happy Easter (Glad Påsk in Swedish)!  Easter in Sweden is in Spring which means that there are beautiful Daffodils everywhere & I guess because they flower around Easter time they are called Easter Lilies (Påsklilja in Swedish).  Here are the lovely Daffodils that my in laws gave us for our window sill.

It is also common to see coloured feathers on twigs as decorations, in people's windows, on their porches & in their gardens.  I also saw a wreath made of Easter eggs on someone's front door.  The local council even put Easter decorations on the roundabouts, sometimes coloured feathers, even cut outs of big yellow chickens.

Apparently it is also tradition for young children to dress up as Easter witches with rosy cheeks & head scarves and draw pictures of Easter things & then go to people's houses to ask for 'candy' in return.  Kind of like how children in America ask for candy at Halloween.  According to Swedish folklore, during Easter the witches fly to Blåkulla (the Blue Mountain) to meet the devil.

 There is also chocolate of course & I saw one type of chocolate Easter bunny at a store.   People paint eggs & there are Marzipan eggs & a 'Påsk ägg' for sale in the shops.  A Påsk ägg appears to be an egg shaped container filled with chocolate & lollies (candy).  There are also Påsk ägg containers with pictures all over them, which I think are quite nice.

On the Saturday night of Easter there is a family dinner consisting of yummy traditional Swedish food & Påskmust softdrink.  For ours we had awesome home made Swedish meatballs, ham, potatoes, Prinskorv & red cabbage.

I hope everyone had a fun Easter & enjoyed the chocolate & holidays!  Glad Påsk!

Some things I like about Sweden (in no particular order)...

 ♦ The country my amazing husband comes from

♦ Learning about Swedish culture

♦ Fika

♦ The beauty of fresh snow (which is difficult to adequately capture in a single photograph)

♦ Watching snowflakes fall from the sky

♦ Listening to the Swedish language

♦ Krusbär (Gooseberry) softdrink

♦ The selection of yummy everyday cheeses & the everyday use of the cheese cutter 

♦ Swedish meatballs with Lingonberry jam

♦ Wienerbröd (Danish pastry with custard)

♦ Lingonberry bread & the selection of breads

♦ Being away from unreasonable amounts of work related stress

♦ Hanging out with Tobbe’s friends

♦ Spending quality time with Tobbe’s family (& the cats of course)

♦ Cheaper rent (unless you're in Stockholm)

♦ Wireless internet with absolutely no download limit

♦ Charming old buildings

♦ Castles

♦ Train trips to discover other parts of Sweden

♦ Being close to Denmark & Norway

♦ Learning Swedish for free from a nice teachers & with friendly classmates from all over the world

♦ Swedish chocolate

♦ White Christmas & all the gorgeous light decorations in the streets & the ‘electric 7-candle candelabra’ in pretty much everyone’s windows

♦ Sweden don’t sell cats or dogs in pet shops

♦ Houses, apartments & shops are always warm & cosy even when it is literally freezing & snowing outside in Winter

To add a few extra things that I personally appreciate:
-Environmentally sustainable country
-Great parental leave
-Not a very religious country
-Small population
-69% of the country is forest.

Me with our awesome snow woman! :D  March 2011