Trick or treat?

Halloween is a big deal in the US. And a HUGE deal if your 4. The excitement of deciding what to dress up as. The excitement of getting to walk around outside after dark, daring each other to walk up to houses scarily decorated and trick or treat.

I spent the evening walking around a neighborhood with a pirate, a clown, two Snow Whites, one Belle, a fireman, and numerous number of undefined princesses. The streets packed with kids and parents. If Americans always say hello when you meet them on the street, on Halloween you are almost one big family. Everyone happily chatting away with each other while watching your kids trick or treat safely on the streets.

And then, over night, the Candy Stealing Witch came and took 90% of the collected candy away... there is only so much you want your kid to eat unless you want to collect them from the ceiling, high on sugar...

San What??

The Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet just published a notice on the Californian earthquake. They got it almost right...

Maybe they've been to focused on the forest fires that they confused San José with San Diego...

Earthquakes and fires

We just had an earthquake in Northern California. 5,6 on the Richter scale. "Moderate" according to the report system (but pretty significant for those on top of it). 146 km from where I live. I wouldn't have known had not a friend from Palo Alto called me and told me about it (she spent it with her daughter under a door frame).

Even though California is "earthquake land", forest fires are really a more common problem in this state. The areas of the SoCal of the forest fires were (and are) HUGE. And amazingly enough, earthquakes are actually pretty local. Just the smoke from the forest fires can effect thousands of people in areas where you wouldn't even have felt an earthquake in the other end of the area.

In the end, I'm not sure I prefer one or the other... they're pretty nasty reminders of Mother Earth's unpredictably mood...

Read more about the earthquake on fellow Swedish-Californian alien blogs: Monica, Lotta (in English) and Minten. Who all by the way had updated their blogs long before the papers wrote about it!

The San Diego fires on Google Maps. One of the two major ones would completely cover all of Stockholm. Just to give you an idea of the size...

Rain!

For a long time tonight I thought a neighbor had a motorcycle running on the street. Then I noticed it was getting darker quicker than the sun sets. And finally I realized that it actually was a thunderstorm approaching. A thunderstorm with rain! Yihaaa! The first one since, since, since... I can't even remember?? March? April??

It lasted for about an hour (and the unused and somewhat distracted Daughter seemed skeptical when we tried to explain it by "Uncle Storm playing drums", not easy being a 4-year old when it can be 6 months between rainstorms and you forget all about the sound of heavy rain against the window and the sound of thunder).

When it was over I took a walk to the mail box just for the smell. It smelled... hm... dusty... like all that dust from the summer heat was floating around...

I was hoping more for... "clear, green, fresh smell".

Oh, well, you can't have all. Good thing it wasn't Wednesday, a lot of kids (and some adults) would have been really disappointed since the storm passed over exactly during the best "trick or treat" time...

Swedish winter time

Ok, so Sweden now has "winter time" (daylight savings is "off"). But the US won't switch until next Sunday. So for one week the time difference between Sweden and California is... (and I just hate doing these calculations) ...10 hours and not 9. No. Wait. Sigh. Wrong again. 8 hours.

So instead of being 5 pm in Sweden at 8 am here, it (or "she" as we say in Sweden, the clock being a female) is 4 pm.

I do NOT like daylight savings. Especially when Europe and the US is out of sync...

Saving people all day

I have spent all day (8 am to 5 pm) learning about pediatric first aid and CPR (as I've written about before). It was a long, but pretty interesting day. The teacher was an experienced EMT (Emergency Response Technician) with lots of (horrible) stories to tell.

So now I've done ABC on mannequin adults and plastic babies, helped choking adults and infants. I'm now a certified something (CPRist??). At least for two years, then my certification expires...

I'm really glad I took this class. The rest of the students hated me. They mostly were there to renew their 2-year certifications and had done this numerous times before. And I kept on raising my hand asking questions on how to handle burns and what really happens when the EMS arrives (Emergency Response Service) and so on.

Oh, well. I hope I never have a reason to practice what I learned but I sure feel more ready! Hopefully no one will choke in my kitchen! (considering the amount of cooking I do, that risk was pretty low in the first place...).

Mount Shasta from the air

Here is an attempt to catch California from the air, coming from the east. Far, far away, in the middle of the picture (click on it to see a larger picture) you can see Mount Shasta (where fellow alien blogger Anne-Marie lives) (not ON the mountain, but next too it).

The lake is not Lake Tahoe, but Pyramid Lake, north east of Reno. The lake is actually in Nevada, the border to California a bit west of the lake.

Jetlag

"Jet lag, (also jetlag or jet-lag), is a physiological condition which is a consequence of alterations to the circadian rhythm".

It's always feels good with a proper definition.

Ok, so this westbound jetlag has been more trickier than usual. Despite two 10 hour nights since my return to California, I feel totally exhausted and unfocused (could be the sudden lack of "smågodis*"...).

According to Wikipedia, females are more susceptible to jet lag than are males, part because estrogen is often vulnerable to jet lag-like conditions. Could I use that as an argument to travel more comfortably in business in the future?

(* the greatest candy in the world)

Confused

Sometimes I wonder if slower means of transportation would be better... If the trip between Sweden and California would actually take longer time. That way the body, soul and brain would have more time to adjust to the movement and keep up.

Today my body thought it needed Swedish fall clothing (it was +28 here today), my soul was still walking the streets of Stockholm and my brain was more or less asleep all day.

(but once the jetlag days are over, I usually will vote for more research grants for development of beam machines for Sweden-California travel. Or at least a Concord).

Scary fires

I returned home to a state on fire. Huge, scary fires are roaming in Southern California (which still is pretty far from here... about 6-8 hours in the car). Half a million people evacuated... This is of course the major news story - occupying all news programs. Fires really are a huge problem in California, a bigger problem than earthquakes (as long as the Big One keeps away).

The Husband compared acres and maps and if you take the largest area on fire in California, translated to the Stockholm area, it would be an area stretching from Arlanda in the north to Södertörn in the south and Eskilstuna to the west...

Even the forest fires are bigger in America...

Home sweet home!

I'm back home after a long, but pretty uneventful trip. No farting neighbors, but a non-working flight system (mine was the only one not working...).

I really know this trip by heart, could probably do the connection at O'Hare blindfolded... Now I'm sticking around home in California, but I'll do one more visit to Sweden before Christmas.

Time to go home

My 10 days in Sweden are almost up. The bags are packed, all my electronic gadgets charged. I'm actually somewhat looking forward to sitting on that plane tomorrow (the first one... the second one I hate...). As usual it's been intense days. I'm leaving at 7 am tomorrow morning, and nothing unforeseen happens I'm arriving at 3.30 am at home in California.

It's going to be a long Tuesday.

Kantareller

Chantarelles at the "Haymarket" (Hötorget) in downtown Stockholm. Not sure if they're really Swedish however... according to my inside source (my mom...) there are hardly any mushrooms this year. No matter its origin - it is my favorite mushroom however...

Swedish pizza night

My host served "Swedish" pizza for dinner (even though pizza is claimed to be "Italian" here). Compared to the Californian ones, they are really, really thin and have probably 1/4 of the cheese.

I can't even remember the last time I had one. I choose my "regular" - Capricciosa (ham and mushrooms). Not bad at all!

Catching an afternoon movie

I used to work close to Hötorget and one of the biggest (the biggest?) movie theater in downtown Stockholm, Sergel. Often on my way home, I used to sneak in a see a movie, not caring about the lack of company, just enjoying the movie.

This afternoon my dinner host delayed the start of the planned dinner, and when I got the text message I happened to be standing on Hötorget. So I decided to see if I could catch a Swedish movie. The movie "Underbar och älskad av alla" (the only Swedish movie in this cinema) had started 10 minutes earlier, but you could still get a ticket.

So that is how I spent the afternoon!

(The movie was a "chic flick", occasional funny, a great Sunday afternoon movie, lots of views from Stockholm - nice!) (and the male star was... pretty handsome).

Colorful houses

Blue, yellow, red. Colors of houses you rarely see in California.. This picture is taken from the neck of woods I grew up in (my house was yellow but it's not the one in the picture). I never thought about house colors much, but after all these years in California and in an area with "Spanish" houses in "earth" colors, I think I really, really like colorful houses.

The new KappAhl commercial

Remember I wrote about on Richard Gere's participation in the Swedish apparel store KappAhls commercials? Well, it's here. I just saw it on TV...

The Woodland Cemetery

I grew up next to the Woodland Cemetery, a beautiful and fantastic place just south of downtown. It was built in 1917 and the architects used the natural landscape as a frame and a stone wall surrounds the cemetery. It's so big you can get lost.

Today I took the subway to Skogskyrkogården and took a walk through it, placing a fall wreath on my grandmother's grave. The sky was almost clear, the air thin and cold the leave trees in beautiful fall colors, framed by the green pine trees.

If you live in Stockholm and have never been here or are a visitor in Stockholm, this sure is worth a visit. It's like a hidden treasure! It's amazing during the All Saints holiday (as I wrote about last year).

More fish

I had my Friday dinner at the nice restaurant Pontus by the Sea, celebrating a birthday. The restaurant is located in one of the most beautiful spots in Stockholm, in the Old Town, by the sea, with a view over the water. And the food is delicious!

Thyme grilled saithe with brandade, onions and veal gravy

(Timjanstek sej med brandade, smålök och kalvsky)

Movie night

I wanted to go to the movies when in Sweden. In the end we ended up watching a French movie, the movie adaptation of Anna Galvada's "Hunting and gathering" ("Tillsammans är man mera ensam"). It is a very special book and I really wanted to see the movie and it would have been too complicated to see it in the US - with English subtitles... two languages are enough when seeing a movie...

The first half of the movie I was sort of disappointed - even though it was fantastic to listen to French (something seldom heard in California...), but the movie grew on you in the end. The books is still much better, but they did as best they could I think.

And instead of popcorn we ate Swedish "smågodis"...