We're Kinda a Big Deal

Sweden has a population of about 9.6 million (a bit higher than the population of North Carolina) in a country roughly the same size as California.  That's just not many people.  It was really only a matter of time before we became famous.  After 1 month we started hanging out with TV stars at their home.  And by "TV stars" I mean a family who was featured on a Swedish reality TV show about a large RV vacation camp:


These are our friends, Johan and Helen, and their 5 children.  Their second oldest son, Olov (in the blue inner tube) is Roanin's classmate.  The show, Böda Camping, featured them because several of the children have food allergies, and this large campground carries plenty of grocery options for them at their on site market.

We snapped a few pictures of our kids playing with the little celebrities:

 

Adrienne and Dagny are becoming best buds. 

They practically speak the same language.

Who wouldn't want to hang out at a house with

5 kids, a trampoline, and a beautiful Swedish country view?

 

The great thing about being invited to a celebrity's dinner party is the unique and sectacular entertainment.  Our friends arranged a boulder explosion in our honor.  No seriously...the next-door neighbor blew up a boulder the size of a family vehicle with dynamite while we were there.  If you haven't witnessed this type of extravaganza for yourself, you really are missing out.



 

As of last night, 2 months into our stay, Roanin is officially our family's first TV celebrity.  (Read: He's briefly visible in the background at about 0:55 of this news clip.  Brown shirt, Steelers pants.)



Sweden's polls close Sunday, so as a lead-in to the national elections, this channel covered Roanin's school election.  As a red-blooded American, a representative of his nation's proud democratic history, Roanin educated himself about the issues, carefully considered each candidate and his or her party's platforms and promises, and cast his ballot.  In other words, he voted for the party with the coolest logo.  Come on...what 6 year old boy isn't going to vote for the black panther party?  Hmmm...the historical connotations of that title in America probably don't translate exactly to Swedish first graders.

There you have it.  You, dear reader, are officially following the blog of Swedish celebrities.

Swedish Gymnastics

"Swedish Gymnastics" might be a good title for a blog post about trying to check out at the grocery store with an American credit card, but this post is about actual gymnastics.

One of our new found friends invited us to bring the girls to a gymnastics class that he co-teaches.  Cora has been very excited, since she's missing her gymnastics class back home.  (Don't mistake this excitement for an indication that she really participated in her class at home.  She was more of an observer and distractor...but I digress.). Adrienne was excited since she often mimicked what Cora's class was doing while we hung out in the parent viewing room.


The class was for kiddos 2-4ish, and there were about 25 of them.  Parents were with the kids in the class.  Even so, the general chaos of 25 2-4 year olds ensued, cutely.  I think the class will be good for the girls since they can simply follow along with the physical activities, despite the language challenge.

Swedish gymnastics do seem to be a bit more hard-core than American gymnastics, though:

This is Cora and her bloody leotard after her top lip met with the metal chin-up bar.

Don't worry about that pout too much, she wants to go back next weekend.

A Walk in the Park

Living in Sweden may not be a walk in the park (especially without person numbers or credit card codes), but the Sala city park is one of the many things that makes it worthwhile. 

Sala Church of Sweden in the background

 

Fountain and Gazebo

Offstage left is an amazing playground.

Offstage right is the lake with its own fountain.

 

Fountain Close Up

The park has 3 statues and not a stitch of clothing. 

I think they've outlawed such things...statue clothing that is.

 

Room to Run

and Flowers to Sniff

 

Our own Crop of Beauty

 

Portrait by Cora

A Walk in the Woods

Send a man and his boy into the woods near our house and this is the bounty you can expect:

Mushrooms, let the research begin.

 

Anyone have a good book on Swedish mushrooms...in English?

 

 



 

Lingonberries

 

The girls and I will try to pick enough for saft (juice concentrate) or sylt (jelly) soon.

 

 

Angelo

 

The latest hostage in his aquarium (AKA former blueberry clamshell).  The snail is hoping this will secure his (her?) release.

 

 

They also found exactly 3 blueberries (techincally bilberries) that were reportedly delicious.  I wouldn't know.  I didn't get one.  harumph.

My Ikea kitchen

Living in Europe for several months sounds very glamorous, or at least it did to me.  There are certainly many times when this experience is amazing, and I'm very grateful that we're here.  However, many parts of my day still involve laundry, cleaning, and cooking.  We did bring the kids along after all!

Even the cooking part, while not the definition of glamorous, is at least interesting here.  I'm trying new things, in a new kitchen (more about my kitchen when it's cleaner..ahem), with new food, or at least new names for the food.  So here's a quick glance of a few things that have hit our table recently at the Vrtiska house...the Sweden version.

Last night I made pea soup and pancakes, because it was Thursday...that sentence makes sense in Sweden, promise.

My understanding is that this is the traditional Thursday fare in the Swedish military, so many Swedes make this every Thursday at home as well.  Scott became aware of it when traveling to Sweden on previous trips, because it's the special of the day in many restaurants.  The Swedish pancakes were SO GOOD!  The recipe I used was from Rockford, IL ("a really Swedish town" according to the contributor).  Scott said they were a bit eggier (that should be a word) than the ones he had for lunch at the cafeteria, but that's a compliment in our house.  If you're reading this and are more Swedish than someone from Illinois, please feel free to give me your recipe in the comments. :)  We topped the pancakes with lingonberry jelly, but Scott said they need homemade whipped cream on top, too, and what can't be improved with a bit of homemade whipped cream?  I used this recipe for the pea soup since I didn't have a ham bone.  It was yummy, and warm, but what can't be improved by a bit of bacon?  I'll try this recipe next time: http://scandinavianfood.about.com/od/souprecipes/r/peasouprecipe.htm  Or share your Swedish Grandma's recipe with me, and I'll use that one instead!

 

Earlier in the morning the girls and I picked apples from our backyard orchard for applesauce. We have 9 apple trees, and roughly a million apples.  If you can get to Sweden in the next few months, come over!  I'll bake you an apple...something.  I don't have canning jars or equipment here, and we'll only be here for a few months, so there's no way to put all of them to good use, but I'm going to give it my best shot!

On the other side of our yard is the plum orchard with 7 trees.

 We picked many plums from the lower branches, but there were so many yummy, juicy, tempting plums on the higher branches.  We really had no choice...

 

This is not spousal abuse...

 

 

This is harvesting without a ladder.

 

 

The plum tart helped soothe Scott's aching back.

 

We've been eating a lot of fish lately, but this was by far the largest so far.  Scott "caught" this one at ICA, our local grocery store.

 

 

Then he created a masterpiece:



We ate it with boiled red potatoes with dill. 

Roanin has a grilled salmon and pickle sandwich, and an apple for a snack in the woods today.  That sentence makes sense in Sweden...promise.  Every Friday the class goes and plays in the nearby woods for a couple hours before lunch.  Because he's 6.  And it's Friday.  And why don't we do this in the U.S.?!?!

I'm just glad we can safely use our grill again.  We were afraid to use it too soon after the forest fire .  Someone a few towns over started up their grill toward the end of the fire fight and a helicopter water bombed it for fear that the fire had jumped a line. oops.

Now I need to go clean up my kitchen before I make lunch.  That sentence doesn't make any sense...anywhere.



What I Want to Tell My Son About Ferguson

Dear Sweet 6 (and three quarters) year old Baby Boy of Mine,

The situation in Ferguson, Missouri is very simple and very complicated.  And it's heart-breaking.  And it's infuriating.  And I don't want you to know about it...yet.

But I want you to know about it someday.  I want you to understand it. I want you to ask honest, respectful questions when there are parts of it you don't understand.

I want you to know about slavery and share cropping and Jim Crow and The Civil Rights Movement and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr..  I want him to be one of your personal heroes. I also want you to know about Uncle Tom and "separate but equal" and Malcolm X and The Black Panthers and racial profiling and disproportionate incarceration practices.  I want you to see, if only from the outside, where generational anger comes from.

I want you to know that the police are there to protect you and keep our communities safe.  I want you to know that this statement is less true, or completely false, for people who look different than you.  A police badge doesn't fix a heart that beats with violent racist beliefs.  A job-issued deadly weapon doesn't make you the good guy.

I want you to know that you need to respect the police and their position in the community.  For you this is an issue of being a good, law-abiding citizen.  I want you to know that for people who don't look like you this could be a matter of life and death - wrongful, tragic, righteous anger producing death.

I want you to know that we are all equal in God's eyes.  I want you to know that you are valuable, worthy, and loved.  So is every other person God breathed into being.  This has nothing to do with the skin you're wrapped in, or the texture of your hair, or the accent of your speech, or the grammar of your language, or the style of your clothes, or the neighborhood you call home.  Not everyone believes this about all people. 

I want you to know that is wrong.  It's just as wrong when it causes a well-hidden, racist thought as when it causes a young man to lie dead in the street through no fault of his own. 

I want you to know that I am guilty of allowing appearances, including race, to affect my opinion of people.  I want you to know that you will, most likely, be guilty of this, too.  This is human nature.  This is still wrong.

I want you to know that one of the most important things you can do is be aware of this.  The more you are aware of wrong assumptions affecting your opinions and actions, the more you can work to second-guess your first impressions and see people through a purer lens.  And treat people with more appropriate respect.  And acknowledge that they, too, are valuable, worthy, and loved. 

I want you to know that this awareness takes more knowledge, not less.  More effort, not less.  More education, not less.  More practice, not less.  More love, never less.

But, right now, sweet boy, you are 6 (and three quarters), so I can't tell you these things, and have them make sense.  Because right now you are as close to knowing these things as part of your very being as you may ever be.  Your eyes have yet to be tainted by the world.  Your heart has yet to be hardened by experience.  Your mind has yet to question the value of another of God's children.

I want you to know that your view of other people, right now, is true.

I want you to know that I want the world (myself included) to know this kind of truth.

So right now, sweet boy, I won't tell you about Ferguson, because you already know the most important part of it. 

I will tell you about Ferguson when the world starts to take the truth away.

Love,
Mommy

Back to School

Technically, we're not planning for "back to school".  We're planning for Roanin to go to school...for the first time...ever.  Because of being a stay-at-home mom, and for several other reasons, we homeschooled our children to this point.  I can teach my kids many things at home, but I can't teach them the Swedish language and culture!  Living in Sweden offers us the awesome opportunity for the kids to pick up a second language in an immersion experience, which is the most effective way to learn another language, especially at their young ages.

Part of the reason we chose to live in a rural area was to be able to send Roanin to a small town school where we have contacts.  Harriet, our landlady and neighbor, works at the elementary school Roanin will attend as the supplementary Science and Math teacher.  Our friend who set up the rental for us knows the first class (first grade) teacher, and was able to assure us that she speaks English, and has used it while living abroad.  That was a huge relief!

School starts Monday morning, and Roanin is a big ball of nerves.  He's excited about going to school, but understandably nervous about the language barrier.  Swedish children don't start taking English lessons until they're in 3rd grade, so we don't expect any of his classmates to be able to communicate with him through language.  Roanin has been studying Swedish with Rosetta Stone for the last couple months, which we hope will give him enough of a foundation to begin to decode the rest of the language quickly.  From the brief research I've done, children his age are usually able to become functionally fluent in a month in this type of experience.

The "back to school" experience in Sweden has been a learning process for me.  Education is free in Sweden.  We say the same thing in the U.S., but when Sweden says "free" they mean F.R.E.E. free.  It's my understanding that education is free through the doctorate level.  I'll let that one sink in for a minute.  No college tuition to save for.  No student loans to pay off.  No starting life in debt.  In fact, university students are paid a stipend to help with their living expenses.  That kind of free.

We started...and finished back to school shopping today.  This is what we bought:

Harriet told us he should bring a piece of fruit with him each day for a snack.  He picked grapes. I picked out the rest for some variety.  Total spent on back to school items for the first day: about $1.50 for half the pack of grapes.  Pricey for grapes, but pretty cheap as back to school supplies go in the U.S..  I'll also send him with his Spiderman backpack we brought with us, and a pair of tennis shoes to change into when he's in the school building.  That's it.  We might splurge a bit and buy each of the kids a new outfit tomorrow, but thats mostly because the lack of school shopping is kinda freaking me out.  A Swedish friend with school-aged kids warned me that the school will probably send all his school supplies home with him when we leave for the states.  This is so different from the "free" school system in the U.S. that it seems backward.  The question is: "Which country is backward?"

Roanin's school day will end at about 1 in the afternoon.  I think this is true for both the first and second class.  Older children stay until about 3.  That will be a nice easing-in to the school day routine for Roanin since he's never been in a classroom setting for more than 2 hours once a week at Bible Study.  Before he heads home, he'll eat lunch at school, which is also provided...for everyone.  I'm going to ask permission for Roanin to bring a camera to school to take pictures of the lunch under the guise of an illustrated social comparative project. Rumor has it Swedish schools serve their children actual food for lunch, as opposed to the preserved, frozen, nuked chemistry experiments offered in the U.S..

Here's the best part of Roanin's first day of school, in my opinion:  I get to go with him!  Its allowed, and maybe even expected, that the parents of younger children will attend school with them for the first day, or two, or three!  I'll go with him for the first couple hours, but then I'll have to leave before lunch so Scott can get to work.  I was just stunned that I get to set foot in the building during school hours at all!

After we get Roanin settled into school, we'll work on getting the girls into a nearby daycare program.  As a stay-at-home mom, I'm only entitled to 15 hours of free daycare per week.  Again with the freeness...sheesh! 

Maybe if we can get daycare set up, I'll have time for things like typing up posts about our trips to Stockholm (the Paris of the North) and Paris (The Paris), and maybe even a date with my husband!