Dec. 14 - Learning the Tube

Detailed directions to & from Ska Edeby were a gift from Maria, waiting for me when I awoke two hours after she left for work, my internal clock stubbornly refusing to jive with the Swedish one on my bedside.  

The Swedish train system is renowned.  Known also as an underground art gallery, with each station having a theme, it surpasses its functional beauty with precision timing & immaculate trains.

An art installation at a central Stockholm station. There are five windows with simulated tunnels dug into the wall & representations of global landmarks.

Living so far outside a major urban area would pose a problem in most places I’ve lived or visited...we’d certainly have many hours added to our time, requiring multiple transfers, should we want to travel from the far suburbs to inner Minneapolis.   They simply wouldn’t find that efficient in Stockholm.  Buses from even her remote area run hourly, with transfers to the next leg arriving every 15 minutes.  Save that first bus, which carries you just over a kilometer, making a short walk easier than waiting for the bus should you miss the hourly pickup right outside your door, I never  had to wait more than ten minutes to make the dozens of train and bus transfers in my first week.  Large signs pronounce the next arrival down to the minute & calm voices call out each new stop well in advance. 

Maria & I planned to meet after she got off work, so I left early, arriving at the Odenplan tube station about two hours before we were going to connect.  The station opened into a broad street, decorated for the holidays, with shops & restaurants lining each roads off the intersection.  A large church loomed beautifully over the entire area, from a slightly raised vantage, so I climbed towards a thick wooden church door, getting my bearings before sliding into the sanctuary’s silence.

A small church model was in the children's niche in the back of the church.  Many sanctuaries in Sweden have a children's play space for during the ceremony.  (The top of the steeple was about 20 feet high.)

It was fun to see an elephant in the creche set!

Our 2010 European trip taught us to expect a calming combination of splendor & spirituality when we visited spaces of worship in France, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark Switzerland & Sweden.  We never became jaded, no matter how many we visited, & my time in this first of several churches in Stockholm brought me immediately back to strolling through silent serenity with Kaitlin & Alec.


My first solo venture into the city ended with a relaxing cappiccino in a cafe/deli that filled their dessert case with beautiful treats, including marzipan pigs & tomte, the Swedish version of Santa Claus.

Dec. 14 - Swedish Sun

Arriving a week before Winter Solstice assured I would be experiencing short days in Stockholm.  Minnesota, too, has a much shorter day in the winter, so I didn’t think much about how it may be different.  Many Swedish days are like Minnesota - grey mornings, the sky the color of a nuthatch feather - but the nearness of the sea creates a theatrical fog which may last almost to noon.  It is the winter nights that teach one much about Sweden - deep palettes of vibrant colors stretch across the horizon in thin streaks as the sun begins to set near 2:45 p.m., leaving the city brights with lights by 3:15 & the countryside so dark even a flashlight beam weakens within a few feet.

Cityscapes

 Camera time stamp = 4:22 pm

 Seascapes

 8:23 a.m

 1:15 p.m

One week after Solstice - no photoshopping :-) - dusk on the Baltic Sea

Dec. 14 - Apple Butter

My housewarming party in Kol had an autumn theme, so I had a taste of my regular fall food experience in mid-November.  The mild 2011 Swedish winter allowed apples in the orchard outside Maria’s door to still be edible; they had not had a true, deep hard frost yet, despite it being mid-December & only a day or two of light snow.  Snow, though, was in the forecast & the food-preparation cycle of the seasons which I’d missed departing before the late summer harvests in Minnesota called to me as I sat looking out Maria’s window my first morning in Skå Edeby.

Three large shopping bags were filled with ice cold apples as cotton ball flakes fell later that afternoon, me digging under hillocks of wet snow, hoping to find usable fruit. It felt wonderful to spend the next morning making a quadruple batch of sweet & spicy apple butter, stirring it every twenty minutes for six hours as I unpacked India, reorganizing my suitcase of worldly goods for Sweden.

Apples waiting for me! 

Final result? Champagne quality apple butter...we tried to replicate using the same recipe once we arrived @ Jordo, but didn't succeed...the apples at Maria's had their sweetness intensified through the gradual cool down into near freezing for weeks since the summer sun waned - an ideal setting, obviously, to make a richly nuanced fruit butter, full of the taste of autumn that everyone enjoyed receiving as small Christmas tokens when I visited their homes & school!

Stockholm Apple Butter

Ingredients
3.5 cups raw apple sauce
 1 cup water
 1 cups sugar + 1 cup sugar
Juice of 1 lemon + 1/2 a lemon - I also used orange peel
1 pinch ginger - I used a two inch piece of fresh ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon - I added cardamom, cloves, nutmeg & a pinch of allspice

Instructions
1. Peel two or three kilos of apples & cook down over slow heat until you have  3 - 4  cups of apple sauce. Put through a sieve or blend a bit until quite smooth

2. Mix apple sauce, water, juice of one lemon, 1 cups of sugar, & spices in a medium sized pot.

3. Bring to a boil, then cook over a medium heat, stirring occasionally, for five to six hours or until it sticks to the back of a spoon without running off.

4. Add up to 1 more cup of sugar and the juice of half a lemon to the mixture, allowing it to cook for 10 minutes more. (Watch it more carefully as you add sugar - it gets quite sticky)

Dec. 15 - Meeting BKG Students

I met Martin, a teacher with the Kolkata/Stockholm student exchange at a cafe near his school...it had a small deli area & a blackboard with daily specials...I've been cooking at Maria's so this was my first meal out - delicious baked salmon, fresh potato salad with mustard & greens &  mild creme fresh...

Brännkyrka Gymnasium is a historic building in Stockholm, with unique mid-century features like a spiraling staircase & bright open common meeting space.

 GREAT view of downtown from the staff office window...bright blue sky after a rather grey week...

 I met with the team of ten students who will be journeying to Kolkata in January 2012.  BKG is unique - it has almost 70% of its students speaking a language other than Swedish as their primary language...two of the students traveling are Indian & one young woman even is from Kolkata!  We spent over an hour talking about how West Bengal will be different than Stockholm.  I'll be returning to visit with them after their trip....also was asked, after talking to them about living in India, to return to talk about being American, too.  We all laughed!

Dec. 14 - Grand Welcome to Brännkyrka Gymnasium

"It's a small world" has taken on literal meaning for me this year, as one connection linked to another.  My best West Bengali became part of a Swedish government grant program near the same time I was granted my sabbatical, forming an opportunity for four teachers to travel to Kolkata in late October - plenty of time to meet before I traveled to their home!

Their trip provided many wonderful memories, powerful conversations between student-centered educators from three countries, a chance to speak English with new friends & provided a trial run as a  host for visiting guests!

We visited a "club" in Kolkata with a professor from Calcutta University.  Many middle class Calcuttans have a membership to an organization or group which has a YMCA type set of parks, a pool, swimming & tennis lessons, outdoor dining, alcohol is served...it's a oasis of green & family time in a crowded city....surrounded by tropical greenery!

 We shared an excellent last meal on before departing back to Stockholm & then, less than two months later...I was invited to share holiday dinner with the staff at their school in Stockholm just two days after arriving!  WOW - the connections have been perfect!

Martina, Marcus, Sara's son, David & Sara enjoying the first course of a magnificent traditional Swedish holiday meal.

Celebration started with Glogg, spiced wine, heated in slow cookers....red on the left, white wine on the right.  Almonds & raisins are spooned into the bottom of wine glasses & then the warm glogg soaks into them as you sip, leaving saturated, yummy sweet treats at the bottom of the glass!

 The buffet was stunning - cheeses, breads & crackers, two kinds of herring, caviar & hard boiled eggs, smoked salmon, three kinds of pate, vegetarian dips, a dozen kinds of cold salami & sliced meats, pickles, fruit & warm rice pudding.

 I came back to the table with a full plate...and then learned the 20 ft table I went to first was just the cold table...there were 40+ hot dishes, a dessert table & an for pay bar!

Needless to say I left the evening very full!  I felt very welcomed by the staff & great to reconnect with the four truly fantastic teachers I'd met in Kol!

Dec. 13 - St. Lucia

I'm left with little choice but backtracking through the journals & partial blogs I've created during the past nearly eight weeks as I work long hours to catch up posting before a self-set goal of being in real time before New Year's Day, 2012.

Friends & family were on my mind often as the holidays approached, beginning with a beautiful St. Lucia ceremony accompanied by my host, Maria & her friend.  They relayed that many of the songs were modern & they missed the traditional Lucia songs; I enjoyed the songs, knowing very little Swedish!  The service was a bit over an hour, with most of the singing performed by a large, all-female choir, split by a short intermission of a male choir of seven young men from the congregation singing traditional English holiday songs...including a great Swedish accent version of White Christmas.

The highlight of the concert was the addition of a children's choir for the last four songs, bringing the total of singers to well over 100. We were lucky enough to have selected seats near the performer staging area, bringing the lit wreaths glowing past us several times.

 Cold, rainy night with folks waiting in line to enter the santuary

 Preparing to enter the church down a long center aisle & candles ablaze - both on the heads & hands of young woman, wall sconces & massive chandeliers.

 We ended our evening with a traditional St. Lucia tea & chat created by another of Maria's friends. She is an artist so the apartment was filled with unique touches & creativity...neat to experience in an old, renovated building directly in downtown Stockholm, complete with small courtyards & winding staircases to each new level.

 Tea, pineapple, oranges, cheeses, pepperkochen, jam & sweets, all lit by the advent candle holder

More on St. Lucia history
http://www.sweden.se/eng/Home/Lifestyle/Traditions/Celebrating-the-Swedish-way/Lucia/