Bad Hat!

Update: I should have payed a little closer attention to my Swedish. The word for hat is mössa, not mossa as I originally reported. Also, the correct translation would be closer to "Wrong hat!"—which is also pretty funny, actually.

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We've been back from the States for six weeks now, and we're still having fun with all of the little treasures that we brought back with us—clothes we haven't worn in years that suddenly fit and/or seem stylish, trinkets we had been missing, gadgets we had forgotten we owned. We're still in the process of working all of our new/old stuff into our old/new life (March this year will be the month of hanging-things-on-the-walls).

One of my little treasures is my Norway flag hat, purchased out of desperation on a cold boat trip along the Norwegian coast in 2005. I didn't bring it to Sweden originally because, well, it's Norwegian, and at the time I thought it might be a little impolitic. Now that we're acclimated, though, it didn't seem like such a big deal, and I missed it. So this time I brought it along, and I'm glad I did—it actually does a better job covering my earlobes than any other hat I have here, not an insignificant factor when biking along at 20 degrees below freezing.

So, today the last of our Christmas bounty showed up, a package of stuff we'd ordered in Michigan that arrived after we returned, kindly forwarded by Jennifer's parents. More treasures! Instead of coming to our local gas station, though, the box stopped at Uppsala's single post office*, so this afternoon I took off work a little early to go and fetch it before the office closed for the weekend.

On the way out of the building, I passed my co-supervisor in the hall. He glanced at my head, then said, "For a moment I thought you were wearing a Norwegian flag on your hat."

When I avowed that I was, in point of fact, doing just that, he shook his head sadly, and said, "It's no wonder it took you so long to get your visa, then."

Now fast forward to my walk back to the bus stop from the post office. As I slowly made my way down a particularly icy sidewalk, a Swedish woman in her 60s, going the opposite direction, took the time to go a few steps out of her way so that she could shake a finger at me menacingly, and declare, "Fel mossa!"

Of course, last night Charlotte Kalla did suffer an ignominious defeat in the ski sprint in Oslo, the medal eventually going to Marit Bjørgen (a Norwegian), but clearly the blame for that lies with the French. No, I think it's more likely that the Swedish dislike of Norwegians runs deep enough to compel a complete stranger to speak to me on the street, for what must be the third time in three years.

Can you imagine what would happen if I ever mentioned the fact that I'm part Danish? I shudder to think.

*Why didn't it go to the usual place, you ask? Whim. For a postal service, Posten has always maintained an admirable sense of whimsy.

What have we been up to??

Vacation!

Being a "woman of leisure" for the time being, I went home in early December for a nice long holiday vacation in lovely St. Joe, Michigan. The weather was cold and snowy, with an unexpected thaw just before the New Year, so... just like home. Joe, who had classes and employment and pesky things like that, joined us a few days before Christmas.

One of the few disappointments with the trip was that we did not manage to visit Ann Arbor. I-94, as many of you know, can be a right nuisance in blizzard season, and this year was no exception. We are very sorry to have missed seeing people, but next time we visit the US, Ann Arbor is a priority. (And we probably won't try it in the winter again.)

Details... will follow. All is well here, and we hope that all is well for you, wherever you are. Happy 2011, and may we all have a safe, healthy, and prosperous Year of the Rabbit.

Sunrise in Örsundsbro

The fall term is, for all practical purposes, wrapping up now, and this year it carries for me the added urgency of prepping for teaching duties next term, on top of the normal scramble of exams and projects. I'm not complaining, I'm just saying: it's been a busy week.

Anyway, this morning I was supposed to have a meeting with a professor and one other TA about a class for next term, but before breakfast I found that it had been postponed until a to-be-named-at-short-notice time sometime before next Tuesday, while various people hashed out the other TA's seriously overbooked teaching schedule. So the morning went from fully booked to possibly my last free time for the week, and I decided to strike before the iron got out of the barn, as it were.

I'd been meaning to make the 30 km trip out to the sleepy hamlet of Örsundsbro for some time now, not on account of its bucolic character so much, but rather because it is home to our local Iitala factory outlet. There hadn't been a chance in the last couple of weeks (I've spent most of my free time dealing with our immigration status of late), and I'm leaving in a week for Christmas, so this was pretty much my last chance for the season.

I let the cat out, downed a cup of reheated coffee (a week on my own, and I still haven't learned to not make a full pot of coffee in the morning), packed a banana and a travel mug, let the cat back in, and was on my way. I made it to central station at 9:05, at 9:10 I was on a bus to Örsundsbro, and by 9:50 I was standing in the middle of nowhere, more commonly known as the Örsundsbro outlet mall, watching the sun rise.

That's it, just had a pretty little shopping trip this morning, and thought I'd post the pictures. I also took a couple of nice shots of campus after sunset (that is, I took them at 3:30 this afternoon), so I'll include those below.

Vi ses!

December's Foggy Freeze

I looked out the window before going to be last night, and I couldn't see the apartment building across the yard from us—an event that has not been so remarkable this November, I must say.

"Ah, snowing again," I thought, despite the fact that it clearly looked like fog, and went to bed. After all, it was -15 degrees C, it couldn't be foggy, right?

This, however, is Sweden. Of course it was foggy. This morning the 30 cm of snow we've accumulated since I confidently announced three weeks ago that it was melting is covered in a nice layer of hoarfrost. Not as nice as the three day hoarfrost we had for Christmas week last year—but then again, it's only December 2!

You know me, I love the winter. Biking home through the downtown streets Tuesday, over hard packed snow, with the river churning icily under the bridge and the snow covered cathedral roof over to the right, I had a moment of pure joy at living in such a place. So, no, I will not complain about the fact that, at the beginning of December, we've already been snow bound for three weeks, or that yesterday's daytime temperature ranged between -20 degrees C in the morning and -15 in the afternoon. I will simply say this: last year, we had snow the last week of April. And that's 5 months from now.

At least the cat likes the snow.

The glaciers are coming!

OK, not really, but it is wicked snowy here today. Sorry for the picture being so ghetto, but I don't have a camera with me today, and I wanted to show the view from my office window before this all melts—presumably tomorrow, to make way for the sleet we have scheduled for Friday. Yippee!

In other news, I appear to have graduated on Monday. I know this because I had to fight my way through the 25 cm of melting snow this morning to pick up the 11 page certificate I get in place of a diploma from my local gas station. OK, I just reread that, and I'll clarify: I had to pick it up from the local gas station, I actually graduated from the university. Of course, Moderaterna loves the deregulation, so maybe Preem Petrochemical University isn't too far off…

City of (Occasional) Lights

This November, in an acknowledgement that November is not a nice month to be in Uppsala, the city has decided to hold a repeat of its very successful venture two years ago, Allt Ljus på Uppsala, a sort of festival of colored lights at various places around town. (Why they decided not to do this last year, the darkest November in living memory, remains a mystery.) Forewarned that the snow was coming today, I decided to head downtown last night to check out this years entries.

There are 16 sights in theory, although I refused to take pictures of the really lame ones (yes, Dragarbrunnstorg, I'm looking at you. Four red lightbulbs tied to a streetlamp? For shame.) The best entries were the multisensory ones, such as the singing lamps in Slottsparken and the musical interlude on the pedestrian bridge overlooking Upplandsmuseet (I'll post a video of part of that here if I can get it working). If you are up for a tour of the the odder entries, check out the gallery, but the best shots are included here.

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