Skiing

The days between Christmas and New Years are known as meddeldagarna, the middle days, in Sweden. There isn't a lot going on other than sales. So, we went skiing. Our part of Sweden isn't mountainous. To ski Swedish mountains, you need to go north of the Arctic Circle, which is about 12 hours by train from Stockholm. I would love to ski up there one day, to be able to say I skiied north of the Arctic Circle, but the ski place we found closer to home suited us just fine.

Isaberg, on paper, is about the size of the resort we like in Ontario: Mount St Louis Moonstone. Good variety of runs, good variety of lifts, only about 1 1/2 hours drive from home. It was a beautiful drive - all the pine trees coated in snow. That's about where the similarities ended.

Difference #1: at home, you have a ski pass that you hang on your coat somewhere so the attendants manning the lifts can see it. Here, we had plastic cards with barcodes that we kept in our pockets. At each lift, there is an electronic turnstile that reads the barcode and lets you through.

Difference #2: at home, there's ski patrol. They're clearly uniformed as are the instructors. Here, we saw a couple of injured people on snowmobiles, but no other sign of ski patrol. Lots however of instructors. No signage either and not every lift was manned. At home, each lift has a map of the site and a listing of the hills that particular run gives access to, including their level of difficulty. Isaberg had one map, at the ticket booth.

Difference #3: at home, there are 3 levels of run - green, blue, and black. Here there are 4 - green, blue, red, and black. In my opinion, Isaberg's red is black, and I think it would be a really neat thing to ski so skillfully and confidently that you could do Isaberg's black run and enjoy it.

Difference #4: at home, most lifts are chairlifts. Here is more the way I remember from when I was a kid - tbars and pommalifts for Joe Average skiier and chairlifts for the advanced hills. We, of course, didn't know this. First clue should have been when taking a chairlift up for the first run of the day, the chairlift floats over a very steep cliff. I'm a chicken skiier at the best of times. Shouldn't be but am. You know that point of no return, when you've reached the crest of the hill you're about to descend, and you look down it, and it's easily a 75 degree drop? Welcome to the first hour of my day. For Peter and the kids, no problem. For me, an endurance test. Which I passed.

Summary: I spent a delightful hour inside after lunch with a book. The sun had come out, and a few sparkly snowflakes were drifting down. Peter and the kids enjoyed their red runs. Elizabeth and I did a last run of the day before my legs gave out, and we drove home inside a snow globe, and by that I mean that the snow was sparkling as it fell. It was -10 but not windy, and nobody got uncomfortably cold. I'm glad we had the chance to ski. I don't think we'll get to the Alps in any country this year, but at least our skiis saw European snow once this season.

Christmastown

Sweden gets a lot of press about how dark it is in the winter. Personally, I like it. True, it starts getting dark about 3pm, but that just means it's time to turn on all the Christmas stars in the windows and light the candles I have all over the flat. The best part is erranding because it's dark by 4:30 but the stores are still open and with the decorations and the snow, it's enchanting: snow everywhere, lights, happy people, Christmas music in the shops. It really feels like Christmas.

Göteborg is known as julstad (Christmastown) and last night Elizabeth and I found out why. We were on our way to the Avenue when we noticed a crowd of people at Götaplatsen, the square at the top of the Avenue, in front of the art museum (Konstmuseet). The mayor was up on the balcony, making a speech about the official opening of Julstad. He set off a confetti cannon and all the lights along the 3km length of the Avenue lit up. Next it was announced that we were all about to see the official premiere of this year's Christmasfilm, which is shown several times each evening on the facade of the Konstmuseet between now and New Year's Eve. The film was a little strange - an odd combination of good vs evil mixed up with references to fairy tales. There was a fairy trying to control the good things and a tomten or troll and a witch switching over to bad things. Good won out in the end of course.

The Julmarknad is another part of the julstad. Essentially, it's a fancy craft fair. Currently, there's one at the bottom of the Avenue in the mall, another one at the square in front of the botanical garden (Trädgårten), and this morning, Andrew, Peter and I wandered through the crowds looking at the stalls in Haga. Last Saturday evening, we were at Liseberg amusement park to experience its julmarknad, lights, and festivities. Some of the rides were operating in spite of the cold and the snow, so Andrew did the Chinese swings just so he could say that he had. Most of the stalls at Liseberg were glögg and food stands, but they had changed the prizes for the games of chance to Christmas treats.

Food-wise, there's "glögg" (mulled wine) which is available alcoholic or not, Christmas beer, Christmas cheese, Christmas bread and ljuskatten (saffron buns in the shape of sleeping cats), lots of Christmas ham, Christmas candy (I kid you not - it's called skum. It's like marshmallow but not as nice. Skum in swedish means foam if that helps at all), and special Christmas Coke called Julmus. The Coca-Cola people have tried to buy the rights to it several times with no success. It also comes out at Easter and it truly is uniquely Swedish.

We brought our julgran home from the lot this morning - carried it the 3 blocks from the square at Hagakyrchan to the flat. Peter thinks it's about 10 feet tall.

We are confident ours will be a white Christmas. Here's hoping yours is too. And if you're having trouble finding the magic in the season, have some gingerbread. In Sweden, gingerbread makes you nice.

Pepparkakor går dig snälla.

London Part III - The Long Road Home

Our last day in London was full of ups and downs. It was warmer out (slightly) but there was a tube strike so getting around was more complicated. We got to Victoria Station to find platform 9 3/4, but the station was under construction so that platform wasn't accessible. (Now maybe it never is to non-magical people). We spent some nice time at Covent Garden, had lovely big scones with clotted cream, but had no luck finding any of the books we were looking for at Foyles Charing Cross (give me Chapters anytime). We made it back to the airport in spite of transportation delays only to get stuck in an extra long line at security. Then, security decided that my bag of creams and perfume, my bag that had successfully passed through security 15 times in the past 7 months (I know because I counted) wasn't going through. Long of short, they kept me so long (while everyone else watched) that we missed our flight, had to buy 4 new tickets back to Gborg and a night in a hotel. Upside to the hotel - it was much nicer than where we had stayed in London. Their lobby bar has a 2 story (maybe more) plexiglass tower in it. It's a giant winerack and 2 girls fetch the bottles doing routines like something from Cirque de Soleil. Made it back to the flat about noon Tuesday to discover that Salem had closed himself in Elizabeth's room at some point during the weekend, probably early on. He looked a little thinner but otherwise none the worse for wear.

The kids had a good weekend. The first day was great. The second day was pretty great too (all the cold makes for good stories). I'd like a mulligan for the last one(s).