Christmas in Sweden

After a very long flight home on December 15th (10 hours to Frankfurt and then another two hours to Stockholm) I've now been in Sweden for almost two weeks.

Before Christmas I worked on finishing up my thesis and also tried to buy some Christmas gifts. I had a very nice Christmas with my family and my relatives and a lot of great food, especially the Swedish Christmas ham! It's my favorite! I also got nice gift, including a lot of Spanish books :)

After Christmas I've been taking it easy for a few day, just resting, reading books and missing Juan...

Now I'm going to do the last work on my thesis (I have to hand it in on the 2nd of January) and there are still some things left to do.

I hope you all had a very nice Christmas!

<3

Lussekatter, knäck, pepparkakor and glögg

This last week I've been doing a lot of Christmas preparations because even though I'm going home to Sweden for the real Christmas we have decided to celebrate Christmas here on Saturday.

So the first thing I had to do was of course to bake lussekatter (Swedish saffron buns). There are two big problems with baking lussekatter here, having to use dry yeast and that the saffron is not powder. However the trick with the yeast is apparently to let it sit for a while and the trick with the saffron is to boil it with the milk.

This weekend we made gingerbread cookies and we had to crush all the spices with a stone, but it actually worked out very well.

I've never made homemade glögg before (hot spicy wine) but that also worked out very well. Cinnamon, cloves, cardamon and ginger and a lot of sugar and then let it boil together with a bottle of red wine and then rest for a few hours.

The most difficult thing to make was the knäck because in Colombia there is no sirup for baking, however I use a caramel ice cream sauce and that worked fine!

We have also done some more decorating and we even got a polar bear, it's so cute!!
Now I only have to buy gifts and then I'm all set for Christmas on Saturday :)

<3

Julen är här (Christmas is here)

Well, there is still a few weeks left until Christmas however since I'm going home to Sweden we decided to decorate the house early so that we could enjoy it before I leave. So last week we decorated the stairs with lights and this weekend we bought a Christmas tree with decorations and something to hang on our front door :)

It was a bit of a challenge to get all the pieces of the Christmas tree together (no real Christmas trees in Colombia) but we managed and then the real fun began! 300 small lights and then some red and gold decorations, it looks beautiful! And we listened to Swedish Christmas song all night, including this one:

We also went to the Nordic Bazar at Skandia, however it wasn't that Nordic, mostly Colombian things. But I did see some Swedish people so that was nice! :)

On Saturday we went outside the city but instead of going down the mountain we went up to 3000 meters and walked around a little and looked at the nature. We saw a very cute baby cow that we decide to name Miss Sweden haha. It was nice to take a long walk and breath some fresh air, but at 3000 meters you really feel the lack of oxygen.

Last week my Spanish classes were all about food which was a lot of fun and this week we're starting on  the past tense so that I can tell people what I did yesterday and not just what I'm doing right now.

<3

Pig racing!!

This weekend I was lucky enough to experience something completely new, pig racing!

Juan took me to a place outside Bogotá where we could pet farm animals, ride a horse and yes, watch pigs race!

The pig racing took place in a "cerdódromo" and they had about 10 pigs racing around the tracks! The crowd was pretty big and we all cheered for the pigs. :) The first race was just running around but the second one involved obstacles, like stairs, that the pig had to get over. It was fun to watch and I'm very happy that the pigs seemed to enjoy themselves! I love pigs, they are so cute!

Cute baby cows!

Very big cow! Vaca!

Pigs racing!

Cute pigs! (In an ugly cage, I hope they let them out sometimes!)

I also rode a horse for the second time and it went very well, this time I took allergy pills before so that I wouldn't sneeze haha.

The rest of the weekend we took it easy and did some shopping and cooked some food. Monday was also a holiday so we had a nice brunch at crepes & waffles, we ate waffles with bacon and I had hot chocolate, sooooo good!

I've also been preparing for my next Spanish test that is this Friday. I've finished another three chapters of the book and my teacher promised to take me out for cupcakes after the exam!

<3

Long weekend and news

Colombia has been all over the news lately. Last Friday the military killed the main leader of the FARC which made headline all over the world. Here in Colombia people celebrated and hopefully this will lead to a weaker guerilla. There has also been a lot of reports about flooding in Colombia. Bogotá has had a lot of rain but not enough to cause any lasting problems, unfortunately other parts of the country are not as lucky and there has been landslides and flooding in many places.

This past weekend was another long weekend due to All Saints' day. All Saints' day is really November first but in Colombia they always move the holiday for the following monday so that people can get a long weekend :)

So me and Juan escaped from Bogotá again and went with some of his friends a few hours down the mountain so that we got a weekend with sun and heat. I could swim a lot in the pool and I even turned a slight pink color haha I don't tan very well. In the evenings we drank some aguardiente and went to a party. I had a good time!

Aguardiente is extremely popular in Colombia and I like it a lot, it taste like salty liquorice! And I miss Swedish candy a lot haha.

Here is what wikipedia says about colombian aguardiente, in case someone is interested:

In Colombia, aguardiente is an anise-flavoured liqueur derived from sugarcane, popular in the Andean region. Each department of Colombia holds the rights to produce it, but aguardiente produced in one region can be sold in another. By adding different amounts of aniseed, different flavours are obtained, leading to extensive marketing and fierce competition between brands. Aguardiente has a 29% alcohol content. Other anise-flavoured liqueurs similar to aguardiente, but with a lower alcohol content, are also sold. Aguardiente has maintained, since the Spanish era, the status of the most popular alcoholic beverage in the Andean regions of Colombia, with the notable exception of the Caribbean region, where rum is most popular. In general, aguardiente is rarely drunk in cocktails, and usually drunk neat.

This week I finally finished the Swedish part of my thesis, 35 pages! So now there is only the American part left....

<3

Halloween in Colombia

Monday was Halloween and here in Colombia they really celebrate! There has been Halloween parties all weekend and every time you went outside there were people dressed up. Colombia is very American so on Monday most kids went "trick-and-treating", it was very cute! Me and Juan handed out a lot of candy to a lot of kids (and also some teenagers) :)

The kids were all dressed up, some scary and some cute. And then they sang a song. According to google this is what they sing (I only remember the first two lines of the song):

Triqui Triqui Halloween -- Tricky Tricky Halloween

Quiero dulces para mi -- I want candy for me
Si no hay dulces para mi -- If there is not candy for me
Se le crece la nariz. -- Your nose will grow.


Very cute holiday! But you need a lot of candy, we had five big bags and we still ran out and had to turn down some kids.

Yesterday I had my Spanish test and it went very well, 83/100. The spoken part was the most difficult one. I had to speak for two minutes about Sweden in Spanish and it's difficult to remember all the word that you need.


Today I went shopping and bought a cardigan! The weather was very nice so I really enjoyed my walk home :)


<3

Elections

Yesterday it was time for local elections in Colombia, in Bogotá people voted for mayor and for the Bogotá council. I don't know enough Spanish to tell you anything about the candidates however I thought I would tell you a little about the election process.

Obviously I wasn't allowed to vote because I'm not Colombian but I went with Juan when he voted. You could vote all day, between 10 am and 4 pm. You have to bring identification, otherwise you are not allowed in and you can only vote in one specific place, close to your home. Once you are there you are assigned a specific table. At the table they will check your identification and cross you off the list so that you can't vote twice. You are then handed the special voting papers and you go into a booth where you mark your vote and then drop the papers into a locked box. The whole voting process only took about 10 minutes. After the election is over the person at each table will count the votes collected at that table and then report them. Yesterday it only took about 2 hours until we knew for sure who had won the election in Bogotá.

For those interested here is a short article about the new mayor in Bogotá, Gustavo Petro
Petro wins Bogotá mayor election

After Juan finished voting we had a very nice lunch with his family in a seafood restaurant, I tried some new things that I've never had before! They were really good!

In the evening we just took it easy and watched some movies, including the new Winnie the Pooh movie, it is so cute! I really recommend it :)

Tomorrow I have a Spanish test, so now I have to study!

Walking in Bogotá

Today I took my first long walk alone in Bogotá, from my Spanish class back to the house. It took about 20 minutes and I was a little nervous haha but it went very well! I was also lucky because it was sunny outside, Bogotá has been very rainy these last few weeks.

On Tuesday I ate lunch with Juan and his parents and I had traditional Spanish paella for the first time, it was very nice! I had the seafood paella with shrimp, mussels, octopus and other things :)

I've also gotten addicted to Colombian lollipops, Bon Bon Bum. They are sooooo good!!

Birthday surprises!

Saturday was my birthday and I had a wonderful weekend full of surprises! :)

Juan woke me up on Saturday morning with the birthday song in Swedish and the best cake ever! It was so cute and filled with arequipe so I was very happy! He then surprised me with a trip to a hotel a few hours north of Bogota. The weather on the way there was sunny and warm and the view really spectacular. Colombia is such a beautiful country! Juan also got me two amazing gifts, I'm a very lucky girl!

At the hotel we could relax all day and I got a wonderful mud massage, I don't think my skin has every been this soft! When I left the massage I was just floating around, I was so happy and when I got back to the room Juan surprised me with a bottle of Champagne :)

In the evening we had a wonderful three course dinner at the hotel restaurant and then we relaxed in our room.

The next morning we went horseback riding! I've never been on a horse before but I loved it! Unfortunately it turns out I'm very allergic to horses haha so the next time I have to bring some allergy pills. But it was very nice to be on a horse and get to experience nature a little more.

A picture of a horse! Haha this is not the horse I was riding, I found this picture on Google. But my horse was brown like this one and very cute. His name was Rayo, that means lightning.... But he was the nicest horse and very tame!

In the afternoon we visited a cute little Colombian town, had some ice cream and then we headed back to Bogotá.

It really was the most amazing weekend and I'm so happy I got to spend my birthday with Juan! He makes me extremely happy! <3

Granadilla

Spanish classes are working out great so far and I'm learning a lot! Today we talked about different professions and I learned things like "Cuál es tu profesión?" and "Soy abogada", so that might be very useful. However I had to be there at 7 in the morning instead of 8 because my teacher had a medical appointment later. Waking up at 5.30 is not that great...

When I got home I was a little lazy and got into bed again and watched one episode of Downton Abbey, I love it! Great British series set in 1912 in a big house on the English countryside. The cast is great including Maggie Smith (aka Professor McGonagall from Harry Potter).

Other than that I've just been working on my thesis, I've almost written 10 pages now and I'm starting to realize that the problem might not be to write 70 pages but to actually limit myself to 70 pages.

Since this update is not very exciting I thought I would write a little about my favorite Colombian fruit: Granadilla!

I had granadilla for the first time in August and I think it's absolutely amazing. The fruit is almost round and it is yellow/orange. The outside is hard, almost like a shell, and you have to use your thumbs to open it up and break it in two pieces. Inside there are a lot of small seeds in a white "slime". (That doesn't sound great, but trust me, it's awesome). In a way it is similar to passionfruit in that you eat the "slime" and the seeds and nothing else. It's very sweet in flavor and I actually think the texture of it is quite appealing too. You can read more about granadilla here.

Granadilla!

I don't think Granadilla is very common in Sweden, but if you see it you have to try it!

<3

Spanish lessons

This morning I had my first Spanish lesson!

I was a little bit nervous but my teacher is really nice and her English is great so she can always explain everything. We started a little easy with the alphabet and some greeting phrases. I bought my course book and I even have homework for tomorrow! Very exciting! Hopefully I did everything correct but Juan will have to look at it before I hand it in haha I don't want to mess up my first homework!

After classes I took a taxi by myself again! It also went very well haha, yay!

My Spanish book!

<3

Sun, mangos and a turtle

This past weekend was a long weekend in Colombia (Monday was some kind of holiday) so me and Juan and some of his friends decided to escape from the city and get some sun :)

Bogotá is very high up (about 2600 meters) so we only had to travel about half-way down the mountains to reach some warm weather. We spent three day by the pool and in the sun (and of course I burned a little bit because I keep forgetting that we are almost at the equator even if it's not that hot).

I also had a lot of fresh mango! I love it so much! It's sweet and fresh and very different from the mango you get in Sweden. And mango trees are pretty!

We saw a turtle, a real wild turtle! It was very cool! And I was surprised how quick the turtle was, it just ran away! I don't think I've ever seen a wild turtle before. Tortuga!

A picture of the turtle we saw!

I also got to spend some time with Juan's friends which was nice even if they mostly speak Spanish. I've heard a lot of Spanish this weekend. It's a little boring to sit and listen to conversations where you have no idea what's going on so instead I read a book. Before I left Sweden my wonderful aunt and cousin got me some early birthday gifts, including the book "En dag" ("One Day") by David Nicholls. That's the book I brought with me and I actually ready the whole book during this weekend, it's amazing! I can really recommend it to everyone! Or if you don't like reading you can see the movie "One Day" with Anne Hathaway that is out now in the US and should be out soon in Sweden and Colombia.

Thanks for the book! 

<3

Shopping!

Yesterday was a very important day, for the first time ever I went out alone in Bogotá and did some shopping! :)

This would not be a very big accomplishment in Stockholm or New York but here in Bogotá I feel like it was a very big and important first step. Especially considering I don't speak Spanish and in this city you really need Spanish to get around, most people don't speak any English at all.

First I walked by myself a few blocks to meet up with Juan for lunch (very nice Asian food) and then in the afternoon I went to the grocery store and bought some food. It went very well! It's kinda exciting to go shopping for food here because there is a lot of new products that I haven't seen before.

The grocery store where I bought the food :)

In the evening me and Juan cooked a very nice tomato sauce with pasta and we also started watching the new season of The Amazing Race. It really is amazing haha I love that show!

Arequipe!

Arequipe is pretty much the most amazing thing ever!

I was first introduced to arequipe when I was in Colombia in January and since then I have loved it with all my heart. Arequipe is a sweet caramel dessert that you can eat with a lot of stuff. I love it on waffles. Or slightly warm on ice cream. Or arequipe flavored ice cream. Or arequipe cake. My latest obsession is arequipe on strawberries, it's so nice to have the sweet caramel with the fresh strawberry taste.

Unfortunately the Colombians like their arequipe with cheese, which might be the only thing in the world that arequipe doesn't go well with haha. Hot arequipe with melted cheese is not a good dessert according to me (but most colombians will disagree with me).

The best arequipe is the Alpina arequipe and I'm absolutely sure of this even though I haven't tried any other brand haha. It's just that good!

So the whole purpose of this post is really to tell you that if you're ever in Colombia you have to eat arequipe!!

<3

Money

On the side there is now a converter where you can convert almost any currency to or from Colombian pesos (COP).

For example:

1000 COP = 3.46 SEK
1000 COP = 0.52 USD

1000 SEK = 286250 COP
1000 USD = 1923076 COP

So for example 10000 COP is not a lot of money (about 35 SEK or 5 USD), however Colombia is also not as expensive as the US and Sweden so here it's still "worth" more. You can buy more things here if you have 10000 COP than you could buy in Sweden for 35 SEK.

I should also add that not everything is cheaper here. Clothes and shoes and designer things are often more expensive than the US (although still cheaper than Sweden!). It's in things like food and taxis and anytime you pay someone to do something for you, for example a maid, that you really notice the difference.

P.S. I found the converter through the blog Colombialiv that's also about a Swedish girl living in Bogotá. Very interesting blog if you know Swedish and are interested in learning more about Colombia.

Taxi

Today was a very exciting day. I took a taxi, alone!

Since I'm planning on taking some Spanish classes while I'm here me and Juan went to a language center this morning to check it out and learn more about the classes. It seems very nice and it's in a good neighborhood so I might decide to go there. However I'll have to be able to make my way home again after class ends and the easiest way to do that is by taking a taxi.

Here it's not very safe to just take a taxi on the street so you have to call and order one. They then give you the time the taxi will be there and the license plate number so you now you're getting in the right taxi. You also get a "key", a number, that you tell the driver so that he knows that he is picking up the right customer.

So after the language center we went to Juan's office and from there we ordered a taxi so I could practice haha. It went very well! The driver took me home without any incidents, except that the car almost got stuck in a hole in the street. The streets here are not always the best so sometime you have to be careful with the big holes. For the taxi ride that took maybe 8-10 min I paid 5000 pesos which is about 17 SEK or 2.50 USD, so it's very cheap :)

Taxis in Bogotá

Crepes & waffles

Yesterday me and Juan had breakfast at Crepes & Waffles. It was amazing!
Crepes & Waffles is one of those wonderful things that you have to try in Colombia. It's a restaurant that only serves crepes and waffles, both as food and as desserts. My favorite is the miniwaffles with arequipe and brownie ice cream! However in the mornings they serve breakfast so we had waffles with bacon and some fruit, it was also very nice!

Crepes & Waffles started as a university project by some students in 1980 and they still only hire single mothers to work in the restaurants. It's now a big chain with 62 restaurants all over Colombia and with some international locations.

Crepes & waffles

This weekend we also did some more shopping for the house and went to a cooking exhibition where we bought some things for making cupcakes :)
Juan impressed me with his cooking by making a very nice wok for dinner. Pork with noodles, mushrooms, peppers, zucchini and onions. It was delicious!

<3

I'm in Colombia!

The trip from Sweden to Colombia is very long, very very long. I flew from Stockholm to Frankfurt (about 2 hours) and then from Frankfurt to Bogota (about 11 hours) and then it took almost 2 hours at the airport in Bogota to go through immigration and get my bags. But the long trip was all worth it because I'm very happy here in Bogota with Juan :)


These first two days I've been busy unpacking my bags (I brought two bags + the carry-on haha) and organizing things in the flat. Yesterday we also went shopping for food, Colombian stores are amazing! So much fruit! I love granadilla, it's amazing!


Today's big adventure has been installing internet in the flat. I've had several phone conversations that mainly consisted of me saying "no hablo español" and the person on the other end answering with a lot of Spanish. Thankfully my wonderful boyfriend speaks Spanish and could sort things out. And as you can tell we now have internet!


<3

The day before

I'm leaving tomorrow for Colombia!

I'm extremely excited and a little stressed because I still have some packing left to do. The trip itself will probably be very boring, first down to Frankfurt and then 11 hours across the Atlantic to Bogotá. Thankfully I'm bringing all my real estate law books so that I can keep myself entertained during the flight. 

<3

P.S. On the side, under "Also about Colombia", you'll find some links to Colombia related things (some in Swedish and some in English). Just in case you're interested in the country and wanna know some more.

Preparing for Colombia

Packing and creating a blog, two very important things to do.