It never snows in November - Our snow day

When I told the guys at work that the kids were looking forward to snow, I was told that it doesnt usually snow in Malmo.  "We didnt get any snow last year" and "It may snow for a little bit around Christmas".  It definately never snows in November.

We were keeping an eye on the temperature for the weekend, it had been a fairly steady 10 degrees for the last few weeks, but Friday was 5 degrees and the weekend was set to be between -5 degrees and 2 degrees.

On Saturday morning we were called to the window by a very excited Kristine - "Look, snow!"

There were a few flakes falling, but it wasnt going to last.  It never snows in November.

Thoughout the day a few flakes fell slowly, but they melted as soon as they hit the ground.

After a few morning Skype calls back to Australia, we headed out to go to a House-Warming party for one of our friends from Australia.  The flakes kept falling and the kids had a lot of fun trying to catch them on their tongues.

A few flakes fell on the way to Malmo Central - Spot the tourists (hint they are the ones running around trying to catch the snow flakes in their mouth, while everyone else walks by with their heads down avoiding the cold).

 We stopped at Malmo central from some lunch, which included a hamburger the size of Tomas' head, which he somehow managed to squeeze into his mouth:

 

From there, it was a train to Lund.  On the way, Tomas told us "If we keep doing so much walking my leg guns are going to get huge!"

By the time we got to Lund train station the snow was starting to stick around:

And while we waited for the bus to Sondra Sandby it continued to fall:

Tom continued his philosophical streak in the bus.  He licked Kristine's hand and then looked up at her.
Kristine: "What are you doing?"
Tomas "I'm tasting you.  You taste like me and you're a human, so I must be a human too."

It's a good logical analysis, but it does fall down on one major assumption...

When we arrived at our friend's house the snow was settling in, but it was nice and warm by the fire. As it go darker (at 4:30pm), the snow continued to fall and the kids went outside to play.  There was enough for them to build a snowman and drag each other around on tobbogans.

The snow was different from the snow we had at Dinner Plain near Mount Hotham in Australia.  I remember rolling snowballs in England when I was a kid.  The snow stuck together and made a nice snowman.  When we tried in Dinner plain, the snow was too powdery and it fell apart.  We ended up just squashing it together to make a snowman - until Tomas ate its head.  The snow here was wetter and it stuck together much better so the kids were able to roll up some awesome snowballs.

We all had a great time, got to meet some nice people, and, despite the occasional snowball coming into the house via an open window, the kids behaved well and had a ball.  Thank you Dave and Rose :)

Do you wanna build a snowman?

And the snow just kept falling

Snowmen and a snow dog

More snowmen

Tomas and the disembodied torso of a snowman

We were sure he was going fall off and break a limb

And then he leapt between the two snowballs, with some help from Alana

The snowmen

Kristine showing Tom how to make a snowball

Cameron's snowball

The finished product.

I'm writing this on Sunday morning and while there isnt much snow left on the ground, the snow is continuing to fall.  I guess it does sometimes snow in November.

Dwarfism, Wedding Dresses and midwifes, oh my!

We've had a few slow days, I've been at work and Kris and the kids have had a few quiet days at home to recover.

So, with quiet days comes that old friend, television. We've managed to find a few channels that are all in English with Swedish subtitles, but there seems to be only 5 shows on loop. TLC has about 4 different reality TV shows focussing on people with dwarfism:
My little family,
Little people, big world - about a family who host weddings at their farm,
Seven Little Johnsons,
and one more which I cant remember.

We then have "Say yes to the dress" a show about an expensive wedding dress boutique that 'victims' go to, to be fitted with 'the perfect dress that speaks to you' and to drain their parents life savings.

Variety is provided by "One born every minute" about young, obnoxious Poms having babies. There's an occasional different show to break things up, in case you're fed up with reality TV - more reality TV. I've seen more episodes of South African Master Chef that I ever wanted to and now that's finished, we have New Zealand Master Chef.

By the way, I do think the head chef from SA Master Chef looks like an old Bill Bailey:

So in summary after watching a week of Swedish TV, I've come to the conclusion that Swedes are obsessed with dwarfism, wedding dresses and South Africans...

How we nearly angered the Viking Gods - Ystad and Ales Stenar

On Thursday we got my car.  A Volkswagon Passat wagon, brand new with only 17km on the clock.   The only problem was that its a left-hand drive.  Sure thats not a problem for Swedes who are used to driving on the right hand side of the road, but for us it was going to be a challenge.  When the kids asked how driving on the 'wrong' side of the road felt, both Kris and I struggled to find an analogy before I finally summed it up as "It's like wearing your T-shirt as underwear".  Sure this was a bit random but it did kind of sum it up - its still familar but just wrong.  But how would I know anyway, I wussed out and made Kristine drive our first road trip :)

I spent some time looking at where we could go. We didnt want to do lots of driving in town - there were too many bikes and too much traffic.  Then I found Ystad. It's a small town on the south coast about an hours drive from Malmo but most of the drive is freeway.  At Ystad is the "Ales Stenar" - "Ale's Stones", which are touted as Sweden's Stonehenge.  Its a set of standing stones, set up by the vikings in the shape of a boat on a hill overlooking the bay. But more on that later :)

When I mentioned this at work, it turned out the other Aussie expat family was planning on heading out there also, so we decided to go together, see the stones and have a picnic in Ystad.

So the first port of call was shopping.  We had our migration biometrics (photos, fingerprints and signature, for our ID cards) done on friday, so we stopped by the shop and got some bread, meats and lollies.  We made a fruit salad, pasta salad and packed cheese, ham and pepperoni.  We also got some lollies to keep the kids (and adults) happy.  It turns out the Swedish word for "foam" is "skum".  This makes for some interesting names - for example there are plenty of fire extinguishers with SKUM written across them in huge letters and it also relates to foam lollies, such a these:

In case you can't read it, these lollies are called "Hello Kitty Skum" - appetising..

The Ales Stenar are about 20 minutes drive from Ystad.  Once we parked in the carpark at the bay below we were suprised by how windy and cold it was.  Overall its been about 10 degrees or so, but its been pretty comfortable but today, the wind cut straight through the jackets and we were a little worried it would blow Tomas away.  It made it hard to hear each other, but we managed to group up and walk through the cow paddocks until we came to stones.

 Alana at the steps overlooking the bay.

 Looking back over the bay

We have some old photos of my dad and his cousin at the stones in Rollright and I wanted to recreate something similar, so here's all the kids in front of the South Eastern "Stern" Stone

 The stones are formed in the shape of a ship, 67m long.  It is made up of 59 stones each up to 1.8 tonnes (thanks Wikipedia).  Archaeologists excavated the site in 1989 and found human remains and ash from a pyre that aged the relic at about 1400 years old - 600AD.  These are some photos later that show the informaton signs with some details about the site.

Here's the view from the SE looking NW towards the NW Stern Stone:

 and from the middle of the monument looking towards the NW Stern Stone.

 Me in front of the NW Stern Stone:

 Kris resting out of the wind:

 A view of the stones from the west by the cliffs.  The NW Stern Stone is on the left.

We aso got a couple of shots in front of the NW Stern Stone - Tom wasnt too happy with how loud the wind was:

This is looking to the Northwest along the cliffs away from the stones:

These shots are of the information boards about the stones.  There's some interesting information, such as the stones are set up so that at the Winter Solstace (shortest day) the sun rises over the SE Stern stone and sets over the western mid-ship stone.  On Summer Solstace (longest day), the sun rises over the NW Stern Stone and sets over the eastern mid-ship stone.  On the Equinox the sun travels between the mid-ship stones.  Read the signs for more info but it works like a giant calendar:

 

 

As we were about to leave, Tomas decided he needed to pee and walked over behind the NW Stern Stone.  Kris and I managed to catch him before he angered any viking gods.

The wind made some nice waves - There were even people surfing in full dry suits.

 After leaving the stones we went back to Ystad to find a place for a picnic.  It was pretty windy, which made it hard to find a good place.  One park looked nice, but it turned out that its was outside a crematorium so we decided to give that a miss.

Eventually we find a nice sheltered area called a kyrkogård.  "Oh good, a church garden."  I thought.  It had a nice little stream and some sheltered areas, so we pulled in and then I found out that it actually meant "graveyard".  Deciding we were unlikely to find a nice area to eat that didnt have bodies nearby, we found a quiet area and had our picnic.

A frog prince statue in the creek - I tried, but none of the kids would kiss him.

This duck waddled out of the creek and chased Tomas until he screamed and ran after Kris.

The stream with ducks:

Our picnic:

We left Ystad around 2:30pm and got home at 4 just as it was starting to get dark.

War of the Worlds - Our welcome to Sweden (warning: some medical descriptions and lots of whining)

"From the moment the invaders arrived, breathed our air, ate and drank, they were doomed. They were undone, destroyed, after all of man's weapons and devices had failed, by the tiniest creatures that God in his wisdom put upon this earth." - War of the Worlds

This was the thought that went through my head in the first week we arrived in Sweden. I was sick, Kris was exhausted and it seemed that Sweden was doing it's best to get rid of us...

Ok maybe I should start at the start...

About 5 weeks before we left to go to Sweden I played a rugby grand final (and won), but in the process I managed to break my eye socket - including the fine bone that sits between the eye socket and the sinus tubes.  This meant that I was unable to blow my nose, sneeze or equalise the pressure in my ears or risk breaking it again.

The first surgeon said it was unlikely we were going to be able to fly as the pressure changes on the plane could blow it out again.  Fortunately the head surgeon checked and said it was close but I should be ok.  Of course there was a chance that, as soon as we took off, the pressure changes would blow out the bone and fill my eye socket with air.  While my eye wouldnt fall out, it could strain the optic nerve and I could end up going blind in that eye.

Nothing like a little bit of worry to start an overseas trip...  Couple that with the way our last few weeks went - we only got the final Visa approval from Sweden on the thursday (we were due to fly Monday) Kris had to organise getting all our gear packed into storage and the house clean and I was going crazy trying to get all my work done before we left.  I even ended up working until 4pm on the last day we were in Australia, and we were due to fly out at 10pm.

By the time we finally got on the plane we were tired and run down.  Kris and the kids got a little sleep and enjoyed the movie but I didnt have a very good flight.  To start with I could feel the pressure in my ears but couldnt pop them due to the risk of my eye, so for most of the flight I had pressure changes in my head.  I've flown lots of times before and never had any issues, but this time I ended up getting really bad motion sickness and had to dash to the toilets at least 4 or 5 times to throw up.  By the time we hit Copenhagen airport I was feeling awful, but we still had a hour long taxi ride and an hour dragging our stuff back to our apartment.

The next day I woke with a burning throat and a feeling like I'd been hit by a bus.  I ran a temperature around 39degrees and was pouring with sweat.  It got to the point where I could hardly swallow.  We couldnt easily see a doctor as we didnt have our Swedish residency so Kris bought me some painkillers and throaties and I tried to sleep.  For the first five days in Sweden I was sick as a dog.  I think it may have been tonsillitus, but it could have just been a really nasty strain of man-flu.  Either way Kris was forced to do most of the week solo while I sweated and struggled to even drink water.

Finally by the end of the week I started to get over it and began to feel better.  Then Kristine came down feeling sick. Sweden was definately trying to kill us.  Fortunately Kristine was only sick for a couple of days and soon we were both up and about.

Then the legacy of my father (and a week of being seriousy dehydrated) hit.  I came down with gout.  For anyone who doesnt know what gout is, lucky you...  To start with it feels like I've dislocated my big toe.  It starts to swell and becomes sensitive to the touch, including walking.  If I'd rate the pain from tearing my calf muscle as a 7, the pain from gout is about a 10.

Kristine had some joy in reminding me that I'd thrown out my gout medication before we travelled.  "I've only ever had issues with it twice before," she remembered me saying.  "I won't need it."

I was determined not to let it slow me down, so we went to copenhagen for Kristine's birthday and I managed to limp and somehow keep up (but you'll notice most of the walking photos from the day have me behind everyone else).

I coudnt see the doctors for gout medication (see above) so it was anti-inflamatories.  The swelling got so bad that it bruised and I managed to hit my toe on everything - a shopping trolley, the side of the bath, Alana's shoes, a particle of dust.. and each time it was like an explosion.

This is about a week and a half in - the swelling had gone down a little by then but the bruising was still to come.  Even now, two weeks later, its still sensitive and a little swollen.

So in addition to this, Kris has hurt her hip (thanks to sleeping awkwardy on the super soft bed) and the kids have been sniffly.

It seems like Sweden has done its best to get rid of us, but slowly things are returning to normal, so hopefully we're through the worst of it.  Figures crossed.

Sunday 10-Nov Kungsparket

So after attempting to go to Kungparket on Saturday and failing (we ended up spending the day in Malmo Hus museum), the kids were desperate to go and kick their ball around.  So we decided to head back to Kings Park.

The kids loved the fallen leaves - they were golden, red and everywhere!  The kids made a point of kicking pretty much every pile of leaves and had a ball.  We found a nice quiet area to kick the ball and climb some trees. Alana found a plastic bag full of clothes and toothbrushes and Tomas founded the "Hideout Club" under the branches of an overhanding tree. 

Australian Monkeys are apparently an introduced species in Sweden and the cause of a lot of noise and destruction.  They rapidly take over any tree filled areas, here's some we found:

We also found a stack of conkers and Cam loved the spikey conker shells:

 

Our Soccer skills also left a bit to be desired:

Then Dad decided to be BORING and go for a walk to have a look at the gardens around the back of Malmo Hus.

Leaves on the water:

 Turning Torso over Malmo Hus:

Windmill in Malmo Hus gardens:

We managed to make it back - via the shops to post some postcards - with only one mishap.

We found a nice empty park area where the kids could kick the soccer ball around.  Then I noticed a sign, written purely in Swedish.  I could make out a few words "access forbidden" and "parents are responsible for children."  A quick google translate failed to translate most of the other words but did reveal the words "landslides" and "subsidence".  We quickly moved on, but Kris took a photo of the sign to translate fully later as we considered our brush with death.

At work on Monday I got a friend to translate the sign.  Turns out the area was where the council plough all the snow and it says that playing in the snow is forbidden as it could collapse and may contain sharp items.  Oh well, better to be safe than sorry...