Our One Year Anniversary! - Return to Kungsparken (20-Oct)

After two quiet weekends, we had to head out and celebrate.  Today marked the one year anniversary of our travel to Sweden.  It's hard to believe that a year has passed already and it feels like we only just got here.

We've had some great adventures, met some awesome people and seen some amazing places.  I think my highlights so far were meeting the family in America, Disney World/Universal Studios and Tallinn, Estonia.

Meeting the family was amazing after so long (in both England and America) and of course the theme parks are always one of my favorite things to do.  Tallinn was awesome, with its ancient walls and watching the sunset over old town was definitely something we will remember.  Playing rugby in Wales and Romania was also a big highlight.

Kristine's highlights were the variety of places that we've seen and becoming familiar with Sweden and its culture.  She loves the fact that we are now able to drive around and feel like home and finally feeling settled.  She's enjoying meeting new people over here and making new friends.

The kids are settling in well at school and, while they aren't learning much Swedish, they are making friends from a wide range of background and cultures, which is an awesome experience for them.

To celebrate the day, we headed out for dinner and returned to one of the first places we explored - Kungsparken (The King's Park) around Malmo Hus.

The weather was fairly similar to when we first arrived - about 8 degrees, but sunny and the leaves starting to redden for Autumn.

I did have some great photos, but I'm an idiot and accidentally deleted them.  Instead here are some photos of strange things that we are still getting used to around Malmo:

Chocolates have interesting names - "Puss" means kiss and Japp means "Yep". but my favorite is:

Chewing down a nice bar of Plopp

Fart means speed, so you see warnings about Din Fart (your speed), Fart hinders (speed bumps), Utfarts (exits) and Fart and Fest (speed and festivals)

Slut means Final, End, Run Out etc - But I still have to do a double take and wonder why they are so mean to the soup

My dad used to call people Silly Burks - Turns out here it means Herring in a Jar

Everyone loves the smell of salt and ocean, but I'm not sure advertising it as "Salt stank" would go down well in Aus.

Of course God means Good, but I did wonder if this was a mobile priest service

Not a word you'd expect to see sticking out from a wall in Australia

The Swedish version of Finding Dory sounds more violent

Ok these are cool - the Swedes use flamethrowers to kill weeds, this is a small vehicle that drives around and burns stuff - you can see the flame in the bottom right

I wont even bother commenting on the name of this sherry..

So yes, we are starting to fit in and understand the culture a lot more, but there are still little things that make us chuckle or feel like outsiders.