Blueberries and mosquitoes

Before we left Oskarshamn I spent a morning in the woods with my mother-in-law and my niece-in-law. The woods are full of blueberries this year so after a couple of hours picking the blue delicious berries we had more than enough to start filling up our freezer in Lund. What we also had was a bunch of mosquito bites - I had more than 30 all over my body! But it was so worth it!

Hedgehogs in Oskarshamn

Swedish summer in the garden of my sister-in-law in Oskarshamn. They have some pets running around all over the place... On the pictures you see two hedgehog kids that are playing. The third one stayed closer to it's mum... In the garden there are three, four or even five kids, but we never saw more than three at a time.

The world in pictures by a seven year old

My niece-in-law got hold of my camera and took some pictures...

1. Uncle 2. Mother
3. Fika 4. Hedgehog kid

The photographer herself.

Road trip around Siljan

We took the car and went on a road trip around Siljan, the biggest lake in Dalarna. My sister was driving (she is about to take her drivers license) with my mother on the side and Matts and I sat in the comfy backseat. Our first stop was on Björnberget, the bear mountain, close to Siljansnäs. There they have a nice restaurant where we had a summer buffet lunch after climbing the tower in Naturum, an information center about the nature in the area. From the tower the view was stunning:

After lunch our next stop was Nusnäs, one of the main production areas of the Dalahäst, the horses that come from Dalarna. We walked around in the factories, inhaled the smell of fresh wood and paint, took a look in the stores and I almost bought a pair of clogs, but they didn't have them in my size in the color I wanted. But I will buy a pair of clogs sooner or later...

We then continued to Rättvik where they have built a long bridge, Långbryggan, 628 meters right out in the lake. From the bridge the steamer M/S Gustaf Wasa departs, but we didn't have time for a boat trip on the lake this time. Instead we walked all the way out on the bridge, enjoyed the view over the lake and then walked back and my sister drove the last bit back to Falun with one small fika-stop at Vidablick of course. The weather wasn't very warm and sunny, but look how beautiful Siljan was with the sun behind the clouds:

Swedish moose

This is how big the Swedish moose is.

Updates are coming...

Right now we are in Oskarshamn, enjoying the afternoon sun on my father-in-law's terrace, but tomorrow we will go to Lund and then this blog will (hopefully) be updated more frequently. :-) See you later!

The World Heritage Falun Mine

Today Matts and I visited the World Heritage in Falun, Falun Mine. Here copper and other valuables have been excavated from the 8th century until 1992. In and around the mine, some very strong characteristics of Sweden saw day light for the first time. The most famous ones are the Falukorv, a typical Swedish sausage, and Falu rödfärg, the paint used to give Swedish cottages their red color. More about this and also the sad story about Fet-Mats can be found here.

Matts and I took the under ground tour and then we got to wear the lovely orange outfits that you can see on the picture above. The tour started on a platform with a fabulous view of the Great Pit that was formed when the mines collapsed in 1687.


The tour then took us down to the man made caves and it was really interesting to walk inside the mountain and to picture what it must have been like to work there. Our guide told us that because of the fires that burned all night to soften the walls made the temperature in the mine very high: in the mornings it often was around 50 C and then it sunk to 30 C before it was time to call it a day...

The guide also told us that the men often used the buckets to transport themselves into and back up from the mine. They would jump onto one bucket and stand on it with one foot, holding on to it with one hand and using the other to carry their tools. In addition to this, they held a torch on a stick in their mouth and as an effect of this they didn't have any facial hair, had burned face skin and very short teeth...

After the guided tour in the mines, we had lunch and visited the museums and exhibitions around the mine and six hours later we returned home, satisfied after a very interesting day.

Swedish summer

Yesterday we spent more than 12 hours travelling by bus from Lund to Falun. Next time we'll take the train or even a plane... However, we arrived safe and sound and can now enjoy the "perfect" Swedish summer weather - around 15 C and rain. Good thing we brought our summer clothes and swimsuits...

First impressions of Lund

The weather: warm and humid, just like in Switzerland when we left
The gardens: not as neatly taken care of as in Switzerland
The streets: not as clean as in Switzerland
The bike paths: very good marked and easy to follow
The apartment: cleaning standard far below what we left in Brugg
The language: the dialect here in the south, skånska, is like Swiss German to me
The beach: half an hour bike ride from here with water much warmer than in the Villigen pool!

1. Malmö and the bridge to Denmark 2. The ocean
3. The beach 4. The warm water

A new start

OK, so this is my new blog. Here I will blog about or life in Lund in the south of Sweden, about life in general and about the beautiful country Sweden and the differences to Switzerland. But I will not start quite yet, since I still have some blog entries to write about our life in Switzerland on my "old" blog, En svenska i Schweiz. See you soon!