What do you do if you are very hungry on a Sunday morning in Stockholm, and have a craving for American pancakes?
Let me give you some advice for if you ever find yourself in this situation; head to Arizona …
Lighting a Candle on All Saints’ Day, Sweden
All Saints’ Day is an official holiday in Sweden that usually falls on the first Saturday in November. On this weekend, many businesses close early on Friday, remaining closed on Saturday. This means that people who want to buy their …
Anundshög: Sweden’s largest Viking burial site
Being a bit of a History geek one of my favourite things about travelling is encountering ancient cultures and histories, and where better to be than Scandinavia—home of the Viking?
Britons, in particular, will be very familiar with the …
What a Year! 2011 in Pictures
It’s the end of another year and with New Year’s Eve just around the corner it’s the time to reflect on the year that has gone before. 2011 was a good year. Living in Sweden rather than Vietnam meant …
Funballz, Hillbillies and a Raving Baby!
This time last year I was preparing to make the move from Vietnam to Sweden and I wrote a post about Västerås, the Swedish city that was to become my home. Now, here I am a year later preparing …
Valborg – Sweden Welcomes the Spring
In Britain, Bonfire Night conjures up childhood memories of sheltering from the driving November rain, eating jacket potatoes while effigies, or ‘guys’, burn on a huge bonfire. Overhead, fireworks crackle with the acrid smell of sulphur – all to commemorate …
A Day on board the Princess Anastasia
The journey from St. Petersburg back to Stockholm takes about 25 hours so we were pretty grateful to discover that the newly refurbished Princess Anastasia boat had a bit more to offer than the Princess Maria—the duty free shop …
Why Sweden is a Great Place to Live
Sweden is often regarded as being somewhat of a liberal country; many people think that blonde, tanned Swedes cavort naked in forest lakes all summer long before retreating into their saunas for the duration of the long and cold winter. …
The Arctic Journals #4 Aurora Borealis
“The Aurora blazed all of a sudden into brilliant life… a thousand miles high and ten thousand miles long: dipping, soaring, undulating, glowing, a cataract of glory.”
This is Philip Pullman’s description of the Aurora Borealis in ‘Northern Lights’, the …
The Arctic Journals #3 Cross-Country Skiing
There are two things that I have always disliked: sport and being cold. For this reason I have never understood why people want to go skiing. Skiing holidays baffle me, why would anybody pay a lot of money to go …
The Arctic Journals #2 Northern Lights Apartments
We were met on the road by Patricia Cowern, owner of the Northern Lights Apartments and Arctic-Color gallery in Porjus, who greeted us warmly and led the way to our cabin. The complex comprises of 4 wooden cabins aptly named: …
The Arctic Journals #1 A Long Journey
At 19.22 the train pulled out of Stockholm’s Central Station and our 17 hour journey into Swedish Lapland began. Our destination: Porjus, a small village approximately 100km north of the Polar Circle, and our mission: to seek the enigmatic Aurora …
Stockholm on a Budget
‘Stockholm’ and ‘cheap’. Two words that you don’t often hear uttered in the same sentence. It is common knowledge that tourists’ hard-earned cash doesn’t stretch that far in the Scandinavian countries, making visiting them an expensive …
Visiting Friends
This weekend Rhoda—my very good friend from college—came to visit me in Sweden. It is always great to see a familiar face from home when you are living in a foreign country; over the 4 ½ years that I have …
The Final Countdown (to a night in the cells)
In the good old days of vinyl my parents bought my sister and I a record: ‘The Final Countdown’ by 80s rock band Europe. I was 7 years old and little did I know how much this record would come …
Weddings and Castles
On Saturday I attended my first wedding in Sweden. I am hesitant to say Swedish Wedding as, despite the geographical location, there was probably very little about the wedding that was traditionally Swedish. The bride is Swedish but has Finnish …