It’s Pollux’s 8th birthday today. I really miss him and wish he was here even though I know he’s fine at my dad’s.

I discovered something new today, IKEA in Adelaide has pick & mix lollies (in Swedish lösgodis). IKEA in Melbourne doesn’t, how unfair is that?! I believe it has to do with the fact that the Australian IKEA stores are different franchise businesses. I discovered this when I tried to use a gift voucher I have from back home but couldn’t since it was purchased in Melbourne. Apparently Adelaide and Perth belong to one franchise and the rest of them to another. That explains why the map on the IKEA website looks like below.

All of a sudden it also makes sense why the chest of drawers that I went to IKEA to buy (because it was sold out back home) was on sale in Melbourne when we went there before Christmas and not in Adelaide. Luckily enough it ended up being included in the after-Christmas sale here in Adelaide though so I got the discount in the end anyway.

All these lollies and I didn’t even buy any….didn’t want to start of the new year being bad. I regret it now. (Though it was expensive $23/kg I think which is about 160 kr.)

Som bekant firas ju julen inte förrän imorgon här på andra sidan jordklotet ( fast vi kör dubbelt firande). Det är ju helt fel förstås men jag tänkte att jag skulle vänta lite innan jag talar om det australierna, vill inte förolämpa dem riktigt ännu.

Jultraditionerna är väldigt annorlunda här (har ju skrivit lite mer om det i ett gammalt inlägg HÄR) och många av skillnaderna är ju förknippade med vädret. Inget mysande framför brasan inte, det är ju inte direkt nödvändigt när det är närmare 30 grader ute. Snö får vi klara oss utan också men i sanningens namn brukar vi ju få göra det i Sverige också, det är ju faktiskt bara de senaste jularna när Kung Bore förärart oss med vita jular, iaf i södra Sverige.

Oavsett var och när ni firar er jul vill jag passa på och skicka er en julhälsning. Hoppas ni får ett underbart firande med både god mat, dryck och gott sällskap.

Last night felt like a special night, special enough to bring out the treasured Swedish chocolate at least! A taste of heaven!

The first glögg of the year has just been tasted at our house. It smelled amazing, tasted alright (not the best glögg I’ve ever had) and it was dark outside so I pretended it was winter instead of summer (I’m blonde so it worked). In other words, quite a success, but I did miss the pepparkaka and lussebulle

Längtan efter typiskt svenska saker är kanske lite större just runt jul, iaf är det så för mig. Julen är min absoluta favorithögtid och det finns så många saker som jag förknippar med jul- och adventsfirande. Jag försöker göra så gott jag kan för att återskapa de traditioner jag kan men eftersom våra saker vi skickat inte hunnit anlända blir det lite provisoriskt i år.

För de som inte har snälla vänner och familj som skickar ner lite svensk mat och pynt tänkte jag ge lite tips på några onlinebutiker där du kan hitta sånt som är svårt att få tag i utomlands. Kanske ni vet ni om ytterligare någon, då får ni gärna tipsa oss.

Christmas is only a month away and even though I don’t have exactly have the same Christmas feeling here as I probably would in Sweden this time of the year I’ll try to make my first Christmas living in Australia a nice one, combining the Australian traditions (which basically includes drinking beer and having BBQs, with some Swedish ones). It’s over 30 degrees today so there will be no baking on hot day like this but I would like to make some saffron buns on a less hot day. Only one issue, I have I no idea on where I get saffron from. It might be that you can get it in the supermarket as in Sweden (I haven’t really started investigating this yet) but I thought maybe one of you reader’s have the answer.

That Swedish House Mafia is on their last farewell tour around the world  before these excellent DJ’s split up is not news. We tried to get tickets to their one off Australian show in Sydney in February, last week but failed miserably. Ticketmaster’s website crashed, phone lines jammed and all tickets were gone in minutes. We were pretty upset since we would love to see them one more time after our muddy Dublin experience earlier this year.

July 2012

Our wet weekend trip to Dublin attending the crazy and muddy Swedish House Mafia concert.

63 Photos

Steve Angello, Axwell and Sebastian Ingrosso quickly announced that they were working on a solution for all those disappointed fans (including us) that failed to get tickets and on Thursday a second show was announced, in MELBOURNE!! We’re thrilled! The tickets go on sale on Thursday next week and we just HAVE to get tickets.

After a bit of searching we finally came across the unique Absolut bottles this weekend so now number 151 834 and 1 994 263 are sitting on our shelf ready to be drunk. Not sure what to do with them once they’re empty but time will tell.