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.)

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.

I find it funny but I’m not sure that the humour comes across the right way in Rekorderlig Cider’s new Australian video campaign – Swedish school.

Swedish Cider brand, Rekorderlig, has released its first ever viral video marketing campaign to encourage cider lovers to bring out their ‘inner Swedishness’. The campaign is a series of high quality, humorous films that introduce ‘Swedish School’ to Australia, spearheaded by a fictional character called ‘Olof’

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The Swedish cider is very popular down here and very expensive. I can’t really justify buying it knowing it’s so much cheaper back home. But from time to time when I want a taste of home I will.

Absolut Vodka just released a brand new limited range of vodkas – Absolut Unique. 4 million unique bottles have been distributed around the globe and I really would like to get my hands on one of them. The unique designs incorporate 38 different colors and 51 pattern types and not two bottles are the same. The project required a complete re-engineering of the company’s production plant in Sweden. Splash guns were set up and color-generating machines programmed with complex coating, pattern and placement algorithms to ensure that no two bottles are alike. Pretty impressive, well done Absolut.