Let them eat cake!

Yesterday was my friends birthday, so in honor of her birthday I made her a cake. It was meant to be a mad hatter cake, but I messed it up a bit, still looks cool though!

Also, I made treacle tarts for the harry potter society:)

They were actually really good, they were made with golden syrup, lemon, black treacle, and eggs. Very easy to make! 

Home Sweet Home? No of course not.

This morning I woke up at 3:30 (shoot me) and took a quick shower and then headed to the airport. My flight was at 6:40, and everything seemed to be running smoothly, until I got to Edinburgh. I got the bus from the airport to the city center, although the city center is still a 15 min walk to my flat. So I dragged along my 20 kilo bag in the sludge that lined the streets all the way to my flat. No need to spend money on a cab or a bus when I can easily just walk right? Well I got to my flat alright, first bad sign: the elevator is broken. Now normally I wouldn't care because I never use the elevator but this time I had my suitcase so I was a little annoyed, thank god I am only one floor down. Now to get to the stairs you have to go through another door, which is pretty normal for apartments. I get down to my floor and try to open the door from the stairwell and it doesn't open. This strikes me as odd because I didn't even know these doors could be locked. I leave my suitcase and run back up stairs and go to the staircase on the opposite side, same thing, locked, except there was black stuff all over the floor and it smelled bad. Now I'm a little worried. So I go back to my suitcase and call my flatmate, I felt bad waking her up, but hey I gotta get in right? She starts telling me that there was a fire the other night and we aren't allowed in the flats...uh oh. I call my mom because I'm annoyed and I don't know what to do, when I see one of my RAs in the hall. So I run and catch up with him to try and get the scoop.
There was indeed a fire, on the floor below mine. It apparently burned all of the fire detectors on my floor too and so the university said we can't be in the room until it's fixed. Great, what am I supposed to do with this huge suitcase? My RA said I could put it in his flat, which was nice of him, although I just remembered I've got 5 packages of blodpudding in my suitcase that have to go in the freezer...hmmm....(that will be my next challenge). So my RA says he will keep me updated.
About an hour ago my RA tells me that I may not get into my flat tonight and that they will have to put me in a room somewhere else. You've got to be kidding me. Now I understand that it takes a little while to put in new smoke detectors but it doesn't take all night! I need to get into my flat, for one thing I have classes tomorrow morning, I need to shower and get my stuff for class. You'd think that since it's the day before classes they would realize the necessity of having access to our textbooks. but no. Currently I'm sitting in a cafe bored to death, living out of my backpack, if you think living out of a suitcase over vacation is awful, you have no idea. What's worse is that none of my friends are back yet. So I have no where to go.
I do feel bad for the people who just moved in though. A lot of the semester students arrived last night and I met one girl who is in the flat next to mine, so she can't move in. That's got to be very annoying.
So hopefully I will find somewhere to put my blodpudding haha....

Swedish people are just a tad bit odd.

Tonight for dinner I went out to eat with the Lingheims (the people I'm staying with). We went to a nice restaurant in the city. I had a nice pasta dish and Peirre (the dad) had raw beef. Raw beef! I didn't even know you could serve that! And how it could possibly taste good is beyond me.

It's literally a slab of raw beef with some beets, onions and a raw egg. Looked totally disgusting, but he loved it.

And last night we had reindeer for dinner! Surprisingly it was pretty good, it just tasted like beef. 

But still I think Swedes are a little ood with their food...

Whew....

Well it has been a while. I've been so busy seeing all of my relatives and friends in Sweden, that I've lost track of time. On the 29th I was supposed to fly to France to visit my flatmate for New Years, but long story short, that didn't happen. Now I am staying in Sweden until the 9th. Instead, for New Years, I went to a party with my cousin, which was very fun. It is extremely cold here though, and it just keeps snowing! But all the same, I'm still enjoying my break and not having to do any school work! Although, I think I will have to go somewhere really hot for spring break...(enough of this cold!)

A White Christmas

So Christmas began on the 24th, at 11 in the morning. My aunt, uncle and I went to my grandma and grandpa's grave. After shoveling away the snow that covered it, we placed flowers and candles on it. On the way home we stopped at the store and got my favorite Swedish food, blodpudding. It is basically condensed pig's blood. Yes I know it sounds gross, but I grew up with it and I think it tastes amazing. I'm hoping I can smuggle some back to Edinburgh:)

At 4 we went to one of my cousin's house because Tomten (a.k.a Santa) was coming to their house to give presents to the kids. This is tradition in Sweden, a family friend will dress up as Santa and come to the door with all of the kids' presents and hand them out. I think it's a cool tradition, although my cousin's daughter figured out that Santa wasn't really Santa. 

After, everyone came back to my aunt and uncle's and the celebrations started. This began with a champagne toast. Then everyone got appetizer's, which consisted of mostly fish (gross!), and then 12 adults sat at the table and the 6 kids sat at a smaller table near it.

Now it got very loud with everyone sitting down and eating. My uncle brought out the schnapps and they all sang a few songs (none of which I knew or could even understand). There was so much going on that I hadn't even realized that people had helped themselves to the main course, so all I ate was salad and some bread, but it was ok. The kids started opening their mountain of present's before we had even finished eating.

For desert there was a very good chocolate cake and passion fruit tart! The rest of the evening we watched the kids open their presents, I opened some as well and got great gifts:)

The next day, Christmas Day, I went to visit my other aunt and her family. This was very fun, as I got to meet my new 2nd cousins, one who is a year old and the other who is only 5 days old!

Today I went to my cousin's house in the afternoon just for tea which was also very nice:)

Merry Christmas!

Yesterday afternoon my uncle came to pick me up from the Lingheims. I spent the day relaxing and saw another one of my cousins. In Sweden Christmas is celebrated on Christmas eve, the 24h, rather then on the 25th. So today we have a big dinner and open all of the presents. But last night my uncle said that it is tradition to try the food for the Christmas dinner, just to make sure it is good. So we tried the ham and some sausages, both were very good!
Today I'll be going with my aunt and uncle to my grandma and grandpa's grave, which they do every Christmas eve morning. Then my uncle's two sons and their 6 young children (3 each) are coming for Christmas dinner, along with my aunt's brother and his two daughters who are older then me. So it should be a very packed and loud dinning room. Merry Christmas!

Gingerbread Teepee

Pierre Lingheim makes a gingerbread teepee every year for Christmas and I was lucky enough to watch him make it last night.

I got yelled at for taking a picture of the teepee like this because apparently it wasn't done.

Now the teepee is done! It just needed snow, tomten and a candle!

A close up of the tomten (which apparently are candy)!

I was brushing my teeth in the bathroom this morning and I looked out the window and saw the fatest bird I've ever seen! Laughing, I ran and got my camera to take a picture. As Pierre told me, the birds are not actually fat, they puff out their feathers to keep warm. 

I think he is just fat.