Oj

Here are the things you will miss on this blog that--if you can believe it without blog proof--happened to me:
--Ariel's incredible wedding in Maine
--Sarah and Alex's visit here what feels like years ago, which was fantastic and whirlwind
--Other parts of New England that we visited when we were in Amerika
--My family's visit here, too busy and too much fun to blog about, better to save the experience itself!
--The process of sewing Erik a mid-19th c. shirt for his folkdräkt
--The process of me signing up for the basic Swedish language course, taking lessons, and passing the final test, all of which took approximately 3 weeks...."graduated" with a Very Good (ok, Väl Godkänt, but it also COULD be Very Good (VG) the way that Svenska För Invandrare (SFI) dovetails nicely with Swedish For Immigrants) and now I will get the monies!
--Probably other stuff that happens all the time that is awesome that I forget to take pictures of

What you probably will see pictures of here:
--Popaganda
--Picking berries

I am also on a kick of buying new things for the apartment, of which I must take more pictures.  Doing the buying makes me feel enough like dearest Jackie, but taking pictures of it and putting them up here would be the icing on the Jackie cake, and I can't wait to do it.  There are some really beautiful things in Swedish second-hand stores, and I am slowly buying up the lot....it feels good to start collecting these things that I've sort of wanted to for a while.  Boy does it feel good to buy things that I WANT and not that I need, after so long in New York buying only the necessities, and sometimes not even then.

But now I have egg cups and extraneous linens, embroidery hoops and vintage fabrics, star anise and cinnamon sticks.  I bought The Feminine Mystique in Swedish!  Probably only take me six months to read, and haven't read it in English to give myself a clue....

I have also been doing a lot of reading on historic textiles and "manly fashion" in the seventeenth century (in Swedish), a little light reading on Queen Christina (in English) and working on my hörförstårelse (hearing comprehension) by listening to the Swedish equivalent of NPR.


And, very recently, inspired by incredibly talented best friend Ariel doing yoga teacher training, I've been doing some yoga again after more than a month of nothing!  Better mat from mamma, better home-practice podcasts found.  It's expensive here, and set up so that you take a "course", every Thursday or Saturday for a few months...not my style.

So...there.

Now: photos!

Hipster outfit, first day, Popaganda.

 We were like two rows away from Arcade Fire!  So awesome!  Except for the part where it was us and all the 17-year-olds in Sweden, who were really into inducing full-crowd movement and cutting in front of us, who had waited forever to get a place up front....but still totally freaking awesome.  And maybe their last tour in Europe, they said?

Jenny Wilson, who was great.  There were, of course, other great bands that we didn't take pictures of, but I am not going to take the time to talk about them...whee, music!  What I love about this is all the white and grey t-shirts, canvas tote bags and suspenders....I do love living in Sweden.

Explaining (in Swedish) that we stilllll couldn't see any of the (probably) totally impressive Synchronized Swimming that for some (probably good) reason took place only in the part of the pool that we couldn't see.

Patio sitting.  More grey t-shirts and at least two pairs of suspenders....Erik's shirt was purchased in Gloucester, Mass, and is featured in the next photograph:

Karin, our gracious hostess, and the tee.  He really does have a longshoreman thing going on between the hat (that he knit himself, duh) and the t-shirt homage to the sea.

Friends and neighbors.

Lykke Li is, actually, totally badass.  Live, anyways, although I could do without that prostitute song.  This was the first time I really heard her music, even though every person who heard I was going to Sweden (i.e. everyone on the East Coast) asked if I liked her, the new Swedish icon.  And secondly: had I read any Stig Larsson?

Erik's friend Oskar, on drums, equally badass in a very different way.

Taking a break from picking lingonberries.  We eat so much of Erik's pappa's lingonberry jam it's only right that we do a little work also...it just so happens that that "work" is a dreamy trip traipsing through the Swedish forest picking little red berries, drinking coffee and eating homemade cinnamon buns.

Color-matched tools.

 Working hard or hardly working?

Ta-ta for now!
A