Winter.....Brrrr!

Snow, snow, snow! I am now experiencing my first real winter with all this white wet stuff falling out of the sky. Having been a neglected child, living only an hour and a half from the snow all her life but never actually getting to see it, touch it or throw it (not including when it snowed in Yack for the first time in 20 or 30 something years....doesn't count M & D!), this is very exciting stuff!

The first few pictures I've posted are of the first day of snow we had a few weeks ago. In my naive un-snowed state, I thought this was real snow. However, I was soon to learn that this slushy, half-rain stuff was a half arsed attempt and it would only make things wet and slippery. This did not deter my excitement which I am happy to say, a few snowy weeks later, I still love it.

The rest of the photos are from around where we live and I hope you enjoy them....my fingers nearly froze off in the making of them.

The milestones of this snowy adventure have been obviously the snow itself, my first snowball fight, getting pushed over in the snow a lot (thanks Jochen!), my first snow angel, frozen ears, walking to school in the snow everyday and realising why everyone wears fury hoods instead of just beanies and also, taking 10 minutes extra to layer up before leaving the house.

Other than snow, I have started Swedish language classes which is keeping me busy and maybe one day I'll understand what the crazy people on the bus are actually saying.

A big thank you to everyone for my birthday wishes, I had a great time and I will post some photos of it and Thanksgiving soon.

Next week we are off to Germany to enjoy Christmas and New Years with family and friends so I wish you all a God Jul och Gott Nytt År! Happy Holidays!

An Autumn in Sweden

"Out of the window. Down the tree. Over the wall. Under the bridge. Around the lake. Between the rocks. Through the woods. Up Spook Hill. Whoooo!"*

Like Bears in the Night we went for an adventure!

One fine day my friend Sam and I set out to go for a picnic in the forest. Unfortunately our hair is not golden and we didn't find any porridge. But we did find a lot of mushrooms. Mushroom picking is a great Swedish tradition along with 'Allemansrätten' the Swedish Right of Public Access. This means that you have the right to wander through the woods and forests (even if it is private land) as long as you do not disturb or destroy anything. But it also means that you can pick wild mushrooms and berries to your hearts content. Now the problem with this is that unless you are Swedish, or know your mushrooms very well, you could accidentally pick some deadly varieties e.g. death cap (safe to say it's usually good to avoid anything with 'death' in the title, not that they have a flashing neon sign above them telling you what they are). Anyway, due to the numerous varieties of mushrooms out there (more than just the button mushrooms in Aussie supermarkets), we two who are not Swedish, and do not know much about mushrooms, just took lots of photos instead.

Our destination was Skryllegården near Södra Sandby (just up the road), which is a nature reserve with walking tracks through it. The forests are full of poplar trees, oaks and pines which are beautiful in the autumn as all the leaves turn. Luckily it was a sunny day for us and we had our picnic of Vietnamese fresh spring rolls and Sam's garden salad (all yummy things from Sam's garden, except the turkey). We walked and walked and took many many pictures of mushrooms, moss and trees. Then we got slightly lost. I guess we weren't on the loop track that we thought we were on. Oops. But we made it back in the end, it seems that nothing ate our trail of breadcrumbs after all. Overall it was a lovely day and I thought you might appreciate seeing some of the 'bush'!

The second part to the set of photos (starting with the playground) are of near my house and of the walk to the shops. After every Canberra autumn I had always regretted not taking any photos, especially around Ainslie. So yesterday I put on my tourist attitude and walked to the shops which are about 15 minutes away (with little legs) and took photos on the way. This suburb is full of bike paths and can get very confusing as one way looks much like all the others.

When the good camera comes back from South Africa (with the man attached to it :-)) I shall try to take some photos of the city as well.

And don't forget, it is only 9 more (Swedish) sleeps until my Birthday!!!! Hooray! As most of you know, I love birthdays and get very excited, let the countdown begin! Not that I haven't been counting down for the last 365 days anyway:-)

* Bears in the Night - Stan & Jan Berenstain.

On the road again!

Back to Spain.

From Segovia we drove to El Burgo de Osma which is a couple of hours north of Madrid in Castilla y Leon province. The Lonely Planet describes El Bugro de Osma as a small town of about 5000 people "infused with an air of decaying elegance", obviously we had to see this.

We stayed in a small hotel called Posada del Canonigo just down from the town's 12th century Catedral which is a bit higgledypiggledy in architectural design. It started out as a Romanesque building, was then continued in the Gothic style and has a big baroque tower on top. Odd but pretty.

We spent the evening in Plaza Mayor, drinking, people watching and eating a not quite cooked burger. The Plaza is where the action happens, dinner is consumed late into the evening and all the kids play games in the centre of the square. The charming thing about this town was how relaxed everyone was. In the plaza there is a line of benches under two rows of trees and all the oldies sit with their canes (an oldie isn't complete without their cane) and they people watch all evening. What a wonderful life.

The next day we made our way to the Canyon del Rio Lobos just north of El Burgo. We were determined to see some birds of prey that the Canyon is known for. After getting some instructions from the park officer, we wandered off still unsure of where to go. The great thing about Spanish people who don't speak English is that they will explain whatever it is in Spanish anyway, and gesticulate, point and mime a lot. Most of the time you still don't know what's going on but you agree to whatever it is anyway. This park officers mime of driving and walking were very similar so we were lucky to make it into the Canyon at all.

The walk was beautiful! We walked up to the edge of the Canyon and tried to spot some vultures, then we wandered down into the Canyon itself and along the Rio Lobos. Right at the end is a small hermitage the Ermita de San Bartolome. This particular building was built in the 13th century which is marked by the architectural transition from Romanesque to Gothic. Legend says that this Ermita's location is because when the apostle Santiago (James) was riding along the top of the canyon, he jumped off one of the cliffs and where his sword struck was the site where the present church of San Bartolo was to be made. Just across the river from the Ermita is a huge limestone cave. We aren't sure how far back it goes as there were a lot of people scrambling about in the dark up there.

We then walked back along the river and came across a miracle! It was a sign, a sign that all our catedral visits (mostly to admire the architecture) and attempts not to run over pilgrims on their way to Santiago de Compostella was paying off. There was a restaurant about 1km from the end of our walk at the bottom of the canyon. We were ushered in by the middle aged little Spanish lady who explained the Spanish menu to us in Spanish and tried to teach me how to count. She then fed us the best roasted pork ribs in the world, roast chicken, salad and potatoes. I think Jochen had a religious experience eating the pork ribs and has not been the same since. After stuffing ourselves to the brim we were asked by a male waiter if we would like dessert. We poked out our bellies and politely refused. Apparently in this particular restaurant 'no' is not an option. We were then set upon by the middle aged little Spanish lady again, who with a sparkle in her eye, convinced Jochen that we must eat more. She then brought us a caramel wobbly slice dessert. After many thank you's and Jochen professing his love for the middle aged Spanish lady (who he is still intent on marrying), we rolled out the door to slowly waddle the last kilometre of the walk (needless to say we didn't eat dinner that night). And after the entire trip that meal was still rated as the best!

On the way back to El Burgo from the Canyon we managed to get lost trying to get to Castillo de Osma (I think). Basically it was the first castle ruins I've seen and it was exciting. If it was Castillo de Osma it was built in the 10th century, it's fairly overgrown but the inner and outer walls still stand along with the tower. What also amazes me is that the finer stone work of the architraves around the windows is still intact, especially since the castle is on such a windy hill. Anyway I can now check castle ruins off my list! It even had an outback dunny!

Monday saw us heading to San Sebastian, I've put a couple of car photos of this drive in but it doesn't do it justice. This was one of the most beautiful legs of driving that we did. The landscape transformed from dry, brown countryside to green luscious mountains and small villages set in the hills. The gradual change from dry to wet ended in great beaches and the coastal city of San Sebastian. The city is full of one way streets where the incline was a "hope your handbrake works" deal and no parking to be found unless it was on a street you couldn't turn into. Apart from that, I wish we had more time in this place as there was lots of shopping to be done in the old part of the city and lots of crowded beach time to be had. We spent the rest of our day shopping, drinking beer and wishing we (I mean I) were closer to the handsome guitarist (along with the rest of the female population already staring at him) and enjoying beautiful sunsets eating huge ice creams with my dairy intolerant boyfriend. A lovely way to finish our 'couples only' part of the trip. Party times were ahead when we stopped in Santander to pick up a couple of wayward Aussies......

A Munchkin's New House

Hej hej everyone,

The epic ordeal of moving house has now been completed, hooray! The mental trauma was kept to a minimum and no nuclear weapons were used when deciding on where the couch should go. The ridiculousness of trying to find a place to live in July is like trying to find half a needle in a haystack the size of Canada. It is very similar to Canberra in January. Uni students arrive, they have a hard day at O-week (although it seemed to be O-3 weeks) and then have to look respectable to claim any and all the housing available. They run around town in bright yellow overalls and funny hats and there are an extreme amount of males in tight pink tights, some in dresses, some trying to look like superman. You know it's bad when websites advertise for apartments, villas, rooms and .................couches. We even investigated the possibility of hiring a cardboard box or two. Then there is the saga of 1st, 2nd and 3rd hand renting which is confusing and dodgy (but I won't bore you with the details).

So the new apartment is in a new suburb, down a new street, in a new town, with a yellow door! It's kinda like an estate type area with lots of apartment/duplex buildings and cool playgrounds. It reminds Jochen and I of a cross between holiday park by the coast and a retirement village.
So you would think that when you move into a new house you might get a light or two, perhaps a curtain. Well you don't! For some reason white goods like a dishwasher, dryer, washingmachine, and fridge are included but light fittings, bulbs, curtains and curtain rails are not. I am amazed! Mostly about the lightbulbs. So when we next move we will be well supplied, as we have now spent all our monies on this stuff and we can move our custom fit curtains and rods to a new house where they will be the wrong size.

In other non-house news, more like "Adventure News", I have been to the beach. And what a beach it is! It's about 15-20 minutes drive from town and it is beautiful in a grey kinda way. There is not much sand but it's made up for by the large amounts of seaweed lining the shores. The water is shallow for a very long way out (I am told, as it's way to freezing to go swimming) and it's also suprisingly un-salty. Near Bjärred there is a long pier, 574metres long with a restuarant and sauna at the end of it. We didn't go in for the sauna this time around but we almost became Mary Poppins being swept away by the wind. Even with all the wind it was still a great place to view the edge of the world from. You can see Malmö and Copenhagen joined by the Oresund (imagine that O has a strike through it) Bridge and you can watch the incoming storm where there is no distinction between rain clouds and water anymore and the cities disappear. That was therefore our cue to leave, sorry there is no picture, the Munchkin forgot her camera.

Now for a new section of my blog called "You know you're not in Yackandandah anymore when..." (thanks goes to Tommo for the title inspiration)

a) Eggs come in cartons of 10 instead of a dozen. Although funnily enough they do have half dozen cartons, hence why it's taken me 3 months to discover this :-).
b) You know how great the health system is when the Sjukhus (hospital, or word4word translation - sick house) is sporting a lovely view of the the cemetry across the road.
c) Speaking of cemetries, they are really pretty and green, almost as pretty as the botanical gardens. No brown dead grass and pattersons curse here.
d) Speaking of pattersons curse, I keep getting in trouble for calling native european wild flowers "weeds"!
e)They sell diaries that go from July 2010 to June 2011, who would have thunk it!
Last but not least....
f)The word for 'exit' contains the word 'fart' in it "utfart", rather appropriate I think.

That's it for now, it's actually sunny today so I am off to soak it up before another week of rain.
I hope you are all well and I hope to post some more Spain pictures soon.

Keep in touch.

Hej do.

Spain Part 1

Thank you Hef for the much needed kick up the bum! I was getting to it, however a little trip to Spain seemed to get in the way :-)

This next one is especially for Dad, I've put all the pictures of the Roman built El Acueducto in just for you.

So the next few posts will mostly be about the Spain adventure.

It all started on a sweetly cool summers evening with an amazing mediterranean meal in Lund full of MEAT. This should have been an indication of what we would encounter in Spain and prepared us for our new dietary food groups, meat and bread! How naive we were.

After packing late into the evening we got up bright eyed and bushy tailed at 5am for our train then plane to Spain (no 'my fair lady' pun intended). Since I had not been awake at that time in Lund before I thought it worth mentioning that the small city waking up is quite lovely, although we felt sorry for the market stall set-er-up-er-ers already well under way.

Ok, train, plane, Hola hot, sticky, muggy, Madrid. Once we navigated the metro and found ourselves in Plaza de la Puerta del Sol - "Gate of the Sun" we found our hostel was conveniently located between two tapas bars. This was the beginning of the end! Beer, bocadillos, pintxos, tapas, montaditos, beer, every type of cured pig meat you can think of, did i mention beer, bread, tapas etc. this cycle went on for the entire trip and tapas became more than just food, but a mantra we lived by.

Our lovely patient, problem and argument solving guide the lonely planet pointed us in the direction of the 'Cerveceria 100 Montaditos' where we filled ourselves with mini bocadillos of all different fillings and flavours, even a dessert one of white chocolate and fruit jam (sounds weird, tastes great). Most of the choices of fillings were lovely surprises as our abysmal knowledge of Spanish was failing us. We ended the evening with some beer at Plaza Mayor, which is a grand square full of restaurants, buskers and pretty lights. It is here that our second mantra was born "dos cervezas? ummm.......por favor". Also, Jochen developed a great fear of scary devil goats! Shiney, sparkly devil goats that make weird clicking noises and jump up at you if you donate money to them, they were altogether very disturbing.

The next day we made our way to Toledo, a small walled city set up on a hill where broadswords, shields, morning stars, daggers and suits of armour are sold. They set our fantasy book reading hearts aflutter. Toledo was settled by the Romans in the 6th century, Muslims conquered in 711 and became the centre of learning and arts in Spain. It is now known as the capital of the province Castilla La Mancha (once having been considered for the capital of Spain). During the 11th century, Christians, Jews and Muslims coexisted relatively peacefully until Alfonso VI conquered the city with Christian forces and forced the Jews & Muslims to convert or bugger off. So there's lots of history and old stuff to see. Definitely worth a look for the buildings, the wall, the Rio Tajo, the small winding streets and the view.

Next we made our way back on the fast train to Madrid and picked up our hire car which we affectionately named Jose. He got us through thick and thin, especially thin as small towns only believe in a road big enough for one car. Luckily for me I didn't have my aussie drivers licence so Jochen was the designated driver. Woohooooo! Getting out of Madrid without a city map or a working GPS was an adventure. As the Navagatrix I chose a random direction which proved to be the wrong one. This of course is one of the only times I have ever been wrong! So we took the scenic detour out of Madrid to the south-east when we wanted to go to Segovia on the North (slightly west) side of the city. Oh well! Lucky I wasn't driving. One very important lesson was learnt on this detour: never eat Racciones Calamares from a truck stop restaurant! Ever!

We finally got to Segovia behind schedule to spend a few hours gazing at the amazing El Acueducto. As time was of short supply we only saw the El Acueducto and the Catedral. The Romans occupied Segovia for a while from 80BC and they decided to build a huge f*&^ off aqueduct in the 1st century AD. The aqueduct was built to transport water from the Fuente Fria River 15km away to the city at a grading of 1 percent. At its tallest it is 28.5 metres tall, is 894 metres long and has 167 arches (from it's entry to the city) all of which were built out of granite blocks without mortar. Various restoration projects have made it one of the best preserved aqueducts and an important historical monument.....this is why we took lots of photos!

Then we went to the Catedral which is an amazing Gothic building. First construction was in 1525 and then took about 200 years to complete. It has two massive amazing organs and the choir stalls are a big cage where all the seating and inner walls are carved walnut. However they do like to lock up their musicians and priests with lots of grilled walls.

And that was Segovia, or what little we saw of it before heading off to El Burgo de Osma.
Have a look at the photos if you are interested. Apologies if this was too historic for your tastes, as the story continues there will be less history and more drinking.

(Not really sure what these are, teapot? bong? Spain definitely has interesting souvenirs)

On a more recent note: we are not homeless anymore and will be moving to our new place next week.....all very exciting!

Seeya later alligators.

So, as you can see there are some photo's to the right. These are mainly of Midsommar a couple of weeks ago. For some reason the order is backwards so please go from the bottom if you don't like reverse chronological order. If you click on them it will take you to a Picasa web album (basically they appear larger).

Swedish Midsommar involves tradition Swedish songs and the decorating of a phallic symbol, the maypole, that children (and adults) dance around to emphasize procreation. These dances and songs are about doing washing and being a small frog or pig, as you can imagine it was very entertaining.

After all of this excitement we went to the park to drink, eat and be merry, hooray!!!

The Very First Munchkin Post.

Välkommen to “A Munchkin’s Adventure”! This is all very new and exciting and hopefully I will get the hang of blogging before too long.

As most of you know I am now living in Sweden, I have gone into early retirement and live the life of a lady of leisure. Life is so very hard! I am intending to use this blog as a means of updating you all, the idea being that it will be easier than mass emails. So feel free to comment, be a twit, or whatever it is you’re supposed to do with these things. I will of course regale you with tales of my adventures and observations about the world in general.

At the moment I live in a world of apartments, cobbled streets, buildings without eves, pretty parks, greenery in summer (very weird), a combination of kebab meat on pizza (which is amazing!), not understanding Svenska and everybody loves ice cream!

I will keep this short and sweet. I will be updating this very soon with more details and hopefully some photos.

I hope you are all well and happy.

Keep in touch,

Cara (aka Munchkin).