Krakow, Poland.

A few weeks ago I enjoyed a merry jaunt to Poland with my dear friend Niki. I managed to get through my fear of public transport and safely (and remarkably easily) arrive in Krakow, Poland. Our days were spent wandering the city consuming delicious food and wine while enjoying museums, galleries and the streets.

Krakow is a beautiful city, full of interesting buildings, history and legends. We found ourselves in fantastic restaurants eating either hearty traditional Polish food or scrumptious Italian. We enjoyed a photo exhibition of surrealist artist Rene Magritte, took a turn around Wawel Castle, a gawk at the Dragon festival parade, a wander through the Jewish quarter, tried to go shopping (and accidentally found every second hand shop in town), entered a few churches and solemnly visited Auschwitz I - Auschwitz II Birkenau.

The downside of Krakow is that it has a lot of tourists. The upside is that there are English translations of all menus. I recommend going on one of the free walking tours if you happen to be visiting. However, take some snacks and comfy shoes. I accidentally joined this tour five minutes after it started and didn't realise it went for two hours. All in all it was a pretty great trip.

Click on the link to the right and it will take you to the web albums as usual. I've divided this album in two. One album is of Krakow city and Niki and I being silly and the other is of Auschwitz. For those of you who wish to look at the Auschwitz photos, click here Auschwitz Album.

I know visiting Auschwitz is not everyone's cup of tea and originally I wasn't going to go either but in the end I'm glad I did. I felt that I probably wouldn't get this chance again and it has certainly affected me. I think what got to me most is the shear enormity of the whole operation. Although this sounds corny, the experience of being there is grounding, incredible and unimaginable. It's not just in a movie or history book, it actually happened to real people by real people on a monstrous scale. Any description I give would not do the place nor my feelings about it justice. All I can say is that I came away with an extremely sad feeling, amongst others, and that's putting it mildly. After being at Auschwitz it was relieving and uplifting to return to Krakow. Firstly, one really needs a drink after being there and secondly, it's nice to see such a thriving city and if it's recovery and vitality is anything to go by, then visiting any part of Poland is a must.

Beginning again.

It turns out that Cara can't read or more precisely Cara can read but then can't write about what she's read. Is it lazy-ness? Is it lack of time? Is it procrastination? Is it that all the books were so bad that they're not worth writing about? It's certainly not the latter but it could be procrastination. Blog procrastination.

When I started this blog I had many good intentions and I even used it to procrastinate from doing other things such as finding a job, searching for apartments, studying Swedish. Now it's the opposite. I make the excuse that my life hasn't been exciting enough to tell you about but I think I'm missing the point. Most people don't blog about amazingly fantastic things that have happened, they blog about everyday things. So from this day forward I'm not going to make any ill-advised guarantees that I will post regularly, that it will have a consistent theme or that I will make my own mini online book club. Oh how silly I was. Maybe I'll surprise myself by blogging more if I have no expectations to blog at all. One can only hope!

Now that I've cleared the air, I can start to blog about random stuff.

Here's a short list I compiled a couple of months ago. It's called "Top things about Sweden". It should probably be called "Random things about Sweden" since I went a bit off topic.

1. You don't have to check your gumboots for spiders.
2. You can (sometimes) just ring the doctor for a prescription renewal without a visit. This happens to normal people, not just the elderly. You have to see the doctor eventually but for a simple repeat it is often granted. 
3. The buses actually go where they say they will and run on time. Canberra could learn from this. 
4. Although the buses run on time or sometimes early (which is almost as bad as late) there is a high proportion of crazy bus drivers who can't quite get the hang of the gears and/or the brake. 
5. The most dangerous animal is the European wasp (this is not based on fact, it's just something I heard).
6. Leg warmers are not just an 80's fashion reference, they are a vital piece of normal clothing. 
7. Most Swedish men (under 40) look like they've been styled professionally and have better fashion sense than the women.
8.  Ice cream shops open in March when it's still below 10 degrees and people actually go to them. 
9. They call a spade, a spade!

Tune in next time for something completely random, it might be about me and what I've been up to or the lost art of using a semi-colon (which I can't do to save my life), or how ones English skills go down the drain when learning a second language. Whatever it is, it will be random.

Catchya round like a rissole.

Oops!

I was intending to post my first book review thingy today but an unfortunate lack-of-pressing-the-save-button-and-accidently-hitting-some-random-keys circumstance has lead to an empty depressing page. This is the second time today just when I was almost finished.

As Kavs would say "It's a sign!", it sure is, it's a sign that I need to give up writing for the day and eat some chocolate (or have a beer). Sorry for the delay. Hopefully I will remember how witty I was in a few days and do a re-write then :-)

Cara can read...or can she?

"'Twas the night before Christmas,

when all thro' the house,

Not a creature was stirring,

not even a mouse;

The stockings were hung

by the chimney with care,

In hopes that St. Nicholas

soon would be there;"

After finishing the latest book "A Dance with Dragons" of George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire", the intricate backstabbing fantasy saga, I was at a loss. I needed a break from the intensity of such a momentous book. If I were home home in Osbornes Flat with my now politically incorrect editions of Enid Blyton novels, I would go for something like The Famous Five or The Magic Faraway Tree. I've read them a million times but they are comfort books (if there is such a thing), they smell like real books, some newer than others, some with my Mum's name inside the cover, some with a crossed out school library stamp and either my brother or sisters name below it, but real live books. As you can see, I'm still not convinced by e-books, they just don't smell right! However, I'm not at home home I'm just at home. When I moved to Sweden I brought one book with me which happened to be the second book in the George R.R. Martin series but I brought no comfort books so I've had to make do with Jochen's. His comfort books are the entire Terry Pratchet series. I'm not at a loss for quantity that's for sure. I've read a few Pratchet over the years but haven't really been completely absorbed until now. I fell in love with Mr Nutt in Unseen Academicals and then I decided I should read the whole series from the beginning. So far we have solved one problem, what to read as an inbetweeny-comfort-book. Now for the real problem, after I've finished said Prachet-comfort what will I read next?

There have been a couple of decisions that I believe has lead me to this new page on my blog. One is my faithful sidekick Niki (or perhaps more correctly, I am her sidekick) and the other is Matty Cutts from a TED Talks video. Niki and I decided a little while ago that we were going to become Renaissance men. We had become stagnant and more involved with the lives of people on TV soaps than our own. Therefore we made a few decisions of how to become a Renaissance Man and one of which was to read more. Incidentally, if you are thinking of becoming a Renaissance Man one should "Be able to defend himself with a variety of weapons, especially the sword." (http://www.martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/Polymath.html) which we were pretty excited about. The other motivation was a TED Talk by Matty Cutts called "Try something new for 30 days"(http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/matt_cutts_try_something_new_for_30_days.html). Jochen and I completed a thirty day "No TV" challenge during December. This in turn led to the revival of our bookish natures and in turn the need for new books!

Among some other fantastic presents that I received for Christmas, I was given a plethora of books. So far I've read three of them and I'm currently reading the fourth and fifth (I have to have a bus book and a bed book of course!). The first book I read was a classic, thank you to my family for sending this one. You may recognise it from the couple of paragraphs at the top of this post. "'Twas the Night before Christmas" (unknown author), my all time favourite Christmas book, also probably the only Christmas book. My Mum would read this to me on Christmas Eve every year and it was awesome. Since I couldn't pack my Mum when I came to Sweden, Jochen was kind enough to oblige (unless it was really my Mum in disguise with a beard and long blond hair). I suppose technically I didn't read the book as it was read to me but then what do you say about audiobooks, just because I have listened to it doesn't mean I don't know what's between the covers. 

I will try to post something about each book that I read for this year. I don't want to ruin the books for anyone so I will try to avoid spoilers. I hope this will create some kind of discussion or at least recommendations for new books to read. I don't like the label 'book club', maybe this is more a 'book lover' page. This is mostly a selfish endeavour as I will need a suggestions after I finish this big stack on my desk but hopefully you will get some good tips out of it too. Perhaps if anyone is really keen you can send me your own post about a book you have read and I will happily post it. Check my profile for my email address. Check back soon for the first reviewy-posty-type-thing as I already have a back log.

Happy reading less tv-ing everyone. 

No more sleeps to go

The art of posting is within consistency. My posts are consistently very far apart so when I felt this strange feeling, a feeling of writing to you within one month, nej just over one week, I thought something had to be done about it. Get it out of my system and move on. Can much happen in one week that merits a whole post? Well yes! My birthday can happen!

Most of you know my approach to my birthdays. It starts with a count-down, usually from the last birthday but more fervently from the month before with sporadic updates throughout the year. My family usually ignores this and it's a strategy that has worked successfully over the years. My sister's approach is to put her hands over her ears, shut her eyes and yell "I can't hear you, I can't hear you, la la laaa la la", also very successful. This year was no different.

My birthday was fast approaching when I received a letter in the mail from my friends at Migrationsverket (Immigration). I hurriedly unlocked our big yellow door, dropped bags, coats, shoes on the floor and sat at my desk. I was so nervous my hands were a little shaky as I tore open the letter. Secretly I was hoping for good news but preparing for bad. I read the letter, a couple of times, then I google translated the crap out of it just to make sure it did indeed say what I thought it said. I have been granted permission to live and work in Sweden for another five years! Woooofuckinghoooo! Needless to say there was some excited jumpy-dancing going on. Imagine those typical movie moments where the national anthem starts playing, little yellow and blue Swedish flags start falling from the sky, the sun comes out from behind the clouds and a feeling of overwhelming relief was enjoyed by all. This was all happening in my head, although the Swedish national anthem sounded more like "Yippeee, Wooohoooo, Kowabunga!". I immediately rang Jochen to double check that google translate and I had been correct. Since then a proper Swede has read the whole 8 page (in Swedish) legal document to double check, and we are in the clear. I've spent the last week in disbelief, thinking that maybe they made a mistake and any day now I was going to receive another letter saying "whoops, actually we changed our mind". So far so good and thank you for an early birthday prezzie. What does this mean? You must all come and visit within the next year or two!

Birthday stress

As for my birthday celebrations, they all started with Happy Immigration Day which led to Happy Hobbit Holiday, which also led to Happy (early) Halloween Day, which led to Happy Happy Birthday Day which will last all week, if not longer. I can hear you all thinking it "Poor Jochen!", and it's true but he put on a brave face, ignored the little princess in me and gave me a fantastic birthday.

Friday afternoon saw us heading towards Höör (about half an hour from Lund, by car - thank you Marie). Our trusty guide Caroline navigated us to our little hobbit hole accommodation. The hostel is built into the ground with all these cute windows poking out in the mound, it was just missing a little round door. The evening was spent at the local bath house which on Fridays has a 'relax' evening where all the kids get sent home at 6.30pm. Jochen is so good at surprising me that he didn't quite explain what we were doing there. I know, bath house, duh, but it was a swimming pool, sauna, spa, waterslide extravaganza. My instructions were "Go in and get changed into your bathers and meet me on the other side". This is a testament of how I can screw up the simplest instructions by being scared of what was actually on the other side! I walk into the ladies change room and I'm confronted with nakedness and lots of signs in Swedish telling me to take off my clothes before going anywhere. So I embarrassingly took off my clothes and went to the communal shower. Tried to turn on the shower, great, it didn't work. Let me tell you that trying to make eye contact with naked women who have their eyes shut while washing their hair is a little complicated. I got my answer in the end and finished washing. Where to go next? The other side? Must be through this door. The door that says sauna, no clothes allowed, maybe it joins up with the mens one. Nope, just a hot room with naked women.

A side note to all the Europeans reading this, this is a big cultural difference (at least to me) and it feels weird the first time. I guess it's like Vegemite, if you didn't grow up eating it then it's probably going to take you a while to get used to the taste. The thing is that in Oz there are very few situations where you get naked with strangers. Doctors, nurses and partners see you naked, little kids and old people who just don't give a shit in various change rooms or swimming venues get naked but general nakedness is saved for streaking across cricket grounds. So there I am in the sauna, being slightly paranoid but trying to embrace the situation and then it dawns on me that perhaps Jochen meant we were swimming not sauna-ing. I try to maintain a casual look as I leave the sauna, get my swimmers on and walk out to the swimming pool area where Jochen is just leaving. He has spent half an hour waiting for me, not swimming and trying not to look like a shady-pool-side-character. Oops! In the end we had a lovely evening of swimming, spa-ing and eating yummy steak for dinner.

Pappa Elk

The next morning we headed to Skånes Djurpark (animal park) where I saw among many animals (check out the photos) my first elk. They are huge, I didn't realise how ridiculously big they are, no wonder they are kings of the forests and if you hit one, your car wouldn't survive. Although they are odd looking, they have their own charm and allowed us to get very close to them. Another character of note was the lynx that Jochen seemed to piss off. Maybe it was the way Jochen looked at it or the big camera he was pointing towards it or the way he growled at it that was displeasing. Either way, I was glad we were on the other side of the fence, very fluffy and cute but I would put my money on the lynx rather than Jochen.

Edward

Phantom

Where are we up to? Happy (early) Halloween Day. Kim put on a great party with a spooky tent, blood in the shower and foaming drinks. Jochen dressed as the Phantom of the Opera and I went as Edward Scissorhands. Thanks to everyone for the birthday songs and prezzies, I felt very spoilt and special. After lots of drinking and combing out my massive hair, little Edward went to sleep to wake up the next day on Happy Happy Birthday Day with a pretty big virus (hangover). We struggled through and a relaxing day was had and I even learned a thing or two from a lecture that Jochen had to give that day. An educational birthday.

This has been a very very long post but I hope you enjoy the pics and thank you for all the birthday wishes.

Don't forget to come visit!

Prince, Friends & Pictures

Blogs are a great way to avoid doing such things as Swedish homework, applying for jobs, cleaning the house etc. so here goes, lets see how long I can make it last for.

Firstly; the photos, again I have added a whole bunch from the last few months in their own categories. Just when you think nothing happens in your life, it turns out you have all these photos from stuff that happened, equaling a not so boring life.

Since the last post, summer has been and gone. It was a short rainy affair but a few bbq's were had and therefore it was not a complete washout. The days were long, as were the drinks. The men wore no shirts, a pleasant bonus for +20 degrees. The women also wore no shirts, but only in parks and while lying down on their stomachs. We enjoyed the midsommar celebrations and by the end of a long day of drinking we decided to create a new blog dedicated to boobs (which was actually achieved).

I managed to have some pleasant adventures on my newly acquired bicycle (thanks Sam). I also enjoyed the wonderful treatment of the Folktandvård (the national dental service). After enduring a week of non-stop anti-inflammatories that were surely decaying my insides, I ventured into a public dental clinic. This area is where Australia could learn a thing or two. The Folktandvård provide emergency same-day service where the appointments run on time and the dentist is good-natured and informative. Overall they charge you for the procedure rather than per hour, even if the procedure takes three appointments so your wallet remains relatively fat. If only I had not been in such remarkable pain from the onset of a root infection, I would surely have enjoyed myself more.

Our adventures away from Lund have been few but we have enjoyed the company of a family and friends within our humble abode. Jochen's brother Carsten and his partner Ulrike visited for a few days. Luckily for us they brought the sunshine with them. More recently, Brianne, a friend from my wild Dumaresque St days, visited with us as well. Brianne and I gallivanted around the countryside and caught up on some well missed Australianisms mumbled through our beards. We even made it to Copenhagen, the big city across the sea! It does have a dirty, busy, city feel, much different to our country lifestyle in Lund (Lund has about the same population as Albury-Wodonga combined, but much more densely populated). This city escape was the highlight for me in terms of sight seeing. It was new and exciting but it is somewhere I must go back to for proper exploration before I decide on it's amiability. One afternoon is definitely not enough to see this oddly disparate new against old, harsh yet quaint, sea side city.

All visitors, so far, are addicted to Nutella! Make sure, you too fit the profile of Smolka/Harrison guests, either Nutella or Vegemite (however, please bring you're own Vegemite, my supplies are dangerously low).

The start of August was particularly exciting with the amazing New Power Generation Prince Concert! I found a fellow Prince fan in Kim and thus we set off to Copenhagen to enjoy the day long festivities. In the line up from earliest to latest was Nikka Costa, Paloma Faith; a British blues singer trying to make a pop career with some cool songs and Wonder-Woman-slash-American-Indian-glitter costume. Cruising along with some soul/R&B from Raphael Saadiq followed by Chaka Khan, you may remember Chaka from the early 80's with "I'm every woman". Last but not least, Prince! Fantastic energy, great music, amazing musicians (my secret desire to be a back up singer was reignited - you know what I'm talking about Hef!),and an awesome vibe from the audience. We rocked out, sung along to classics like "Raspberry Beret", "Cream" and of course "Purple Rain". The lights were flashing, the music was blaring and then it started raining. Purple? Was it part of the show? No! We were soaked to the bone and that sage old saying "There's no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing" had an ironic ring to it, luckily our picnic blanket doubled as poncho. Unfortunately the concert was rained out and we all trampled through the mud like a sad herd of cows to the metro stop. Special thanks to Kim, who navigated us there and back, provided excellent company, and also let me take first hot shower after freezing our arses off!

One Year Later

So here I am, still in Sweden, one year later. I'm sitting in our IKEA furnished apartment remembering my first day and trying to figure out when everything became so familiar. It's only natural, I suppose, that this time should be used for reflection.

Last year, I arrived on a warm summer morning, bleary-eyed and travel-stinky. Jochen came to the airport to relieve me of having to worry about public transport from Copenhagen to Lund (which is particularly easy, but you know me and public transport!). Once on the train we started to talk excitedly only to be hushed by other passengers who indicated that we were in the 'silent' section of the train. So after 7 months apart, 30 hours of trains, planes and airports, I wasn't allowed to speak to my boyfriend! This led me to the conclusion that I could sneak in a nap, which was not the same conclusion Jochen came to!

For the first time, I was in Europe, stepping down the cobbled streets of Lund, I looked around much like Alice did in Wonderland. From first glance, I liked what I saw, but then again I didn't want to see anything except the back of my eyelids, which didn't happen til many many hours later. The 'awake' strategy came down to stuffing in some vegemite toast (as if I would leave Australia without it!), unpacking and going to lunch and eating shrimp on bread drowned in mayonnaise and dill. This was not the best dish to try straight off the plane, but I was seizing the moment of trying new things (I'm not sure it lasted too long). We then met up with some of Jochen's friends, he chatted and I fell asleep to the soothing sounds of the World Cup (Soccer for Aussies, Football for the rest of you). Half time came, I stumbled, Jochen carried me back to the apartment and I slept soundly until 4am when the bloody sun came up and streamed through the non-light-resistant blinds. Two days later when my jet-lag really kicked in, we bought black curtains!

As I said, here I am, still in Sweden, one year later. When people tell you that going overseas will be a fantastic life-changing experience, and use my most-hated words "character fucking building", they are right. No matter where you are, you take yourself with you and you keep building. Fortunately, you make friends, then you realise that everyone is doing the same thing, building! We're all in this shit together and I reckon that without friends who become your family away from family, we'd all be stuffed.

If you can dedicate posts then this one is dedicated to Sam, a friend for life who made life in Lund an awesome adventure. For those of you who don't know Sam, don't worry she's not dead, she just moved back to the USA with her man Joaquin to start a new adventure. This brings me to the video you see below. As you know, one of the worst things about moving countries or even houses is the packing so the video below is our going-away present to Sam and Joaquin that doesn't take up any space in their luggage.

I should give you a little bit of background to this short short film. I was inspired to make a stop motion short short film, blissfully unaware of the amount of time and energy it would take. Jochen tried to warn me, but being the stubborn and sometimes optimist that I am, I thought four days would be heaps of time to make my first ever movie. Oh, how he laughed at me! However, nothing puts the pressure on like an immovable deadline. This video is based on true events. Jochen and Joaquin share an office and as Joaquin appropriately phrased it one day, Sam and I are Batman and Robin. As soon as the boys are at work, we are off having adventures. Sam is obviously Batman since she owns a Bat-mobile.

I would like to heartily thank Jochen for being the best techy ever. Thanks for knowing what stop motion is and explaining it to me........after I started when it was too late to start something new. Without him this movie would just be a boring soundless slow slideshow. I'd love to know what you think so please comment. (Don't forget to turn your sound on).

Now, I would like to raise a glass of homebrew in honour of surviving one year in Sweden, making great friends and feeling incredibly lucky......Skål!