getting out of town

Thank you Europcar! I must admit, I felt like an adventurous 16 year old when I drove off the car rental lot. I just wanted to explore and drive out to the coast just 20 km away but still unseen after 6 weeks of being here. I felt a sense of freedom having a car!




It was foggy Saturday so we drove just outside of town to Leo's Lekland, a large indoor playground.

Upon entering Leo's, Amelia's eyes sparkled and she got an ecstatic skip in her step at the sight of the slides, tunnels, ladders, balls, bikes... Chris and Carrie had a lot of fun too!

Later in the day we drove to the coast. Amelia was passed out in the carseat, tired from play at Leo's Lekland, and the weather outside was dismal. We didn't venture far or hang around too long. At least I've now seen the Baltic Sea/Gulf of Bothnia.










Saturday night the clouds dropped their snow and then cleared away, giving the sun a chance to shine down on us! We drove north out of town to ski part of the Tavelsjöleden. (I think leden translates to trail.) Beautiful blue ski, no wind, relatively warm... magical! While we were skiing Amelia mentioned several times that she wanted her own skis (rather than sit in the Chariot). We stopped at the Vintercafe in the small town of Tavelsjö on the way home. Reindeer antlers hung on the wall and a ski race played on the TV. Once again Amelia said she wanted her own skiis...




On the way home, we stopped by a huge grocery store on the north side of town. It is kind of like a super Target with groceries and much more. Chris spotted some children's cross country skis on sale and picked them up for her. I was a bit shocked at his impulse buy. Seriously, he doesn't want to look at Blockett first (the on-line classifieds) or other places around town. I ask him about it. He says, 'Oh that is all too complicated here'. And we have a car now. As soon as we got home she tried on her skis and did some laps around the apartments. She likes the downhills! Alright, Amelia and I will do some skiing this week. Fun!
I do hope she will get into the Chariot again so Chris and I can actually do some skiing.

Will you put dinkelmjöl on the grocery list?

Will you put dinkelmjöl on the grocery list?

We are speaking in Swenglish ;) Dinkelmjöl is spelt flour in case you are wondering.

Now that I’ve been to seven grocery stores, I’ve decided that I can write about them. There seems to be a grocery store in every neighborhood, although it may be small. There are basically only two grocery stores companies, COOP and ICA. It also seems that most areas have both competing stores. They are often even right next door to one another (see picture in Ålidhem central). (Oh yeah, they are capitalists here!) I haven’t yet decided which one is my favorite, as I haven’t really figured out how they are exactly different. It’s not like there is a Safeway, a Town ‘N Country, and a Bozeman CO-OP (reference for the Bozeman folks) with differences in price, health food, organics. The COOP here is not a co-op, it is pronounced ‘coup’ like a chicken coop. I guess both stores are a bit more like a Town ‘N Country, stores where you can find a bit of everything, including organic food and even a biodynamic/organic line Salta Kvarn, produced in southern Sweden. The selection just depends on the size of the store. There is also one kind of “health food store” that also sells other natural products. They have a few things that ICA and COOP don’t but mostly have the organic and natural brands that are also at the other stores.

Unfortunately the COOP doesn’t have Bozeman’s co-op yummy bulk tofu or the large bulk aisles of whole grains, oils, flours, and beans. Instead most of their bulk is CANDY! Yes, a large area of their store is devoted to candy. I found this at all COOP and ICA stores. Note in the picture that there are three candy areas in ONE relatively small downtown COOP store. And I wonder why they have three different areas. Why don’t they just put all the candy in one section?

I’m trying to figure out how they organize their stores. I look at unfamiliar labels of flour or beans and try to decide which to buy. Sometimes I can figure out the meaning of the Swedish if it’s similar to English, like röda linser (red lentil). I’m lucky if there is a picture on the label or the package is clear and I can see inside. I finally make my decision and then find a couple aisles over that there are more packages of flour or beans or tomato sauce to choose from. Besides candy, the store also has a very large variety of cheeses. I wish I was a cheese connoisseur to fully take advantage of this jackpot. Amelia likes the mild creamy Herrgård while Chris is fond of the salty strong tasting regional cheese, Västerbotten.

Fortunately we are able to find most things we like to eat. I suppose we can live without tempeh and molasses. Thanks to friends for sending us nutritional yeast! Its actually quite amazing what foods are available considering how far north we are. We are almost at the Arctic Circle. I suppose people don’t want to eat moose and reindeer stew all winter long. I have been surprised by what they do have here. There isn’t much of a selection of winter squash or greens but their exotic fruit selection is immense. I’ve never seen fruits they sell shipped here from South America, the Mediterranean and Africa. We haven’t explored the exotic fruit selection yet or all the diverse dairy products including shrimp and cheese in a tube. However, I am excited about all the berries we will be picking this late summer. I dug down a few feet in the snow in the forest near our house and found blueberry bushes!

I am starting to learn Swedish food words so shopping is starting to get easier!

Most herbs and some lettuce are sold in pots… so far north they have to ship them in pots so that they survive? Do you see the sad leaves? This basil plant did not like our cold walk home.

*Our favorite word at the store is jordgubbe, pronounced ‘yourgubber’, which is Swedish for strawberry.*

Our favorite character so far is this Turkish yogert guy. What do you think he is saying? ‘Oh so good!” ??

Or maybe these characters are even better. ?? They aren't found at the grocery store though. This is the alcohol store bag. ;) Wine, beer, and liquor is sold at the government run liquor store.