The kids are off on their bikes getting some milk and bread for tomorrows breakfast and ending this evening with an ice cream. Bribing them with an ice cream might not be the most pedagogical way of involving your children in chores but after all, it is summer!
Summer (meaning a blue sky, warm weather and sun) is finally here and Ingrid and Elsa are enjoying a one week daycamp outside Ulricehamn. Every morning they get picked up by a school bus which takes them to a camp with 43 other children interested in outdoor activities (such as fishing, swimming in the lake, cooking on the open fire etc) and learning about friendship and working together. The municipality and the Swedish church arrange the camp and it is really great! The kids love it and spend every day outside in wonderful summer weather coming home happy but really tired. With ten weeks of summer holidays for the kids we have to do our best to keep them active and happy. Nils has been to daycare at school (BSO in Dutch) where they also spend most of their time outside doing different small excursions every day.
Looking at the lives our kids live here and the way they can enjoy the nature we have around us I feel very privileged. We live in one of the most beautiful places in the world. It is not big, we do not have any world wonders around or any ancient treasures but what we have is simple, beautiful and accessible for anyone. The kids can go fishing or swimming and one of the many lakes around here whenever they want, the town of Ulricehamn is small but authentic with a history dating back 700 years and hikers, skiers, golf players, bicyclists etc. can use all of nature as much as they want to. For Swedish people this is not strange but for foreigners it is still a real treat to have free access to all nature. You are even allowed to camp on someone else’s ground for free for one night and if you don’t want to buy a snack in the skiing restaurant or at the lake-cafe you just bring your own hotdogs and grill them over the public fireplaces spread out around the town.
Ulricehamn has a lot to offer tourists but I think that we, who live here, are the biggest winners. Today a colleague of mine said that we would all be happier if we did more “fun summer things” (such as picnics, walking barefooted, playing soccer until late in the evening, making a spontaneous barbeque etc.) spread out during the year instead of pushing it all in during our few weeks of vacation. I think it is true that we sometimes forget to do enough fun things during normal working weeks and that we sometimes force to many activities into our holidays. However, if you live in Ulricehamn you actually have the chance to do many “fun summer things” from May to the end of September and we have tried to make us of this (eating out on the porch as soon as it was warm enough, playing games outside and making spontaneous parties with friends.).
This summer Nils (6) will go to swimming school in Nybrostrand (at my parents summerhouse in south Sweden) and Ingrid (11) will be on a CISVcamp in the US for a month. From the first of July Jochem will become a stay at home dad for some time (first he said a year, then he said 6 months and last I heard him say 2 months so I just wait and see…). Elsa (9) and I will just do whatever comes to mind. I value non planed holidays more and more!
On Friday it is midsummer in Sweden (the biggest holiday of the year next to Christmas) and we will participate in a casual, non-traditional gathering with friends who like us have no midsummer tradition. We make our own traditions with a mix of cultures, food and great company!
Have a great midsummer everyone!
May 2013
in Ulricehamn
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Daysland High Reunion - 20 years of Canadian spirit!
My graduation class from Daysland Highschool is arranging a reunion this summer in Alberta, Canada. 20 years have passed and it would be great top join the reunion and meet up with everyone again but I guess it is a bit far to go for an evening out. 20 years is an almost unbelievable time and the fact that I also feel that it went by in a flash makes it even scarier. I have no problem growing older or accepting the change of time but if 20 years goes this fast how will it be with the coming 20 years? How will I possibly have time to do everything that I am planning to do when I grow up? Well, I guess the answer is living long. I will make my best film ever at the age of 90 and my novel debut at the age of 72. Or, just live life, doing only the fun things and make myself change the path ever so often.
A reunion makes you think. What has happened in the last 20 years and did life turn out as I had expected? In 1989/90 I spent one year in the town of Heisler, Canada with 114 inhabitants. I went to Daysland Highschool with 200 kids from grade 1 – 12 going on a school bus for 30 minutes every morning to the little town of Daysland. I now live in what is called a rural area but it is nothing compared to the enormous fields of Alberta, Canada. I was a city girl who ended up learning how to milk a cow, to drink bear at a bonfire and that a life without a truck was a life not lived. I met many great people, experienced a divorce in my host family, saw people close to me struggle real hard and realized a lot of things about myself, and the way I wanted to live my life. I have lived in 8 or 9 countries, worked and studied in many different cultures but I think many of my life defining insights happened in Canada. I don’t think I got it right there and then but in hindsight I think it was one of the most defining years of my life. Then again, since then lots have happened and maybe we all get shaped on the path we travel.
When I lived in Canada the Berlin wall was taken down and for a moment I felt as if I was on the wrong spot when something really big happened in Europe. The again, I lived my life in Canada for a year and for me it had a huge impact just as the changes in east and west Germany changed the lives of millions of people. There are no “right” places to be – only the possibilities we make ourselves.
We were around 18 when we graduated from Daysland Highschool in June 1990. At the age of 38 we are statistically not halfway. Actually this is a really nice thought. Imagine what lies ahead and what possibilities we still have - the Daysland High, Class of 1990!
I like to think that we are all in an everlasting learning process where the secrets of life are still to be discovered and hopefully some of them will always stay unknown to us!
Classmates – have a great reunion and enjoy what lies ahead. A sea of possibilities!
Maria – Ulrika
(I now go by my second name Ulrika but you can obviously still call me Maria!)
A reunion makes you think. What has happened in the last 20 years and did life turn out as I had expected? In 1989/90 I spent one year in the town of Heisler, Canada with 114 inhabitants. I went to Daysland Highschool with 200 kids from grade 1 – 12 going on a school bus for 30 minutes every morning to the little town of Daysland. I now live in what is called a rural area but it is nothing compared to the enormous fields of Alberta, Canada. I was a city girl who ended up learning how to milk a cow, to drink bear at a bonfire and that a life without a truck was a life not lived. I met many great people, experienced a divorce in my host family, saw people close to me struggle real hard and realized a lot of things about myself, and the way I wanted to live my life. I have lived in 8 or 9 countries, worked and studied in many different cultures but I think many of my life defining insights happened in Canada. I don’t think I got it right there and then but in hindsight I think it was one of the most defining years of my life. Then again, since then lots have happened and maybe we all get shaped on the path we travel.
When I lived in Canada the Berlin wall was taken down and for a moment I felt as if I was on the wrong spot when something really big happened in Europe. The again, I lived my life in Canada for a year and for me it had a huge impact just as the changes in east and west Germany changed the lives of millions of people. There are no “right” places to be – only the possibilities we make ourselves.
We were around 18 when we graduated from Daysland Highschool in June 1990. At the age of 38 we are statistically not halfway. Actually this is a really nice thought. Imagine what lies ahead and what possibilities we still have - the Daysland High, Class of 1990!
I like to think that we are all in an everlasting learning process where the secrets of life are still to be discovered and hopefully some of them will always stay unknown to us!
Classmates – have a great reunion and enjoy what lies ahead. A sea of possibilities!
Maria – Ulrika
(I now go by my second name Ulrika but you can obviously still call me Maria!)
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
What I just forgot...
Maybe I am suffering from some kind of memory disease. Maybe I have filled my head with too much information making something go away every time I try to add new information. Or maybe I am only focusing on what I think is fun or interesting excluding the possibility to remember boring things (or less important things). I like to believe that the last statement is the most true.
I just got back from an EU conference in Nyköping about the Europe 2020 strategy. Nyköping is a beautiful town on the east side of Sweden about an hour south of Stockholm well worth a visit for any tourist interested in history and old architecture. However, the transportation possibilities between Ulricehamn and Nyköping are not great. I wanted to travel by bus or train as that would give me the possibility to work while travelling. It turned out, after extensive research, that I would be best off going there by bus and leaving it by train. Unfortuneately I was a bit distracted while ordering my bus ticket online (talking on the phone, looking at some papers and getting the ticket at the same time) so when the confirmation arrived I had bought a ticket to Linköping instead of Nyköping. If I would have paid more attention to the ticket I would have realized that Linköping is on the way to Nyköping and I could have gotten a ticket from Linköping to Nyköping. Instead I panicked, just bought a new ticket (changing it was not possible) and called the reception at the municipality to order my train ticket. They always get it right and so they did even this time.
I arrived in Nyköping with my speech, my hotel reservation, got a map to find my way around and felt fairly well organized for a while. Then, in the middle of the night I woke up. I saw a vision of my office and my white board and on that white board I saw… Yes, I saw my train ticket. I had left my train ticket hanging on the whiteboard in the office in Ulricehamn. So, I got up and tried to buy a new one on the net but as the safety system has improved I could not get a ticket. I phoned the train company and was greeted by a recorded voice informing me of their opening hours. The next morning I spent half an hour on the phone to get a new ticket (with a price increase of 100 crowns from the night before), which they could not send as an sms but that I had to pick up at the train station. So, during lunch hour I run up and down Nyköping getting my fourth ticket for this trip!
Well, was it worth it? Did the conference live up to my expectations? Luckily I like to think so even though I missed some of my colleagues at the conference. The conference aimed to look at how we implement the Europe 2020 strategy in a better way but I was one of very few people who actually work with the implementation of these strategies. But then again, looking at my past days of chaotic behaviour we should maybe let someone else do the implementation. I am thinking of taking up a carrier in ticketordering and study a bit more of Swedish geography!
Goodnight everyone!
PS: To forget is the great secret of strong creative natures; to forget is the way nature herself who knows no past and who at every hour begins the mysteries of her untiring labors afresh.
- Honore de Balzac
I just got back from an EU conference in Nyköping about the Europe 2020 strategy. Nyköping is a beautiful town on the east side of Sweden about an hour south of Stockholm well worth a visit for any tourist interested in history and old architecture. However, the transportation possibilities between Ulricehamn and Nyköping are not great. I wanted to travel by bus or train as that would give me the possibility to work while travelling. It turned out, after extensive research, that I would be best off going there by bus and leaving it by train. Unfortuneately I was a bit distracted while ordering my bus ticket online (talking on the phone, looking at some papers and getting the ticket at the same time) so when the confirmation arrived I had bought a ticket to Linköping instead of Nyköping. If I would have paid more attention to the ticket I would have realized that Linköping is on the way to Nyköping and I could have gotten a ticket from Linköping to Nyköping. Instead I panicked, just bought a new ticket (changing it was not possible) and called the reception at the municipality to order my train ticket. They always get it right and so they did even this time.
I arrived in Nyköping with my speech, my hotel reservation, got a map to find my way around and felt fairly well organized for a while. Then, in the middle of the night I woke up. I saw a vision of my office and my white board and on that white board I saw… Yes, I saw my train ticket. I had left my train ticket hanging on the whiteboard in the office in Ulricehamn. So, I got up and tried to buy a new one on the net but as the safety system has improved I could not get a ticket. I phoned the train company and was greeted by a recorded voice informing me of their opening hours. The next morning I spent half an hour on the phone to get a new ticket (with a price increase of 100 crowns from the night before), which they could not send as an sms but that I had to pick up at the train station. So, during lunch hour I run up and down Nyköping getting my fourth ticket for this trip!
Well, was it worth it? Did the conference live up to my expectations? Luckily I like to think so even though I missed some of my colleagues at the conference. The conference aimed to look at how we implement the Europe 2020 strategy in a better way but I was one of very few people who actually work with the implementation of these strategies. But then again, looking at my past days of chaotic behaviour we should maybe let someone else do the implementation. I am thinking of taking up a carrier in ticketordering and study a bit more of Swedish geography!
Goodnight everyone!
PS: To forget is the great secret of strong creative natures; to forget is the way nature herself who knows no past and who at every hour begins the mysteries of her untiring labors afresh.
- Honore de Balzac
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