Last week I had sportholydays, just like the rest of Stockholmslän. My hostfamily and me went to Åre (on the westcoast, ca. in the middle of Sweden) from Saturday 22nd to Saturday 1st for skiing and snowboarding. We lived in my hostgrandmother's partner's apartement only few metres away from the skipist. It was very cozy and relaxing, I enjoyed it a lot being outside everyday and do some sports. It didn't get really cold during the whole winter, so there wasn't that much snow beside the pists. Normally they would start the snowmachines, but because of the sunny autumn the lake in Åre doesn't contain as much water as in other years, so they weren't allowed to take out that much water for the machines. In the end of the days the snow often turned quite wet and heavy, before the temperature sank to minus degrees over night and parts of the pists became icey. Exactly this icey snow was the reason of why I've got a big, darkblue bruise on my thigh. I have to admit that i fell out of the ski lift three times. In a row. At least I have a lasting memory now... :-) On Thursday we went out for a tour with the crosscountry skis. Even if we just run 7,5 kilometres and even took an orange-and-chocolate-break after 4,5 kilometres, I was kind of sweaty in the end. With my own lousy crosscountry-experiences in mind, I have great respect for everyone who run the Vasaloppet last Sunday (the Vasaloppet is a crosscountry competition that takes place in Sweden every year and is about 90 kilometres long). Last Saturday we had to clean the apartement and drive back home to Huddinge again, because school started again on Monday.
Jonas, Ylva and me on the ski lift with seat heating.
This is the lake I was talking about earlier. Karin made this picture of me when we just went onto the pist again after a coffebreak in the restaurant "Kastrullen".
Here we took a break from crosscountry skiing to drink some water and eat an orange and some chocolate. It was very sunny that day, wonderful weather for spending some hours in the nature.
Yesterday, the 4th of March it was Fettisdagen (eng. fat Tuesday). This is the day before Ash Wednesday, which is 6 weeks before Palm Sunday and 7 weeks before Easter. Following the tradition of Fettisdagen you eat "semlor" (sweet bread buns filled with almond paste and whipped cream, which often are served on a plate filled with warm milk) for dessert. Eating semlor is something like the Swedish answer to all the carneval traditions in catholic countries (when we discussed the meaning of Fettisdagen while eating our semlor, Jonas found this declaration in a book).
At the same time as it was Fettisdagen, yesterday also was my 200th day in Sweden. Unbelievable!
Just imagine a lake of milk around the bun and you get a perfect dessert for Fettisdagen. :-)
