Hmmmmmmm.... the holidays are just over now, and I'm fresh to start working again. It was great! We had visitors (my sister Eelkje and her boyfriend Erwin, Greta's parents came and my cousin Nynke as well), which was really nice, but it was a nice holiday anyway.
The Swedes have a lot of holidays:

• dec 13th: Santa Lucia
  There are silly beauty-competitions everywhere and the prettiest girl of the island, the town, the school or the innebandy-team is chosen to be Lucia. She sings nice, traditional songs with a lot of candles on her head, and is surrounded by the other girls and some boys in silly hats.
• The time before christmas: Julbord
  You go and eat with different groups of people. I had Julbord with the people at Kumulus & the volunteers, my lovely neighbours and the Mörbylånga Kommun (the politicians and less important people like, for instance, Greta and me). You eat special christmas-foods, like sill (herring), gravad lax (buried salmon, really yummy), Lutfisk (most horrible of all things fishy: white, fluffy and tasteless), julskinka (christmas ham) and ehrghsd haisjfbn, jansons temptation (ansjovis & potatoes-dish, which is really good).
• dec 24th: Julafton!
  Christmas Eve! with presents and singing! We celebrated it with Eelkje and Erwin, Greta's parents and the local volunteers. Everybody brought some nice foods, and it was jättekul. That's a positive word.
• dec 25th & dec 26th: Första och annandagen av Jul
  actual christmas, but not filled with much things. And the shops are not really open that much.
• dec 30th: Födelsedagen!
  My birthday! 20 years, woehoe! Now I can finally buy liquor (again). Nynke (who was visiting us now) and I made chocolatty cakes and brought them to Kalmar, to party there with my other friends. It was really nice! Liza from Växjö brought her Dutch boyfriend Jasper, so Dutch people were everywhere. Poor not-Dutch-speaking people. The cakes were great!
• dec 31th & jan 1st
  Just kept on partying, haha. Firing sterretjes, getting a little drunk, saying 'Gott nytt år' to everybody who crosses our path, making noises and doing illegal things: I had a good time. And we ate appelflappen!

So, that wa really nice. And now we're back in ordinary life again. But the days are getting longer and I'm looking forward to 2007. I wish you all the best in this year: 'Gott nytt år, folle lok en seine yn it nije jier!'

And, for the people who don't like the top 2000 of Radio 2: a good music tip! 'The Soundtrack Of Our Lives' is quite a nice Swedish band. And did I mention 'The Deportees' already? They are even better. And from Umeå, which is just as far away from Mörbylånga as Franeker.

Wednesday, Greta, Emmi and I went to Stockholm, the capital of Sweden (and, if you may believe the stupid signs, capital of Scandinavia too). Our main purpose: a Sufjan Stevens gig. He and his butterfly squad made a fantastic concert with flying Santa Clauses and inflatable Supermen and a lot of jingly tingly sounds. It was great. listen to Sufjan Stevens! (music tip, ha!). But, next to his gig, there was a lot to see of Stockholm. Like the streets of Gamla Stan (the old town, with ferocious tourists everywhere), the museum island (the modern museum rocks!) and the best neighbourhood: Södermalm, with its expensive second hand stores and numerous places to eat breakfast. We slept in Södermalm at Emmas place, a girl we found on the internet. There's this great site, www.couchsurfing.com, which offers free sleeping places at local people. So nice, now we could spend more money on breakfast! In two weeks, we'll try to find a sleeping place in Kopenhagen with this site. It's amazing. Anyway, Emma was really nice and her flat as well. She wanted us to learn more about Swedish good music, and we wanted to learn more, but we didn't have much time for that. But we'll keep in contact, and we WILL learn about good Swedish music! So the next music tip will probably something Swedish again. I already heard some people are addicted to Kent, haha. Beware!

Anyway, back to Stockholm. We also met other EVS-volunteers at a party of the National Youth Council there. They are very nice. More friends, jeeeeeej! It's quite hard to make friends with Swedish people, as we have found out, if you don't speak Swedish that well and... well, it's just hard. But I'll never stop trying!

joecheeeeeeeiiiiiiii! My parents came to visit me last week! It was so nice!

It's absolutely brilliant to meet people from your past, Dutch life again after two months of not seeing them. We went for hikes, visited a Dutch artist and his wife in Resmo (near Mörbylånga),I showed them the Swedish way of life and Zokker, Greta and me ate fika with them and they visited the Kalmar Slott (local impressive castel) and the church on the Stortorget in Kalmar. It was so nice!
But they could only stay for a couple of days, so they left us last thursday. A sad sad day, especially when we found out later that day that we won't have Swedish lessons untill at least December! Noooo!
But, luckely, we organized a nice kanelbullar-baking-party (see 'House' and 'Friends' for some more pictures!), with our friends from Kalmar and Växjö visiting us, to join us to eat away our misery.
And, naturligvist, a music tip to warm all your hearts in this cold, wintery days (it's snowing here right now!): the Swedish band 'Kent' is quite nice. Especially 'Sundance Kid': "Hör du mig, hör du mig, kan du höra mig?"  Have fun!

Most people have been to Ikea since they were 4 years old, and go again every month. So all my friend were surprised that I never had been to Ikea in my life, that i was an Ikea-virgin, so to speak. But now, this sad and dark period of my life has come to an end!

As the blue and yellow square building had risen in front of my eyes, I was determined to set a foot inside. And so I did, and Greta and me spent 990 kronar (about 110 euro) on paper bins, kitchen stuff and other things. It was great, except the horrible beginning part, where you can see everything they have, but can't get it because it's only... well, i don't know why. it's just stupid.

Greta cut my hair! And it was very stupid, so i went to the barber shop as fast as I could. but there are still pictures of greta's terrifying creation. they can be seen in some time in the magazine of www.scholieren.com.

And then, last but not least: Skordefest! Skordefesten is a 4 day autumn festival on the island of Öland. There were slightly more people on the streets now (that is to say: there were actual people on the streets, unique in the history of Mörbylånga), and pumpkins everywhere. And the cafe-thingie on the town square opened it's door for a few days!  

But the most interesting part of Skordefesten was the fridaynight: konstnatten, the night of art. greta and me (and our visiting friends Emmi and Israel) had to walk with these huge puppets in a parade through town (which was quite a lot of fun), and then we had to make waffels for the three people who visited the concerts in Zokker. We ended up eating most of the waffels ourselves, and making new friends by giving them waffels. it was really nice.

the music tip this time is for Else Feikje: Dresden Dolls! Although not swedish, they rock. I'm beginning to listen to swedish music as well, so the next time the music tip will probably be something swedish. Probably.