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Published: April 20th 2009
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Eggs and candy
this is my host sisters egg filled with salt licorice, licorice, chocolate covered peanuts, gummy bears, and simpson gummies:) Hi all!
Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter and a beautiful Spring😊
I have been really busy over here. My year is coming to a close very quickly so I'm spending a lot of time with friends and getting things ready to go. I have 5 more weeks in my town before my parents come to visit. When they come I will show them all around my town for a few days and then we will spend about 1-2 weeks traveling around Scandinavia and the UK. After they go home, I will return to Sweden but not my town. I will go to Grebbestad on the west coast where my host familys summer house is. I will spend one week with them celebrating Mid Summer and then right after the celebrations I will go on my Eurotour for just under 3 weeks. After Eurotour I will go home to my town for about 4-5 days to pack up my things and say good-bye before I leave on July 15th.
So in the next 5 weeks I am packing up a box or two of things to send home by boat. I am doing presentation after presentation for some English classes at
The Easter Tree
I don't know what tree that is but its dead. haha school, my rotary club, my rotary district, and last a good-bye/thank you presentation for my class. Im most excited for that one because Im going to make Chocolate Chip cookies, rice krispie treats, maybe even enchiladas for them. Also my mom sent me Oreos to serve with all those other goodies. I think it will be a fun although a little sad presentation and a good way to say "Thank you for having me in your class and taking care of me all year!"
Now enough about leaving, I am sure you are wondering about the Swedish Easter. It was actually really wonderful. I was horribly ill with a virus during Easter but none the less it was a really fun experience. A few days before Easter Eve (when they celebrate) my host sister decorated an Easter tree with eggs, bunnies and witches.
On Easter Eve we had Easter eggs with candy inside and they were huge! My host mom hid 2 for my host sister and I, so we had a fun little Easter egg hunt. Then my host dads brother with his family came over to have have a huge Easter feast with us. Their daughter is
a middle school teacher freshly out of college. I ended up talking with her quite a bit, she was very nice and we had a few laughs through out the afternoon. The lunch feast consisted of boiled eggs (of course) a huge herring and egg salad, meatballs and small sausages, 3 other different types of herring and some yummy chocolate cake for dessert.
When I asked them the night before if we were going to color eggs, they said "oh yes, just before we eat!" I didn't know that they meant that so literally. We all ate the other things and then we each got a boiled egg and colored it (with markers) just seconds before we ate it. haha😊 I made sure to get pictures first!
After lunch we played a french game called "Bull" I believe. Its where you throw a little ball and then with a large ball you try to hit the small ball. It was a fun game. My host dad and his brother were extremely competitive and were shouting stuff to each other the whole time. It was fun to watch the sibling rivalry even at their ages of 60 something.
After meeting a
million family members and being completely embarrassed by introducing myself to them for the second time (I could have sworn I had never met them before) we all gathered to watch my host dads firework show. It was really awesome. It was our own private firework show😊 As soon as the firework show was over I was completely spent, so I went home to rest and take some meds.
The Swedish traditions are much like the American but they also have some unique ones too.
They have an the Easter bunny, but nobody takes pictures with him like American kids.
They have fake Easter eggs with candy in them, but they are much bigger and in most familys they are not hidden. They are just given to the children.
Children go door to door dressed up as witches asking for candy and giving pictures or singing for the home owner in return. I only saw one little girl dressed up, but it was adorable. They draw freckles like Pippi Longstocking all over their faces and then they draw big red cheeks like a clown and then they wear old fashioned looking dresses with a scarf covering their hair. The
Paskmust!
Its the same as Julmust they just change the label. Its the Swedish holiday soda. To me it tastes like regular Coca-Cola but all the Swedish swear there is a difference. witch idea really has nothing to do with Easter. The story is that 100+ years ago many women were being accused of witchery. All the people got the idea that the witches were all suppose to meet on a big hill around this time of the year to talk about their "witchy ways". The "witches" go door to door now for food (candy) to get them to the top of the big hill. The fireworks are to encourage them on their way after they have gotten their food. I don't know how the drawings or singing ties into the story.
They also have an Easter tree that is decorated with eggs, bunnies, and witches. I don't know the reason for the tree. Maybe they decided that we have trees for Christmas why not Easter?
Overall it was a really fun day😊
An update on the weather and sun situation. We have sunshine just about everyday now. The sun comes up about 6am and goes down now about 9:30 or 10. I cant believe the extremes in daylight hours. During the winter we got 3 hours of daylight and now we get 16+ hours of daylight everyday! Although its sunny and
My Easter Egg
This is the outside of my egg. I thought it was really pretty and cute:) warm (not hot) its EXTREMELY windy!! Riding my bike in the wind is a huge challenge. Sometimes when I'm biking against the wind its so strong that no matter how hard I push on the peddles my bike is at a stand-still. Its really crazy!
Well that is all for now, I hope this finds everyone in good health and good spirits!
Big hugs!! Rachel
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baby B
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Nice Easter!
so great to see that I wasn't the only one super excited for easter!! Nice pics on your eggs- huge too :)