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The other day I was invited to see and experience the newest museum in Stockholm: The shipwreck museum (Vrakmuseet). The museum takes a deeper look (pun intended) at the interesting marine archeology found in the Baltic Sea. The Baltic Sea is quite unique in that it is mainly brackish water combined with its large size and the number of countries that share its shores. Brackish water makes wooden shipwrecks better preserved due to a lack of salt and shipworms. The most famous example of a preserved shipwreck is the Vasa, found in the nearby Vasa Museum. Read about my recent visit by clicking here. In fact, the Vasa Museum is not only a close neighbor of the Museum of the Wrecks, but they are also sister museums ... they are all part of the collection of Swedish museums of maritime...

Within an hour's flight, you find yourself like a single endless stretch of beach: the Polish Riviera. The white sand dazzles us from the air. 50 km the beach extends beyond, among others, the Polish cities of Gdynia and Gdansk. We have targeted the small Sopot spa in the middle. Check-in at the spa hotel We have booked in Radisson Blu Hotel and Sopot, 250 meters from the sea and with a huge spa area included in the room price. It costs from 650 SEK per night through Booking.com (depending on the time of booking). If you want to stay more luxurious, there's also the neighboring Marriott hotel with a great-looking spa area (and that you can try by booking a treatment), or spa classics like the Sheraton hotel and Sofitel. However, we are more than happy with our hotel and...

Photo: C. Bowen, Mushrooms collected from Minnesota Do you live in a mycophilic or mycophobic culture? These adjectives of Greek origin mean either mushroom lovers or, in the latter, fearful of mushrooms. Hunting for wild mushrooms is common in the Nordic, Slavic, and Baltic countries, but it is not a tradition that has taken root in American immigrant culture. Young Swedes grow up learning to safely identify at least one type of wild mushroom without fail: the chanterelle, and probably a couple more. “But how do you know that they are safe to eat? Are you not afraid to choose something poisonous? says the American, frowning.Growing up in a mycophilic country has kept me from flexing a part of my Swedish, until now! I officially started looking for food and am happy to rep...

Photo by Eric Nopanen on Unsplash The return of ABBA and pop hits to sing together written in Swedish mark this week's success. The Swedish top absolutely dreamy. Presented by Swedish radio, This top 10 chart show is the perfect way to learn what's hot on the Swedish music scene right now and also get a little practice in the language! And, the great news is that this week 8 out of 10 songs are performed in Swedish. We will go over each melody and come up with a couple of letters. Ready? Here we go! Svensktoppen, Sveriges Radio's chart-topping program Since 1962, Svensktoppen has been produced by Swedish radio to show the hottest of Swedish music. the host (show host) Carolina Norén has been counting hits and interviewing artists for the show since 2007. Songs are r...

Are Vicente i Cabo Verde, December 2019. We follow a pulsating blue dot on Google Maps. It takes us down a busy street, through the deserted area of ​​the port area, past gray buildings surrounded by barbed wire. Finally it rises: Praia da Laginha, the beach that makes us return to the island a few days later. Perhaps not because of its exceptional beauty, but because both the beach and the city totally surprise us. Why hasn't anyone talked about Mindelo? Now I do! Reading tips: hiking on the emerald green island of Santo Antão in Cape Verde. Cape Verdean culture in Mindelo Mindelo is the second largest city in Cape Verde and is located on the island of São Vicente. Usually counted as the cultural capital of the country, many artists and creative souls live here. Bars w...

Unsplash photo by Anders Vestergaard Jensen. "Valle Wood office building in Oslo, Norway" As a bright-eyed university graduate, I moved to Sweden for an internship in the southern city of Växjö, the "Greenest City in Europe". There, I worked for the city of Växjö and Linnéuniversitet on their wood building initiatives with local and international partners. What I learned is that large stadiums, libraries, university campus centers, and even entire apartment complexes can be built using modern techniques and large-scale wooden structures. Not only is it a sustainable way to build, but the results are amazing. This week, we'll learn more about Växjö's commitment to building greener and its lesser-known title: “Europe's first modern wooden city (the first modern wooden city in ...

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko from Pexels Learning phonics is great. And if you ask me, hard enough! A recent blog commenter said they have difficulty with the Swedish sj sound and asked for tips on practicing it. Classified as "voiceless fricative phoneme " it is one of the most difficult sounds to reproduce in Swedish. While I am not a phonics expert, I have a great ear and a talent for parroting sounds I hear. So this week I'm going to highlight the sj sound and give you some tips and tricks to get the hang of it. Fricka-what? Fricative! Students often encounter the Swedish sj sound for the first time when they learn the number 7, written Seven. The Swedish sj, or 'ɧ', as symbolized in the phonetic alphabet, is a fricative consonant sound that occurs when air passes thro...

Compact, the Akkamassivet is embedded in a mixed green lawn. Authoritative in a way. With an attentive look at the neighborhoods. In Sami mythology, akka or akkura, they are the female gods who represent all the wisdom and beauty of the world. The word is still used to refer to wise old women. With the Akkamassivet safe in hand, we will hike through three national parks, me and my sister. Night 1: night train from Stockholm One Sunday evening (July 2020) we got on the night train from Stockholm Central. As seasoned as we've become with two previous mountain hikes in the bag, we've of course loaded up on fizzy and chocolate cakes. We tape our feet together and look for potential tent sites on the map. The next morning at 05:40 we have to change trains in Boden and then ...

Image by Ri Butov from Pixabay Yom Kippur, is considered the holiest day of the Jewish calendar year. A day of atonement, fasting, and prayer, emphasis is placed on individual reflection and atonement in preparation for the year to come. An estimated 15,000 to 20,000 Jews live in Sweden, and because even secular Jews tend to celebrate Jom kippur, as it is written in Swedish, it is our topic of the week! We will study a text in Swedish about Yom Kippur and we will learn a fundamental vocabulary to observe this Jewish holy day. Jews and Yom Kippur in Sweden today / Jews and Yom Kippur in Sweden today Yom Kippur falls 10 days after the celebration of Rosh Hashanah, the 2-day celebration of the Jewish New Year. Jews who observe Yom Kippur tend to spend most of the day attending p...

To understand reflective verbs, start by thinking of activities in which the action is reflected in your topic. For example, "I'll be good." "He will shave himself," and so on. In Swedish we pair even more verbs with a reflexive pronoun - the verb "learn" is reflexive, "concentrate" is also reflexive! In this post, we will review the use of reflexive pronouns and cover 11 Swedish reflexive verbs with examples. Don't skimp on this grammatical concept! I find that most Swedish students make mistakes when using these verbs.Svenska Reflexive Pronouns / Swedish Reflexive Pronouns English uses myself, yourself, yourself, yourself, etc. to denote that a subject is performing an action alone. "I'll wash myself." versus "I'll wash it." In Swedish, we also use a reflexive pronoun...