Swedish in America | THIS IS FANNY

In Connecticut, New York, Swedish in America

Doesn’t get more FALL than this

Fanny Sura12 October, 2020Leave a comment

October 12, 2020

This weekend has been absolute perfect and very fall-ish:) And today it really feels like fall since it’s raining outside and the temperatures dropped a bit. Because it is Columbus Day today (or Indigenous People’s Day), J is only working a half day. We wanted to do something fun with Thor today as well but ya, the weather isn’t exactly puppy-adventure-friendly (Thor doesn’t like the rain). We’ll see what we do, maybe watch Halloween movies and sip apple cider.

So, this weekend:
On Saturday we drove to North Salem, NY, for a hike at Mountain Lakes Park. We’ve been there a few times before, I really like this park. We started by going up the mountain first, look at the pretty view and then hike in the forest. We barely met anyone during our 1.5 hour hike; a few bikers passed us and we saw a camouflaged hunter with a crossbow, and that’s about it. Lots of trees were down and the trails where covered in leaves, if they hadn’t put up the markers on the trees we could have easily lost the trails. At one point we branched off to go find a different trail that led to one of the ponds. J had to carry T since we didn’t know what we were stepping on. The pond was so calm and some trees had changed colors, it looked like a painting.
Our hike was so lovely, very quiet and peaceful. We could not have picked a better day or time of day to go hiking.

On our way home we bough coffees and donuts and then just enjoyed the day together. At night we played Yahtzee and for once Jim won the first two rounds, but then I won with epic numbers on the third Then it was time to watch Svengoolie and some tarantula movie. I always have a hard time watching these old movies from the 40s-60s, they usually involve animals and they aren’t treated that well in the movies and we all know that they weren’t exactly treating them very nicely behind the scenes back then either. It breaks my heart.

On Sunday we got up early again. We drove to Easton, CT, and to Silverman’s Farm. I have been searching for pumpkin/apple farms that allows dogs. I found one but then I saw that because of covid we needed to purchase tickets and every weekend was sold out (we also didn’t want to pay). Then J told me that one of the dogs here in Stamford that we know through instagram had posted that they went to this Silverman’s, so we decided to check it out.
We came an hour after they had opened and there were already plenty of people but still ok for us to visit. We had a great time. There were so many different kinds of pumpkins, some bigger than Thor haha. We didn’t actually buy any pumpkins though, we are not planning on carving this year. Would have been nice maybe to get some for cooking but eh. We got ourselves some yummy treats though.
It was fun and I think Thor enjoyed it (oh the things we do for our fur babies hahah). We left the farm after 25 minutes and the parking was now full. My friend that I invited to join us couldn’t go in the morning like we wanted to, so they had gone they day before after noon and it was like an ant city she said, they had turned around and gone somewhere else. Now when they say that the virus is air born and can spread pretty far, we don’t want to put ourselves in crowded situations, so we knew we had to go early. Our experience at the farm was great. The picking (blueberries, apples, peaches etc) was over for the season but with a dog it would have pretty hard to enjoy that anyway, so this was perfect.

If we hadn’t gone to the store just a few days before we would have got more veggies and fruit at the farm
.
I had to google why it’s called cider.. In Europe we think of fizzy drinks or drinks with alcohol when we hear the word cider, but here in America that’s called “hard cider” and this type of cider is basically just juice.
The pie is amazing!

We were so tired for some reason during the rest of the day that we ended up doing absolute nothing. In the evening we watched some newer horror movie that at first seemed promising but then was just annoying, just like all the other so called horror movies. Why can’t anyone make a good scary movie these days? If you know any good movies, please comment on this post, I have yet to find something good.

Our weekend was amazing, we could not have picked a better weekend to go on adventures with Thor. And if this is our actual last fall up north then I think we have nailed the fall activities by now hahah.

I hope y’all had an amazing weekend as well and that you got to enjoy the outdoors.
Have an awesome week!

In Swedish in America

Holidays in the Sura home

Fanny Sura30 December, 2019Leave a comment

December 30, 2019

Good Morning! I really hope you guys are doing well and that you had a wonderful holiday celebration, whether it being Christmas or Hanukkah or whatever. This year we decided to stay home just the two of us (three with Thor), no fuzz, just relax, snuggle, eat food, play board games, play with Thor, go for walks and watch movies. Nothing special but that is very ok with us:)

Jim decided to work from home on Christmas Eve, so I made us a nice breakfast with bread, different kinds of cheese, mandarins, juice, coffee and rice pudding. In Sweden it’s common to eat rice porridge around Christmas but that’s not something I feel like making from scratch, so a couple of years ago I started to buy rice pudding (which kinda tastes the same, just a bit sweeter) as a substitute for that.
While my hubby was working, I prepped the afternoon food, cleaned up in the apartment and started the dishwasher. We went for a long walk with Thor, such a lovely warm sunny day. At 2pm we were skyp’ing with my parents and my super pregnant sister. In Sweden we celebrate Christmas the 24th so they were kinda in the end of their celebration, just watching some tv while digesting the food haha.
At 3pm, just like every year, we sat down to watch Donald Duck. I’ve written about this before, it’s something we all do in Sweden, a 61 year old tradition.
And then we cooked the rest of the food. Very simple and not too much this year. Ham, potato gratin, beet salad, boiled eggs, dark bread, cheese and “prince” sausages. Never making meatballs on Christmas again (we got food poisoning 2014) and I couldn’t find Abba herring, and for some reason we didn’t have anything green on the table this year, but I think our dinner table turned out pretty good.
At night we just played games, gave our gifts to each other, played with Thor and his new squeaky toy he got from Santa and listened to music.

On Christmas Day, I once again made us a nice breakfast and after a calm and long morning, we drove to Tod’s Point in Old Greenwich for a walk on the beach. Seems like everyone else had the same idea, parking lot was full. But it was very nice, lots of kids and dogs running around. We walked around the whole island, about 3 miles, Thor did so well. Back home we made biscuits (aka pop the package, put them on the pan and cook in oven for 15 minutes hahah) and had leftovers from the day before. I can’t really remember what else we did that day haha. Just listened to xmas music, Thor got another toy to play with, I was figuring out how to use my new toy that I got from Thor (Samsung Active2 Smartwatch), we face-timed with Jims mom, Annelise and little Sam, we watched basketball on tv and played games. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Jim went to work on Thursday, worked from home on Friday and on Saturday we brought Thor over to Daniela, Gareth and baby George’s house in Rowayton. We had an amazing lunch of Italian pasta with meatballs, some baby snuggles, played fetch with T about a million times, was served an apple pie and a traditional English trifle that Gareth was excited about (G is very good in the kitchen), played UNO and after a whole day there, we were all pretty beat, Thor didn’t even care about his dinner when we came home, he just went straight to sleep all night long haha.

It’s quite nice to not having to do much on the holidays. Sure, I would have loved to see our families and relatives, but this year we kinda recently did (not the most fun gathering since it was for a funeral, but still) and I’m going to Sweden to meet the new baby in about a month. We’ve had a tough year and even if we were on vacation in November, J and I really needed some time alone.

In Swedish in America, USA

Thanksgiving 2019

Fanny Sura29 November, 201929 November, 2019Leave a comment

November 29, 2019

I hope all you Americans had a wonderful Thanksgiving yesterday. We sure did. We made absolute no plans this year other than cook a ourselves a nice meal.
We started the day with watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade on TV where my friend Jessica (one of the dancers in Hastdans pa Hovdala) was the P in Parade in the very beginning, how fun! Before we started cooking, I was skyping with my sister for awhile. It’s getting closer and closer to her due date now, exciting! Jim prepared and started cooking the turkey around noon. This year we went with a smaller one, “only” 5 lbs haha. I made mashed potatoes, cooked some carrots and peas, prepped cranberry and biscuits, J made gravy and stuffing and we were eating around 2:30. Everything turned out absolutely amazing.
After all that food, we sat down to watch the Chicago Bears win for once, the boys took a nap and then we continued to watch football mixed with other Christmas related stuff on other channels. And we also ate pumpkin pie of course:)
Super relaxed Thanksgiving and it was perfect. That’s what this holiday is about; do nothing, be grateful for everything we’ve got and spend time with each other….and watch football haha.

J is working from home today, aka not doing a whole lot cause nothing is going on the Friday after Thanksgiving. In the afternoon we are driving over to Danielas. We haven’t seen them in awhile due to everything that has happened lately. I’m sure baby George has grown a lot since last time I saw him.

We decided to give Thor a plate this year. He is normally not allowed to eat human food because of his sensitive stomach, but on Thanksgiving and Christmas we feel that it is ok to give him some.
Turkey day is his favorite day all year:)
But look at that sad plate hahha, like mini mouse bites, but he enjoyed it
We stared eating pumpkin pie on Tuesday already. J went to pick it up then in order to avoid big crowds and to be sure he really got one this year. It’s delicious

In Stamford, Swedish in America

Midsommar away again

Fanny Sura26 June, 201926 June, 2019Leave a comment

June 26, 2019

As I wrote in last post, we ended up celebrating Midsommar a day late. Thor had a spa appointment at noon on Saturday so after dropping him off we went home and I created a wreath of the daisies we had bought a few days earlier while Jim cut apples in pieces. I fixed my hair a little, changed clothes and made an apple pie.
We packed a picnic bag and drove to Cove Island. We found a spot in the shade. It was a bit cloudy and windy, but it felt Swedish haha. After awhile, we drove back home and not long after we could go pick Thor up at the spa. We had asked for a short haircut but leave a little in the face, but his face was as short as the rest, oh well, it’s hot outside and it’ll grow back. He kinda looks like a tiny fox or more like a cat now, not so much like a Thor, but whatever, he’s still cute.
For dinner we had grilled salmon and potatis with dill on everything, our apartment smelled like my grandma’s house back when I was a kid.
We grabbed drinks and took our exhausted puppy up to the rooftop and watched the sunset.

We had a perfect Midsummer celebration! I’m very happy with how the day turned out. Midsummer is the one day a year when I really want to be in Sweden. The hours of light in a day during summer is one of my favorite things in life. When I was a kid I never pulled the curtains down when I went to sleep. I loved waking up when the sun hit my face in the morning. You don’t get as many hours of sleep during summer months but it’s worth it. On Midsummer, the sun doesn’t really go down, I love it!
This was my 9th (!!) Midsommar away from Sweden. Every year I tell my husband the same thing “Maybe next year we can celebrate Midsommar in Sweden”. I said it this year again and we’ll see:)

Thor celebrated Midsommar on Friday when he was still fluffy

In New York City, Partial Molar Pregnancy, Swedish in America

Nervous for nothing?

Fanny Sura20 May, 201920 May, 2019Leave a comment

May 20, 2019

On Thursday I took the train into Manhattan. I arrived at Grand Central and walked over to Dunkin Donuts on 2nd Ave. I have not been at that dunkin since we lived two blocks away from it back in 2013. On the train ride in I felt a little strange, I figured it was that I needed breakfast so I ordered a bagel with cream cheese and a small decaf coffee cause I was afraid that caffeine would make me feel even more strange. I wanted to sit in the Dag Hammarskjold park but there were some Asian thing going on. Yellow t-shirts, Asians all over the place, people speaking in microphones, a Swedish flag in the middle of the crowd (huh?) and a marching band playing. So instead I walked across the street to a tiny park where J and I have had many breakfasts at before. After awhile the park was filled with mini alcohol bottle drinking men and women and the park smelled like “funny smoke”. I now got a headache so I left. The Swedish Consulate was just around the corner, I was 25 minutes early but I didn’t mind. Getting a new passport was quick and easy. Now I have to wait two weeks and then go back in and pick it up.

I mentioned in a previous post that I was nervous for that appointment if I had to do the treatment and I thought about rescheduling. Nervous for the side effects. It kept me awake every night in Paris. What if I throw up on the train, what if I feel like absolute shit and have to take a photo at the consulate looking like crap, what if I get all the side effects there is and I just can’t get myself to Manhattan what would happen to my passport then? What if, what if, what if… And then the nurse at the ER told me that I probably wouldn’t get any side effect at all and I was more calm on Thursday. So I guess I freaked out for nothing. But I have never had chemotherapy before. Just because I’ve never been allergic to any medicines and stuff in the past doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be affected by the chemo.

I felt mostly fine and I ended up having an amazing day to myself in the city. After the appointment, I walked up town, got a latte at a Parisian place (I wasn’t ready to let go of Paris yet I guess) and then walked to Central Park. Eventually I found myself a spot on the grass where I could enjoy my coffee and read my book. After a little while I decided to walk through the park to midtown, buy a make-your-own salad and walk down to Bryant Park. I probably looked like a lunatic on Fifth Avenue when I tried to walk close to the wall of the buildings and hide from the sun. It was soooo hot out and the sun was strong, but after the treatment I can’t really be in the sun (my cells was killed so my skin had no protection) so I didn’t want to take my sweater off and I had forgot my sunscreen. Bryant Park was PACKED! People walking in circles trying to find one chair or a spot to sit on. I decided to walk to Grand Central, take the next train back and eat part of the salad on the train instead. I was home by 2pm.

6:30 am this morning I had another blood test done. Waiting for the results and tomorrow afternoon we have an appointment with our doctor. Hopefully I won’t need another treatment.

The building inspired by a trashcan