Family Weekend: “Helg med Familjen”

March 26, 2012 by megalagom 16 Comments

Time flies! Hubby and I went to visit his family for the first time since Christmas to celebrate his nephews 12th birthday and to have some family time. It was nice to be with family since I am so far away from my own, it reminded me of home. Laughing around the dinner table, playing games and watching t.v. together, going for walks, just talking and hanging out. We are looking forward to going there more often from now on now that we are more settled. I was pretty nervous about the visit because I thought I would be further along in Swedish by now, a few months ago I thought I would be showing off my progress when we visited, but even without understanding most of the conversations I still had a great time and felt included.

Whenever we go to his family’s place I experience a different side of Sweden. I think I experience more “Country-side shock” than “Culture shock,” being from a city and not really familiar with a lot of things out there. Take my amazement over cows and horses for example. His mother points out flowers and asks what they are called in English, or if we have them, and I have no idea. I get excited when we spot a rabbit or a deer when we are driving along winding dirt paths – which scare me a bit with a side effect of motion sickness. I love going for walks and just soaking in the nature:

Yesterday I went for a walk to the water with my mother-in-law and stumbled upon this little  fellow:

When I say stumbled upon him, I mean I literately almost stepped on him on the side of the road when he jumped out from under my foot, scaring me quite a bit. Hubby’s mom says he is unusually colored and a lot larger than ones you normally see around this time of year. We moved on and a few steps later I nearly stepped on another one. Then I was on the look out for frogs/toads in the forest.

We celebrated his nephews birthday with a smörgåstårta, which means “Sandwich cake.” A full post about the Swedish treat later this week- today is my first day of SFI and I don’t want to be late!!