Heja Sverige!

Again, this is old news, but it's a good story. We had one week in early September between when Paul finished in Munich and his classes started again in Oxford, so we though we'd take a trip somewhere in Europe. We'd been wanting to visit Sweden for a while, especially since Paul had never been there, and coincidentally Ryan Air was having a sale on airfare to Gothenberg so we decided to go for it. And to make it even better, I e-mailed my cousin Fredrik and found out all my cousins would be around during our visit! It's kind of complicated how we're all related, but basically my Grandmother (on my mother's side) met her Swedish half brother for the first time when they were both grown, and our families have stayed in touch since. I'm so glad I have that connection, because the rest of my family didn't stay in touch with their Swedish relatives once they hopped on the boat in the early 1900's, at least not for long enough for me to know anyone.

As for our trip, it couldn't have been better. First, we stayed with my mom's first cousins in Trollhattan, which is where my great-grandfather was born. It's also where they make Saabs, and they have a movie studio that they call "Trolley-wood", where some big time movies have been filmed.

Here's me at the Royal Moose Hunting Museum in Halleberg-Hunneberg. Every two years the king goes on his official hunt, and this museum was built to educate people about the moose and the history of the hunt.

From Sweden 2008

Here's one of the specimens in the museum:

From Sweden 2008

After we went to the museum, we drove around the hunting grounds, which are like a national park. We did manage to run into some moose on the prowl for apples!

From Sweden 2008

Here we are at the edge of the park near lake Vanern.

From Sweden 2008

Next we went to Hamburgsund, on the West Coast. Ingegerd (who's my mom's first cousin) kindly let us stay at her summer house out there, and Gunnel (my mom's other first cousin) kindly let us borrow their car. Although it wasn't warm summer weather in September, it was sunny and nice enough for us to go for a pleasant stroll around the area in the morning. Here I am on the street in front of the house:

From Sweden 2008

Swedish beaches are really rocky, and the water is cold, so it's a different experience from going to a beach in, say, Miami. Walking around the coastline, we came upon this little fishing village - Tegelstrand. I have no idea how long it's been there, but it looks like something out of a storybook.

From Sweden 2008

We spent the afternoon driving around Bohuslan, which is a very historic area of Sweden. There's evidence of people living there as far back as 3,000 years ago! In that time, Sweden's climate was like the south of France, until it started to get colder around 500BC. They were even growing grapes for wine back then! We stopped at the museum at Tanum (which is free!), where they've built some houses like people would have lived in back then. They kind of remind me of the English cottages with thatched roofs. Here's me coming out of one:

From Sweden 2008

That evening, we joined my Grandmother's brother Stig and his wife Greta for dinner in Högsäter. They have a gorgeous historic home up there, where they spend their summers. Greta treated us to a tasty meal and we caught up on some family news, and I got to practice some broken Swedish. Here we are at the dinner table:

From Sweden 2008

So that was what we did during the week. On the weekend, we went to Gothenberg and stayed at Fredrik's apartment. What was even better than free accomodation was that all my cousins are now living in or near Gothenberg! A lot had happened since I visited 5 years ago. Two of my cousins got married, and there were a couple of new baby cousins to meet.

Here's my cousin Peter, his wife Lijana and their super cute 9-month-old son, Vincent

From Sweden 2008

Peter is taking a few months paternity leave from work to be home with Vincent while Lijana goes back to study dentistry. Swedish law allows either the father or mother to take leave from work, with full pay, to care for a new baby. Lijana took the first few months, and now Peter is taking the next few months. Aren't you jealous? Kind of makes you think, higher taxes, but free school and crazy benefits like this - not a bad trade-off, I think!

And now for something that's not quite as cute. As a joke, my cousin Helene and her husband Karim brought us some Surstromming, which is a fish delicacy. What makes it a joke? Well, if you had ever smelled it, you'd understand. They used to make this stuff when salt was really expensive - instead of preserving the fish with salt, they used yeast, which basically ferments it. It's so vile that the tin actually bulges under pressure - that's how you know it's good! Paul had mentioned the night before that he liked to try new or exotic foods, and he already knew he liked 'sill' (pickled herring) which they usually use to impress foreigners, so they had to take it a step further. Well, not to be outdone, Paul had to follow through and try the stuff. Anna, Fredrik's girlfriend, understandibly did not want this thing opened in her home, so we had to bring it outside to try it out. So we knew it'd be stinky, but not that stinky! Apparently no one had tried it before, so all of the guys (except Fredrik - smart guy) tried it. Here's Karim opening the tin, which makes a sound like a deflating tire when you open it:

From Sweden 2008

If you've got a good connection, you can see Paul trying the surstromming on video, with Swedish commentary:


Here's my cousin Anders (with absolutely adorable daughter Maja) trying the surstromming. I actually hadn't seen him for something like 15 years, during which time he got married and had three daughters, who I'm sure are also gorgeous.

From Sweden 2008

Well, I think that's enough about the stinky fish. We topped off the night with some of Fredrik's tasty cocktail concoctions and some intense debates about world politics and everything else that comes to mind at 2AM after three apple martinis.

And to finish off, here's a nice shot of most of us the next morning at Peter and Lijana's place (they made us an awesome waffle breakfast! yum!)

From Sweden 2008

I'm so thankful we had a chance to see/meet the Swedes. I hope they come visit us in the US!

The Last Hurrah in Oxford

It's taken me a while to post since we left Oxford! The most notable thing about moving out was the huge amount of waste. Our apartment trash building was literally overflowing - probably three or four dumpsters worth of perfectly good, usable household goods and clothes thrown out because people couldn't take them overseas or wherever they were going, and didn't know where to go to donate them. Luckily our friends Mikki and Brian were staying in England, and they were able to use a bunch of our household goods and appliances, so that worked out great. They were nice enough to host us for two days between when we got kicked out of student housing and when our cruise left. I'll put up a separate post about the cruise, so for this one, I'll focus on our last few days in Oxford.

We moved out on Monday 15 Sept, and I worked until Friday 12 Sept, when there was a big end-of-year formal dinner at the Oxford Spires Hotel just outside the city center.

From ClosingCeremony - Sept 2008

Here's Paul with 3/4 of his team from their summer project in Munich.

From ClosingCeremony - Sept 2008

And here's nearly all of my girl group - I miss them so much!

From ClosingCeremony - Sept 2008

And I love this couple picture! We've got Tetsuya and Kaori (from Japan), Adrian and Alina (from Romania), Brian and Mikki (USA) and us!

From ClosingCeremony - Sept 2008

The next day there was a closing ceremony for the students at Templeton College. Their actual graduation doesn't happen until a later date because there is limited space at each graduation ceremony and the whole class can't go at once. It's kind of a strange system, but it keeps with the tradition of having graduation in the Sheldonian Theater. Paul scheduled his for next August.

So, here we are on the way to the party, standing by the Said Business School's ox (get it? OX-ford). I saw this thing every day on my way back from work.

From ClosingCeremony - Sept 2008

And here's Paul with some classmates all dressed up in their subfusc (and perhaps a future Oxford student in the mix)

From ClosingCeremony - Sept 2008

During the ceremony, they had some speeches and then called each student's name and had some hand-shaking. The speech theme seemed to be poetry, and the "taking the road less traveled" one was emphasized in more than one, if I recall correctly. I suppose you can't argue with that since not all that many people go to Oxford. Overall, it was pretty much the same as any graduation ceremony I've been to, only this one was nice and short (any of my Wellesley classmates may remember that our ceremony went over schedule by 4 hours in a hot tent). Here's Paul's hand-shaking in action:

From ClosingCeremony - Sept 2008

And here's Paul afterwards with an objet d'art in the Templeton garden

From ClosingCeremony - Sept 2008

And here we both are outside - it was an unusually nice day!

From ClosingCeremony - Sept 2008

After the ceremony, we realized we'd have to start and finish packing and cleaning out our apartment in the next day and a half, but we made time for one last dinner out with some friends.

From ClosingCeremony - Sept 2008

Taking the Slow Boat Home

I realized I haven't yet 'announced' our big news - we decided to move back the the USA. It wasn't really official until we booked our trip back, and that part is a funny story. I did a search on the internet for flight prices for a one way ticket to Boston, and it was coming up at $1000 EACH! In the past, it's been about $400-600 round trip! So that made me think, what about a cruise? It sounds expensive, but so does $1000 for a one-way flight to Boston. So it turned out the cruise was LESS EXPENSIVE! Ok, so it ends up being about a total of $200 more after taxes, but since we would have had to pay for the flight anyway, it's effectively like getting an 11-day cruise for $200. We'll take it!

I really can't wait to have all that uninterrupted time together!

But deciding to take the boat back also made me think about what it must have been like for my family a couple generations going back. I talked to my Grandmother about it a little, and she said it took about 3 weeks to get across the ocean (and not on a luxury cruise ship like we're doing!), and many of the men lived in boarding houses when they arrived. If they were lucky, they had a nice one and were able to save some money, but apparently my great-grandfather wound up in a pretty bad one, where the men weren't fed enough and had a lot of their wages taken. Eventually he moved out to a better one, but it must have been quite a shock for all these young men to come over from Sweden and other places looking for great jobs and prosperity only to wind up poor and hungry. But good things came out of it too, and my family has done well in America. It's so important to remember the sacrifices your family has made to give you a good life, and I think this is something Paul and I think about a lot. We both think it will be good for us to try to be near family if we can - and there's no reason why we can't.

And on that note, I realized time was running out for our year in Oxford, and we still haven't visited Sweden. Paul's never been, and my cousin has a new baby so it's really a fun time to go. There was one of those super cheap airfares to Gothenberg, so we booked it. Of course, it requires a 3.5 hour bus trip to get to the airport for a 2 hour flight, but it's still cheap. I am so excited to see the family and for them to meet Paul!

So, the next step is to look for jobs and a place to live near these jobs, and FINALLY get to enjoy our wedding presents! If you know anyone who's looking to hire an MBA or a researcher with an MA in Social Science, send them our way!

Some day, I hope, we won't have so much stress and uncertainty in our lives. But at least we figured out the most important part - to get married!

Business in Munich

Probably if you're reading this, you know already that Paul has been working on his summer internship in Munich since the beginning of July, while i'm still living and working in Oxford. It's not what either of us expected, but Paul's opportunity in Munich was one we couldn't pass up. He's working on a consulting project at a big technology company with three other classmates from Oxford. The company didn't help them find accommodation, so they wound up finding two furnished one-bedroom apartments (with fold-out couch), and two guys are staying in each. Paul's staying with Richard, who's from Australia. They split it so Paul got the bedroom the first month, then the couch for the second month. With my job, it may have been possible to work remotely for a month or so, but when I learned about their accommodation, I decided against it. So, Paul's been there for about 6 weeks now, with 2 more to go.

You also may recall that our first anniversary fell on 28 July, halfway through Paul's Munich project. He can't take any vacation time since it's a student internship, but I did visit for a week. That meant a married couple and a guy sharing a one bedroom apartment for a week. I know, you are jealous. Between our student flat with Brillo pads for carpet and separate stubby hot and cold water taps, and the shared bachelor pad in Munich, it's not quite the glamourous life you may picture when you think of Oxford and Germany. Anyway, this post is about my visit to Germany.

I arrived on a Friday and met Paul at the main Munich train station. We booked a weekend at a B&B in Mittenwald, a small tourist town on the Austrian border in the Alps. Paul had booked us some sort of special weekend group train ticket, so for about $75 we covered all our travel expenses on the train. Mittenwald is about 2 hours by train from Munich, so we were able to have dinner there once we arrived and checked into our B&B.

Here's Paul in downtown Mittenwald:

The town is somewhat overshadowed by it's neighbor, Garmisch Partenkirchen, but that was fine with us. There weren't crowds anywhere, but the town is set up for tourists, with tons of B&Bs and apartments to rent, as well as many restaurants and shops. Not to mention some excellent hiking and skiing in the winter (they have the longest ski trail in Germany - 7km!). Our room at the B&B had a balcony that overlooked the mountains and it was just the kind of peaceful place we needed after living in busy tourist areas for so long. The only strange thing about the B&B was that the bathroom had a frosted clear door that you could kind of see through. I can only imagine how uncomfortable that would be if you were sharing the room with a bunch of brothers and sisters!

So back to the town. On Saturday we decided to take a gondola up to the top of the Karwendel. I get scared of heights, and dangling from a wire in a metal box doesn't comfort me. You get let off at a height of about 2300m. But we made it up and the view was fantastic! Here we are at the platform on top of the mountain where the lift lets you off. The area behind us is a sort of sunken in basin at the mountain top. Kind of strange, but you could hike all around it:


To give you an idea of the elevation, here's Paul at the edge of a trail. It pretty much drops right off the edge there, no rails or anything. You can see into Austria in the background.



Here I am getting ready to hike around.


And here's Paul trying to climb some rocks


And now me trying to not to fall off the side of the mountain. They actually had a metal wire to grab onto at that bend in case you lost your footing, which I swear, I almost did several times. Note the pebbly paths - you can roll right along if you're not careful! The building behind me is where we came up on the lift.


Here's me pointing out where we went. You can't see it because of the clouds.


It rained that night, so we had a romantic night in with some wine & cheese and watched the thunderstorm shoot lightning around the mountains. It was really cool, though I didn't get any pictures of it.

The next day, we had to go back to Munich, but we took our time and the B&B let us leave our bags while we explored the gorge.

Here's Paul showing me that it's no big deal walking on slippery, mushy wooden planks held up by rusty rails suspended over icy cold water moving at a very fast speed.


Here's me with my explorer's hat running back to go feed the fish instead (I did make it to the end of the path, but not for long enough to get a picture!):


And here's the really scary part - we hiked up this mountain, and they have this suspended walkway that crosses over the gorge. Paul had to get a picture of me from the back because I refused to stop until i reached ground that I couldn't see through. The bridge actually sways a little as you cross it, probably to make it safer in the end, but shaky bridges don't make me feel safe!


Here you can see the height of the suspended walkway and the mountain gorge below


Another hiker took our picture after crossing the bridge. I'm not sure I could have done it without the explorer hat!


And because it's cool, here's a picture of me at the border of Germany and Austria. The gorge we crossed used to be a huge barrier back in the day for armies trying to invade, so that walkway had some political significance to it as well.


Of course, because it's Germany, you have to have a place to stop for a beer while on a hike. A little nicer view than the local pub in Oxford!


I don't have many pictures from the rest of the week back in Munich, because i mostly just walked around town all day. For our actual anniversary, which was on a Monday, we went to an amazing Italian restaurant in Munich. It was recommended by one of Paul's colleagues and was tucked away in a residential neighborhood. We did their set menu, which was about 6 courses with things like veal tartare, monkfish, and a trio of desserts. It was a big change from Oxford where Italian food means Pizza Express. Definitely a great way to celebrate our first year of marriage!

So...my pictures from Munich. I'd been there before, so I'd already seen most of the tourist sights. Really all I took pictures of was the Residenz, which was the royal palace until WWII. They had all these descriptions of things like 'the room had x,y and z until 1943...' without actually mentioning the war. Kind of strange. Anyway, here's a picture I took to prove I was there (can you see me in the picture? I'm so sneaky.):


And for some reason, Munich has this - the oldest known English crown. It got re-gifted around different royals until it ended up in Bavaria.


Ok, and just a couple more pics... here's to show how clean the river is in Munich - people actually go swimming in it! And it's not just the random drunk guy jumping in!


And finally, Viktualienmarkt, a fantastic outdoor market in downtown Munich where you can get fresh produce and all kinds of tasty treats. I wanted to buy some pretty lavender heart things they had there, but I wasn't sure if that'd get through customs...maybe next time.

Girls Trip in Devon

It has been all too long since I've blogged. There are a lot of updates, and I think I'll break it into a couple of separate posts.

A few weeks ago, I went on a girls trip in Devon, in south west England. Alka drove most of the time, with Vinita, Karen and I as the passengers. I was so glad there were three other people in the car who not only can drive stick shift, but also are used to driving on the left! We'd been trying to plan another girls trip to follow up our trip to Bath, and we finally made it happen.


Here we are on the way there, at a random pub we stopped at called "the Hungry Horse", where you can "Fill up for 5 pounds." You can't get that kind of bargain in Oxford, that's for sure! It was quite the local place, and really made me feel like I was experiencing English culture. The age range there was anywhere from 3 months to 85 years, and unlike in Oxford, they actually had teenagers working as waitstaff rather than grown-up immigrants.



We stayed in a beach town called Torquey (pronounced 'tore-key'). This town must have been quite the place back in the day, and still had a special seaside feel to it. Since it's England, and it's not all that warm in the summer (80 degrees for 2 days is a major heat wave), there's not so much swimming in the water, but people walk around the beach and hang out.

We spent two nights in a B&B, touring around Dartmoor National Park the first day. I had found a brochure for Miniature Pony World, and we all decided this was the perfect place to go. Problem is, to get there, even with a GPS device is nearly impossible. You have to drive on all these two-way roads that only fit one car - literally, there are tall stone walls on either side of the car, so if another vehicle comes, you have to back up the windy road until you reach an intersection or driveway. Fortunately, the area is beautiful, and we happened upon this really cute town called Widecombe in the Moor. Here's their church, where they were having a craft fair.


And here's "The Old Inn" next door, built in the 14th century according to the park website. Yeah, I'd say that's old!


Here's what the park looks like, for the most part, when you've managed to get away from the crazy roads:


So finally we made it to Miniature Pony World! Here's some pony pictures:


Here I am petting a pony! I knew Paul was going to be so jealous, because he secretly wants to get his own miniature pony! He saw one on TV once that rings a bell when it needs to be let out and he thought it was so cool.


I guess the place is mostly for kids, but we still had fun. This kid was really into it.


I tried to get an eye-level shot with this pony, but as soon as I squatted down, she came over and tried to nuzzle me - so cute


And of course, they also have some chickens...



Next we had afternoon tea with real Devonshire cream at the Primrose Cottage in Lustleigh


So remember those crazy roads I was talking about? Well, usually you come up against cars, but occasionally, you have a stand-off with a rogue cow! This one didn't want to back off for a couple of minutes, but eventually she relented and walked over to a gate.


We then toured around Cockington (that's really the name, I did not make it up, I swear). We were too late to see the little market village there, but they had some real cute buildings. Doesn't this look like something out of a fairy tale?


And this is more what I had in mind for accommodation when I found out we were moving to England


Just slightly more glamourous than our student flat!

Here's downtown Torquey, where we stayed:


Cute English cabanas at Paignton Beach


My pasty white feet in the English channel


Donkey rides on the beach at Weston-Super-Mare (north Devon)


And finally, we decided we needed to fly a kite before we went home (thanks Vinita for bringing the kite!)