Swedish National Day celebration

For the first time in my life I have celebrated Swedish National day, at the Svenska Klubben in Sydney. It's a Swedish club in Sydney, there is a number of different clubs and organisations for Swedes and other Scandinavians in Sydney.

The event started with flag raising and singing of the national anthem, followed by traditional folk dancing (pictured above) and finishing of with a really good smorgas bord lunch. And there was a raffle, and even better than that, I won a price. A present voucher for IKEA. No I'm not kidding.

I thought the event was very nice, the food was lovely, I did feel a bit silly with flag raising and national anthem singing, but the great food made up for that.
I have never been much for formalised nationalism, in my 10 years in London I never attended a Swedish group event or even have any swedish friends really. Somehow it feels more important here. Maybe it's because I'm so much further away now.

Anyway, the food was great.

Australia vs Denmark 1-0 in the Friendly

Australia did beat the Danes, more beat then mash I guess. I'm not sure it was the actual Danish team, it seemed to be some kind of Danish/Polish contingent. But it was a friendly. And they played better then they did against New Zeeland last week.

I'm going to have to have a think about who I want to win. But I do think it would be fantastic if Nigeria won...But then again, Salsa Fotball from south america is so very entertaining. Even if they cheat and throw themselves on the floor every 5 minutes.

Italy...NOOOOO, any team but Italy I think..

World Cup Songs

My sister put this one on her her blog, It's South Africas world cup 2010 song. It's not the official Fifa song, the official Fifa song is sung by Shakira which makes no sense as she is from Colombia and not really a good representative of Afrika at all. And it's not a good song either. I prefer this one, eventhought it's sponsored by Coca Cola who I'm brought up to belive is evil.

So while I was going throught and looking for the world cup 2010 songs, (englands was awfull, truly awfull), I was looking for Swedens. Then I remembered that Sweden didn't qualify, which is shocking. Mr T very exitedly pointed out that it made Australia a better fotball nation as they qualified.

Have you ever heard such a thing. They don't even call it by it's right name. It's fotball people, fotball...

They even call their team the Socceroos...

Shocking...

As sweden didn't qualify I will have to suport the Socceroos with all I've got. I hope they mash the Danes...(It's a friendly, but still no excuse not to mash the Danes)

Ulrika

 

This design is named after it's owner. It's now finished and on it's way to it's new home. It's a little more floral then I usually do it, but I like it. The stones are blue topaz briollettes. Very light coloured and sparkly.

Happy Australia-versary

Today it's exactly one year since we arrived in Australia. One year, it has gone really fast as it always does.

There are a lot of things that have been better then expected this year. There are also a few things that has been harder then I expected.

I found that fitting in has been harder, I found that people are much more offended by swearing then in London. I have a terrible habit of swearing and it seems to equally offend and amuse people. A little like swearing kids are funny, but not something that one should encourage.

I found finding a job unsettling, but that has so far led to a much better place then I thought would have been possible. More stress full, but better.

I found that making friends when you are older is harder. We have been lucky that Mr T had some friends from before or we would have been very lonely. Especially since our life in London was so very friends involved.

I have found that where I live affects me more that I thought. The general feeling here is more positive, people seem more positive, being outside is not just possible it's actively encouraged. I don't "concrete" so much.

The things here that I do daily that really adds happiness to my life is:

The coffee is really great - I love coffee, can't drink much off it. So i try to get the best cup for the single cup I can drink a day.

I eat a lot fruit, I really like fruit. The quality of the fruit in Australia surpasses any fruit I've had anywhere else. Also they tend to do fruit in seasons, so you can't eat out of season crap fruit.

I live really conveniently located, from the shops, from work, from beaches. It's not the most charming flat. Our last flat in London was much more beautiful but It's more convenient.

I believe the things that we do everyday affect us more then we think. I would do 35 minute commute every day in London, on a over crowded train where I often had to stand with my face in someones armpit. Here it's a 20 min buss ride, or a 45 min walk. That makes my life a little better every day.

So all in all, an eventfull year, a truly eventfull year.

80 men in Sequinned Dresses

We spent the weekend in the Blue Mountains, which is the mountainous area about 2 hours west - north west of Sydney. It's an area that looks very much like the Grand Canyon except covered with eucalyptus trees.

You can see in the photo (where I do my weird tilting my head and squint pose) how beautiful the views are. There are these views all over the place. This is just one of the look outs up there.

I have been up in the mountains 3 times. Each time I end up borrowing clothes from my 5 foot 1 inch great auntie because I'm so cold. It is so much colder up there then down here in the City. You forget between each time how freaking freezing it is..

Most of the towns in the mountains are rather small and cute and you know small towns. Hence you don't expect to go into a bar and see 80 men dressed up in full on sequinned ball gowns that is for sure.

We went to an old hotel in the little town of Katomba for a drink before dinner, as I entered the bar I was struck that there was a lot of very tall females in there. Which in itself is not strange, Australian women are rather tall. At 5.7" I often feel short here.

But then I have a closer look and all the tall females are actually there for a Transgender formal dance. Except for the Ladies(men) in their ball gowns there was some Men(women) dressed in their formal dinner suits. But the Ladies(men) stood out more in their dresses mainly due to the bright colours and the amount of work these ladies had put into their outfits.

The variety of styles was huge. There was some that looked like they stepped just of Dancing with the Stars,all sparkly and chiffony, and some with full on taffeta ball gowns and one girl in a very very very short lemon yellow hardly butt-skimming dress.

I was thinking all the other ladies in there would think she was the slut, cause she was wearing such a short dress.

Anyway, the night was young when we left them but they all seemed to have a good time. The reason I was so surprised was it was a very unexpected place to walk in on 80 men dressed in sequins.

Other than that.

I have learned to re-wire old school porcelain fuses.

We have had a wedding invitation that was sent to us taken by quarantine as the paper that the invitation was written on had straw in it.


And Mr T is happy to report that Chilli Chicken soup and Raspberry bagel work together well as a flavour combination.

Proof of concept

 

My Cousin is getting a PHD. Wich is kind of cool, she will be a doctor that helps people. Hence a doctor with a PHD. I used to work in a team where I was the only one that didn't have a phd. They where all doctors that didn't help people as their Phd's where all in maths.

Anyway I digress. I got asked by my dad to make a present. Hence DAD this is the begining of the idea. I wil make a flower shaped lariat pendant. With the little blue briolette topaz that you can see in the picture. With matching earings.

Do you think it's a good idea. Or you want me to go back to the drawing board..???

The ring for the big stone is getting there. I will just have to go and have it cast in gold. That will have to happen next week.

So im slowly working my way throught my to-do list.

Very slowly. That is the problem when I only have 1 hour each night to do it after work.