Hello there, guys!

I am relaunching my blog on the following link: http://anarm12.wixsite.com/sverigesvarld/
It looks as nice as this or even better! Hope you guys still like it and keep on reading my posts there!
This site will be kept open, anyway. Thank you for your support!

~Love, Ana~

As my favourite holiday of all times is right around the corner, (yes, Christmas is coming!), my sister thought of baking some cookies to get more into the Christmas spirit. This time we baked cholate chips cookies, as you could read beforehand (smirk):

You will need the following ingredients:

- 1 1/4 cup (180-200 g.) chocolate, 65% cocoa

- 2 1/4 cup (280 g.) flour

- 1 tsp baking soda

- 2 tsp cornstarch

- 1 tsp salt

- 3/4 cup (170 g.) unsalted butter

- 1/2 cup (100 g.) sugar

- 3/4 (135 g.) brown sugar

- 2 large eggs

- 2 tsp vanilla extract

You need to cut the chocolate into chunks of any size and put them aside. After that, we will take two bowls, one for the egg mixture and the other for the flour mixture. Pour the flour, baking soda, cornstarch and salt into one bowl, whip it and let it cool. After that, melt the butter and allow it to cool completely, add both types of sugar, the eggs (one at a time) and the vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture to the other bowl, whip it and add the chocolate chunks to finish. You can either let it cool for over 2 hours or overnight. We were a bit impatient so we chose waited for a couple of hours to bake them. Once the mixture is ready, preheat the oven to 200º and bake them for 11-13 minutes in  165ºC until the edges are a bit golden. And there you go! Your cookies are ready. 

If you like to watch a video instead of reading all this, here's the link to the recipe that we followed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNiITqmayFg 

Hope you have this new post, although it has nothing to do with Sweden, haha. See you soon!

~Love, Ana~

Hello again, guys!

As you know, learning languages is not always easy. Sometimes we need to go back ten steps in order to go forward just one. This is exactly how I've been feeling lately. It's been a bit hard for me to learn Swedish and that's why I had a couple of weird situations, which, I'm not gonna lie, were quite uncomfortable. So, it's time that we have some fun here and look at the most embarrassing mistakes I've made in Swedish!

1. Declining adjectives wrong

This happened not long after I decided to learn Swedish. I wanted to ask a friend something, which I thought was stupid, so I referred to it as "idiotic". However, little did I know that I was actually calling my friend an idiot, hahaha. The thing is that I wanted to learn to decline adjectives on my own, without books so,  I just gave it a try and turned out wrong, haha. As you may know, English and Swedish are rather similar. So, I thought: "Oh, this must be like in English! Something is just 'idiot'." Oh. My. God. How wrong I was! Haha.

2. Translating the word "excited" wrong

One of the hardest words to find a translation for is probably "excited", and let's say that that was my case: I was not able to find the right translation. I wanted to say that I was looking forward to some event, and I ended up saying something totally different with sexual connotations. I think you guys get what I said, hahaha.

3. Schweiz and linguistic family trees

As it happens, Swedish comes from the Germanic family tree of languages, which means that it's very similar to German as well.  In Swedish schools, German is often offered as a second language. So, I thought that the connection was such that maybe Swedish had borrowed some German words into the language. You guys probably know the tastiest chocolate in Sweden and the whole world (wink, wink), Marabou. Well, the version with crushed nuts is called Schweizernöt and silly me thought, schweizernöt was a German word, hahaha. It actually means Swiss nuts. 

4. Partikelverb and their objects

There are some verbs in Swedish called partikelverb, which are the equivalent to the English phrasal verbs. However, they are a bit trickier than in English. I was trying to compliment a friend saying that he looked good in a picture, but I ended up saying that his vision was actually a bit poor, hahah. In Swedish the object that goes with the verb se ut goes between these two. Unfortunately, I placed it in the wrong side and it changed the whole meaning of what I actually wanted to say. 

That's it for this mini version of my mistakes in Swedish.  I hope you guys enjoyed it! Have you experienced something similar in any other language or in Swedish? Tell me! 

~ Love, Ana ~ 

As the week is coming to an end, which means that Friday is right here, and the days are getting darker, tt's time to talk about fredagsmys! As you may know, or not, fredag means Friday and mys is the word for coziness in Swedish. Sweden, being such a mysig country, it would be weird to use cozy instead. Don't you think? After working the entire week, what everyone wants to do when Friday comes is coze up a bit and relax. So that is why Swedes have fredagmys! And there is even a "typical" way of celebrating it!

For many Swedes, it is all about tacos or godis (sweets), or even both! On one side, there is a kind of tradition where they just relax with their family or friends or even alone and watch TV with some popcorns or godis. On the other side, they have the hidden rule that Fridays are for tacos or as they call it taco-fredag. This one is kind of fun and cute, I think. They just prepare the ingredients for the tacos and put each of them into a tiny bowl, a plate with the tortillas and the frying pan with the meat and sauce, as in the photo. Or maybe you guys can do both. I've never done it like that, but why not? ;) 

Björbo. Winter. By Erik Halvarsson

I particularly like to mix both: I have taco-fredag while I watch some movie or series and have some candles on. It truly depends on the person, so other types of fredagsmys different to these two are always allowed. Which one are you gonna choose? 

Hope you guys enjoyed this post and show me if you did any of this! How are your fredagsmys? Are you planning on making this your new tradition? 

                                                                          ~ Love, Ana ~

Guys, I love reading. Really, like love reading in capital letters. I'm probably one of those people who gets happy with a rainy day because that means that it's the perfect weather for enjoying a book. Now, if you guys combine that with my passion for learning languages, you probably got it right! My shelves are full of books in more than one language.

Truth is I love learning languages by reading because there are so many ways with one can practice. But, long story short. This is my story with books and Swedish:

1. Lille prinsen by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

If you guys remember, I mentioned in another post that one of my Brazilian friends gave me this book in Swedish as a gift. We had talked about this book before, especially how he had read it many times and it was his favourite book and how I never read it before. I know, that's probably a crime since it is probably the world's most famous book.

I first started to read it when my friend gave it to me. I found it really hard at the beginning. I wouldn't be able to read more than a couple of pages in an hour. My Swedish was also really bad and I hadn't been studying regularly. But, once I created a routine and was really stubborn with keeping on reading, I started seeing results! And it felt so great. I think there's nothing better than the feel of improving or even having your first successful conversation in your target language for a language learner, right, guys?

However, the reality was that, although I got way better in Swedish, I still struggled with this book. Sometimes I couldn't even find the words in the dictionary. I think this was maybe because it wasn't an adapted version and it was like the real one. I heard that there is an adapted version for language learners. At least in Spanish. Although, maybe I'm wrong. Anyway, I loved the book so much that I'm planning on re-reading it! I think that somehow, Lille prinsen, being such a wonderful and inspiring book, makes you fall more in love with your target language and the book. This is one of those books that it doesn't matter in what language you read it. It will always be wonderful.

2. Bröderna Lejonhjärta by Astrid Lindgren

One thing that I had really clear was that once I started reading a book in Swedish, I would start my journey with children books and, especially, with books of Astrid Lindgren. This book also has a story: last year for Christmas, my friend Tommy came to Spain and he gave me this book as a Christmas gift! I'm actually enjoying this one, although not as much as Lille prinsen. But, I must say that this one is much easier. At least, when I first opened it, I read the first page at once and without looking for any words in the dictionary.

I'm still reading it and I have a lot ahead yet, but I think that the only things I'm struggling with are the hunting/fighting vocabulary, especially those words related to riding and the spelling since it is the old spelling, I think. I have it a bit confusing when I'm gonna write in Swedish after having read the book haha.

Tell me guys what you think and if you have read these books or what book you are reading. I'll keep updating this post once I finish with a book! See you soon.

 ~ Love, Ana ~

And the last day of this series came to an end! This means that you guys will have to wait a long while for another travel series in Sweden and that I will also have to wait to write about it. But exciting things await for this blog!

On our last day in Sweden, we had planned to visit the oldest town in Sweden Sigtuna. If you haven't visited it yet, you guys have no idea about how beautiful it is! And the best part? It's right beside a huge lake, so you get to walk along it, which is rather relaxing, or mysigt! When you look out to the lake it almost feels like the famous lake in Frankenstein, without the darker side and the giant hills, though, haha. Unfortunately, you guys cannot see that in this picture because I forgot to capture that part. 

Sigtuna. Winter by Ana R.

This was a pretty short day-trip. I think we arrived sometime around noon at Märsta station and by six or seven we were back in Stockholm. After arriving in Märsta, a bus waited for us to go to Sigtuna, which is like a couple kilometers away. Once we got there, we wandered around the town for a bit. The houses and locals were so small and colorful. Suddenly the streets were wider and the houses smaller, compared to the big city. I missed the pastel colors of Stockholm, though. But it felt like a perfect run-away town for the summer holidays. 

Sigtuna. Winter. By Ana R.

We suddenly came across a rather famous fika place in Sigtuna: Tant Bruns Kaffestuga. Everything was so cute. The terrace was decorated with terrace dark wooden chairs and tables that matched with some white decorations that they also had. This place is famous because of their semla, so we decided to give it a try and taste the worldwide famous semla. It looked absolutely delicious, but, please don't kill me, I didn't like the taste of it. I keep loyal to my beloved dammsugare, haha. However, I took a picture so you guys could see how good it looked. 

Tant Bruns Kaffestuga, Sigtuna. Winter. By Ana R.

Full of energy and with a full stomach, we were ready for a little hike of the day and we climbed to a viewpoint and enjoy the views. I took advantage of this time to collect some pine cones because I am that weird. After chilling out for a while, we went down and walked along the lake to enjoy the sun and the view over the water. 

As I mentioned in a previous post, this is the trip in which we try everything but we fail. This time, on our way back. We suddenly just got off the bus at the wrong bus stop in the middle of Märsta and we did the rest of journey by foot. You can guess how much attention we were paying to the journey, haha. And I also forgot to mention in the last post that we tried to taste smörgåstårta aswell, and failed, too, haha. It just wasn't meant to be on this trip, guys. We'll just try the next time. No worries.  

Sigtuna. Winter. By Ana R.

This last picture is exactly the last thing I saw before taking the bus back to the station. I hope you guys enjoyed the post and let me know about your experiences in Sweden! I'm thinking of writing about my experience learning Swedish or something related to that. Tell me what you think about it or if you guys are interested! Vi ses snart! (See you later!)

~Love, Ana~

On the third day, we were all ready to get out of Stockholm and visit other Swedish cities. Uppsala, it's your time to shine! This time, when I say "we" I include Tommy as well. The triplets' adventures continue! *Woohoo!*

Uppsala. Winter. By Ana

We got up earlier than the last days and got ready to take the train and explore Uppsala. But, on the way to the station, we thought: "why now going thrift shopping first?"I mean, almost everything would be closed by the time we got back from Uppsala so, better be safe and check out a couple of shops before. Besides, there are more chances to find better things! Although I didn't find everything I was looking for, clothes related, I made sure that I was covered for the next year when it comes to books for learning Swedish. I bought a book about..., well, to be honest, I didn't understand what it was about. It just said something about butterflies and brains. But I bought one of the Muminmamma series! I was really looking forward to having books from this series, mainly because it's the cutest cartoon I've ever seen, haha. Here you can see them with some not second-hand dammsugare.

When we finally got into the train to Uppsala, my sister and I took advantage of Tommy being stuck with us in a train for about 30 minutes so that he would correct our Swedish while we read out loud. It was a nice day so we could enjoy the landscape and I alsolearned about SJ and SL and all those. This was something very important for me, as you guys can see, haha.

We followed a list of must-see that Martin had given me the previous day because sometimes he just knows what I'm looking for at certain times without me telling him (Creepy, haha). The first stop was a music shop (this was not on the list) and I don't know why but as soon as the man of the shop screamed Tja, tja! when he saw us, I had to turn my back so he wouldn't see me laughing cause it sounded so funny, haha. I know it was a greeting before I went there, but, seriously guys, it sounds so funny. After that, we climbed up to the castle and saw the views and the cafeteria, too, haha. We tried to go inside the castle but apparently, we took the wrong entrance and ended up in a museum about the history of women and feminism, I think. It was quite interesting! We also watched a very interesting interview for I don't know how long. But. I think we were about to fall asleep when it restarted. At least, my sister and me. Tommy threw a couple of disappointed looks at us from time to time, haha. As we didn't find anything yummy in the cafeteria and it was such a nice day, we decided to buy some icecreams. And guess what? As soon as we bought them, it was windy and it started drizzling. Lots of fun, huh?

Uppsalas slott, Uppsala. Winter. By Ana

We didn't do much after that. We visited a couple of churches and cathedrals. We watched a ceremony and a loppis of my favorite thing in the world: books! I tried to find something interesting but I didn't find anything so we decided to look for a place to eat instead. We went to a taco restaurant, and god, those tacos were too spicy! I don't even remember if I could finish them but they looked super good!

We wanted to go to Gamla Uppsala to finish the trip but I think you can only get there by bus and we just had missed ours so we just walked around, bought our tickets back to Stockholm, but not without having a fika first! I confessed Tommy my inner wish of not to leave Sweden without tasting a dammsugare so he took out his inspector gadget side and found a place that sold dammsugare. Cause you guys know what Expresso House lacks? You're right, dammsugare.  Tommy went first so he would leave me on my own to order. But he copycatted me and ordered a dammsurage, haha. I ordered for my sister and me in Swedish, and the girl understood everything. It was perfect and there were no disappointments this time! God, how good it feels when you actually have a whole conversation in another language without screwing it up.  It was worth the dammsugare, haha. Look at this precious. 

Once we finished, we head back home and relaxed because we had another adventure on the next day!

Uppsala. Winter. By Ana

I hope you guys enjoyed the post. Let me know what you think and about your experiences in Sweden! Until the next post! Also, if you happen to have missed the previous entries, what are you waiting for? Just scroll down a bit and you'll find them in "Older posts"!

~ Love, Ana ~

Hello, guys! I bring you the second part of my last trip to Sweden or the second day. The truth is that I was really looking forward to writing about this day because something really exciting for me happened. So, this is why I took my headphones with the Mild Man's music as background and a piece of paper with a pen to write this post. It feels so good. I usually have this sort of ritual with the posts that I am more excited to write about. 

Stockholm, Riksdagshuset. Winter. By Martin Hviid

I started my morning routine to practice Swedish this day. Sometimes I would just randomly talk in Swedish with Frans, which happened to happen that day, but not every day. I would take Frans' newspaper and read some pieces of news out loud because Tommy would listen to me and correct me. At least, he pretended to do so sometimes, haha. I liked it a lot when one of those days Frans hadn't read the newspaper yet and we shared it, like in the movies haha. 

Stockholm, Södermalm. Winter. By Ana R.

After having breakfast and cooking our lunch (Tommy actually cooked it), which was super delicious, by the way! I still dream about it sometimes haha. We took the tunnelbanan to Östermalm, where Tommy showed us his university, Kungliga Musik Högskolan, KMH for friends, and we met a couple of friends of his. It was a very nice university and they had old pianos even! - Sorry if that's not the right word, but I don't know much about music. After that, we went to visit the Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan, because we were meeting my friend Martin there for the first time and the KTH campus was in my architecture bucket list - because who doesn't have an architecture bucket list? Duh, everyone does haha ;). I really don't know what those reddish bricks have that makes the buildings so beautiful. It's like the city hall building. 

Stockholm, Kungligla Tekniskahögskola. Winter. By Ana R.

Anyway, we walked around to checked out the campus and then we sat on a bench and read for a bit. Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of the KTH. Dumb, isn't it? haha. We thought of staying there until Martin finished school, but it suddenly became very windy so we took the subway to Riddarholmen again to have lunch, because nice lunches deserve nice views, right? At 15:00 we were back at the KTH and we were stopped by a girl who worked for Amnestesia when we were running a bit late. I honestly thought Martin was gonna give me that look of "of course, Spaniards are always late", but he wasn't even there! We were less late than a Swede hahah. You guys must admit it, it's a bit funny, since swedes are known for their punctuality, among other things. Besides, I had a really interesting talk with the girl from Amnestesia for about five minutes. When I met Martin, I had my first cultural shock, or maybe linguistic shock because he asked me for directions (I was the GPS of the group, or rather my phone haha) and that is my weakness in every language hahah. When we found the way, we head to Stadsbiblioteket! This is something that I had planned because I wanted to visit it with someone who liked books as much as me. You guys can't see it here, but it's so beautiful and it has so many books, I wanna die! haha. We were there quite a while my sister looked for books about Irish English or Portuguese and Martin and I took a look at a book about Stockholm. 

Stockholm, Stadsbiblioteket. Winter. By Ana R.

I don't remember what happened next or how Martin decided to show us Sergels Torg and Hötorget, but it was a good decision. I'd never been there before and I've been meaning to because Veronica Maggio's song Sergels Torg is good and I like it, haha. Actually, on our way there, I had another funny linguistic shock in the underground, but that one happened because I'm a little bit special and it takes me double time to process things properly. Let's just say that, hahah. A little after that we went to fika, guess where? Yes, Expresso House, hahah. This was the second time I tried to order a hot chocolate in Swedish. The first time, which was the day before, was quite messy and the barista and I had a good laugh, especially when I tried to get in the card through the wrong slot. This time I thought I was ready, but the word marshmallows in Swedish took me by surprise. I liked when I failed, though, because it means that I had to practice more, which I love doing. I don't remember much about the fika only that I got to hear Martin speaking in Spanish. Boy, that guy is good! He has such a determination that he makes me feel jealous 99.9% of the time, hahah. After that, we just walked around in Gamla Stan, the city hall and the parliament, which I was looking forward to seeing! I usually watch my other friend Martin's videos, the Swedishlad, and he often goes to the parliament, but I never knew the location, to be honest,  until I saw it that day. It was so beautiful at night!

Stockholm, Riksdagshuset. Winter. By Ana R.

I forgot to tell you that when we walked through Gamla Stan in search of a good and cozy photo of it, I had another awkward moment. I kind of screw it up a bit in this hang out. I blame Martin for taking my clumsy side out, haha. I had never seen a trash bin with a cover before, at least not in the part of Spain where I am from. As I was walking towards the bin, I was kind of doubting that it was a real bin and I looked at Martin, as he was watching me, for confirmation, cause he must have been thinking that I was such a dummy, hahaha. That never happened, and well, it was a real .in, hahah.

After the complete Stockholm tour with Martin, we just head to the station and hugged us goodbye. I really liked this day. It was calm and I got to meet Martin. I loved the places he showed us and I had a great time with him. I actually felt quite comfortable to be the first time that I met him. I felt so comfortable that I got a bit sad when he left, haha. I felt like a tiny little part of me just left me. He's really nice and I admire a lot of things about him. I liked a lot when we took pictures of the same things together, it's like we were sharing a hobby. I love when I have relationships this enriching. He teaches me so many things and I really appreciate that. 

I hope you guys enjoyed reading about this day as much as I enjoyed writing about it! Stay tuned for the next post and take care!

~ Love, Ana ~

After a long while, I'm back on business! It's been a bit hard to find inspiration to write something after writing a thesis, but here I am now and ready to tell you everything about a trip to Sweden that I did a couple of months ago.

Stockholm, Skeppsbrokajen. Winter. By Ana R.

I feel like this was the most enriching trip so far and I think it's the one I liked the most. Probably because I was able to understand more Swedish than in the other trips and I could actually utter some words. I read some time ago that when one learns a new language, they have a new identity with that language. I noticed how slightly different I was when I spoke in English than when I spoke in Spanish last year, but I was dying to see what would happen with Swedish. So far, I know that I am not as self-conscious and shy as in English, but I'm neither as ice-breaker and confident as in Spanish, obviously. At least, I'm happy to know that I'm not as self-aware when I speak Swedish as I am in English, and I just say it whether it's right or wrong. And that, from a linguistic perspective, makes me really happy.

As to the trip itself, it all started on a 22nd March driving to Málaga early. I actually drove to Málaga this time! It feels like things are changing. So, after checking in and passing the security point, etc, we found ourselves in Linköping by 16:00! After that, we took a flyggbussarna to City-terminalen and, at first, the plan for the first evening there was to wander around Gamla Stan for a bit and maybe meet a friend, but that didn't go as planned, since I got a bit sick and spent the whole evening practically in the bus station until it was time to go to our Swedish home for this trip. That's right. This time we went all Swedish about it and stayed in a Swedish apartment. No hostels at all. Although I must say that I missed the views from Gamla Stan this time.

Since barely anything happened on the first day, apart from us catching up with our friend, I'm jumping into the second one because it was more fun, you know. We started the day with the Swedish happy birthday song "Ja, må hon leva" because it was Katrina's birthday. This was actually fun to hear because I've always thought that it was a fun Swedish tradition. For those who are not familiar with it, they usually wake up the birthday person with a song and breakfast. We don't have the same birthday celebration in Spain, so I was very excited to experience it.

After having breakfast and more catching up (in Swedish even! *smirk, smirk*), we headed to Monteliusvägen and Skinnarviksberget to look at the views over Gamla Stan and Kungsholmen from Södermalm. To be honest, I like any view over Gamla Stan and the city hall, but if I had to choose a favorite, it would be the one from Monteliusvägen. God, is there a more beautiful building than the city hall? I think I will write a post only about the city hall building, hahaha. Kidding, I am not that crazy.

Stockholm, Monteliusvägen. Winter. By Ana R.

Stockholm, Skinnarviksberget. Winter. By Ana R.

Well, I am not pretty sure about what happened next, but I think Tommy went to work and we walked to Gamla Stan and sat somewhere in Skeppsbrokajen to have lunch and enjoy the sun. I haven't said anything, but we were actually very lucky and had very good weather during the whole trip. It was actually a bit warm! In the sun, of course...Here you have the proof of such a lovely weather! I should say that a Swedish woman saw us and got a bit jealous, so she joined us and sunbathed next to us for a bit, haha.

Stockholm, Stortorget. Winter. By Ana R.

Around 15:00 we head to Slussen again because I was meeting up with Maria for the first time. This trip was actually full of "first times": the first time I hold a conversation in Swedish face-to-face, the first time I went thrift shopping, etc.  But certainly not the first time I went to Expresso House! Seriously, can we dedicate some space to how much Swedes love Expresso House? It's crazy! (In the good sense). When you ask a Swede to meet up, you'll usually get an answer "Expresso House", followed, of course, by its location, because there are dozens! Anyway, I met Maria. We had a lovely time together. It was a bit of a messy exchange of me because I keep on mixing Spanish, English, and Swedish. But no worries, I'm still working on that guys, hahaha. As my friend Martin says, that's the con of knowing multiple languages!

Stockholm, Götgatan. Winter. By Ana R.

After meeting Maria, we took a long walk towards Riddarholmen, which is one of my favourite parts of Stockholm now, and the city hall to see the sunset and go back to the aparment again. If you got the chance, please visit Riddarholmen. I haven't seen such beautiful buildings in my entire life! As you may notice, I have a thing for architecture, but who doesn't?

Stockholm, Riddarholmen. Winter. By Ana R.

Stockholm, Munkbrohamnen. Winter. By Ana R.

Take care and stay tuned for the next posts!

~ Love, Ana ~