adventures in learning swedish

after almost a month of trying i can say with utter conviction that swedish is one difficult tongue to learn.  there are phonetic pronunciations that an english-speaker just cannot form--my personal bane is "sju" which should sound like "hoo," with a slight edge to the H by rounding the tongue into the back molars.  there are three additional vowels to sound out (å, ä and ö) that have no english equivalent, and these three extra letters are tacked onto the end of the alphabet, as in after z, so it makes finding things listed in alphabetical order extra challenging.

even though we share 26 other characters, the letters we recognize and their predominate sounds do not necessarily translate into swedish.  for example: i was told to send an email to a woman named sigrid o'berry--and as the person was spelling out her last name i got totally confused.  she kept saying "o'berry" and i'm expecting something like "o-b-e-r-r-y," but her last name is actually spelled Åberg.  i would look at that as an english-speaker and think "ah-berg," but alas this is sweden and it is o'berry.  sophie's name is actually pronounced, "ah-strrrrrid;" gus is "yous."  rich is "rickard," as -ch and -th seem to be problematic for swedes to say.  i'm not sure i've heard anyone say my name yet.

a few common words that are the same:  taxi, under, sport, salt, blind, vision, storm
a few more that are close to the same:  mjilk, stopp, buss, upp, peppar, fotboll, foto, cykle, applen
a few more that are way, way off:  sin = its, slut = stop/end, fart = speed, sex = six, böner = prayers, skänk = bring/gift

if i were working towards citizenship, then the swedish government would provide me with "swedish for immigrants" language courses, but i am merely a temporary resident so this is all on me.  for me, watching TV helps tremendously...especially the simpsons...but gus and sophie have actual swedish classes at school so fortunately they're not dependent on my crappy attempts to assimilate.

i am going to figure out this language eventually!

"hello daddy, hello mom...

...i'm your ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-cherry bomb!  hello world i'm your wild girl i'm your ch-ch-ch-ch..."

we are in so much trouble with this one.

for lucia...

...and marge, and mom, and everyone who is following sophie's epic quest to capture a duck: SHE FINALLY GOT ONE!

obama in sweden

the president is here! we've known he was coming for a while, mainly because stockholmare have been warned not to travel anywhere within the city today or tomorrow--taking the day off of work was mentioned many times in the media. the traffic outside my window is crazy and not moving; there are at least three helicopters hovering just above my apartment as i type this. still, i came home after drop-off and watched him land at Årlanda airport (on TV) and then shake hands with some nice swedes on the runway.

the television guys were hilarious to listen to--i still can't understand a lot of swedish, but much of what they were saying was interspersed with, "obama's in da house!" and then explaining blah blah blah "south side of chicago" blah blah blah "in da house" blah "in sverige hus" blah blah blah "44th president, or POTUS"...it was great. then, the newscasters showed a table they had set up with a line of toy black cars--one of which had little american flags taped to it--and a toy plane that they held in their hands and swooped around as a model air force one. i loved it. yes, this was a serious news channel.

anyway, the downside to the visit is that almost all of the center of stockholm is closed. t-centralen, the main station for the subways, buses and trains, is closed for some lines and all buses; all of gamla stan is completely off limits to cars and bicycles in some parts. kungstradgården station is closed as it is right next to the grand hotel where obama is staying. yesterday the police were beginning to close off all pedestrian access, bike lanes and definitely car lanes anywhere near it. it's quite an undertaking...and people on the few open subway lines were pissed, crowded and tense this morning. i'm currently trying to figure out an alternative to the underground to getting the kids home from school.

considering all that is happening with syria and the question of military action obama has presented to congress, i'm a bit worried about traveling in the subways while he is here. there are just too many people in a very small space right now. then yesterday sweden announced that all syrian refugees would be offered permanent residency here, which can't help but seem like a bit of a premonition of what is to come from us. it also seems like a terrible idea, but that's another blog post. i still can't get a personnummer...but i'm not willing to become syrian to get one.

welcome to stockholm, obama!


did anyone remember to set up the hot wheels ramp?

pretty skies of stockholm

when we first got here, the sun began to set at almost 10:00 pm and was up again by 4:00 am.  now, 18 days later, it starts to set at 8:00 and starts coming up around 4:30...the days are getting shorter, for sure, but the sky outside my bedroom balcony is lovely tonight. unfortunately, i had to put on my coat to see it.  göd natt!

astrid and her ducks

she is absolutely determined to catch one...

...but the next best thing is to run through them and make them scatter! (i love the naked baby in the background.)

how to summer vacation like a stockholmare

the stockholm archipelago

since we are living in kungsholmen, we are called "kungsholmenare," which definitely makes us proper stockholmare(s), and i've heard anything off the main city islands doesn't count...although i'm not sure people living on södermalm would agree.

today was the first PTA meeting of gus and astrid's school. it was tremendous--i met parents from hungary, italy, france, swedes who had been living in america and australia, denmark, the netherlands, china, india, japan, korea, canada, the philippines, portugal, spain, ukraine, russia, croatia, ethiopia, ukranians who had been living in tanzania, india, pakistan, kyrgyzstan, egyptians, and a few americans. it was wonderful, and i am a bit more than sad that the kids can't stay at this school for longer than a semester. this has already been a fantastic experience for everyone.

on sunday we were invited by one of rich's colleagues, rickard, to go sailing in the stockholm archipelago. it was a beautiful, clear, warm day that, from what we've been repeatedly told, will probably not happen again very often this year. we've tried to take advantage of every pretty day we've had--and there have been quite a few--but sunday was truly gorgeous. we went from vaxholm to grinda and swam in the baltic sea. lovely.


i haven't seen rich this relaxed in a loooooong time

gus, swimming in the baltic sea

mersophie

the water was incredibly clear

little bitty fishies

most of the islands are actually giant granite boulders covered in lichen

one of 10-20-30,000 islands (depending on the source) that make up the stockholm archipelago

i think rich is already trying to figure out how to get back

kids on the subway...

...on their way to the first full day of school.  mom freaking out more than a little (kids, of course, are fine).  and off we go!

happy first day of school!

i have a feeling we are going to be very sad to leave this place...astrid and gus' school seems quite marvelous.  kids/families from all over the globe--it is a true international school.  go ISSR!

we're finally in sweden!

after much anticipation and much planning, we've finally gotten to stockholm to start our 6-month adventure!  the flight was fine, the luggage arrived with us, and the apartment is petite but lovely.  everyone is starting to physically feel better--the jet lag caught all of us a bit--and overall we're adapting beautifully.  rich needed about three minutes to become fully swedish (gus and sophie needed about ten)--those genes are tenacious.  i've still got some work to do...

near our apartment is the southern coast of kungsholmen, which is an absolutely lovely space.  sophie literally jumped right in to life here.  more later!

like *literally* jumped in!

duck feather and contemplative sophie (with trepidatious gus in the background)

sophie later decided that she wanted to capture a duckling and make it "imprint" (her word) on her--we've had a hard time dissuading her of this idea

she settled for a human friend instead :)

the allen family bermuda triangle: THE ESCAPE!

it has been beyond crazy at our house for all the usual reasons, and then for one really big one--we are moving to sweden in about three weeks! for the next six months, we will have officially escaped the triangle for stockholm (although we are coming back to it in february). i will try to post regularly...however my recent history is not as promising as i would like on that front...but please do check back!

it's miniaNature

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MAMA TURKEY IN THE RAVINE!

click me to see the video!

earlier this week, we saw our most recent resident in the ravine--a wild turkey--with her TWELVE new fluffy babies! today i finally got a video of them. she is down to about eight or nine poults as of this morning (maybe more--it is hard to tell in the video), and we know she lost one to a sharp-shinned hawk yesterday. (about half of the babies should make it to adulthood, according to statistics.)

i'm thrilled at the prospect of having all these wild turkeys in the ravine...i hope they stay. any suggestions on what i could plant to entice them to make this their permanent home would be much appreciated! enjoy.

hello, darwin awards? i'd like to become a member.

it's as if my recent brush with mortality via poison hemlock wasn't enough.  basically, think of the stupidest possible thing you could do that would result in a melted trashcan...and that's what i did.  bear in mind that as a child i didn't play with fire, and thus grew into an incredibly ignorant adult.

we've had a chipmunk explosion in the triangle, and the traps are working overtime--this past week we had almost 20 little furry bastards in the trash.  and, those almost 20 little furry bastards exacted a modicum of retribution by beginning to putrefy...which created a smell from hades itself...which drew flies. flies laid eggs; eggs hatched and became maggots.  even after trash pickup there were still about a million maggots writhing on the bottom of my trashcan.  and still with the smell from hell.

so, in my glorious ingenuity of trying to be ecologically sound and use no poison, i decided to try and kill them by pouring a gallon of vinegar in the can.  it didn't kill them, and now i had vinegar-scented smell from hell.  so, i dumped two pounds of salt in there with it.  nothing.

so...i started looking around the garage...and i see the gas can for the lawnmower...

i figured what the hell:  they're floating, gas floats, i'll just pour a pint or so on top, light it on fire, and burn them off.  seriously, this is exactly what i thought would happen.  what i didn't anticipate was the 20-foot column of fire that shot out of the trashcan and continued to burn (at about a 5-6 foot height then) for the next minute.  i was too stunned to move.

fortunately, i managed to tell gus (yes, he was there) to run inside and get a fire extinguisher.  i put the fire out literally one second before the can collapsed, which fell up against the garage...where the car was parked.

and now i've got a melted trashcan at the end of my driveway waiting for the city of iowa city to come and switch it out tomorrow.  i have no idea what they will charge me.  the shame, however, is free.

 the aftermath.  (the powdered white stuff around it is from the fire extinguisher.)

see?  it doesn't say "no gasoline + matches"

sigh.  i am a dumbass.

pretty, pretty poison

meet conium maculatum, more commonly known as poison hemlock

i can't decide if this is "no good deed goes unpunished," or "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing."  it might be both.

this is the walkway from the back steps to the front door of our sweet, lovely, most-appreciated, little neighborhood elementary.  it's on the upper edge of a ravine, it's lush, and it was populated by the most poisonous plant in north america, poison hemlock.  i saw it last year and mistook it for its less-poisonous cousin, water hemlock, but this year i knew just a little bit more and saw it for what it is/was...which is where my troubles began.

first, i got permission from the school to remove the hemlock ("it only takes .25% of a person's body weight to kill! think socrates! think of the children!"), and then i got permission to dispose of it.  having pulled weeds on public property before, i at least know what questions to ask.  then, i arrived at the school in my official master gardener's garb replete with ID badge, (i'm an expert, damnit!), showed the principal the area i intended to clear, she was sufficiently concerned, and the weeding commenced.

about 15 minutes into it i felt a little...off.   i was having a little trouble breathing, but i chalked it up to allergens and decided to remember to carry my inhaler with me in the future.   i say that a lot. the sky looked threatening, and i really wanted to get this stuff away from where the kids walk, so i pressed on.

an hour into it, i felt off and shaky, but i kept going because it hadn't rained yet and i was making good progress.   my leather gloves were soaked from pulling the hemlock (it is a watery plant, kinda like jewelweed).   the breathing was still a problem--would definitely bring the inhaler next time.

two hours into it, i was exhausted, not breathing well, was suuuuper thirsty, and definitely not feeling well either.  i figured i was dehydrated and developing asthma.  i had cleared four very full black plastic bags worth of poison hemlock, weighing about 150-200 pounds total.   i got all of it cleared off and away from the sidewalk; i did a good job.   i walked home, took off my clothes as soon as i went in the door, threw my gloves into a plastic bag to wash later, and took a long shower.  my heart was beating like crazy--i must be dehydrated!--then started drinking as much water as i could keep down.

fast-forward three hours: time to get the bunny from school.  still not feeling well, haven't eaten anything, just want to drink water, heart still beating like a hummingbird's, and i'm confused.  not like "i don't get it" confused, more like i'm not able to make a thought.   i walked back to the school, said hi to some friends, got asked a fairly simple question by someone, and could not formulate a response that made sense to anyone including myself.   finally came to the conclusion that there may be a problem, so the bunny and i went home, and i called poison control.

in my possibly misguided quest to save some dumbass kid from themselves, i managed to poison myself with the most lethal plant in america.

poison control was remarkably not condescending or judgmental--they were actually awesome.   they asked me a battery of questions, determined i was probably not going to die, but suggested that i keep drinking water.   it turns out that poison hemlock and nicotiana (tobacco) share an alkaloid that makes you quite unwell after extended physical contact with it...such as by wearing soaked-through leather gloves for two hours.  and, i needed to throw away the gloves as well, as the alkaloid would probably not wash out (they're gone now).  they even called me back after an hour to check on me--seriously, they were great.

i managed to fall asleep by midnight, heartbeat back to normal, still thirsty but not as thirsty, but with a killer hangover-type headache.  the next day i still had some muddiness in my brain, but at this point i think i can manage it.  overall, it was quite the experience.  so there you go--as always, my life seems to exist as a lesson for others...not necessarily in a good way.

FYI: poison control 1 (800) 222-1222.

soccer bunny

:)

cool keys, bro

why oh why oh why don't we make our keys like this anymore? seeing these is just a recipe for happy.

all eyes on me!

rich's desk--he always loves an audience. is this normal?