Swedes are pretty open about relationships. It does not matter so much if a couple get married or not in this country. In both circumstances, they have almost the same rights.

Yet, a lot of Swedes would like to get married, especially in a church. It might work for most people that to have “the blessing from a higher power”.

I have never been to a wedding in the church, until the coming Saturday. There comes the problem for me, what the dress code for guests in a Swedish church wedding is. It says that no strictly black or white, unless you want to outshine the bride. And no bare shoulders in the church. I guess I need a big piece of scarf…

Another tradition, I read from the Sweden.se, sounds so weird to me. When one of the couple is away, anyone can kiss the other one. Is it going to be a cheek kissing or a French one? I will find out.

While calling a new coming student today, he told he could not talk for he was starting to have a BBQ.

Yes, BBQ, that is the best kind of cuisine in the Swedish summer.

Sitting in the yard, or on the grass, watching the fire and the smoke, smelling the grilled meat or vegetables, it is such a joy. Right, can’t never go without beer. A bottle of ice-old local beer.

I had a few busy days last week. When bumping into my neighbor in the yard, he asked that how come he hadn’t seen me do BBQ for a long time. Hah, I guess I have already been well-know as a BBQ-loving Chinese girl doing BBQ almost everyday.

Note: Three hearts is the symbol of Halmstad city.

In Sweden, there is hardly someone who does not know about Spotify. It does not have such a reputation in other countries due to the fact that it is only available in a few regions. As I know, only Sweden, Finland, France, Netherlands, Spain, Norway and UK are covered.

Same as Skype, Spotify is a Swedish innovation. It is an application for online music. The interface is a bit similar to iTunes of Apple in my opinion. It is really fast, and has a wide range of singers, bands or orchestras. The songs are well organized by albums, or singers.

I really like it. One disadvantage about it is that the free account gets a load of advertisement, which is so annoying when one has a party. And to have an account, one needs invitation from premium users. It costs money of course to update to premium account, that is 49 kr or 99 kr depending on what kind of service one wants.

Well, I have to say Swedes are pretty awesome to have had developed the application!

Enjoying the world of music…. Oh, no, advertisement again?

Don’t get scared, this fan is not the “fan” in “become a fan” on Facebook; it is the fan which blows and brings coolness.

It has been really hot the last few days. The temperature were up to about 30 Celsius degrees. It seems like not a tradition for Swedes to equip their home with fans. It became really hot at night.

I was thinking about buying a fan before I read the news on di.se saying that the fans are sold out in the shops. What are interesting are the comments:

“This news comes every year, why don’t people understand that a fan lasts a couple of years. Do Swedes actually eat up their fans?”

“In civilized countries, people have air con.”

Well, I can agree on the second one since I haven’t seen any Swede eating fans and we do have air con at home in China.

The weather cools down a bit again, I guess people who complained about the hot weather are now missing the steamy hot days again.

This advertisement was on yesterday’s newspaper. Jordgubbar means strawberry. But jord means earth,gubbar means old guys. So if you translate part by part, it means earth-old-guy. Very funny…

We went to The Berrryland (BÄRLANDET) today.

It is about 6 or 7 km from the center. To get there by bicycle takes about 40 minutes. It is not so hard to find the exact spot even though the advertisement did not give the precise address.

We took the road Växjövägen, and went up northeast. To find the right bicycle route could be a little tricky, sometimes it located not right beside the highway. Instead, we had to go through the resident area at some parts.

The route marked in red is the road called Växjövägen. The point marked in red is on Marieshemsvägen.

There was a billboard of the berry land (Bärlandet) saying to turn right at that cross. About 20 meters after the intersection, the strawberry field came in sight.

We went to the little house and got a number for the line where we were going to collect strawberries.

The lines are marked with numbers. And people should start from where a little stick wrapped with a ribbon stands in the line and put it where they finish. I think it is a pretty smart system.

When we had finished picking, the young girl at the little house weighed our strawberry. It cost only 25kr/kg!

The weather was really lovely today. A bit too warm as I feel especially that I had been under the sun for hours. Of course all the hard work was worthy.The fresh strawberries with the fresh cream taste soooo good!

Note: don’t forget to bring your own basket.

/Carmen

Anybody knows since when Youtube has added the Vuvuzela button under the clips? Not all of them, it does not appear on some old ones as I tried few minutes ago. As long as you click the little ball sign, it will start to play the Vuvuzela sound at the background providing a vivid World Cup atmosphere.

Though I am not one of those who enjoy this instrument, I still appreciate the brilliance of this idea.

Vuvuzela is the most impressive toy of World Cup in all time I reckon. Africa, you have made the new trend of the world.

My friend sent me this poster. The source of it is not known.

/Carmen

This Saturday was so lovely that the temperature was 30 degrees! We decided to go to one of the best beaches in Sweden–Tylösand. A blessing is that it locates in Halmstad!

To get there, it is very convenient by bus to the stop called Tylösand with both Line No.10 and No. We left from the bus terminal Österskans, which is just few meters away from the city library. The ticket is 16 kr if one has a bus card, and 20 kr if one does not. Note that from June this year, it is not possible to pay cash onboard most of the buses in Halland. Here’s a picture of the Swedish bus:

It’s two minutes walk from the bus stop to the sand.

You could tell that it was really a great day by countless number of people on the beach. This is just one small corner of the whole Tylösand, which said to be 7 km long.

We brought a air pad. Most of all time we were just either lying on the sand or lying on the air pad and drifting.

In the late afternoon, there happened to be a concert in the backyard of the hotel. When we got there, people were pouring in through that little gate:

Frankly, I have not seen such density of population in Halmstad before.

We had a great deal of fun. Sunshine, beach, beer, music, dance and pretty girls with bikini on top. Most important I got sweet suntan!

By the way, thanks to my friend Peter for the photos.

/Carmen

I have two coins of 1 Euro made in 2002 and 2007. Something on them I find quite interesting, and those might be the reason why Sweden don’t use Euro:

LOL! Sweden, you know I love you!

Note: I have read about the first coin in the book “In the Secret Garden of Sweden”. The pictures here are just for fun.

/Carmen