SHANA TOVA!

Shana tova u metuka to all of you out there in the blogworld!

I don´t think anybody is still reading, since I never update, but maybe you have me on your RSS feed....

All is fine with us, we are caught up in preparations for the baby, only a few weeks to go. I am growing and growing and can´t believe that I will keep growing for another month or so :)

Wishing you all Shana tova, may it be a year filled with love, joy and happiness!

Back from NYC

So we are back home from our vacation in NYC and NJ. We had a fantastic time, walked a lot in Manhattan, met friends and stayed in suburbia NJ (would love to live there!) and shopped a lot. I went literally with an empty suitcase and came back with a full one, full with maternity clothes. The prices are almost half and the choices are about 25x as much! Time was flying far too fast and we could easily have stayed a week or two longer - unfortunately hotels in NY are pretty expensive and work wanted us back too.....

The ultrasound just before we left went fine. We could see all the organs and the baby kicked around and waved and everything else. We also found out the gender, so now I am at least knowing what name to look for! And we have a few in mind, but I am open for more suggestions! So if you have kids and you don´t mind revealing their names, please write them to me. We are looking for a traditional biblical Jewish name.

Now the heat has hit Sweden! It was never that hot here when I visited, we have over 30 celcius and no AC or fans! It´s crazy! Hope the temperature will drop soon. I was very happy to leave in a cooler country, especially now that I am pregnant. Since the flight back my feet are totally swollen and filled with water. I tried to sleep with my feet a bit higher and it helped a bit, but no clue what shoes I should wear to work on Monday!

My belly is growing and I start to feel kicks, our baby definitely loves food and as a Swiss baby, loves chocolate! I am still not showing really but I guess my belly will "explode" in the next 3-4 weeks!

Thats about it for now! Hope you are all enjoying summer (or Winter in AU).

Good news

I just found out today that there are two groups in the Jewish daycare. One where they speak the countries language and one where the teacher only speaks Hebrew. How fantastic is that? I was thinking a lot lately how I will teach my children hebrew. Our language at home is English; i will talk Swiss-German to the Baby and Mr. J.S. will speak his mothertongue, so how do we mix in Hebrew? Eventhough they learn it in the Jewish School for 9 years, almost none of the students actually speaks hebrew at the end......

Tomorrow we have our week 19 Ultrasound - how exiting! And soon half the pregnancy is over - how fast!

Have a nice week!

The long promised update

Its been a long time since my last blog entry and besides the obvious news, not much has happend.

The winter is finally over, spring is here with lots of sunshine, but not yet so warm temperatures.
My Swedish is getting better and better every day, I am still taking classes, although I think this will be the last one now. I am pretty fluent and am making less and less mistakes.
I started my new job almost 1.5 months ago and it has been very hectic since. I am trying to take it a bit easy and not stress too much, but it is hectic and actually I like it :)
I have been sick again, my imun-system is totally down and I am getting sick like every other month. This time I had Sinusitis and I had to take penicillin for 10 days. I finally met an Asthma specialist and she run some tests on me, my lung function is very good at the moment, which is great news! She gave me a new medication which should make me feel less dizzy.

The pregnancy goes great, the baby is due around my birthday, in October. I -luckily- did not experience any morning or afternoon sickness during the first 3 months (and also not later), besides being very tired and having more often headaches, I had/have no pregnancy-symptoms, which is nice.

The apartment renovations are finally finished, the only thing left to buy are balcony furnitures. And of course the baby-room but that will only be done after I gave birth.

I am slowly starting to look for names, so if you have any nice idea, please write it in the comment. We are looking for a Jewish or Israeli name, both girl and boy, since we don´t know if it will be a girl or a boy.

In less than 2 weeks we will finally fly to NYC, I can´t wait to be there, meet my friends and most of all shop pregnancy clothes :D

I hope to update this blog a bit more frequently, but honestly, not much is happening and I don´t want to bore you with my pregnancy topics. And right now I cannot think of much else then Babies and pregnancy :D

What has been keeping me so busy.....

Time is flying....

.... and soon it is time to fly home again. The vacation in Switzerland past really fast and was as usual if I visit only once in six months pretty stressful. I spent most of my time with my family and some evenings with friends. It was great to catch up, but one week is just too short....

Now Mr. J.S. is freaking out on me about all the stuff that I bought here, things which in his eyes are totally unnecessary and which is probably true, but gives me a feeling of home when back in my new home. So here just a few of the things I bought:
- wet cleaning towels for kitchen and bathroom
- sugarfree cinnamon chewing gums
- cereal bars
- vitamin pills
- Parve chicken soup and soup mandels
- bags of tomato risotto
- tights and underwear
- crackers
and some more things.....

As usual we have much too much luggage and I do not know yet how we will manage without paying over-weight. We have two large suitcases, one cabin suitcase, one golfbag, one computer bag, 3 large paintings, a guitar, my hand bag and a small plastic bag with two crystal bowls. Oh and this time we are flying and not driving, so luggage is really limited - wish us luck :)

Quiz!

Does anybody know what the building on the picture is? Do you know in which city it is?

Ok, here some possibilities:

a) market hall in Budapest
b) factory outlet in Vienna
c) the stock exchange in Copenhagen
d) the palace in Stockholm
e) none of the above!

Bonus point if you know what the little tower means!

Ok, waiting for your answers! Good luck!

Didn´t see that one coming......

Just when I thought life would be calm for a while, something new comes up!

Today our CEO was in the office and asked me if I have a minute to talk. Sure, why not ?!?!?! He said that he is looking for a new assistant and he got a recommendation from my current boss to ask me?!?! Well, I didn´t see that one coming! Of course I can´t turn down such an offer and after talking to my boss I told the CEO that I would be pleased to support him in the future!

Guess this means bye bye calm life, but I am always up for a new challenge!

calm life

Thanks for your lovely well-wishes. The cold passed, but the asthma-problems not quite yet.

In less then 3 weeks we are flying to Zurich to spend Pessach with my family. I can´t wait to see my parents, my siblings, my friends and just hang out! It´s almost six months since I was "home", a very long time eventhough time just flew by.....

But as usual I need something new to look forward too..... a new vacation, what´s better then that? We booked our tickets and will fly to New York end of May - YAY! Can´t wait to see my friends, walk around in the city and enjoy spring in the big apple!!!

Life is good right now, it is much calmer, just what I wished for, but with that less blog material.

Shavua tov to you all!

life as usual or almost

Most of last week I was sick at home. Nothing major just a cold. But my colds are terrible as I have asthma and when getting a cold the asthma gets about 10x worse, meaning I can hardly breathe. Well, the worst is over now and on Monday I am back in the office. I am always having such a bad conscience when I am sick, so I just keep working from home. But I wonder why I have a bad conscience? During my sick days (from Tuesday afternoon to Friday eve) I only fell asleep once during the day for less then 10 min, I was so scared that my boss could call and I would be sleeping (and of course he did call exactly then). But isn´t the whole point of staying at home to sleep and rest and get well? What can I say, I worked and of course it was the week with the most work since a long time, I am up to date with all the emails, but I don´t feel 100% healthy.

So the snow started to melt and yesterday for the first time we had something like a spring feeling, let´s hope the winter doesn´t come back till next November.

Have a good week!

not much happening

Nothing much happening in my world, nothing that I really think is blogworthy at least.

I could write about how weird I find it that in the Swedish lunch meal at work you can choose the following drinks: milk, water and light beer. But for a healthy juice you have to pay extra. Here´s another weird thing about Sweden. The alcohol is controlled by the state, meaning only special shops are allowed to sell alcohol and these shops are belonging to the government. Their opening hours are therefore very limited..... Ok, now here´s the weird thing, they show a lot of commercial for different alcoholic drinks on TV but once you go to the store to buy it, there are signs and leaflets to help you if you have an alcohol problem, you really almost feel ashamed to even go in a "System Bolaget" as these shops are called. While you queue at the cashier you have a lot of time to read the signs and at the end you feel guilty for even drinking a glass of wine. Beside that it is totally weird to have commercial but then these leaflets, I find it even weirder that most Swedes like it, they think it is a good system and it helps the country and it obviously works. Of course there are many that think it is ridiculous and are convinces that it will change with time and alcohol will get free on the market, allowing better prices and better opening hours.

I could write that it is still snowing with no end, we still have to scrape the car every morning. We had the (hopefully) coldest day of the year on Wednesday with -17celcius (about 0 Fahrenheit). I was told that the winter will continue for another 2 months. Even though it is beautiful, I am kind of ready for spring now. At least the days are lighter now. From around 7am - 5pm. But I rather attach some pictures, they say more than words.

I could write that my husbands grandparents celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. Both are in relatively good health. How fantastic and seldom these days to be married for 60 years! A big Mazel tov to them (even though they are of course not reading this blog)!

I could write that I can´t wait to go to Zurich in April, I really start to miss my family, my friends and the city and country itself a lot lately. It´s been now 4 months since I last visited, I know it is not long ago, but still it feels very long.

I could write that we still didn´t finish all the renovations. We are still living without skirting-boards (I got this word from the translator, I mean the small wooden strip that comes between the walls and the floor and between the floors of the rooms). We still haven´t unpacked all the boxes. And we have to go again to Ikea to buy some things.

I could write that today my study-partner is coming over and we are starting to prepare for our exam in May. I created a study plan, we each prepare individually and then meet to go through what we studied during the week. Afterwards, her husband and 1-year old child will join us and we´ll have dinner together. Our husbands haven´t met, so we both hope they will get along well.

I could write that it is 7:30am and I woke up even though I can sleep in. My biological watch is obviously set to week-days and 7:30 is probably enough sleeping-in for my body (usually I get up at 6:40) I can´t fall asleep again once I am awake..... So I might as well start to clean the apartment and prepare for later (or blog).

Last but not least I could write that I got a Kitchen-Aid, Kitchen assistant from Mr. J.S. and I am now baking Challes with no end. I love the machine and the freezer starts to fill up with Challes - Yum!

Ok, and now I really run out of things to write. I hope you all had a calm and nice Shabbes and I wish you a good new week!

3 Questions

Question 1:
What is it with men and remote controls? My husband is a little technical freak, he loves technology, always wishes to have the newest gadgets and loves to have a remote control to everything. One for the soundsystem, one for the media system, one for the TV, one for the TV-card in the computer, one for the lights and that´s just the living room! On our livingroom table we have 5 active remote controls! And no you can´t combine them in one, apparently they are already combined with things that I don´t know.... I am just waiting for the moment where he will find a remote control for his wife :D

Question 2:
How can people go to sleep between 9 and 11pm on a daily basis? How can they find time for themselves? Let´s say you work until 5 (which I don´t think many people do) and let´s say you are not having children, so you might be home by 5:30, cook until 6:30, eat until 7:30 maybe hang a laundry or iron until 8:30, who can go to sleep at 9pm? Let´s say you are having a class after work, so you are maybe home at 9pm, eat something small and clean up a bit until 10pm, who can just go and sleep without having any time to read, watch tv, surf the net or blog? I don´t know, I never manage to be in bed before midnight, most nights it is around 12:30 - 1pm. I asked people at work when they go to sleep and they all said between 9 and 11pm and I just wonder how? When do you go to sleep???

Question 3:
How can you not be in touch with your family and say you are having a good contact? We had a discussion at work the other day. One of the guys said that he didn´t see his parents and siblings since Christmas. So naturally I asked where do they live? They live 10min away from him. He says that they have a really nice contact and talk on the phone maybe once a month, they meet on Christmas and Eastern. I was shocked! Then another guy said that he has just nothing to talk to his mom, he only picks up every fifth call of her, beside the weather they have no common subject and he never calls her, since she calls him. Then a girl said, that she hasn´t been in touch with her family since 15 years when her father passed away, there were some issues they just couldn´t work out. Then a woman (she is about 50) said, that she visits her parents once a month but it is a "must" nothing she really wants and it bothers her. By then I was sitting in total shock. I know that people in the north might not be as family oriented as people in south of Europe, but almost every one of my co-workers does not have close contact with their family. I see my husbands family at least once per week on Friday night for Shabbes, Mr. J.S. talks to his mom almost every day, when we lived in Switzerland we met my parents and siblings at least once a week, I talk to each one of my family members individually at least once per week (this includes my father, my mom, my sister, my brother and my grandmother). Since I moved here 5 months ago, both my sisters and my mom came to visit me and I went home once. Is this because we are Jewish? Are Jewish families having a stronger band per se? How can you bring up children and when they leave the house not keep in touch, not try as much as possible that the siblings keep in touch, that the cousins and grandparents are in touch?

Curious to read your thoughts!

Have a good week everybody!

Writing

Writing is therapeutical. No big news I guess. But I only came to realize this some time ago. It quite often happens lately that I sit down, compose posts about subjects that bother me and after I´ve written it all down, I feel either silly to be even bothered or if I am lucky I am seeing the solution chrystal clear in front of me.

Yesterday I wrote a long post about school systems and my life and my dreams, I got frustrated during the writing and then when I read through it again, I felt silly. My life is almost like a dream. I married the man I love and still love and I am being loved back, I have a great family and great friends, I am lucky to find a job whenever I want, whenever I move to another country, and so on and on and on.

So far I never posted the posts I thought were silly at the end or nothing interesting to read as I don´t like to complain about my life. Now I decided that I will never the less post this one. So happy reading and I am curious about your thoughts:

Studying, working, family …… just a few thoughts

Soon it is time to apply at the different universities if one wants to start to study end of August. As many of you know, studying has been a dream for me, well; it still is even if things didn´t turn out as planned.

(for my new readers: Mr J.S. and I planned to study in Eastern Europe, but for several reasons it didn´t work out, my studies never started, it´s a long story and if you are interested drop me an email ; my husband failed some of his exams, so we moved to Scandinavia)

So now I am thinking again about studying and what I should do with my life. Some things never change! There are several obstacles that keep me from studying. The biggest one is that I don´t have a gymnasium degree which is the most important and is mandatory to have if one wants to study in Sweden. The Swiss school system is totally different; I went to business school after 9^th class, for 3 years, it´s an apprentice ship. I worked for 3 days and went to school for 2 days per week. After 3 years I passed the exams and got the federal diploma. Later on I studied marketing and communications in a higher education institute, after 2 years I passed the federal exam and got the federal diploma. In Switzerland the federal diplomas are the most important ones, unfortunately they are not internationally comparable and only useful in Switzerland. After I completed my marketing studies I couldn´t find a job in my field. As I didn´t want to become unemployed I accepted a job opportunity as an executive assistant for one of the board members of a large Swiss company. In the beginning I wanted to continue to look for a job in my field but when time went by I just stayed in my job, I liked my boss, the people and the money, I earned ridiculously much and thanks to that I could afford to travel a lot, stop working, move to Hungary etc. The problem is that I didn´t gain any experience in my field since ending my studies. Towards the end I was really getting frustrated with my job, the tasks, not the boss or the people. I was looking forward to a change in life, to join my hubby and study as well. As you all know plans don´t always work out and we made yet another change in life.

When we moved to Scandinavia, I found almost immediately a job. Again as an executive assistant, this time for two of the managers in one of the biggest world-wide companies. I was very lucky and very grateful. But it didn´t take long and I got frustrated again. Not with my bosses and not with the people but with the tasks. I feel like I am loosing my mind as I never use it. I am working like a robot, done everything a thousand times. What I forgot to mention before was that I studied marketing and communications as I wanted to change my job, as I was frustrated of being an assistant, thought I would take my life in my hands for a change. Well, here I am again, 7 years and 2 countries later.

Oh wow, this starts to become a really frustrated post. I am sorry, but it´s good to get it all out.

So now what? I can´t stop thinking about studying, I am surfing the net and try to come up with the perfect solution. First of all I don´t know what I want to study, I don´t know what would make me happy, what I would want to do day in – day out. The most logic would be to continue in direction marketing and communications, maybe add media. But how would I ever get a job (after I studied), that would probably mean to start as a trainee again, start from the bottom. The other option would be to change totally, use my talents, maybe do something in the area of languages, teaching or tourism. But payments in these areas are really low. I am feeling kind of trapped.

Let´s say I decide what to study, then I would probably have to obtain a gymnasium degree first. There is one more obstacle, I can´t do math. Never could, always just somehow went by, and always thought I will anyhow never use it as I would never want to work with anything that has to do with math. So I stopped math after 9^th grade that was 16 years ago. Not only did I stop, I also never understood it in the first place. So how the hell will I ever understand it now? And if I want to study I probably need math A (the lowest level). This makes me feel so stupid sometime.

Ok, now I gotta stop and think about all the things that I can and try to focus to find a solution. Feeling sorry for myself will not take me anywhere.

There are many obstacles in my way and I am not sure I will be able to overcome them. Life as an executive assistant might be frustrating but it is paying the bills and I will always find a good-paid job. We are planning to start a family (once we landed on our feet and can actually breath again), how could I combine studies with children, how would we afford all this?

At the end of this post, when reading it again, I feel silly and can only smile. I am happy, I am happy with where I am, I just have to find a solution to deal with my frustrations at work, maybe I should rather talk to my bosses and ask if I can be involved in a project or if they could add some other tasks to my job. Guess that’s what I will do!

Thanks for listening, it helped a lot to just write down all my thoughts!

Update of my week

It´s been a busy week again! so here a short update on how life is right now.

We unpacked almost all the moving boxes, there are maybe 7 left now, and a huge mountain of laundry as I want to wash all the towels and linens before using them again.

On Wednesday I had a test in Swedish to see where my language knowledge level is, it is an official state test that I took because I wanted to change from private school to public school. So far I payed for all my Swedish courses myself and went to a private school, it was pretty expensive but worth it, I learnt a lot in those 4 months. Now I feel it is time to change to public school and take lessons for free. I applied for the highest level of Swedish as a foreign language and of course they called me and wanted to test my knowledge. It was a very weird feeling to go there and put all my knowledge all I studied for in the past 4 months on the table and get a result. Well, I passed the test and am enrolled now for the level I wanted!!!

Yesterday I finished reading my first book in Swedish. It was a Swedish novel playing in Stockholm, the book has 325 pages and I finished it in one week! I am pretty proud of myself that I can read and understand a novel in Swedish and basically read as fast I do in other languages. Of course it is not some high literature but still I am very glad!

After the test on Wednesday I decided it was time to go to the hairdresser. When unpacking my boxes I came across a lot of pictures and saw my different hair styles and hair lenghts that I had over the past 12 years. Right now I have pretty long (the longest I ever had) hair, it looks nice, but I felt for a change. So I sat down and we started talking about how we could cut my hair and what would look good and all of the sudden I regretted it. I got up and left, without cutting on single hair. I have never done that before in my life, but it just didn´t feel right. And I am glad I didn´t do it. It is no fun to cut the hair by 15 or 20cm, that´s like waiting for it to grow again, either I have it long or short. Well, for now I stay with long :)

It keeps snowing and being freezing cold. We have to scrape the car every morning outside and even inside! But during daytime it looks fantastic, winter wonder land! Luckily the darkness is less and the days are longer, the snow brightens up the days and we can finally feel we go towards spring, even if covered in snow.

I wish you all a gut Shabbes and a nice weekend!

new home - new rules

Last night we had my in-laws over for a traditonal Swiss dinner, called Raclette. My sister brought a huge amount of cheese with her last weekend when she was here, so we decided to invite my husbands family to share the joy of Raclette.

What does this have to do with new rules you might ask. It´s about Kashrut. I grew up eating kosher at home. We are a traditional family, not keeping Shabbos, yet we all went to Jewish school and Friday night we had Shabbos dinner. As kids we would go to Shul every Shabbos morning, but we would drive there, yes totally double standard. The only time we wouldn´t drive is on Yom Kippur. So, I grew up this way and what can I say, even if it all doesn´t make sense and my parents had a funny way of choosing what mitzwot they liked and which they didn´t, this feels right for me.

Then I met my husband, he is from a traditional family, yet their main focus lays on the yom tov´s. They are not eating kosher at all and never have a kiddush on Shabbes evening. Mr. J.S. went to Jewish school for 9 years and to Jewish summer camp for I-don´t-know-how-many-years. So, he knows how to do everything, he knows the rules of Kashrut, etc. but never practiced it. When we met, I only had a set of milchig dishes, I would eat meat only at my mom´s so there was no reason to have a fleishig set.The big thing that disturbed me was that he ate pork, but he stopped that immediately after we met. But he would mix fleishig and milchig and made me think that maybe it was time for me to change. Please don´t misunderstand this, he would never ever tell me what to do or how to eat etc. He would never suggest me to mix food or not to stick to my kashrut rules. It was me who started the process of thinking. It was a process of 3 years, during which we had only one set of dishes and used it for both, during which he mixed milchig and fleishig and I tried once, I felt awful and guilty and needless to say didnt´t repeat it.

And then we bought our apartment and I just told my husband, that´s it, now we change and have kosher at home! He agreed without any discussion, I even think he likes it ;) and for me it just feels right.

But I wonder why. Why does it feel right, cause that´s how I grew up? Why is keeping kosher, having kiddush on Friday night and celebrating yom tov so important to me? Why does it disturb me to see another jew eat pork but I have no problem driving on shabbos? I guess it all can´t be explained by logic, I have no other answer.


(ok, I failed making the connection to Raclette, let´s leave that to another time :D)

Our stuff arrived!!!

All our goods arrived today. This means that now we have ALL our things in one country!!! This was never the case before.

I skipped Swedish-class today, I just wanted to go home after work and see our boxes and of course start unpacking! I can´t wait to unpack - it feels like birthday and channuka together. I haven´t seen the things I packed for a year.

Many of you probably remember how stressed out I was last year when I started packing. It was just too much, I had a burn-out from work and the weekly travelling back and forth to Hungary (Mr J.S. and I lived in different countries for 18 months) took its toll on me. On top of it I also planned our wedding and had some medical issues (which were probably a result of all the stress). Seeing all these boxes now in our new home, I can´t help but think back and remember how I felt, how weak I was and how much happend since. Today I went to my former blog and read a bit what I did a year ago, I remember every feeling of each moment. I am so grateful I wrote it all down in my blog!

But, now it is time to start the unpacking - kitchen will be first!

Problem solving the Swedish way

Once again I was astonished how the Swedish government is solving problems.

In Sweden you can pay cash when you enter a bus or a subway. Meaning there are no machines where you can buy tickets. Either you have a yearly or a monthly card or you buy single tickets in advance or you can pay when entering the bus or subway. Of course this lead to many burgleries, often bus drivers were robbed at night.

At a certain point the bus drivers had enough and went on strike! Yay - we all used the public transport for free. Which of course annoyed the people with the monthly and yearly cards....

Since yesterday there is a new solution to the problem! Instead of installing expensive machines at every station, they raised the ticket price when paying cash. And they didn´t raise it by a bit, no no, now a ticket costs double the price. only if you pay cash. This is their way of convincing and forcing people to pre-buy tickets and keeping thives away. New is also that you can buy your ticket with your mobile phone via text message, the ticket is one third more expensive than if you would pre-buy your ticket. If you pre-buy your ticket you get it even cheaper than the previous bus price! So, guess what I do; I follow their wish and pre-buy my tickets :)

I find this a very innovative solution, definitely cost saving. But I am not sure if the burglery will stop, since now the thives could get double as much.......

friendships, boxes and snow

Thanks a lot for all your supportive and creative ideas regarding my last post. Finding new friends is really hard, meeting new people is pretty easy and most people are talkative, but to find the people you connect with and have a lot in common is a lot more difficult and will probably take a long time.

Last night I went for a drink after class with some people from my previous Swedish course. It was fun, we talked, shared our experiences with the Swedish culture and how we are trying to integrate. You always have a lot to talk to people which are in the same situation and are experiencing the same cultural differences. But is this enough to build a friendship? How often can we go for drinks and talk about how we found our jobs and what we did before we moved to Sweden? And do I want to hang out with foreigners or should I integrate more with Swedes? Of course it is a lot easier to find friends among foreigners as they are also looking to find friends. I met a nice Austrian girl in my second Swedish course that I took back in November, we’ve been taking the same classes since and I feel that I really connect with her. Soon we will go out with our husbands and hopefully they will also get along :)

I’ve been thinking a lot about this topic and your comments helped me a lot too. I came to realize that I don´t want to hang out with people for the sake of hanging out. I want to go out with interesting people that I and Mr. J.S. have things in common with. It will take time to find new and old good friends and that’s ok, we are in no rush :)

What else is new? Oh, our goods have been collected in Switzerland last week and will hit the road by truck tomorrow. 33 boxes will arrive here next Thursday. I can´t even remember what I packed in those 33 boxes. I know that about 9 boxes are my kitchen stuff. And about 2 boxes are photo albums and decoration material. Some are clothes, some are shoes, about 10 are Mr. J.S. computer stuff, or at least that’s how I labelled them :), but 33 boxes? That’s a lot of boxes!!! But at least then we will have ALL our stuff in one country again. I better find space for 33 boxes as we don´t have a storage room yet (we are on the waiting list for one…) Guess I will be going to IKEA again and buy an additional wardrobe. I anyhow need to buy some other stuff for the apartment. Good that my sister is coming tomorrow!

Other than that there is still a lot of snow and it looks like it is going to stay for a while. Stockholm looks like winter-wonderland, which is beautiful and romantic, especially since during the couple of hours that we have light, the sun is shining!

Weekend update and a question

The floor is done! I can´t believe it, but we really did it!

Friday we took off from work and finished with everything! It helped that today (Sunday) was my MIL ´s birthday and we hosted the dinner. Well, everything needed to be ready by today!

Yesterday was our first wedding anniversary! I can´t believe that already a year passed, so much happened this year and it felt like 3 years, but on the other side it felt like yesterday. This was our civil wedding anniversary. Our Jewish wedding was in July, which means we are celebrating twice :) Why two wedding?

In most countries in Europe state and religion are separated, meaning that if you want to get married, you have to get married civil. If you wish you can get married religiously too, but in any case you have to go first and sign the official papers. Usually people get married civil the day or during the week before the Chuppah (or church), but in our case we decided to get married once in each country. So the civil wedding was a year ago in Sweden. It was snowing like crazy, my whole family flew in on Thursday night, we got married on Friday morning, it took exactly 32 seconds and then I had a new name..... In the evening we had a Shabbes dinner at my MIL. It was nothing big and yet a big change in my life. The chuppah and wedding party was last summer in Switzerland, where Mr. J.S. family flew in and we celebrated again a whole weekend long. This winter was very mild so far, almost no snow, but last evening around 6pm it started snowing and when we went for our anniversary dinner we had like 30 cm of fresh snow on our car :) We felt like a year ago - it was fantastic!

Today we cleaned and cooked and at 4pm the whole family came over for dinner. The apartment looks really great and I am so glad we changed the floor to a wooden floor, even in the kitchen, where everybody told us not to do it. It looks amazing and I LOVE our apartment. There is lots left to do, lots of details, lamps and curtains are missing etc. Luckily next weekend my sister is coming and we will go to some furniture shops together, I can´t wait to get her advise on how to decorate and what to buy.


Tomorrow I am starting my Swedish language course again. I am very much looking forward to that. On one side it is very helpful to have lessons to improve my language skills and on the other side it is a great place to meet people. Our social life was very poor so far. My husband doesn´t have friends here anymore, he lived abroad for almost 6 years and after a while he didn´t keep in touch. I have one friend here that I know since my childhood, but they have two children and we don´t meet too often. I am used to have lots of friends and meeting friends often. So far I didn´t miss not having friends here too much, we were busy deciding where we want to live, then we were busy finding an apartment and then we were busy renovating and furnishing it. We are both very family oriented and spent most of our free time with Mr. J.S. family. But now I feel the time has come for us to build a social life and meet new and old friends. My husband will call up some old friends and I hope to build some friendships and strengthen some of my Swedish class. I am not ready yet to mingle with the Jewish community here, I feel like my husband should first make some calls and talk personally to some of his old friends before I start to be active int he community. I am sure it is just a matter of time until I feel comfortable and until we meet some of his old friends.

But anyhow, how do you meet new friends in a new country? Any ideas?

why I hardly blog and comment these days.......

Because our apartment looks like this right now!It is a construction area and it is driving me nuts, so we work night and day (besides our full time jobs, visits from family and the gym) to finish the floor as soon as possible.

Yay - my baby-sister visited me!!!!

Yes, it worked out, she got a free ticket and only had to pay for airport taxes. (She got the ticket through a friend of my mom who works for this airline.)

It was a fantastic weekend! As I said in my title she is my baby sister (I have two sisters and one brother). She is only 17, in her eyes she is totally grown up, she is studying to become a hotel manager, working at a 5-star hotel in the event department while studying and earning her first money. But for me she is my baby sister and will always be. She is very cuddly and hugging, so we were like glued together for 2 days :D.

It was her first airplane travel all by herself. But I think my father (who brought her to the airport) was more nervous than her. He actually told the check-in lady that she might need a stewardess to show her the way, he also told all the people around that this was her first travel alone and that SHE is very nervous. She tried to tell him to stop in hebrew (Aba, maspik!!!) but it didn´t help. But then again, my father is always nervous when anybody in the family is flying, yet he is always saying that WE are nervous.

We basically did what we would do on a normal weekend in Zurich. Go shopping, more shopping, yes, still shopping, eat sushi (back at home we would do them together, I introduced her to sushi a year ago and now she is a sushi-lover just like me), hang out, cuddle on the sofa. Talk about boys and all that goes with it. Share the latest gossip. She would go out, I would pick her up. Once she´s back home we would eat some chips or chocolate or ice cream, talk some more, hug some more. And than say "laila tov". Luckily Mr. J.S. has a baby brother too, same age, 4 months older. She joined his friends, she knew them from previous visits and they all had a good time. It didn´t feel like she lived in another country, a 2.5 hours flight away. It felt like a normal weekend where she stayed over and would just go home.

Saying good-bye was sad, she cried, I didn´t until I was back in the car. I will see her in April, when I go home for Pessach, but it just isn´t the same!

Lucky me, I get a visit of my other sister in 2 weeks!!! She also got a free ticket from my moms friend. So, I have lots to look forward too, I can´t wait to see her. She is not a baby, even though younger than me (29) she has a kid of 10 years, works as an managing director for a non-profit organisation and is studying for her post graduate. She is a tough cookie and I am glad to call her my sister and my best friend.

I wish you all a good new week, with lots of sunshine and little snow (it just started snowing here, so I guess we will get some Winter after all!)

Shavua tov

Wedding anniversary gift

Next week, 20th January, is our first civil wedding anniversary. Yesterday I received an early anniversary present. Mr. J.S. bought me a GPS/Navigation system!!!!

I have no orientations sense at all and wouldn´t find my way around Stockholm without him by myside. I guess he got a bit tired of me being so dependent on him and always being my chauffeur. So my, navi as I called it, was in action today. It was fantastic and I can´t imagine driving without it ever again.

I am very scared of driving on high ways, I don´t like the speed and I don´t like changing lanes etc. This was not always like that. When I made my driving license with 18 all was fine, when I lived in the Swiss alps I would drive up and down the alps, use the highway and usually drive over the speedlimit. And then something happend, I can´t put my finger on it. It wasn´t one accident particularly. I was hit by two cars in different accidents, while I was standing at a red light when I lived in Israel. But that can´t be the reason, since I wasn´t driving on the highway and I am not scared of driving in the city. Since my 4 years in Israel I don´t like to drive anymore. So, my guess is, that the crazy driving style of the Israeli´s scared me so much that unconsciously I am scared in all countries.

When I lived in Jerusalem, a friend of mine told me that she would never drive outside the city, she would never drive to Tel Aviv even, I was shocked by this and couldn´t understand how somebody with a driver license would say such a thing. And now I feel the same way. When my hubby was in Oslo for work I wouldn´t take the car to work myself, I rather use the subway and walk...... how could I become like this?

Well, by buying me this navigator my hubby wants to give me support and help me drive again. Today, I drove home from work, with him by my side of course, and it wasn´t fun, evening traffic and crazy drivers, but I drove and we arrived safely. So, I guess I will just drive more often, until I gain confidence again, I don´t know what else I can do. Any suggestions?

On other news: our 17 boxes from Hungary arrived, I could hardly believe that they all arrived! So, I have been unpacking and sorting and trying to find place for everything. Next week the movers will go and pick up our stuff in Switzerland, which will hopefully be delivered 2 weeks later.

Today we joined the gym, it is just across the street from our new home and we both HAVE TO go there at least twice a week. We both gained some weight and weren´t slim from the beginning, so now we have to loose weight, eventhough we hate to work out. They all say that you come to a point where you will have fun with it, I don´t believe that and so far I never reached this point, not even when working out. Soon the golf season will start, so at least then we get a workout with fun.

I booked our tickets to Switzerland for Pessach. I am so happy that we will be in Zurich this year, I love Pessach with my family. It is double great as my sister in law is pregnant and it is the first time we´ll see her and my brother and sis-in-law will also be in Zurich and not in Israel as in previous years, so for once we get the whole family to be together!

My sister is probably coming for a short weekend visit this weekend and if I am lucky my other sister will come the last weekend of the month. I miss them soooo much and can´t wait for them to come here. The other day I was at IKEA with hubby and all of the sudden I got so extremely sad, I couldn´t hold back my tears, Mr. J.S. asked what was wrong and I said (sobbing with tears running down my cheeks) I miss my sisters so much! He wanted to send me to Switzerland the same weekend, but that wouldn´t help as I want them to be here and choose new things for our new apartment. So I truly hope it will work out for them to come.

So, any suggestion about my driving problem? Anybody been in the same situation? I am grateful for any advice.

I am old

Yesterday night I came to realize that I am old, you can also call it grown up, but for me it feels like I am old.

We were in bed, I was reading a book, Mr. J.S. was watching something on the sports channel and I felt like in one of those TV series. The only thing missing were reading glasses for me! I felt like we are grandparents and not newly wed´s!!!

The last couple of weeks have been pretty much life changing. We bought an apartment, furnished it with matching furniture, decorated it cutely and soon we will renovate some stuff. I am even pre-cooking lunch-meals for Mr. J.S. to take to work!!!

All this is so grown up. My life until 15 December was always filled with spontanious actions which would change my life, move here and there, furnishing with whatever we could, never spent money on really nice furniture as you never know how long we are going to live in the place. Never bought anything expensive, spent money on travels only, etc.

So on one side this feels amazing, I am where I wanted to be and am living my dream. On the other side it is shocking, I am grown up now, I am one of them - I am part of a smugged married couples!

Is it just me or does everyone have a moment in life where they feel that NOW they are grown-ups???

L´chaim to a new episode in life!!!

Ten years ago….

Exactly today, ten years ago was one of my biggest days in life.

I made Aliyah!

Here´s a bit of history:

My mom is Swiss by birth, but made Aliyah in 1968 at the age of 18. My father is Israeli by birth, born in Teheran and made Aliyah as a baby. Now here´s a short story how my parents met.

It was not in Israel! My father used to work for ELAL security in Switzerland and lived at my grandmother’s apartment; she would rent out rooms to young Israeli’s. My mom lived in a Kibbutz and came home for a visit. She didn´t meet my father at home! My mom and dad went to the same Jewish student party that night and met there, not knowing that my father is sub-renting a room at my grandmother’s house. That’s how they met, 3 weeks later my father proposed and a year later they got married in Israel. For economical reasons they decided to stay in Switzerland for a couple of years and go back to Israel when they made some money. Sadly they are still living in Switzerland and I think they both regret they ever left Israel.

I grew up, always thinking that we will go home soon. It was like living with packed suitcases and just waiting for the moment to return to Israel. (Of course we didn´t actually have packed suitcases). Every year we went for Pessach, Summer break and the high holidays to Israel, we stayed with my cousins and aunts and uncles and of course grandparents and all the time we referred to Israel as our home. It was a fantastic childhood!

But the years went by and we didn´t make Aliyah, so I decided to take it into my own hands and make Aliyah alone (well not completely alone as I had many friends making Aliyah at the same time), maybe the family would follow then! My father came with me to Israel on 5^th January 1997, first we stayed with our family for a week and then we went to Ulpan Etzion where I stayed for 3 months. I spoke so good Hebrew that the guards at the gate thought that I was a teacher, unfortunately my writing skills were almost inexistent. I felt like living my whole families dream. A Swiss TV team asked me if they can film me for a documentary movie, of course I agreed. They interviewed my mom as well and when they asked her if she wasn´t afraid that her daughter is living in Israel, her answer was: “I was more afraid with 3 children in a Jewish school in Switzerland!”

I lived in Israel for almost 4 years. There is no real reason why I returned and yet there are hundreds. My parents got divorced after 25 years of marriage, my siblings took it very hard and my brother called me a couple of days after they told them and said: it’s hell, you have to come home! Needless to say, I was on the next plane to Zurich.

I actually just planned to go to Switzerland for a couple of months, to be with my family and use the time to work and make some money, gain distance from a boy I broke up with and then return. I kept my apartment, my furniture, most of my stuff, etc and only sublet my room (I was living in a rental apartment in Tel Aviv with roommates). Well, I never went back for good, again for no real reason, I got a well-paid and interesting job, stayed longer than planned, enjoyed being around my family, felt that my family needed me and at the end I resigned my apartment contract in Israel.

The funny thing is that I was never able to make the big move of all my stuff back to Zurich. Every time I went to Israel and every time one of my Swiss friends would come to visit, I/they would bring things. Most of my furniture and electronics I sold. At the end only books and some photo albums were left. Until this day they are stored at my best friend’s house. Somehow it makes me feel good to know that I still have something left in Israel, not sure how to explain this feeling.

My brother made Aliyah a couple of years later, but returned 8 months later engaged with his (now) wife. Same reasons as my parents; make some money and then return. They lived in Switzerland for 3.5 years now, they are awaiting their first child, she adapted very well to Switzerland, both have great jobs and they travel 2 – 3x a year home, to Israel. Some things never change.

I feel very melancholic today. Ten years ago, it´s a long time and yet I don´t feel much different today than I did on the day of my Aliyah... Again I am in a new country, trying to make it work, it is not Israel and not comparable to the feeling of Aliyah, it´s different, I am married now, owner of an apartment, planning to start a family, I guess I do feel a bit different….

Welcome & here we go again!

Welcome to my new blog!

I guess many of you know me from my previous blog which I stopped on 31 Dec 2006.
I know, I know, it was just 2 days ago. The reason why I stopped is that I felt that I was too much "out there". Too many people I know, friends and family, were reading my blog and I started to feel unconfortable with the situation. My life during the past 3 years resembled more a roller coaster than anything else and blogging was a great source for me to process all the things, good and difficult, that were going on my life. But now I hope that my life will be a bit calmer and I can relax a bit.

For my new readers, here a snapshot of the past few years:

July 2003: I meet Mr. Jewish Smörgåsbord, a Jewish Scandinavian living in Switzerland
September 2004: Mr. JS, my boyfriend at that time, moved to Hungary to study Medicine and I start to travel back and forth every other weekend.
February 2005: Mr. JS, still my boyfriend, comes back to Switzerland for one Semester
August 2005: Mr. JS asks my to marry him and I say YES
September 2005: Mr. JS, now my fiancé moves back to Hungary to continue his studies and I start my weekly travels again
January 2006: I quit my job in Switzerland in order to follow Mr. JS
January 2006: we get civil married in Sweden (law in most European countries to get civil married and if you wish you may get religiously married too)
April 2006: I move to Hungary to follow my legal husband (:D)
July 2006: we get married under the Chuppah in Zurich, Switzerland (my home country)
September 2006: we decide to leave Hungary for a semester and try life in Sweden
December 2006: we decide to stay in Stockholm, buy an apartment and try to live a good life.

Well and here I am now! Very happy, very exited, in a new country, with a new apartment, a new job and now also a new BLOG!

Hope you will join me on my new chapter here in Sweden!

(and now I have to go and help Mr. JS help screw together an Ikea sideboard.....)