Late 2018 in Stockholm

2018 is now well over... Some news and some pictures from the end of the year in Stockholm !
With first a few additional pictures from October, taken by Dominique during her visit to Stockholm: at home, at school, and at skansen.

The biggest news on our side was that Eric started working in November. Very happy that he has found a job; it looks interesting, in a dynamic company which develops wind farms in (mostly) Scandinavia and his office is in Gamla Stan itself. Such a Swedish experience this is. 

Another news is that we finally made our way to the climbing gym, a mere 8 months after moving to Stokholm. The Klättercentre in Telefonplan is really nice, with lots of bouldering and tall walls, and as we sorted out how to pass our 'license to climb', we have now become quasi-Swedish climbers.

In mid-November, we also got our first inkling of snow ; this was real snow but fake for Stockholm, as it was brought in from the mountains to Kungsträdgarden. Ski resorts were trying to entice the city dwellers to the mountains. Had good fun on that snow !

In search of new indoor activities due to the increasingly cold temperatures and poor weather, we visited the sport museum and the police museum (which has a play room for kids, of course).

 We discovered Aspudden park - very nice with animals, a park house open on the week ends and a nice playground. It was getting chilly though and it was our last family outing on the bikes for the year!

And finally, we had our first sprinkle of snow on the ground. The kids were enthusiastic.

We also started to get in christmas-mode, with our first pepparkakshus and a young Jultomte at home. We miraculously managed to preserve the ginger bread house for a few weeks from the voracious youngsters, and when we finally started eating it, it disappeared in about 2 days - though to be fair, the adults also contributed to the eating.

Our friend Amy from Delhi attended a conference in Stockholm for a few days - so happy to meet up again !

On to December now ! We went to Antoine and Gaelle's house for a pepparkakor party, making and decorating cookies and houses. And eating plenty of ginger bread also of course.

We visited parts of the Nordiska museet with the kids; there is a nice play room there set up like an old farm.

Decenber 8th was Nobel day and the school had a lot of Nobel activities that week, with contests for different accomplishments, a celebratory ceremony, and a banquet. Ruben was enthusiastic about the physics competition, for which teams of kids had to build a paper bridge that could support the weight of books. Ruben designed and led the construction of the bridge in his team; this was the only bridge which passed the test and Ruben was very proud and happy to win the Nobel prize for physics !

We also went to the real pepparkakor land, visiting the annual exhibition / competition of ginger bread houses at ArkDes, the architectural design space. Really nice to see, a good number of very impressive pieces and some interesting contemporary pieces.

 Lunch at the nice cafetaria of the Moderna Museet before heading out to ArkDes.

And of course, there were some christmas concerts ! Here is Alexandre's forskola, with the kids dressed as Santa Lucia, as Pepparkakor, or as Santa Claus - Alexandre chose to go as Santa Claus. 

Alexandre also celebrated his birthday at school. There is a nice tradition where kids go around the sun, symbolized by a (electric) candle ; they do as many rounds as they are old, as the teacher reads anecdotes about each year of their life.

Here is the little story Eric prepared for the teachers to read:

Alexandre was born on December 26, 2013. He has the same birthday as his dad and his mom is born just before Christmas, so the family does a lot of celebrations together around Christmas.

When Alexandre was one, he started walking and his parents were soon running after him and his great friend Jules in the Parc.

At two years old, Alexandre watched the new year fireworks on the Eiffel Tower from his bedroom window. It was beautiful.

At 3 years old, Alexandre started skiing in Briancon in the Alps. His grandmother lives there, and he goes there every Christmas.

When he was 4 years old, Alexandre moved to Stockholm. He soon discovered Skansen, the fantastic tekniska museet, Leo Lekland and made new friends at his new school.

Soon he will be 5. We he grows old, he wants to become a sorcerer, just like Sophie…

An outing at the Fruit park.

We also went to partake in some of the Santa Lucia and christmas activities at Skansen. We ended up spending a good while listening to a folk concert with traditional Swedish instruments - very nice ! It was snowing hard that day and it was nice, though cold, to finally have a real snowfall.

 


Alexandre unfortunately fell sick that day.. This made for a very difficult week to manage as I had to go on a quick trip to Switzerland for work and as Eric was working hard trying to close on a contract at his job.
The one good point is that, as I had to stay home with Alexandre on the monday - trying to attend to my meetings whilst at the same time entertaining a grumpy boy, and then going to attend Ruben's christmas concert with the fritids, as the babysitter relayed me with Alexandre, and all of that before catching my late afternoon flight.. -, I got to see some of the beautiful post-snow scenery on our island. At that time of the year, the sun was rising at 8.40 and setting before 3 pm, so seeing any daylight was usually impossible during the workweek.
From our bedroom balcony.

Out in front of our building, over the bridge to Bromma, and on Stora hill above Griesparken.

For the fritids concert, half of the songs were in French and half in Swedish - quite a struggle for Ruben but he valiantly went with it !

As the week advanced, the weather of course 'warmed up' a bit and the snow disappeared.. quite a disappointment.

Our last week-end before the holidays, going out downtown for some shopping.

Till next year Stockholm !