Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  I have so much to be thankful for... my amazing family and friends, foreigner, health, happiness, the experience of living in Sweden, and everything I have been so lucky to have in my life.  I'm sad that I am not able to spend thanksgiving with my family but being away really helps me realize how blessed and thankful I am for the life God has given me.

This is not my first thanksgiving without my parents.... I remember one thanksgiving that they were in Europe and we stayed with my Nana.  We had thanksgiving at my Aunt Linda's house and my parents called and told us they had hamburgers for thanksgiving dinner!  This is also not my first thanksgiving without my sister.  Michelle was in Italy a few years ago.  It isn't even my first thanksgiving out of the country because we celebrated thanksgiving in Costa Rica with the Havlicek's a few years ago, but it is my first thanksgiving without my brother Christopher.. unless you count before he was born which I don't remember!  I am so thankful that I have been able to have so many different thanksgivings and that I have always been able to spend them with the people I love.

I was going to make some thanksgiving food for Foreigner and I but I decided it was too much work for two people.  Instead I made my Nana's german potato salad, which I love and it always reminds me of home.

I hope you all have a blessed and thankful Thanksgiving and if you are spending it at my Mom's house I will be able to see you through video chat!

Some past Thanksgivings:

My mom is never in pictures because she is always taking them!

Happy Thanksgiving at my house with Michelle, Nana, Aunt Cindy, Mom, Me, Julie, Tony, Emily, Uncle David, and My Dad.

I don't even know if this was thanksgiving but he sure makes a cute indian 

(native american... whatever is correct to say)!

Thanksgiving was a lot warmer for us in Costa Rica!

"When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around."
-- Willie Nelson

Blizzardy Pizza

Sweden has been quite snowy the last few days and yesterday was pretty much a blizzard.  We had no food in the apartment and neither of us felt like braving the snow to go to the store... so what were we going to do?  After much anguish I had the idea for a pizza... little did I know that we would be walking there to pick it up instead of having it delivered. After hearing this I remembered that I hadn't had any pizza that I liked in Sweden since I got here... but what the heck I was starving! The "Pizza Express" is right at the end of the apartment complex, usually a two or three minute walk.... but it was more like ten minutes in the blizzard.  The pizza place had an "american theme" or at least it thought it did.  The "Chicago" pizza had TUNA on it!!  I have never seen a Chicago pizza with tuna... yuck.  Luckily for me though they had pan pizza, almost everywhere else here the pizza is really thin.  We decided on the "Dakota" and it was delicious!  It has mozzarella cheese, salami, bacon, and red peppers... it was definitely the best pizza I have had in Sweden.. by far!  I guess it was worth the walk in the blizzard.

Me with the pizza in the blizzard!

The American themed menu

Oh yeah there were olives too... I took mine off though

"Cola Light" in a glass bottle.  I love them!

Follow Christopher's New Blog!

My brother (copied me) started a new blog!  His is much different than mine, and he seems to be much better at consistently posting than I am!  He is a really creative and talented writer so you should all follow him too!  Here is the link:

Christopher's Blog! http://christopherantolakdaily.blogspot.com/

My brother and I at the Field Museum in Chicago!

Happy Birthday Dad!!

Today is my Dad's birthday!  I wish I could be there to celebrate with him (and have cake!)  He should have a fun night without me though... for the first time since his 40th birthday (you can do the math to see how long ago that was if you want) one of his favorites Duke Tomato (I guess it is really Duke Tumatoe but that looks so weird when I type it) is playing!  So him and my Mom are going with my Aunt Lynn, Uncle George, Uncle Joe, and Aunt Tina!  I hope that they all have a great time but especially my Dad on his big day!

                                 Duke TUMATOE

My Dad and I when my parents came to visit me in Sweden!

Happy Halloween!

Halloween is my all time favorite holiday.  I love everything about it, the movies, the costumes, haunted houses, decorations....  which is why I was HORRIFIED to find out that Halloween is not that big in Sweden.  Here is what a little something I found on about.com:

Halloween in Scandinavia: Traditions & Celebrations

How Do Scandinavians Celebrate Halloween? By Terri Mapes

While Halloween is very popular in the US, Scandinavia has only recently started to embrace Halloween and celebrate this annual event the way it is celebrated in other regions.

Halloween parties with scary costumes are now becoming much more popular with each year, and you will see Halloween-themed decorations and even a few pumpkins here and there. But, all in all, this day is still relatively quiet and you shouldn't expect this day to be a big event in the Scandinavian countries. 

Instead of wide-spread halloween decor and tick-or-treating, there is All Saints' Day after Halloween, a quiet holiday in memory of loved ones that passed away. All Saints' Day is a day of reflection. The long-standing tradition of lighting candles on graves is still widely practised by family members.

I asked around trying to figure out what people my age did for halloween and some people didn't even know when it was!!!  I then found out there was a student party which I couldn't go to because you have to have a student id.  Then I found out there was a BIG party at a student bar in town and I got so excited!  Unlucky for me it was already sold out so I told Foreigner that we would still dress up and watch scary movies... I had to have my Halloween.  At about 6pm that night Foreigner told me that he was able to get tickets to the party at the bar!  ( My hero!)  We rushed over to pick up the tickets and then rushed back home to get ready.  The night was a blast! The bar had a DJ, a Live band,  multiple rooms and bars, scary decorations, and a costume contest!  It was a great time!

Most people dress up scary here... I think we looked pretty scary!

creepy!

It was not easy to find decorations so I made some out of oranges, basil, and permanent marker!  My mom also sent me some great window and door decorations!

Finally got my charger!

On Nov. 1st I broke the charger for my computer... it died about 2 hours later which is why I haven't posted in so long.  Foreigner was nice enough to let me use his desktop but I didn't know how to load my pictures and stuff on there so I just figured I would wait until I got my new charger to blog.  Unfortunately Apple chargers are ridiculously expensive so I had to find one on the internet.. get it shipped to my mom and then she had to ship it to me... so finally today the package arrived!  Inside was my brand new charger AND some delicious peanut butter cups (my FAVORITE and they don't have them in Sweden :( ) and chapstick.  What a great day!  I promise I will take the time to catch you up on my life this weekend!

The package! (don't worry I took out the addresses!)

Yum!! I have the best mom ever!

Movie Night

On Thursday night I decided that I really wanted to go see a movie... so I walked to the movie theater in town and saw "The Social Network".  The movie was pretty good, I heard that it was REALLY GOOD, so I think that my expectations were too high.  It is always nice to see Justin Timberlake on the big screen though!  

The outside of the movie theater

The way you buy your tickets

The inside of the theater

The strangest thing about the movie theaters in Sweden is that you have assigned seats in the theater!  Luckily I was assigned a perfect seat in the middle!  Also, in case any of you are wondering, the movies are in English with Swedish subtitles.