9 MARCH 2007
Lycka Till, min kompis! (Good luck, my friend!) 
We spent February in Gothenburg working extra hard to make up for all of our recent travel time. We have enjoyed spending time with friends, sampling more of the local cuisine, and wading through snow! This month’s photo gallery has some highlight pics for the month.
Yummy Food
We have been enjoyed sampling more the local Swedish cuisine lately. We are also practicing our own cooking so that we can make some of these treats back in the U.S! Some of our favorites are:
Swedish Pankakor & Waffles: The Swedish version of pancakes and waffles are thinner and slightly sweeter than their American counterparts. Instead of syrup, jam or fresh fruit is used as a topping. Sometimes powdered sugar or cream is also included. So scrumptious!!
Semla: a cardamom-spiced wheat bun filled with a mix of the scooped out bread crumbs, milk and almond paste, and topped off with whipped cream. These delectable treats are available from Christmas to Easter. According to Wikipedia, each Swede consumes on average five bakery-produced semlas each year, in addition to all those that are home-made. So far, Steve has had about 10 and I’ve had three.
Senapsill & Knäckebröd: Senapsill is a mustard and herring spread. Herring is very popular here, and there are many ways that it is prepared. This is definitely one of the best we’ve tried (Steve loves it and Erica thinks that it is so-so). You can buy it at any grocery store. It is tasty served on Knäckebröd, which is a kind of crisp bread.
Köttbullar: The ever-popular Swedish meatball is one of Steve’s favorites. Here they are made with ground beef (sometimes mixed with pork), breadcrumbs, and onions. They are often served with gravy, boiled potatoes, and ligonberry jam…but not usually with barbeque sauce.
Swedish Cider: Not the cider your grandma makes. This oh-so-luscious beverage comes in varying levels of alcoholic content and flavor. Our favorite is pear, but we also enjoy wildberry, elderflower, and strawberry-lime.
Adventures in Movie-going
With all the snow, we have been getting cabin fever a lot, so we have been to two movies lately. Little did we know we were in for big adventures! The first was “Casino Royale,” which is the new James Bond movie. Half-way through, an alarm went off and because there was a fire in the student union!!! Of course I was scared and Steve was Mr. Cool. Then we got into the lobby and there was smoke everywhere, so we were both a little worried. It smelled suspiciously like popcorn (that must have been one HUGE batch!) While we waited out in the snow to be let back in, all the evacuees were singing and celebrating. Silly Swedes.
On our next adventure, we went to see “Apocolypto”; the new Mel Gibson movie about the ancient Mayans. Within the first minute, we realize that everyone in the movie is speaking some strange dialect (turns out to be Yukatek Mayan…not our forte), and all the subtitles are in Swedish. Oops…only 3 minutes into the movie and 2 hours and 15 minutes to go! We decided to brave it through and we actually understood a good 90% of the subtitles. It was a proud moment, even if we had made a rookie foreigner mistake!
Knowledge is Power
Steve and I are getting deeper and deeper into our studies here. Steve is still taking a full course load in Acoustical Engineering, and he recently started his master’s thesis. He will be researching how humans adjust their speaking voices as the background noise gets louder or changes. He will use the results to analyze how a person’s own voice contributes to their noise exposure.
I continue to do research on hospital noise. I started by examining how staff perceive noise in a neurological intensive care unit, and coming up with ways to quantify the very disturbing noise environment. I am now working with a team of specialists in environmental medicine, ICU patient syndrome, and nursing care to develop methods to test psychological and physiological responses of hospital staff and patients to noise.
We are both really enjoying our studies, the local culture, new friends, and exciting travels. However, we definitely miss all of you! We are looking forward to coming home this summer and seeing everyone again. We can swap meatballs and tales from 2006-2007!
