Växjö - Sweden

We visited Växjö, a lovely Swedish city, during in the autumn last year. It was not the first time we were there and I have already written about it here. The word Växjö means way in the lake and the city is surrounded by different lakes. The temperature was low but the weather was lovely with a really bright sky. This time we took the chance to walk more around the lakes and surrounding nature, and not so much in the city. We also visited Ingelstad again, where Johan's mother grew up.

Visitamos Växjö, uma pequena cidade sueca, durante o outono do ano passado. Não foi a primeira vez que estivemos lá e até já escrevi sobre isso aqui. A palavra Växjö significa caminho no lago e a cidade está rodeada por vários lagos. Estava frio mas o tempo estava bom, com um céu azul brilhante. Desta vez aproveitamos a oportunidade para passear mais ao redor dos lagos e na natureza em volta, e não tanto na cidade. Também visitamos novamente Ingelstad, onde a mãe de Johan cresceu.

Inglinge mound

Inglinge mound, in Ingelstad town located about 20 Km south of Växjö, is one of Småland's largest ancient remains, that goes back to the iron age, around 1100-500 AD. A circle of high stones surround the largest mound where there is a standing stone on top. Other small circles and can also be seen in the area. 

O monte de Inglinge, na cidade de Ingelstad a cerca de 20 km ao sul de Växjö, é um dos maiores restos antigos da região de Småland, que remonta à era do ferro, em torno de 1100-500 a. C. Um círculo de pedras altas cercam o monte maior onde há uma pedra em pé no topo. Outros pequenos círculos também podem ser vistos na área.

Ingelstad

 Rottnen lake

 Trummen lake, with Teleborg castle in the background

Teleborg Castle

Teleborg castle is a fantastic building that resembles a fairytale castle. Despite its medieval style it was only built in 1900 as a wedding present from Count Fredrik Bonde to his wife Anna Koskull. Nowadays it's used as a hotel and conference venue. Inside there's also a restaurant and it was exactly there we were heading. We had a three-course lunch to celebrate a birthday in the family and we even got the manager to tell us the story of the castle and show us around. 

O castelo de Teleborg é um edifício fantástico quase como um castelo de conto de fadas. Apesar do seu estilo medieval, foi construído apenas em 1900 como presente de casamento do conde Fredrik Bonde para a sua esposa Anna Koskull. Hoje em dia é usado como hotel e local para conferências. Lá dentro há também um restaurante e foi mesmo aí que fomos. Estávamos a celebrar um aniversário na família e experimentámos o menu de almoço com três pratos. Além disso a gerente esteve presente durante o almoço para nos contar a história do castelo e nos mostrar mais tarde o seu interior.

It must have been quite special to receive such beautiful castle as a gift. Recently, the Teleborg castle was also featured in the Swedish TV show Sjärnorna på slottet (it means roughly "stars in the castle"), in which stars from different areas lived there for a week and talked about each other's careers. Who wouldn't want to live in such place, with great views over the lake, the city and surrounded by this beautiful nature!

Deve ter sido bastante especial receber um castelo tão bonito como presente. O castelo de Teleborg foi usado recentemente no programa de TV sueco Sjärnorna på slottet (que significa "estrelas no castelo"), em que estrelas de diferentes áreas moraram por uma semana no castelo e conversaram sobre as suas carreiras. Quem não gostaria de morar ali, com aquela vista sobre o lago, a cidade e cercado por esta natureza tão bonita!

Unexpected winners

The winter olympics were fantastic and I really enjoy watching the different events. If I had to summarize these games I would call them the games of unexpected winners. 

Starting by Sweden which was at its best and finished the games with 14 medals: 7 gold, 6 silver and 1 bronze. Experts before the games had predicted around 8 medals in total.

The neighbour Norway was even more impressive conquering 39 medals, beating all other participating countries. Marit Bjorgen alone won 5 of those and became at the age of 37 the most decorated winter olympian of all times. She has won 15 olympic medals in total and 8 of them are gold. A living legend. 

But that was not unexpected. The following ones were.

Samuel Girard - Short-track Speedskating 1000m

During the semi final the commentators said that he wouldn't have a chance at the medal, but he went through to the final anyway. At the beginner of the final they said he was lucky to be there and wouldn't win. Then suddenly someone falls, dragging someone else along and there you go... Samuel Girard got the gold after all. Speedskating is fun exactly because of that - anything can happen. 

Photo from the internet

Ester Ledecka - Slalom Super G

The race was over, as the athletes left to compete were all ranked too low. Too low to win a medal, they all thought. The "winner" was celebrating, people were packing their things and the public started to exit the stadium. All this while Ester Ledecka was sliding down the hill. At first, the commentators pointed her mistakes with no interest but as they noticed how fast she was the enthusiasm grew. She ended up being the fastest crossing the finish line and was left in the middle of the snow, looking confused at the board. She just didn't believe she had won and thought it was a mistake, but the time was never corrected and the victory started to register. Skiing is not even her main sport, it is snowboard. Oh yeah, and by the way, a few days later she took the gold for snowboarding as well, becoming a remarkable two-sport history-maker. Way to go!!

Photo from the internet

Hanna Öberg - Biathlon

She is a young promising Swedish athlete and has been doing great, but no one could imagine or even dared to dream that she would take the gold at this early age. Biathlon consists of a combination of skiing and shooting (from 50m away) and a lot relies on the last part. Hanna is a great shooter and while top athletes failed their shots and had to take punishment rounds, she never missed one and headed straight for the finish line. She was very happy and surprised at the same time. Like she could almost not believe that it was true. Her colleague Mona Brorsson was even happier and their hug was my favourite moment in the whole olympics. A moment of pure and shared happiness. 

Photo from the internet

Emotion, tears, happiness, frustration and a lot of olympic spirit was what made the winter olympics in Pyeongchang. Now we have to wait another 2 years for some more olympic fun. 

A weekend away

It was a weekend but it could very well have been a full week, since it was quite intense. 

The plan was to fly to Porto on Friday to surprise my sister on her birthday. She had absolutely no idea we were coming, all she knew was that she was going to take a train to Porto after work. To make sure she wouldn't get suspicious I made up some story about having a party that day in Sweden and we spent the day before chating about what to wear and so on. 

On Thursday evening, around 9pm, we were starting to relax after all the packing when we got an sms informing our flight had been canceled. How nice... After a long time on the phone we managed to get rebooked on an even earlier flight, which we took after having slept less than 4h. We got to Porto after lunch and met my parents, who had travelled there from my hometown. My sister and boyfriend, who had arranged everything, came at the end of the afternoon and went to Catraio, a bar with crafted beer. My parents showed up soon after and surprised my sister. We waited 10 minutes to let her settle down on thinking that was it. But it wasn't. I came from behind and when she saw me I could see through her eyes how the information was slowly registering in her brain. It was really funny to see her reaction and all she managed to say was "it can't be you because you have a party in Sweden". The evening continued with dinner, where some of her friends also joined us. 

All in all, I think she had a really nice day and really enjoyed all the surprises.

Porto

Porto

On Saturday, the 6 of us travelled to to the heart of the Douro Valley, for the tasting and approval of our wedding party menu. On one hand it was strange to have one table settled in the middle of a giant empty room just for us, but on the other hand it was nice experience and the menu was more than approved by everyone. 

Afterwards we headed to Santo Tirso, the whereabouts of my sister's boyfriend. We walked around the town and ate the traditional sweets "Jesuítas", that are delicious. The day ended with a really nice dinner at his parents place. It was another day full of events.

On Sunday, before they all departed we walked around in Porto and enjoy the view and the fantastic weather - sunny and around 15ºC during the day. It was great to be able to walk around without any jacket on. 

When my parents, sister and boyfriend went back to their cities, the two of us did some shopping and ended up having a tapas dinner at our rented studio, while watching highlights from the winter olympics. 

We returned on monday to Sweden and were faced with -10 ºC. Quite a difference! However, we could finally go back to wear a t-shirt indoor, something we couldn't do in Portugal. 

Cooking and meal planning

I enjoy cooking and I like trying on new recipes, especially if they are different and come from other countries. It's just another way of travelling without having to pack your bags.

Nowadays, it is very easy to find recipes on the internet and supermarkets became more global over the years, so that it's easier to find exotic ingredients far from their original country. Of course is always better and more environmentally friendly to consume local products, but one should also take advantage of the large variety offered.

When I moved to Sweden, determined to change my life for better, I decided that I had to find a way to include "trying new recipes" in my routine. My shelves are full of cookbooks, collected during all of my travels, but the recipes were just not going from paper to the plate. That was when I decided to start planning our weekly dinners. At the beginning of the week, we decide what we are eating that week, taking the time to find some new recipes and repeat other old good ones. This may sound like a lot of work, but we are usually done in 20 minutes, plus we save loads of time in the supermarket, and we almost never throw food away, since we always buy what we need for each recipe. On top of that was a bonus advantage. Since we see our meals written down on our wipe-off board, it is easy to notice if the meals are not balanced and we can correct that. What I mean is that we usually make one dinner with meat, one with fish, one vegetarian, and one "fast but good". (Fridays are for comfort food, according to Swedish tradition, so we don't plan those.)

Somehow, this makes it easier to choose recipes, we feel that we eat more properly and varied food, and we try at least one new recipe per week and sometimes more. It is also quite nice to not have to ask each other "what's dinner today" everyday after work. It's not very good to make food decisions when we are tired and hungry...

Apparently, the language I write things in changes according to the source of the recipe...

The inspiration for new dishes doesn't come alone from my cookbooks, but also from the Swedish food magazine Allt om Mat (all about food), the website taste.com.au (from Australia, great recipes!), and from other pages and blogs.

My favourite new recipes get usually put it my recipes blog, so that I can access them from everywhere when I need them. That's my way to turn new recipes into old ones. Here are my most recent finds. All delicious of course!

Thai white bean stew with cucumber salad and yoghurt (recipe here)

Guisado de feijão branco tailandês com salada de pepino e iogurte

Parmesan chicken gratin with spinach (recipe here)

Gratinado de peitos de frango com parmesão e espinafres

Blood orange roasted chicken with sriracha sauce, served with fried rice and fennel (recipe here)

Frango assado com toranja e sriracha, servido com arroz e funcho

Sweet potato curry (recipe here)

This is one of my favourite recipes, I have already made it many times, it's just so good!

Curry de batata doce

Esta é uma das minhas receitas favoritas, e já a fiz muitas vezes, porque é mesmo mesmo boa!

 Cauliflower curry with peanut flavour served with naan bread. (recipe here)

The picture doesn't do it justice. The sauce is really rich in peanut flavour and is delicious!

Caril de couve-flor curry com sabor a amendoim servido com pão naan.

A imagem não faz justiça ao sabor. O molho é realmente rico em amendoim e é delicioso!

Homemade granola (recipe here)

Granola caseira

The granola was probably the best find we made. Store-bought granola is full of unnecessary sugars. This one is not. It makes a huge difference and we don't get hungry an hour after we ate it. The best part is to be able to vary the ingredients that go in it and make it to our taste. We will never buy granola again, because once you try your own it is just not possible to go back.

PS. I just realised none of the recipes were of fish! I did find some good ones, but didn't have the time to put them on the blog yet.

Sara Jump - Barca de Alva

A Sara Jump with the whole gang in Barca de Alva!

Barca de Alva, Portugal - December 2017

Barca de Alva, Castelo de Rodrigo - Portugal

In a previous post I showed you the beautiful Marialva and our amazing traditional lunch. After lunch we drove back meeting the Douro river and following it taking advantage of all the beauty that surrounds it. Around sunset we found ourselves at Barca de Alva, on the border to Spain and enjoyed the golden hour by the Douro river.

No post anterior mostrei a beleza de Marialva e o nosso maravilhoso almoço tradicional. Após o almoço iniciamos o nosso regresso, mas por estradas diferentes, cruzando-nos com o rio Douro e e aproveitando a paisagem. Quase ao pôr-do-sol estávamos em Barca de Alva, na fronteira com a Espanha e desfrutamos da hora dourada à beira do rio Douro.

 A map of the Douro river in tiles / O mapa do rio Douro em azulejos

 An old train bridge - on one side Spain on the other side Portugal

Uma ponte do comboio em desuso - de um lado Espanha e do outro Portugal

 A random viewpoint on the road / Um miradouro ao acaso na estrada

Afterwards we headed to Castelo Rodrigo, another historical village. It was already rather dark when we got there and the castle was closed. However, the lights were really nice and we could still enjoy the castle ruins. 

A segui fomos até Castelo Rodrigo, uma outra aldeia histórica. Já estava bastante escuro quando lá chegamos e o castelo estava fechado. No entanto, a iluminação está muito bem feita e ainda pudemos aproveitar a vista das ruínas do castelo.

This was our day trip around the north of Guarda and Portugal. There's much more to see and explore and even I fell that I have a lot left to see, although I lived in the region for many years. 

It somehow never ends and that is nice!

Esta foi a nossa viagem de um dia ao norte da Guarda e de Portugal. Há muito mais para ver e explorar e até eu tenho muito para ver, mesmo tendo morado na região por muitos anos.

De certa forma há sempre mais e isso é fantástico!

Sara Jump - Marialva

It started with me and my sister. Then Johan's brother joined us. Then my father also wanted. And finally our other Swedish visitor decided that he couldn't be left out.

Here is the result, a super fun Sara Jump!

Marialva, Portugal - December 2017