Favourite Little Place in Djurgården: Rosenlunds Trädgård

 Greenhouse restaurant 

 Gorgeous Porcelain

Irresistible Easter Eggs

 Lisa and I at the garden in June

Lidingö Naturreservat

an amazing lone mushroom we saw

Dan perched on some rocks

 Dan collected some apples from a tree on the side of the road. 

shot of the autumn trees


Assorted Funghi

 Our booty

Dan and I decided to explore some other parts of Stockholm that we had not yet visited. We kept hearing an island, Lidingö mentioned as a beautiful place, and we were hoping to find some Swedish forrest food. Although we didn´t come across the sought after kantarell mushroom, which I have been using for soups, risottos and omelettes, we did find some delicious apples that are just in season. We also didn´t have much luck finding any wild swedish berries. In reality, we found lots of berries that were Swedish, but maybe not edible.

Beginnings in Knitting

My First Free Style Knit

I was inspired by a beautiful hat made out of hand spun wool on The Purl Bee website. My mom had made some hand spun wool for me, the colour of cotton candy, which I had been itching to use for months. I decided to try to use the same style of the hat on The Purl Bee, and to make a few changes. 

http://www.purlbee.com/fun-kids-hat/

Here is the link to the website, and this is a photo of what the original design looks like. 

I thought that the curled rim of the hat may be a bit childish if I changed the design to fit an adult, so I had to buy some extra white thick yarn to make a ribbed edge for my hat. After that, I tried to make some guesses as to how many more rows I would need, and also how much wider it would need to be. After some trial and error, here is the final product: 

While in Sweden, I decided to take up a new hobby. I don't know whether it was the long dark winter nights or the influence of all of the beautiful knitted items Swedes wear, but I decided to start knitting over October break.

Here are a few of the items that I started with - all scarves.

Second Project- Grey Cowl

During the summer, my mom and I decided to start a knitting project together. We chose a pattern from Tiny Owl Knits, a gorgeous cape with twisting cables and a hood to start with. Mom assured me that it would be 'no problem.' Needless to say, so far the project has been a challenge, but it is still coming along nicely.

Front side of cape

http://www.somerandomknit.blogspot.com/

Dan, escaping the cold streets.

Another amazing thing about Tallinn was the amount of cozy cafes that were around town. Each cafe that you go in to has something special about it. Whether it is the homemade chocolates, the ambiance and the music, the themed and tasteful decor, or just the friendly demeanor of the staff, each one had something different to offer. This was especially good, because about half of our trip budget must have went towards hot drinks - very necessary to survive when walking around outside in the cold all day long.

Christmas in Tallinn

We decided instead of going home for Christmas and enduring the canceled flights, dangerous weather and inevitable delays, that we would travel a short distance to Tallinn, Estonia for a short break.

Dan and I had no idea what to expect of Estonia. We booked two tickets at the Nutcracker ballet in advance, and left all of the rest of the planning until we arrived.

The streets of old town were filled with stalls and vendors, selling their handicrafts from the region. One of the neatest things that they made were called "Bear Pants." They are a knitted pair of pants or stockings that grandmothers in Estonia traditionally make for children. People in Estonia certainly know how to dress to keep warm. There is a lot of knitting and knitted products for sale here, but they specialize in multicoloured yarn that is felted.. and they make hats with amazing, adorable and sometimes astonishing detail.

Even though Estonia is apparently a very secular country, the most beautiful attractions in Tallinn have to be the churches. The Russian Orthodox church was just incredible - ornately decorated, and just very peaceful and quiet.

On our last day, we went to the Kadreorg Palace. The building was gorgeous and was filled with art exhibitions, mostly Dutch artists. We enjoyed the paintings and the beautiful painted ceiling and then took a stroll by the President's office and through the park and gardens surrounding the palace. Although it was bitterly cold, it was very nice to be able to walk through an actual forest in the middle of a city. Apparently in the summer the gardens are even more beautiful.
                                                                                                        

Ceiling at the Palace 

Cinque Terre

View of one of the Islands from the Ferry 

 In the alleyway down to Lerici... 

                                

View from the top of a mountain

                                
                                                      

Cinque Terre - Cliff-side Camping 

We followed our GPS and arrived in a place called La Spezia in the early evening, and we were recommended to find a camp site in Lerici, a nearby small town that we could take the ferry from to explore the islands the next day. We set off towards Lerici, and were directed up the side of a mountain on narrow dirt roads.

After driving on the treacherous mountain roads, we finally came to our destination, basically near the top of a mountain. The closest town was a fairly grueling 15 minute walk away, directly uphill, which was where we went to eat each night and spend most of our time. Our campsite was absolutely breathtaking. It was on the edge of a cliff, overlooking an absolutely gorgeous bay. We went swimming immediately when we arrived. Although the view from our campsite was so lovely, we were forced out of our tent around 7am each morning because of the stifling heat that had reached somewhere around 36 degrees C at that point. The last morning in Lerici, we took a ferry to Cinque Terra, and spent a day on the water and exploring the islands of Vernazza and Riomaggiore. Cinque Terra was a lovely place, and pretty close to what I had dreamed Italy would be like. There were lovely houses painted in bright colours, cobblestone alleyways, open air markets and shops, olive trees growing in grassy patches in parts of the mountains, and gorgeous coastline views with turquoise waters. As with most parts of Italy that we traveled to, the locals seemed as though they would never want to, or even think about traveling or going anywhere else other than the paradise they called home.
         

Huskvarna and Jönköping... our new home!

                                                     A view of  Lake Vättern 

                                                                                 

This is my new school! You can`t see it very well, but it is a renovated factory up on a hill in Huskvarna. It is known to locals as “The English School”

                        A view of the school from the street - under construction 

Our travels in France, Italy, and Spain

Dan and I decided to take a trip through the south of France while we were both homeless in Huskvarna. We dropped our bags off at the school, and flew to Milan on the 12th of July. Here are some of the highlights!

Milan, Italy

Our first stop just outside of Milan, aside from the car rental shop, was a lovely small town restaurant. Our first experience dining in Italy was just about as wonderful as it could be. Our hosts were so excited (we think by the fact that they had English speaking visitors, which clearly wasn't very common) that although they couldn't understand a word of what we tried to communicate in English, they gave us an extremely warm welcome. I used a tiny bit of my Italian knowledge that I had learned from waitressing in Italian restaurants to order a glass of red wine and a pizza. Our waiter began by bringing us two glasses of champagne, “gratis” and followed by a wonderful meal. When we inquired about dessert, we had an amazing gelato dish, and two shots (again complimentary) of a liquor ice cream mix. They were gracious enough to let us use a cell phone to call our hostel in Turin, and basically showed us every ounce of kindness they possibly could have.

Turin - our first real destination

We arrived in Turin around 10 pm that evening, which seemed quite unbelievable considering we had been enjoying a leisurely breakfast in Stockholm just that morning. The hostel must have been a convent in the past, as there were gorgeous marble staircases, and the building just had that kind of feel. It was a great way to start our trip, and we woke up relaxed and ready to explore Turin the next day. A gorgeous place, nestled in the mountains, and much cooler than we were going to experience for the rest of our trip, didn’t seem like much of a tourist destination during the season that we were there. The river flowing through the city was absolutely lovely, and the natural landscape offered quite a bit more than any shops or cafes that we stopped in. In my ‘all girls’ dorm in the hostel in Turin, there were two German sisters who were University students enjoying the summer to travel through France and Italy. They suggested we change our final planned destination, Genova, and instead begin our trip in Cinque Terra. Following their advice, we decided to completely change our plans, and head straight for Cinque Terra to see what all their excitement was about.