Friday theme / Show WITHOUT tell

Anna in Stockholm has decided that today’s theme will be “Show without tell“.

She wrote in the instructions: “A picture is worth a thousand words, they say. Tell us something with one or more pictures. No words allowed!”

This is what I did yesterday afternoon (I hope that I was allowed to write that  ):

Other participants in “Show without tell”:
Anki, Anna, Anne, Anne-Marie, Annika, Bejla, Desiree, Erica, Helena, IamAnnika, IngaBritt, Mais-oui, Musikanta, Nilla, Olgakatt, Petra H, Saltis, Simone, Sparkling, Strandmamman, Taina, and Under Ytan.

Show & Tell: Life after Death

I know, I know, it is not Friday today but a little “Show & Tell” on a Thursday couldn’t hurt anybody… Anna in Stockholm chose the morbid (?) subject of “Life after Death” last Friday but unfortunately I didn’t have time to blog last week. However, the guests left yesterday (and just sent me a text message telling me that they had landed in Copenhagen) and I am trying to catch up (again!) with blogging, emailing, and various household chores…

Anyway, the subject of “Life after death” is not something I have a strong opinion about. I don’t know if it is a question of lack of imagination, but just like the question of “life in outer space”, which I mentioned in a Friday theme in 2009, I don’t give it much thought in my everyday life. Of course it would be great if there was something for us after death, that life goes on in another form, shape or dimension, but I guess there is no way for us to know before we die…

Tomb stone for Nils Andersson, one of my ancestors on my maternal grandfather’s side. The inscription says that he was a farmer**at the property No4 Bosarp in Skipparp (part of Ravlunda parish) and was born the 13th April 18?? (year unreadable) and died in May 1883.

I like Bejla‘s interpretation of the expression “Life after death”, that everybody needs to learn to continue living after a dear one has passed away. So true but very difficult.

Another way of interpreting the theme, maybe a little far-fetched, is also one of my interests (that I haven’t really developed much yet); that of family history or genealogy. Fortunately my paternal grandmother and my maternal grandfather, as well as my maternal grandmother’s brother (farmor, morfar, mormors bror) did a lot of family research before they passed away and I hope that I will be able to continue their work in the future. I think that it is something we owe to past generations; to remember them and to collect their “life histories”*. We can learn so much from our ancestors; their lives and experiences have shaped the [family] environment where we have grown up, and therefore also formed who we are and where we are.

Ingar Mårtensdotter was Nils’ wife and died in 1901 at the age of 49, 18 years after the death of her husband

My maternal grandmother’s brother did an excellent job of writing down everything he knew of his family, both facts (birth dates etc) and oral histories about the family, in an autobiography. My grandmother has kindly lent me the two typed and bound volumes of his [unpublished] work and I am trying to copy down everything that concerns the family in general in a Word document. The plan is to interview my grandmother to see if she remembers more or differently than her younger brother.

This is my way of making sure that my ancestors have a life after death…

Not the grave of one of my ancestors, but that of a 19th century murdered woman. The inscription at the bottom of the tomb stone says “The poor woman’s tears and prayers didn’t affect them at all” (Den arma qvinnans tårar och böner rörde dem alls intet)

The grave in the photo above is an example of a person who after her death has lived on in history and people’s minds. Who would have thought that poor Hanna Johansdotter who was only 22 when she died would have a “life after death” and be immortalised in books and films. Hanna was buried at the same cemetery as part of my family, and her destiny was especially tragic. She was murdered in 1889 by her husband and her mother-in-law. The case is one of the most famous in criminal history in Sweden, both because it was discovered that the husband / son and mother[-in-law] had an incestuous relationship and because the mother was the last woman to be executed in Sweden in 1890. The son was released from prison in 1913. Read more here (in Swedish).

On another topic: I finished reading my 90th book since arriving to Puerto Rico yesterday. The big question is – will I manage to reach my goal of 100 books? I have more or less one month left before we move… Check out the books I have read on this page (also a link just below my header photo at the top of the blog), unfortunately I haven’t written reviews on all the books.

Oh, and the book I actually both started and finished yesterday was “Confessions of a Jane Austen addict“, which is kind of funny since I have actually read THREE Jane Austen-related books since November 2007, even though I wouldn’t call myself a JA-addict having only read Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion and Sense and Sensibility (Jane Austen wrote 6 books in total). My sister is the true Jane Austen addict in the family!

*) The Swedish word “levnadsöde” which directly translated would be “life destiny” seems to encompass more a person’s history and experiences during his / her lifetime, than the English word “destiny” which in Swedish is “öde”. What do you think?
**) Åbo[en] betyder “en jordägare som själv bebodde och brukade sin jordegendom” enligt det här släktforskningsforumet.

Puerto Rican street life

I shouldn’t really publish another post before answering all your comments in the previous ones, but here are some photos from the last week’s excursions with the Swedish visitors:

One of many cats in the OSJ

A sleepy accordion player in OSJ

Selling muffins at a traffic light on the way to Ponce

Walking with an umbrella in the sunshine in Ponce

Another pedestrian hiding from the sun in Ponce

A hen and her chicks at the ferry terminal in Vieques

A man and his horse walking home at night, Isabel Segunda, Vieques. Why oh why did it take me so long to get the camera up??

Semi-wild horses on the road in Vieques – suddenly 5-6 horses just crossed the road in front of us

An iguana at the side of the road, Vieques. Not always easy to take photos from the car window…

Today my mother and Mrs N[eighbour] had a two-hour Spanish lesson in Starbucks with my Spanish teacher, then they headed to the Old San Juan for some sightseeing (the fortress El Morro probably) with my father while it was my turn to have a Spanish lesson. The visitors are “entertaining” themselves tomorrow (the Bacardi factory), so hopefully I will have time to blog some more after I have finished the piles of laundry and ironing… O didn’t have any ironed shirts this morning, opps!

Belgian house ads and my dream room

Our last guests to Puerto Rico arrived on Sunday evening and they are enjoying the sunshine, warm temperatures and the beach to the fullest. My father said that it was the first time since December that they are not surrounded by snow… They are happy without the snow, and I am happy because my mother brought 4 new Swedish interior design magazines, Swedish sweets and cookies, almond paste for the Lent cream buns* and Prästost (Swedish cheese) for me (and O) to enjoy! We also got two cans of elk paté from Mrs N[eighbour] – not her delicious home-made paté because it has to be vacuum-packed for the US Customs but I am sure that it will be yummy anyway, and my father brought my black high-heeled winter boots that I had left in Sweden – maybe I need them in Brussels in April!?

Lent cream buns, baked in Puerto Rico in February 2008…

Speaking of interior design, as you all know, we are soon moving back to Brussels and I am checking the house ads every day on the Belgian web-site immoweb.be. It is a huge difference between how a house for sale is being presented in Belgium and in Sweden. In Sweden almost all houses and apartments are staged / styled for a sale, photos look professional and the homes are de-cluttered to a maximum. The layout of the home is shown in a simple drawing – not so difficult to produce with computer programmes nowadays…

However, as I have already mentioned before, Belgian home ads are T-E-R-R-I-B-L-E: photos are blurry or just badly taken, no layout shown and the homes are most of the time not even CLEAN or TIDY in the photos! It doesn’t seem to matter if the home is being sold by a real estate agent or an individual, the photos are equally bad. Garbage bags in the middle of the kitchen floor, unmade beds with dirty laundry on the floor, cupboard doors open so you can’t see the room etc. And let’s not talk about standard… but we are willing to renovate and therefore try to see the potential in old homes without a proper bathroom or fitted kitchen. We don’t want to pay extra for somebody’s crappy renovation with flowery tiles and a cheap, unpractical kitchen.

A messy kitchen in a Belgian house ad… Not the worst that I have seen!

I didn’t participate in the Show & Tell / Friday theme in January when one of the themes was “My dream room”, but the other day I saw a photo of a room in a Belgian house ad that could be made into my dream room – inspired by Desiree’s description of her dream room and a recent Ikea ad:

My dream room would be a so-called “sun room” or covered veranda. Here the sunlight would flow through big windows. [---] I would have lots of green plats in the room. Both big and small pots with different plants. Many beautiful orchids. Here I would have a really comfortable armchair placed centrally with a nice footstool. The room would also have a small sofa where you could stretch out to rest or lie and read. Some beautiful wicker baskets on the floor with gorgeous fashion and interior design magazines. Over the sofa I would hang some cosy blankets to snuggle up in when it is cold outside. A small table in front of the sofa where you could put a big tea or coffee cup. [---] This would definitely be a room to rest and to enjoy the peace and quiet. (from Desiree’s blog, January 14 2010)

This is the Ikea ad:

And the room in the house ad:

Can you see the potential? Too bad the rest of the house wasn’t very interesting… Or well, it could have had potential if it had had a garage / parking space, but it didn’t. To be able to park the car and not have to desperately drive around and around the block trying to find parking every evening is one of O’s requirements. One of mine is to have a metro station within walking distance (max. 500-700 m away). And we want a small garden.

We are not too stressed about finding a house, and will of course wait until we are back in Brussels so that we will be able to visit any potential homes. What is great is that we already know Brussels and we know in which areas we would want to live. After having studied the market for the last 6 months I think that we can recognise a good buy when we see it.

Update: I forgot to publish this photo of the Swedish visitors watching the Winter Olympics in the Caribbean…

*) We should make the Lent cream buns TODAY as it is Shrove Tuesday / Mardi Gras / Fettisdagen…

Show & Tell / Friday theme: Cars

Wow, I have published something every day this week – that doesn’t happen too often! Since O and I don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day, I am especially pleased that Anna didn’t choose that boring old subject for this week’s Show & Tell. Instead we should write about CARS:

US Virgin Island (St Thomas) license plate – America’s Caribbean (what about Puerto Rico?)

What’s my relationship to cars? Well, I have never owned a car – shocking to people on this side of the Atlantic where you usually get / buy your first car when you pass the driving test! I have had a driver’s license for 16 years on the 24th February (I am a sucker for remembering dates ) but I haven’t driven regularly since I lived at home for one year in 1999! I never drove in Brussels, as I didn’t have a car and O’s company car was off limits until we officially lived together (February 2007) and then I was just so used to O driving us everywhere. I have driven two or three times in Puerto Rico but not since January 2008. It is just too scary for me here, in particular since I don’t have much experience of driving in heavy traffic and with multiple lanes. I do drive occasionally when we are in Sweden, but hopefully I will get into the habit of driving regularly again once we move back to Brussels.

Car in Dominica – note that it is written “left-hand drive” on it to warn other drivers… In Dominica you drive on the left, so most cars (?) are right-hand drives

Ok, so I am going to stop with quoting dates and show you some car-related photos instead – from our cruise in December 2009! Unfortunately I didn’t take any photos of cars / license plates in Barbados, but all the other 5 islands + Puerto Rico are represented…

Antigua license plate with the country’s slogan “Land of sea and sun”

St Kitts license plate… no comment

St Maarten is the friendly island…

In St Martin, which is the French part of the same island as St Maarten, the cars have French license plates – bien sûr!

Puerto Rico is the enchanted island…

I don’t care much about what car it is I am driving, even if I come from a SAAB family and my grandfather, my parents and my brother have Saab cars and O had a Saab when I met him! I prefer smaller cars, and I loved the green Golf my parents used to have as a second car.

3 out of 4 Saabs that we used to have in the family…

I will try to check out the other Show & Tell bloggers as soon as possible, but I am quite busy preparing for the guests arriving on Sunday.

Anki, Anna, Anne, Anne-Marie, Annika, Bejla, Christel, Desiree, Ebba,
Erica, Helena, IamAnnika, IngaBritt, Mais-oui,
Musikanta, Nilla, Norrsken & Stjärnfall, Olgakatt, Petra H, Saltis,
Sara, Simone, Sparkling,
Strandmamman, Taina, and Under Ytan.

My mother’s cat and interior design blogs

It might not show through my blog but I am very interested in interior design and love reading blogs that are specialised in the subject, as well as interior design magazines. As I already have mentioned my mother is hopefully bringing the suitcase full of Swedish magazines such as Sköna Hem, Elle Interiör and Allt i hemmet… instead of toilet brushes! It will be like heaven for me because, since I haven’t really found any favourite American interior magazines*, I keep re-reading my old magazines from Sweden.

Lately I have found two new favourite blogs, both which are written by Swedes with excellent taste! Their blogs are full of inspirational photos of retro thrift finds and their cosy homes. As we live in a furnished apartment here in Puerto Rico I can’t wait for us to have our own home that we can furnish and decorate with our own things. It will be like Christmas when we can unpack everything that has been in storage for the last couple of years, and the new stuff that we have collected since we left Brussels in 2007.

Funnily enough these two blogs both have something that I, or rather my family also has; this cat that my mother made in sewing class in school in the 60′s:

My mother’s cat that looks like a devil!?

My sister, who is prone to exaggeration, thinks that the cat is “fruktansvärt obehaglig” (~terribly nasty)! What do you think? The cats that belong to the other two bloggers have been store-bought, so I wonder if it was a famous toy cat back in the days and if my mother’s sewing teacher copied the design.

Check out Johanna’s Aprill Aprill-blog on design, house renovation and her cat, and Kerstin Kokk’s blog about her home and collection of 50′s & 60′s china + of course the cat.

Somebody liked the cat – my friends’ son loved it! Too bad that my sister wasn’t there to see it

And while we are at it, the photo below shows my great-grandmother Ella’s excellent sewing skills once again – you might remember the table runner that I think she had embroidered that I showed last year. This is an apron that she made for my mother’s first summer job in the student union’s kindergarten in Lund. All the staff members had to wear these aprons, and I think the design is really cute, almost like a short dress. We still use the apron when cooking in the summer house.

My great-grandmother Ella’s handy-work – an apron**

*) Sometimes I can find British mag Living Etc in Borders here in San Juan.

**) The reason why the apron is laid out like that is that my Peruvian friend here saw a photo of my brother wearing it and she loved it! I had troubles explaining how it “works”, so my father took a photo of it for me. He also took the photo of the cat in the snow. Fortunately he doesn’t complain (??) when I send strange photo request to him…

Fruit and veggie section in a Puerto Rican supermarket & etiquette poll on over-night guests

All the foreigners we have met in Puerto Rico swear allegiance to the Costco tomatoes!

I think they sent the wrong ad to Puerto Rico – it’s in French… Actually it is quite common to see that labels on products in Puerto Rico are in English and French, instead of Spanish! I guess because of Canada (Quebec), but there is definitely more Spanish-speakers in the US than French-speakers in Canada…

A normal Puerto Rican supermarket is quite well-stocked and we can find most of the products that we are used to from Europe. However, without Costco we would never eat tasty [red] tomatoes, cheese that has an actual flavour, fresh-looking meat etc… In this day and age it feels so wrong to buy imported fruits and vegetables, meat and fish, but living in an island where there is very little agricultural activity, we don’t have much choice. It is even difficult to find locally caught fish, despite Puerto Rico being an island.

We do try to buy locally produced / grown food stuff when we can. Puerto Rican bananas, pine apples, mangoes, avocados – even though the fruit is sometimes from the Dominican Republic, which is still more local than Canada (where the red tomatoes come from!).

Roots and tubers in a Puerto Rican supermarket. NB The Xmas decorations are still up – not an unusual sight in February!

However, there are more Puerto Rican products that we could have tried to learn how to cook and enjoy:

Malanga blanca

Two types of ñame, i.e yam, from Costa Rica and Puerto Rico

Batata (sweet potato) from the Dominican Republic and green plantains from Puerto Rico

Yautía blanca from Ecuador

Apio (celery) from Puerto Rico – I have never seen celery like this! Chayote according to Fran, thanks for the correction!

Huge papayas from Puerto Rico

Beach chairs above the frozen produce section

At the end of our 2½ years of living in Puerto Rico we will have had over 40 guests! It has been a very interesting and mostly great experience to be able to show family and friends our life in the Caribbean. Nevertheless, it was very interesting to read about other expat Swedes’ experiences of over-night guests in the etiquette column of Margareta Ribbing (for once I read all the comments!) a few weeks ago.

Here are some tips and rules if you are going to be the host / hostess to holidaying friends and family, or if you are going to be staying for an extended period of time at friends’ places – please take note!

• Explain any kind of “rules” or habits in your home – from which towels to use for the beach to which kitchen ware to use for what (e.g we have glasses, plates etc that belong to the apartment that we don’t use, instead we use our own things), if you take off the shoes by the entrance etc
• Tell your guests to feel at home, which means that they can make a cup of tea, have a drink or a snack whenever they want and don’t need to wait for your suggestion or preparation
• Feeling at home also means that you as a host[ess] should not have to entertain your guests 100% of the time (if you don’t necessarily want to); hand out maps with your address marked, show the bus stop and explain how public transportation works (tickets, timetables), provide a few tourist brochures and tips of what to see in the neighbourhood
• Do NOT: hand out a map with your old address marked – I did that once in Brussels and my poor-at-the-time-pregnant-with-pelvic-pain (foglossning) Latvian sister + family wandered around for hours trying to find my apartment. It is incredible that she actually has forgiven me!!
• Suggest that your guests take care of cooking a meal at least once during their stay! Maybe they have a signature dish – our Mexican guests cooked a Mexican dinner for us one night when they visited us.


A real home-made Mexican dinner

• If you don’t have time to drive the guests around (or don’t have a car available during the week), don’t hesitate to suggest that they rent a car if they want to see more of the country – they already get free accommodation so they can’t complain…
• Explain to the guests from the beginning that you might not have time to do everything with them. Regardless whether you work or not, there are things to be taken care of around the home, you are not on a holiday and might not want to spend your days on the beach!

It is great to have guests coming to stay, but what some guests might forget is that yes, it might seem like a B&B but your home is not an all-inclusive resort and it is very welcome to suggest paying for a restaurant meal or maybe the supermarket shopping.

Both my and O’s conclusion after all the visits we have had, is that independent guests are the best. We have enjoyed showing Puerto Rico to everyone, but it can be tiring (and expensive) as well, especially for O who works hard and long hours during the week and then having to play tourist guide on the weekends. Of course we have been very happy to be able to spend time with family and friends when living so far away, and we have felt a little disappointed that some haven’t been able to make it (or haven’t shown any interest at all).

And now I am counting the days to Sunday when my parents and Mrs N[eighbour] arrive from Sweden! O always says that my parents are the easiest guests – just make sure that they have books to read and they will be happy!

Memories of the winter 2010

For most of you the winter is still a reality and not just a distant memory. However for us here in Puerto Rico it is 33 degrees and 62% humidity this Tuesday afternoon… My father keeps asking me if it is still “good weather” and I reply “what do you consider “bad” weather when it is -5 and loads of snow in Sweden?“. I don’t think that they need to worry about having “bad” weather in Puerto Rico next week 

Here are some more photos from our last visit to Sweden, and I promise that I will soon write about our last days on the cruise – maybe you people need photos of sunshine instead of snow and gloom!?

O would sweep the deck from snow while talking on the phone (work-related calls) when we were at the summer house

He did also relax… You might not see it, but both the shirt in the photo above and this t-shirt were clothes we found in my parents’ place when without our luggage for 4 days! It was quite impressive that we found clothes that fit my O, who’s a tad bit bigger than my father and brother. The t-shirt is actually mine, I used to wear it as a night gown!

Fika in the summer house after a long walk in the snow – half a blueberry muffin and two ginger snaps with “blue cheese” from a tube. It tasted better than it might sound (and look!)

Unfortunately a very blurry photo of O and I taking a nap in the sofa – I guess my parents were trying to be discreet not to wake us up and that’s why the quality isn’t great. It does look a little uncomfortable for O…

The thermometer is showing minus 13 (8 degrees Fahrenheit) in my brother’s and his girlfriend’s kitchen (they are going to change the wallpaper, don’t worry!!) before my sister, O and I walked home to our parents’ place. That cold and snowy midnight walk is one of my best memories from our Sweden trip in January!

A hot dog with relish (bostongurka, i.e Boston cucumber in Swedish!) and mashed potatoes

The guest house and deck on a winter’s evening. There is a lot more snow now, than back in the beginning of January…

Lights in windows – maybe a very Swedish thing? These are fairy lights, but I have always had a small lamp in my window so that when I get home late in the evening the home doesn’t feel as dark. O thought that it was funny at first but he likes the idea now!

Happiness is… a toilet brush!

Happiness can be many things, but for an expat [Swede] is can be… finally finding a toilet brush! My mother, who was ready to buy toilet brushes in Sweden and bring to Puerto Rico on Sunday, can remove that item from the shopping list, which still contains Swedish interior design magazines, lösgodis (Swedish sweets), and Swedish cheese for O.

Pink toilet brushes in K-mart

I might have mentioned before my frustration regarding toilet brushes, but it has really annoyed me that it is so impossible to find a toilet brush with a holder in Puerto Rico. And not to mention that it was equally difficult in Brussels, where Ikea was the only place I was sure to find them… Don’t people clean their toilets using brushes? and don’t they change them every now and then? I have found fancy brushes with a holder in metal but they cost $20 or more. I am aware that it might not be environmentally friendly to use “disposable” ones but I am prioritising hygiene here!

Toilet brushes with holders

Our friend B told us that her mother brought 20 or so “dish brushes” when she came to visit her in Puerto Rico! Why is it impossible to find these two kinds of brushes abroad? Once again Ikea used to be my safe bet for dish brushes in Belgium! Use a sponge, you might say – No way! Like B said, the sponges get smelly and dirty very quickly (especially as people don’t seem to know how to squeeze them dry after using them), and are not as efficient as brushes…

Sorry about that little brush rant, but B and I can’t be the only expat Swedes with the same experience!? Oh, and where did we find the toilet brushes – in Home Depot! In K-mart they only had pink ones, which I would have bought if we hadn’t found more neutral ones in the other shop. I have to add that I have actually found individual toilet brushes in the supermarket once or twice but always without the holder (according to the new brushes it is called “a caddy”)… Where do people put the brush after it has been used? Lean it against the wall or put it on the floor??

Nevertheless, in K-mart we bought two Puerto Rican souvenirs – a little wooden tool to make “plantain nests*” (like we did during our Puerto Rican cooking session here) and dominoes with the Puerto Rican flag. Dominoes is a favourite game on the island, even if we personally have never played the game!

A wooden tool to make plantain nests, made in the Dominican Republic

Puerto Rican dominoes, however made in China…

*) I can’t remember the Spanish name for the dish now, but it is delicious!

Show & Tell / Friday theme: My first job(s)

I have decided to participate in the Friday “Show & Tell” again, it’s been a few months and I think that I have found my motivation again! Anna in Stockholm is the hostess for February and she has chosen the following themes:

5 February: My first job (Mitt första jobb)

12 February: Cars (Bilar) – Sorry, no Valentine topic this year!

19 February: Life after death (Livet efter döden) – Apologies for the morbid subject but I find it interesting to think about what happens after we die, if anything, and how miniscule our lifespan (as individuals) is in the history of the universe, or even that of mankind

26 February: Show without tell (Visa utan att berätta) – A picture is worth a thousand words, they say. Tell us something with one or more pictures. No words allowed!

Today’s topic is “My first job“, which caused a bit of a dilemma; should I write about my first summer / part-time job, or my first real job? It would be hard to illustrate* any of the [first] jobs I have had, but in the end this is what I came up with**:

Three out of four Thinkpads – and that’s just in O’s and my home! I am writing this blog post though on a Dell…

Guess where my first summer jobs were… My father found me summer jobs three years in a row in the company he works for. The first job was working in the reception / switch board, which was fun but a bit confusing. I never realised how hard it was to spell people’s names (for the name tags) and once I said “Good morning” when it was 4 o’clock in the afternoon, to the caller’s amusement who said something about somebody sleeping on the job…

Then I worked for two summers in the warehouse where I had to do inventory of computer and server parts, help the service technicians who came in for spare parts plus buy ice cream in the petrol station across the street for my boss, colleagues and myself. My brother had the same summer job a few years after me but I am not sure he got free ice cream Nevertheless, he’s working for the company as well now…

North of Sweden by air

The summer after graduating from high school, I spent a week in Härjedalen (region in the middle/north of Sweden) planting pine tree saplings with a friend of mine and her family. We used a tool known as pottiputki*** (Finnish for…?) and we were paid 0.20 SEK (if I recall correctly) per seedling! Lots of mosquitoes and gnats (knott), and I had a terrible cold – not a good combination, trying to breathe through your mouth but not swallowing any tiny black flies, euck! It’s been my only outdoor job and it was quite nice, despite the annoying insects.

The year between high school and starting university, I worked as a “jeune fille au-pair” in a Swiss-Swedish family in Geneva, Switzerland. I took care of two little girls aged 5 and 7, cleaned the house, did the grocery shopping in France and studied French twice a week. It was a tough year but I enjoyed it, and I still keep in touch with the family. I am even friends with the oldest girl on Facebook! Hopefully I will be able to see them this summer when we are hoping to go to Switzerland with my parents to see my father’s uncle’s widow, as well as my friends living in Geneva.

By the way, my two best friends from home, the ones I wrote about on Tuesday, were au-pairs in Dijon, France (Å) and Madrid, Spain (L). The three of us have continued living the international life, with Å in Copenhagen and L in France.

The Grand Hotel in Lund

While a student at Lund University I worked as a cleaning lady at the Grand Hotel, as well as a substitute kindergarten teacher. It was a very interesting experience working as a cleaning lady – I realised that most people pretend that you don’t exist (and don’t even flush the toilet before leaving a hotel room) and completely ignore you. It is also highly annoying with hotel guests who refuse to leave the room while it is being cleaned. One Japanese family gathered in one corner of the room and I had to vacuum-clean around them!

The job as a kindergarten teacher was much more rewarding and I couldn’t believe that I was paid to read stories, draw and play with children. It almost didn’t feel like work after having changed heavy sheets and scrubbed toilets in the hotel! However, you get tired from spending a full day with lots of children too, but it is more mental than physical.

Flags at the UN Headquarters in Geneva

Before moving to Brussels in June 2002, I had a 5-month internship at a small Human Rights NGO in Geneva. I spent most of my time monitoring meetings at the European HQs of the UN, learning lots of UN-acronyms and realising that as an NGO-representative you get to sit at the far back in the meeting rooms. The UN Commission on Human Rights was an intense but fun experience, and the end-party afterwards, organised by the UK delegation (I think) was wild.

Not the best photo of my first office building in Brussels – the Breydel! All the European Commission buildings in Brussels have names – mostly named after the street where they are situated. The Breydel is on the corner of Rue Breydel and Avenue d’Auderghem

Then I finally got my first real job in June 2002 at the European Commission in Brussels. I was hired and paid by the College of Europe but working at the Secretariat-General of the Commission as a legal analyst. All of a sudden I had to learn EU-acronyms and forget everything I had learnt about the UN system and focus on the EC legislation!

My French, Greek and Spanish colleagues, all of us young university graduates, were at the lowest end of the food chain as we were not fonctionnaires (civil servants) like our older colleagues. I learnt so much in the 2½ years I worked for the internal database analysing and classifying legal and administrative documents and I met some of my best friends in Brussels during this first job. However, at the time I could get so tired of the French contingent – mostly because I worked all day in French and was too exhausted to speak French in my free time as well!

I never worked in the main Commission building, the Berlaymont, since it was under renovation when I worked at the Sec-Gen. The same week I changed jobs within the Commission (to AIDCO / EuropeAid) in October 2004, my former colleagues moved into the newly refurbished and HUGE Berlaymont.

I will add an up-dated list of Show & Tell participants as soon as possible…

*) Because isn’t that the whole point with the “show & tell”?
**) I didn’t really managed to illustrate what I did, just the places where I worked!
***) Expensive stuff, apparently it costs over $300!