Tagged: americanabroad

13
Feb
2007

NOT GIVING PEAS A CHANCE

Why I Love the AWC: Because I can send out an email to the 123 members asking if there is anyone who would like to take 2 cans of Campbell’s Green Pea (shudder) soup off my hands and 5 minutes later get not one, but 2 responses that yes indeed, there ARE people out there that would be happy to have them. (update: FOURTEEN FIFTEEN people have responded so far) One of my colleagues was in New York last week, and while emailing about work, he offered to bring me back something…I asked about my disappearing shampoo, but he couldn’t...

08
Feb
2007

BURNING A HOLE IN MY POCKET

One thing that seems to define most expats that I’ve met is their craving for things from home that they can no longer get, and the strongest feelings alway seem to be engendered by candy. jes6ica wrote a post earlier about childhood desserts and sweets that she missed and it got me thinking about it again. It’s always been amusing to me that if you put any group of expats together, after a while the conversation will inevitably turn to food and suddenly people are moaning longingly about Pop-Tarts and Tim Tams and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Here in Sweden,...

19
Nov
2006

THERE’S SO MUCH THAT WE SHARE, THAT IT’S TIME WE’RE AWARE

On Friday, Anders and Karin accompanied me to dinner with the AWC at a Thai restaurant in Malmö (Martin was at a birthday party). There were 13 people signed up for the dinner, but after 20 minutes only 7 had showed up so one of the other girls and I proceeded to make a few phone calls to the missing people to make sure they hadn’t forgotten the event. I called Katie and when she answered the phone, said brightly, “Hey! Did you forget it was Thai Night?” only to hear her catch her breath and try to stop a...

24
Oct
2006

IT’S LIKE A PING-PONG GAME IN MY BRAIN

Back and forth and back and forth I left work early this afternoon and picked up the kids and took them to a big playplace in Lund that was holding an English-speaking afternoon. Turns out the playplace is owned by an American guy and he was looking for a way to meet other English-speaking people so he planned a 2-hour get-together and put the word out everywhere he could think of. One of my first reactions after hearing this, was well, why haven’t you joined one of the 2 expat organizations that are right here in the area? But of...

23
Oct
2006

AMERICAN DERRING-DO

I think I need a Pandora intervention. I listen to pandora.com in the evenings when I’m on the computer, working on web stuff, or editing or reading blogs or writing journal entries. It’s gotten so that the majority of the songs they play are ones that I give a thumbs up to. Pandora has a feature, however, whereby you can bookmark songs you especially like for future reference and I only bookmark songs I’ve never heard before or that are by artists that are new to me. I suppose the idea is that I should eventually go back and BUY...

14
Oct
2006

EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT!

Newsflash! Manic fireflies swarm Eiffel Tower at night! Sitting outside a café on the corner of the Boulevard de Grenelle at a tiny table with drinks in front of us, as the endless streams of Parisians eddied and swirled past, it made me smile to see how many people in Paris actually DO walk home from work with a baguette clutched tight in one hand as they pull pieces from it to nibble on with the other. It made me smile to see the flower shops open until 9 at night, their wares overflowing from inside the shop to cover...

08
Oct
2006

HELP ME, INTERNETS-KENOBI, YOU’RE MY ONLY HOPE

Tomorrow I am working half a day and then taking a flight to Charles de Gaulle airport for an off-site meeting Tuesday and Wednesday in Paris. We arrive around 6 p.m. in the evening on Monday and will also hopefully have some time Tuesday evening to do some sightseeing or enjoy the city. I’ve been to Paris, once, with my family when I was 15. We didn’t have the best experience while traveling there because someone tried to steal my mom’s purse as we were boarding the Metro with all our suitcases, and also because on the train (and I...

24
Jul
2006

WE DO NOT REMEMBER DAYS, WE REMEMBER MOMENTS

Every trip leaves tracks in the mind, memories that slowly fray around the edges. I was surprised that the people of Scotland were, on the whole, so short. I was amused that every time I heard a mother call or reprimand a child, his name was inevitably Alastair or Conor. I was more apprehensive about riding in vehicles on the “wrong” side of the road than I thought I would be; using my own neck muscles and mindpower to keep the buses from tipping off the edges of cliffs and from whamming into oncoming traffic that was on the wrong...

21
Jul
2006

MARVELOUS MULL

No one has said “Top of the mornin’ to ye” but Karin’s been called a wee lassie at least twice. We’re in Tobermory and tomorrow is our last day in Scotland. We took the bus from Inverness on Tuesday all the way to the west coast and the lovely little seaside town of Oban, where I have officially left my heart. Hot and sunshiney, with the glare off the water rolling in swirly psychedelics, we dumped our suitcases at the hostel and got immediately on a boat. Out to the seal colony we went, and saw seals, which, if you...

17
Jul
2006

INVERNESS IDYLL

The purple of the heather on the moors as we passed through the Highland mountains was breathtaking. It wasn’t a soft, muted lavender at all; on the contrary, the purples of Scotland are royal and insistent. The heather, the thistles, the big pom-poms of clover, foxglove and the invasive purple marshflowers I’ve seen everywhere near water. The hills are all rolly here, green and purple and plump. I could be quite content, happy to listen all day long to the Scots talk around me in their plummy rolly accents (just like their hills). I have no idea if the mountains...

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