Two Lakes, One Winter...

...by the shore of the lake there were some ice sculptures.

And by the small lake Munksjön in town by the pier. A forever sleeping seagull on the edge. A tree painting in the ice and finally a tree full of dummies.

High-lights of 2012...

...must've been to see Jens Lekman perform in Gothenburg in May. Or get near perfect sight after the eye laser operation in July. Or to meet all friends again at the beginning of the semester after one year off uni. Or maybe when I visited Isabelle in Prague in the chilly autumn days. Or just maybe that Thursday that became absolutely great when Swedish House Mafia played in Stockholm. 

And I managed to keep my New Year promises for 2012 (!).

In The End Of 2012...

So, after a long waiting Christmas finally came and was as expected. Lots of tasty things on the "julbord" and great time with my relatives. Almost all of my Christmas gifts that I gave away were related to food in some way such gas burner for caramellisation, a giant papaya and vanilla from Madagascar. 

 A few days after Christmas me and my sister went to see The Hobbit in 3D. The movie was good, I love the scenery in Fylke. I should read the book some day. 

And then the last day of the year came. I celebrated the new year at J. place with dear friends and a delicious three course supper. Just before the clock struck twelve we went to a gazebo, opened the bottle of bubble and saw fireworks and lanterns not very high above us. Happy new 2013!

Don't Forget Our Twittering Friends...

...I hung up some tallow balls today. It's cold outside, but at least the small birds don't have to starve.

The Winter Solstice Festival

Yesterday was the longest winter solstice and also the longest night of the year. The winter solstice is celebrated by Southeast Asian people it's called 冬至 (Dong Zhi) and is one of the biggest festivals. There are different traditions in different countries.

However, we celebrated at my grandparents where we lightened incense to reminiscens our ancestors and then ate some chinese food. We also had 湯圓 for dessert which is traditional glutinous rice balls in sweet soup. It's said that each time you eat rice balls you one year older. The big ones is stuffed with sweet mungbean filling.

Gingerbread Baking in the Making...

I invited my younger cousins to bake gingerbread a few days ago. We made some animals-shaped cookies like horses, mooses, pigs and camels. It was fun and they're just too sweet.

Instead of Christmas Tree...

...a shooting star, disco ball, tomtenissar, and candles of course.

No More School...

... for this year, I should add. So, last week was all about to finish all the assessments, home exam, lab reports (often simultaneously with lots of fika :P) etc etc and yesterday I had my final exam in biostatistics. I love the feeling to step out of the exam room and take the first deep breath in, knowing that I've tried my best and that I cannot do anything more. Winter holiday, yay!

 

So sweet of my friend E. to give all of us a giant "skumtomte" keep up the study mode.

Surprise in the Letterbox...

... after spending unhealthy much time in school lately, I found this very sweet Christmas card with a Taiwanese stamp from G. today. This made my day!

Statistics&Chocolate Muffins...

...One must just love statistics when it involves chocolate muffins. Me and E. were supposed to design a 2³ experiment and decided to bake muffins with three different factors at two levels and then measure the height of them. We chose the factors temperatures, time and with or without baking powder. The results...

...were yummy!