Surviving Another Week

So another week has gone by in Sweden and I have no new significant injuries! What better reason to celebrate?! Oh right, Jesus. That guy.

So Christmas in Sweden is a little bit different. Christmas eve is the big day here. All the kids open their presents in the afternoon and have a massive dinner that evening. Christmas day seems like a time for everyone to get wasted and go out partying.

Christmas eve here was pretty impressive. We all chipped in some cash and a few of the girls put on a feast and a half. We sat about 20-25 people at the dining table and waited for the food to be ready while drinking our glögg (mixture of various spirits and julmust - Christmas cordial).

Emil got a weird skateboard-type thing called a Ripstick. It's only got two wheels and you move forward by wriggling from side to side. With great difficulty we took turns zipping around the living room and the dining table trying our best to do tricks like side sliding and monos. There was a fair bit of crashing but with a little bit of grace we- and the tree- survived the evening.

When called everyone leaped up to fill their plates with Swedish meatballs, potatoes, potato gratin, sausages, salmon, Christmas ham, various types of Swedish bread. Everything tasted amazing. I was mowing through the food in a hazy attempt to eat everything at once. After my second plate I was ready to collapse in a swollen food coma. Despite the crazy amount of partying going on this week I am doing my best to behave as work takes priority for the time being and a hangover coupled with a lack of sleep is the last thing I want right now. A few weeks down the track I might brave the prospect - scratch that - next week is new years eve! Time to see how the Swedes compare with the Norwegians in the new year celebrations.

As the first week in the ski school draws to a close I am able to breathe a sigh of relief. I was pretty nervous on Monday morning as I was charged with organising 26 skiers and 4 instructors- three of them with many years more experience than I. I then had a group of 7-8 year old Swedish intermediate skiers and finished up with 3 intermediate Swedish Adults. Strangely enough everything went far more smoothly than I could have hoped for.