The Magic Flute

It's story time......

Once upon a time there was a little girl who desperately wanted to play the violin. So after some months of persuasion her parents finally agreed and allowed her to have violin lessons. Yes, I started playing the violin around 12 years ago. At the beginning I loved it, and with the years I lost the interest, mostly because I started rowing and didn't have time to do both well. I never brought my violin to Oregon, but I thought, since I stopped rowing, I could start again.
Shortly after arriving in Lulea, I had the idea of joining an orchestra to play with others. After some research and some friendly emails with the city information center, I was contacted by a guy with a really funny email telling me he had a little "Strak orkester" (String orchestra) and would love me to join. The next week Jules and I walked over almost 2miles to this little church where the orchestra was meeting. We were surprised with coffee/tea and cake. The Sweds call it "fika". It was a really small orchestra and the members were way older than me, but it was fun playing with them. After the rehearsal a woman told me about the town's orchestra that would be performing the opera "The magic flute" from Mozart in the middle of November. She told me that I was really good and that i should join them. So the next week we checked it out (Jules accompanied me, since I'm so shy). Long story short, they put me right in the 1st violin and I had to start practising on a daily basis. Most of the time, Jules would do the dishes and I would entertain him with (sometimes) nice or horrible violin play. After 6 weeks of practice the orchestra was (I wasn't) ready to perform in the big "Kulturens hus" (Culture house with a big auditorium) with the opera singers.
All I can say is that it was really fun and a real success!!!

Norway

So a few weekends ago, Jules and I traveled to Norway with some french guys. Stephan, a really nice French guy, who shares the office with Jules, invited us along to travel the "Lofoten" in Norway. The Lofoten are made up of small islands in the North of Norway. The Lofoten are famous for beautiful sceneries with all the fjords and mountains. The Lofoten are 240km long and there is only around 60km from one coast to the next. Approximately 56,000 people are living on the islands working as fishermen or in the tourist branch. It is very peaceful and reminded us a lot of Oregon. This is a map of the Lofoten:
We took a ferry from Melbu to Fiskebel in the hope to see some killer whales who swim to the Lofoten each year in the fall. Unfortunately we were not lucky.

Before entering Norway we crossed the Arctic Circle. It was really cold up there and not much later we saw a big herd of reindeers who were standing next to and on the road.
We also did some hiking, stayed in a original red little cabin, played lots of cards, and tried to learn French. :) All in all the trip was a lot of fun, see for yourself.On our way back we stopped in Narvik, had an amazing burger and found this really cool road sign!

Blogging....so much fun

Thank you for all your comments on our blog. We love reading them and we love to hear from all of you! It also encourages me to keep up with the posting and telling you what is up with us in the far North of Sweden.

This past weekend, we had a lot of fun. We did some cooking with a few friends, Jules went to the Sauna for the first time in his life, and I think he enjoyed it! :) We tried a first try cake from Andreas, our friend. He baked for the first time a cake from scratch and it was so delicious.

Other than eating and hanging out with friends, we just relaxed and spend time with each other, reading books, talking and studying (but only a little bit)!

So Satin, this one is for you. No we are not living in the tiny red house. Unfortunately, I think it would be pretty cool. This was just a typical red house that we saw when we went to Gammelstad, the "old town" of Lulea. :)

So, I'm about to have lunch with Jules. It's a daily routine for us! Here is a schedule on what we do every day:

7:00 Alarm goes off
7:10 We finally get up
7:30 Jules exercises
7:45 Breakfast: fruit salad, bred, jam, tea, sometimes a breakfast egg (Jules loves them)
8:00 Jules leaves and I clean up
12:00 We eat lunch and drink free coffee in Jules' department
1:00 I go to class, either Swedish, CRM or foundation of e-commerce
6:00 We go home
7:00 After an hour of cooking (it still takes me a while), we have dinner
8:00 I practice the violin
9:00 We hang out, read, watch a movie, talk....etc.
10:00 We try to go to bed, read the bible, pray and have a good time
11:00 Time for sleep to be able to get up the next day again...... :)

Greetings to you all!!!! Miss you tons!

Our picture website

For more pictures, visit our picture website. We are trying to update it regularly.

http://picasaweb.google.com/julesdake

Our honeymoon in Switzerland

We had the time of our life, see yourself! It's not possible to explain in words, how awesome it was!
Me on our balcony

In Lucerne

Gorgeous view point somewhere in the Berner Oberland

The happy couple

Kissing on the mountain

Yeah we really hiked up there!

Jules and his blueberries..........

Jules found blueberries, they grow all over the forest here....I wasn't sure if they were blueberries, but I didn't marry an Oregonian for no reason....! Jules was SURE!

But now let the pictures speak for themselves.....

Life in Sweden

So, we have been in here in Sweden for now over a month and are adapting to our new home and country. We both have taken Swedish courses, but Jules stopped unfortunately, because he didn't like having the same class as me.....jk, he had too much work with his term project.

He has a very busy schedule that requires him to work 8 hours every day. So most of the days we try to get up fairly early, so he can start at 8am and can go home at 5pm. But you all know how it is, with the concept of getting up early, nobody likes it, and neither do we. So often he gets there late, and therefore has to stay longer.


I, on the other hand, don't have to work 8 hours a day, so I joined the gym. But don't get me wrong, I don't spend 8 hours in there. I thought a little exercise would be good, since I haven't worked out since May 13th, my last college race ever!!!


On September 24th, we celebrated Jules' birthday with some of his friends. I baked two cakes, and one of his friends, who is from Korea, brought some home-made sushi....mmh it was soo delicious! :)



So that's what's going on in the life of the Dakes at the moment! :)