The wedding was really fun. The weather was perfect, the bride and groom were lovely and radiant, and we suffered not at all from our halting German - though as always, I decided that I will try and improve it, I really will…

German weddings are not that different from Swedish ones, except that the church wedding is not sufficient on its own - the legally binding ceremony is civil, and can take place before or after the church wedding (which is not obligatory). In Sweden, couples can choose a civil or a religious wedding, but if they go for the religious version they don’t need a civil one as well. Anyway, in this case the happy couple had been legally wed for a month already, not that that detracted any from the ceremony in the church! I admit that I did not quite understand all of the priest’s speech, but to sing hymns in German felt quite natural.

The wedding cake was magnificent and very yummy - and quite rich. Fortunately, we got a few hours to get hungry again, before the dinner which was excellent. I don’t think I’d had Sauerkraut before, it’s definitely a taste I would have remembered. I wonder where I can get it in Sweden.

According to a couple of the other guests, and the bride, many German weddings include a lot of games for the guests. (Well, so do Swedish weddings, come to think of it.) This one didn’t, which gave us lots of time to talk to the other people, those we knew and those we didn’t. The entertainment was splendid, too.

Our pictures are here. (There will be more of them soon, I believe - I managed to hide some of the best photos so Johan couldn’t upload them to flickr.)

Tomorrow morning we’re off to Germany to attend a wedding: that makes three weddings this year, in three different countries. (The first one was in Finland in February, the second in Old Uppsala in August.) It should be fun; I leave too many unfinished things behind but hopefully I’ll be able to relax anyway. I’m not bringing the computer which may or may not help with relaxation. I very much look forward to meeting some friends I’ve never before seen in real life (you know, Internet friends as oppsed to real friends) as well as the happy couple and a few other people I’ve met before - it will be a lot of fun, I’m sure of that.

I just hope I won’t have to speak too much German, or that if I do, I won’t make a total fool of myself. I understand the language pretty well, but when speaking I tend to get lost. Perhaps I’d better practice a bit. An auf hinter in neben über unter vor zwischen. Aus außer bei gegenüber mit nach seit von zu. Think the other guests will think I’m odd if I respond to them with a string of prepositions?

Not dead. Nor am I a PhD. The latter will hopefully happen before the former.

Yes, I will start writing here again

We spent last weekend in Helsinki, celebrating the wedding of Eemeli and Saijaa, two friends of ours from the Finnish science fiction fandom. Wedding parties are always fun; this one included the opportunity to come up with names for the twins who are expected in May, as well as the Finnish tradition (which I didn’t know before) of the bride being abducted and the groom having to perform and do various tricks until he has collected enough money from the wedding guests to buy his new wife back. (Eemeli can juggle pretty well, even with eggs. He cannot sing, however.)

One of the best parts was the performance by three of the four members of the folk music group Inehmo. They sang six or seven songs during the evening, and wow, are they ever good! Their site is mostly in Finnish, but the link “Ohjelmisto” leads to a page with a few sound clips. Here is a YouTube video of them, again only a short clip of about 30 seconds. I really like Finnish folk music, and I like that type of singing, strong voices without much vibrato. If I understood Tero correctly, one of the members of the group is an old friend of Eemeli’s mother, which is why they were hired for the evening. Their first CD (I assume — the site says “recording”) will be out in April. I think I’ll try to get hold of that.

Gosh wow. We received four Unshelved albums in the mail today — a gift from our friend Jay the Librarian. And all four albums were signed — with a dedication to me!

The envelope was gorgeous, too, covered in stamps, one each in the Wonders of America series.

Gosh and, if I may say so, wow. Thank you so much, Jay.

Stina gave birth to a son two days ago

Added: Here is a picture. He will have to practice a bit before going to his first hard rock concert. (Vital statistics: 49 cm, 2900 g, and everybody involved is doing just fine.)

I read in DN that the hottest single record of 2006 in Sweden, the one most sold in shops and most downloaded from the net, is Who’s da Man with 7-year-old Frans. OK, so I know I am not exactly with it when it comes to music, but usually I’ve at least heard the names of groups or artists. Not so in this case.

I am old.

(Looking it up I discover that it was apparently the official team song for the Swedish football team in last year’s World Cup, so there was good reason for me not to have heard it - but still, not even having heard the artist’s name… I am old.)

Rebecka was here today. She’s a very cheerful kid, and ridiculously cute. Pictures may well follow.

Also, I’ve started tagging my posts. It takes a very long time to tag the old posts, but I am slowly doing it all the same.

My Christmas holiday is winding down. I went to the department today, saw my tutor briefly and discussed my time plan. Once back home, I started tidying up my reference lists and making todo lists. Tomorrow I’ll start writing again.

I feel fairly good about the thesis right now. I think I can finish it on time - more or less. I feel less sanguine about the quality of my research, though. Sometimes I don’t think what I’m doing is relevant at all. But at the moment I’m not too panicked about that.

Ho hum. Here is a good link regardless of your nationality: The Local, English-language news from Sweden. Only from Sweden, and by a team of native English-speaking editors who live here (mainly expatriate Brits, I think). I enjoy reading The Local for many reasons - their articles are well-written and usually well-researched; even if the news are the same I get in DN the language factor makes it seem as if the perspective is somehow different; and knowing that Sweden is very small and very insignificant it nevertheless feels good to be able to point to news articles (not to mention in-depth articles about Swedish society, culture, traditions, science, politics…) for the benefit of foreign friends. Read The Local, it’s a good newspaper. Especially if you’re a forriner.

Happy New Year.
In 2006, some good and some bad happened. I never did get back into the blogging habit. But I won’t dwell on that — there is too much guilt connected to not blogging and that’s just silly. Better just to post
In 2007 I will finish and defend my PhD thesis, or else — well, there is no else. I will. What else? I’d like to go places with M, and also hang out some more with H and V; A is getting a bit too old to want to socialise with aunts, and N is too young still. Nieces and nephews are excellent, at any rate. Especially mine. As for the rest, I have no real plans. We shall see what happens.

The old year ended well, we had a very excellent dinner with some of my favourite people, played a board game and chatted comfortably for several hours, before toasting and listening to the church bells ringing in the new year. I also got seriously annoyed with some idiot children (a group of 10-15-year-olds or so) who were shooting fireworks in a patently illegal spot, only a few metres outside the window at our friends’ ground floor apartment. They held the pieces in their hands, too - and there were adults with them, too, so I think the epithet “stupid” really does apply, not just “too young to understand”. It ended without any accidents or broken windows; the effect on the dogs in the surrounding flats is unknown. Other than that fireworks thing, as I say, excellent.

Am watching the ski jumping from Garmisch. It is New Year’s Day after all. However, the jumping is no longer broadcast in the afternoon just after the New Year’s concert from Vienna; instead we have to wait until the evening, and we can only watch it because we have all kinds of odd channels. But I don’t mind. I do feel old watching the competition, though - they are mere boys, almost all of them. I’ll order a Zimmer frame on Ebay tomorrow.