The Minnesota Noices

Author: Jennifer

  • A milestone birthday

    A milestone birthday

    18! An adult but still a teenager… here’s a birthday montage of our firstborn.

  • Exploring Vienna

    Exploring Vienna

    Vienna was excellent for a weekend trip. The Noicelings did not enjoy the Viennese Waltz muzak as we boarded our early morning flight. I thought it was a nice touch to set the mood for Austria. We arrived in time for brunch and I wished, not for the first time since moving to Europe, that…

  • New Year’s Eve: Vienna

    New Year’s Eve: Vienna

    The kids requested a quiet Holiday break in Lund, which was quite nice for all of us. We had a chance to tackle a few more items on the to-do-list as well as enjoy local festivities. Erin and Ramesh hosted a wonderful Christmas brunch and we had our second annual group Julbord in Malmö. After…

  • Advent season

    Advent season

    I hosted fika at our apartment one afternoon and served glögg using the collection of cups that I collected from thrift stores around town. A clerk at the Grand Deli advised me what to serve for the most traditional glögg party. She recommended lingon knäcke, a kind of flat bread/ cracker, along with ginger cookies…

  • Birthday week, part 2

    Birthday week, part 2

    …birthday week has turned into birthday month and it’s nearly December! At this point I will just try to choose a few moments to highlight and summarize the month of November. Erin and Melissa took me out for birthday lunch at Marvin, featuring “classic English suet pies” and wonderful crispy Mac and Cheese bites. We…

  • More excursions

    More excursions

    I keep expecting life to slow down as we settle in on Spolegatan, but it never really does. Lund, like most Swedish cities, is putting up winter lights, replacing water in the fountains with greenery, and adding seasonal decoration. I joined two international organizations for tours in Helsingborg and Malmö this week. In Malmö we…

  • The Celtic New Year

    The Celtic New Year

    The old traditions of Samhain, All Hallows Eve, Día de los Muertos, All Saints and All Souls have melded into an interesting mix of religious and cultural celebrations here in Sweden. It makes perfect sense that people mark the transition from summer-harvest-abundant life to winter-dormancy-death. And many cultures believe that “the veil between the living…

  • Autumn in Spain

    Our plans to visit my Spanish friend, Laura, had been on-hold since 2020 due to covid concerns and other circumstances. So I decided to take a solo trip. Even though it was not ideal to travel so soon after moving, I was tired of waiting for the perfect time. Laura’s daughter is spending a year…

  • The Castles of Outlander

    Outlander is a series of Historical Fiction/ Fantasy novels by Diana Gabaldon, which was introduced to me in 1996 by Sandy Katz, a teacher colleague from Poquoson HS in Virginia. I remember that she gave me the first book on a Friday and on the following Monday morning she had the second book waiting for…

  • Edinburgh

    Another long-weekend adventure with my friend, Stephanie. We headed to Edinburgh in that small window where the crowds have gone but the weather is generally still pretty good. Of course the death of Queen Elizabeth put a twist on our plans so instead the city was fairly crowded, with nearly all the typical tourist sites…