The Minnesota Noices

Category: CulinaryAdventure

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • Another birthday in Sweden!

    Our 14 year old (yikes!) says we need to do something different for her birthday this year to distinguish it from the photos of previous b-days in Sweden. She’s right- it’s hard to tell since she requests the same cake, gets similar gifts in more or less the same setting. So this year we changed…

  • Friday Afternoon Beverage

    At the Ingrid restaurant in front of the Grand Hotel – rocking the euro livstil!

  • Sunshine Island

    The Danish island of Bornholm, called the sunshine island because it has, on average, more sunny days than the rest of Denmark, lies in the Baltic Sea near Sweden’s southern coast. We’ve been planning a visit since we first arrived since it’s an easy ferry ride away, but somehow it didn’t happen. With our first…

  • Andra Julen i Sverige

    Our second Christmas in Sweden. How time flies! We had more concerts, parties and events this year before new Omicron restrictions kicked in. On Monday I went to a concert at Lunds Domkyrka with traditional music of the season, including Lucia songs, ambient Celtic style vocals performed in the dark, acapella, candle light processional with…