Burns' night

Robert Burns is a famous Scottish poet. My love is like a red, red rose is one of his poems. I remember picking it for my 7th grade reading class. In honor of good ole bobby, the Scots have Burns' night. Often celebrated in January as his death was on the 25th. Ken had a Scottish friend when he worked in France that introduced him to the tradition. So every year now he and his wife host a Burns' night.

 

There's a whole ceremony that goes along. At different times in the evening, speeches and toasts are given. Before soup, Pascale spoke of Burns' life.

 

 

Then out comes the haggis and there's a toast to the haggis, which Chris skillfully executed.

 

Ken play the fiddle and every year he and his kids go to Scotland for a folk music festival. While he's there, he gets a haggis. This one exploded, but was still tasty.

Neeps and tatties (turnips and potatoes) are traditional sides. Everything was really good! And what Scottish night would be complete without Scotch?

At some point there was a toast to the lassies and a toast to the laddies. The later was my job and it was terrible. After dessert we read poetry, some Burns' poetry, some others. I read the Jaberwocky by Lewis Carrol. I did much better with this than the toast.

 

 

One of my favorite things about living abroad is all the new traditions we have learned. Thanks Ken for such a lovely evening!

 

 

 

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Bowling

On Friday night we went bowling. Chris has made a group of friends at school. One of the girls, Valeria, had a birthday on Thursday and wanted the group to come out and celebrate with her. We met at the bowling ally in Malmö. It was pretty rainy, but luckily the bus stop was very close to where we were headed.

 

It was downstairs. When we went in the door, and before we could go downstairs, we had to leave our coats at the coat check. I like the idea of coat checks, but I'm pretty sure I have never been anywhere that had one, and I know I've never been to a bowling ally with one. The place was really nice. It had a lot of lanes and was set up quite well.

There were 6 couples and 8 countries represented; Russia, Macedonia, Ukraine, Sweden, Iceland, Ireland, Sudan and, of course, the US. We played girls on one lane and guys on another.

 

 

When Valeria had first asked the group if they wanted to go bowling, Chris had said, "I left my bowling shoes in the States." As he said that, he just happened to be pushing up his sleeves. They all thought he must be a professional and was super serious about bowling. He spent some time trying to tell them he was just kidding. Humor is one thing that is hard to cross the language barrier. However the myth of Chris being an awesome bowler was perpetuated by the fact that he rolled a strike on his first frame! Actually I did too, so they were all impressed with our bowling skills. We have no idea what happened, because we don't bowl. In the end Chris and I both came in second in our groups! and we both broke 100, so that's something.

 

 

After bowling we headed across the street for some dinner, we were all starving. Malmö is very urban and there are restaurants all over, so we had a lot of choices. To satisfy all tastes in the crowd, we decided on a pizza and kebab place. We went American style. There was a single and a family. Clearly we ordered family.

 

 

 

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Basketball

One of Chris' classmates, Jovan, plays semi-pro basketball here in Lund. On Saturday, he put us on the guest list and we went to see him. First, Charlie needed a walk.

We met another classmate in the city center, and then walked over to the arena. It was fun to watch the game, and a good thing to do on a winter afternoon!