Living La Vida Lunda: A blog abroad

The Minnesota Noices

  • Camping ahead of the Storm

    Camping ahead of the Storm

    Wet autumn weather arrived with Storm Amy, ending the streak of lovely late-summer we’d been having. Fixardag, our apartment collective cleaning/ maintenance day, was rescheduled due to the coming storm. But the worst seemed to have passed by late afternoon, so Bryant and I headed to Trelleborg for dinner at Stulna Bestick Stolen Cutlery. We…

  • September 2025

    September 2025

    It seems as though a monthly post is more my speed lately. At the beginning of the month the eldest and I went to Minnesota to clean out the basement at Highland Hideaway, celebrate the birthdays of my mom and younger brother, and to catch up with friends. Eldest had not been to MN for…

  • Seventeenth birthday adventures

    Seventeenth birthday adventures

    Ebba’s friend, a neighbor from the Berkeley days, came to spend a week with us. It was a whirlwind of travel and adventure mixed with lots of down-time for gaming and catching up. For a variety of pesky reasons, the eldest Noiceling and I missed a lot of the fun but luckily Bryant was able…

  • A Provençal Holiday

    A Provençal Holiday

    One of my (Bryant’s) bucket list trips was lavender fields in Provence. As well, we have friends that just love that area and have encouraged us to check it out. Summer of 2025 was the time. We ended up super-lucky with the weather managing to arrive after the big heat wave, and also after the…

  • Arctic Adventures

    Arctic Adventures

    One of our family trips this summer of 2025 was planned as a nature trip to Tromsø Norway, at almost 70° North latitude, it is well in the arctic circle. After the Provence trip, Jen decided to skip this one, thinking that it would be a lot of hiking and bugs (spoiler – she was…

  • Sommartider hej hej

    Sommartider hej hej

    Summer has been slow to arrive but today is the first really hot day, by my standards, at 84 degrees. It might even qualify as a heat wave, which in Sweden is 3 consecutive days with a high of at least 77 degrees. Because the infrastructure is built to reduce heating costs, there hasn’t been…

  • Studenten Season in Skåne

    Studenten Season in Skåne

    The folks required lots of recovery time upon reaching Lund (a full day journey via taxi, ferry, commuter train, high speed train-with last minute platform change, bus). Our youngest (camp name Ebba) was still busy wrapping up her penultimate year at Katte but we squeezed in some small excursions close to home. Then on the…

  • Gotland’s Chamber Choir

    Gotland’s Chamber Choir

    Uppsala University’s Choir at Campus Gotland has been an interesting outlet for the eldest Noiceling. She enjoys singing with them and the director appreciates her regular attendance. Drawing from quite a small pool of students and other community members, Director Dan may be a bit over ambitious, at least from Hil’s perspective. They have dabbled…

  • Concordia Choir in Uppsala

    Concordia Choir in Uppsala

    We were fortunate enough to get a winter renter for our house in Saint Paul, but that further delayed my plans for a Spring visit. Then my parents began to consider a fun opportunity because the grandson of long-time family friends shared news of his upcoming Concordia College Choir Scandinavian tour. As a Concordia alumna,…

  • JÉNNY

    JÉNNY

    IN PARIS The opportunity to visit Paris presented itself sooner than expected, via my friend Carole, who arranged for me to stay for a few days with her at her flat in the 14th arrondissement. Her daughter, who lives there, generously spent those days couch surfing with her school friends so we could be extra…