We had a nice lunch at Allegro Andante, by Spinola Bay

Inlagd sill and rödbetssallad

We didn’t have all the traditional food we usually eat in Sweden on Christmas Eve, but Jan-Olof brought inlagd sill from Sweden and I made rödbetssallad after my grandmother’s recipe. We also had Findus småköttbullar and knäckebröd that we bought here in Malta. Kalle found som kind of sausage that looked like prinskorv, but it didn’t taste like prinskorv. The only thing I missed was julskinka.

Gizmo is checking out the christmas gifts

Kalle is also checking out christmas gifts. He gave me the Wii game "Wii Fit Plus" that I wanted, and now he is checking it out.

 

Gizmo and Pelle

 

Tired!

The goat could not be saved

03.20 AM

Bye bye Gävlebocken...

At 3 am the big goat in Gävle was set on fire and could not be saved.

Aftonbladet: Bara skelettet kvar av bocken

Gävlebockens blogg: Gone!

I decided to do some christmas shopping today. And so did the rest of Malta I think! I took the bus to Valletta and stayed there for several hours looking for christmas decorations and christmas gifts.

In the afternoon I went to Sliema to buy some clothes and more gifts. when I was done I had 3 big shopping bags in each hand. After spending 20 min waiting for the bus I gave up and found and started looking for a taxi that could take me to St Julians. By then I was really tired.

10 min and €12 later – candy heaven!

I just couldn’t resist! I try not to eat candy, but when I left the store I had bought at almost 1 kilo of Malaco smågodis (pick n mix), OLW chips and ostbågar. Yammy!

Candynavia

Swedish candy!

An old Aladdin-box I bought for my collection of old stuff a few years ago.

A few weeks ago I participated in a vote on which praline I like best in the Aladdin-box. I have several favourites but the one I finally voted for was the egg liqueur praline.

Today I read the result on Aftonbladet.se. My favourite praline didn’t even get 4% of the votes?!  I’m surprized. The praline will be removed in next years edition of the box. So, all of you who have an Aladdin-box but does not like Ägglikör, please send them to me!

http://www.aftonbladet.se/julshopping/article6289089.ab

This is an overview for normal letter, max weight 20g in Sweden/50g in Malta.

Local mail
Malta €0.19 (approx. 2.00 SEK)
Sweden 6.00 SEK (approx. €0.56)

Within Europe
Malta €0.37 (approx. 4.00 SEK)
Sweden 12.00 SEK (approx. €1.12)

Outside Europe
Malta €0.51 (approx. 5.50 SEK)
Sweden 12.00 SEK (approx. €1.12)

I must say that it felt very wierd to post the Christmas cards wearing t-shirt, in 18°C!

Two walls down...

It didn’t take long for the rest of my tower to collapse. Half an hour ago Kalle shouted from the kitchen that two walls were down and while I was downloading the photos to the computer he shouted again that all walls had fell.

Just a pile of gingerbread pieces left

All walls down...

Breaking News:

The roof of Portomaso Tower collapsed early this morning

Roof of the Portomaso Tower collapsed early this morning, leaving massive structure damage to the rest of the building. Now when the roof is gone, there is no weight on the walls and it will probably take a few days before they fall down. If they still stands by the end of next week, they will be demolished.

The building constructor Emma Brynils says that she will not rebuild the tower until the problems leading to this collapse, has been analyzed and actions taken to prevent this from happening again.

-It’s really no fun to put all time and effort into building houses or in this case – a tower – when it only lasts a couple of days, Emma says. 

Since the collapse were predicted the building was already evacuated and no gingerbread man or women was injured.

The tower without the roof

The walls split up when the roof collapsed

The roof and antenna is broken in pieces at the bottom of the tower

My soon-to-be-gone tower

Look at my poor tower… not much to do about it now.

I’ll just wait and see how long it takes before it falls apart.

I know for sure it won’t last until Christmas anyway.

Foto: Tomas Jakobsson, Länsmuseet Gävleborg

Pepparkakshus i jätteformat 

Entrén 

I år är det tionde gången som konstnären Margareta Persson designar och bygger ett pepparkakshus i jätteformat. Några av de tidigare husen har stått på museet och några i restaurangmiljö. Denna gång är huset större än någonsin – ett mäktigt pepparkaksslott! Med stjärnprydda torn och tinnar, stämningsbelysning och 145 (!) spröjsade fönster står det i länsmuseets entré och sprider pepparkaksdoft och julkänsla.

Länsmuseet Gävleborg

What should I do? Any suggestions?

Since I hade plenty of dingerbread dough left, I decided to build a gingerbread house.

First I had to cut out the different pieces I needed.

Let the pieces cool down.

The smaller pieces got a little burned, but it will have to do anyway.

I think I have all pieces now.

 

The corners must be separated from the wall.

So, all corners at separated from the walls now.

I melted sugar and used it as glue.

The first 3 sides were easy to put toghether.

It was difficult to add the last side without getting burned on the sugar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First corner piece in place.

All 4 small corners added without any problems.

 

Corner walls

 

All corners walls are added now.

  

 

The roof is put in place. The hole is for the antenna.

 

I had to add reinforcement on the roof for the heavy antenna.

 

 

 

 

 

Looking good!

I had problems with the antenna, it almost went throught the roof.

Almost ready now!

Time to decorate

I'm done with the decorations.

Portomaso Business Tower as gingerbread house