When we recently were asked to contribute to a Bucket List for our hometown Evanston, IL, it did not take us long to figure out what to write about.
Check out the recent Redfin article we were featured in: According to Elisabeth Hubbard of funflector, “As a Swede, I love to meet friends for a refreshing walk followed by “fika” (coffee, pastry/sandwich, and interesting conversations), and for that, Evanston is the most perfect place! With so many parks and tree-lined streets, it’s nice to walk almost everywhere, but our favorite is along Lake Michigan, north of Lee Street, as the colors of the lake and sky never look the same from one day to another. For fika, we love Newport on Davis for their authentic Swedish cardamon buns, Evanston Pour on Dempster for the cosmopolitan atmosphere, and Cupitol on Grove St. for the ultimate hygge experience.” (Those of you who have followed us here for some time, should not be surprised that it had to do with walking and drinking coffee 😂.)
It’s amazing to see the eyes of little girls light up when they find the pink cat safety reflector among all our other reflectors. We’ve seen it become an instant favorite so many times. Not surprising though, considering my own excitement as a toddler for the pink cats my mom appliquéd on my ceiling light. I have to admit that I’m not really a cat person, but cats are cute, cat videos are fun and the graceful pet is a wonderful source of inspiration for any designer and artist. And although different than the cats on my childhood ceiling light, our funflector cat safety reflector was inspired by the style I grew up with in Sweden in the 60’s and 70’s. We realize, not every cat lover likes pink, but luckily, the cat safety reflector looks just as good in other colors. Currently, it is also available in gray, orange and light brown.
The funflector cat safety reflector was inspired by the bold 60’s Scandinavian style.
Ladybug and gray cat safety reflector on backpack.
Get Some Pink Cat Safety Reflector to Support Human Rights
It’s June and almost midsummer, the time when Scandinavian nights are short, bright and magical and no-one thinks about safety reflectors. So many of us Scandinavians in North America have had our flights “back home” cancelled and are stuck with pitch black nights from 9 or 10 pm. In addition, Scandinavian markets and festivals are cancelled so no new kitchen towels, loose-leaf tea, fika mugs or cute onesies for the next generation. Well, Krista Nygaard of the Scandinavian Design Studio pulled together a team who has created an amazing online community of vendors and customers at scandinavianfest.com. So lets go shopping online instead and then bake (recipe at the end of this post) a midsummer strawberry cake 🍰!
Without darkness, we would not be able to see the light. The longer and darker the winter days are, the brighter and longer are the summer nights. Scandinavians know how to make the most out of the December darkness and turn it into prime time for advent “fika” and “hygge.”
Calendar candle waiting to be lit to count down to Christmas.
It’s of course also prime time for wearing safety reflectors as the Scandinavian walks and bikes a lot, also in the winter. Copenhagen has the longest days of the Scandinavian capitals, and sun sets there at 3:45.
It’s a bit of a culture shock for Scandinavians to see Christmas trees behind living room windows already the day after Thanksgiving. Although Sweden is a quite secular country, the tradition of keeping advent separate from Christmas lives on. The first Sunday of advent, kicks off a flurry of activities to prepare for Christmas, but many also make time for “advents-fika”. Fika is sitting around with friends or colleagues drinking coffee, eating some sweet treats and having conversations. Advent-fika has more candles, glögg in addition to coffee and Christmas cookies and pastries and is more for weekends with friends at home.
The Danes and Norwegians know how to “fika”, but interestingly don’t have a word for it. On the other hand they have “hygge” for which the Swedes don’t have a word… Hygge is for any time of the year, but December is prime time for top-hygge. Hygge is easier to experience than explain, so welcome to Copenhagen!
Typical Swedish Christmas window with lights, Amaryllis and Christmas curtains.
We will be at a couple of festivals and fairs this fall. If you are in the Chicagoland area, please stop by, get some safety reflectors, learn something new and say hello!
Celebrate your Scandinavian heritage or just enjoy good food, entertainment and Scandinavian gifts anyway. Get in touch with Scandinavian organizations in the Chicago area and shop unique goods and Scandinavian foods from over 50 vendors from across the U.S.A. The festival features Scandinavian entertainment from folk music and dance to ABBA, pony rides and face painting and hopefully as much sunshine as previous years.
Scandinavian Fest at Vasa Park drew visitors from near and far.
The Evanston Green Living Festival is an annual community event presented by the Evanston Environmental Association(EEA) and the City of Evanston. The festival is held at the Evanston Ecology Center and provides a venue where local organizations can present their green products, services and ideas to attendees who are looking for ways to lower their personal carbon footprint. This will be our first time exhibiting and we are excited to be part of it.
Warren High School Band Booster in Gurnee organizes a huge craft fair early November each year. Not only was it a good show last year, students also provided a phenomenal service and wheeled all our reflectors and displays to our booth. We are excited to be returning as the Band Booster celebrates its 20th fair!
Friendly student helpers at the Warren Booster Craft fair in Gurnee, 2013
The Julmarknad (Christmas Market) is our “holiday trip to Sweden” or as close as it gets. Swedish Lucia, music, food (meatball open face sandwiches!), baked goods (lussekatter & Princess Cake!) and Swedish related merchandize and hand made items. Don’t miss this weekend!
funflector® reflectors is one of many types of stocking stuffers you can find at the Julmarknad at the Swedish American Museum in Chicago.
Before the summer is over, we want to share some more fun from Tivoli Gardens, the century-old amusement park in central Copenhagen, Denmark. We’ve already talked about the rides and interesting architecture. Something else that was different from any American park we’e been to was the work on sustainability.
Sustainability
Tivoli is located in the heart of Copenhagen, across the street from the main train station (Hovedbangard) and with a plethora of bus stops and bike racks surrounding it. Copenhagen is after all one of the most bike friendly cities in the world, and local Tivoli visitors take advantage of it. We had a smooth quiet commuter train ride from southern Sweden, over the bridge, passed the Copenhagen airport before arriving in central Copenhagen. It’s a totally different experience than riding the diesel train from the suburbs to Chicago. (At the airport, the train stops right under the check-in area!) Tivoli reusable coffee/soda/beer mug with a 5 DKR deposit.
When ordering a coffee, I was first a bit shocked to have to pay five Danish crowns (almost one US dollar) for the cup. However, it turned out that I got the money back when I returned the mug to a refund machine. They used the same cups for hot and cold drinks, including beer, saving on litter and waste. The refund system also turned out to be a great source of income for the kids while they were waiting for the concert to begin. After a couple of beers, many on the concert lawn gladly let the kids collect the mugs. Ben and Jerry’s Ice cream at Tivoli 🙂
Good Food
Our teen and her friend waiting for fish and chips. It turned out to be well worth the wait.
While enjoying some wild rides at American amusement parks this year, even my kids wanted to go back to Tivoli Gardens for food and snacks (and for rides of course). Tivoli has both decent fast food and restaurants on their premises. For the meal included in our “Puls Pakke” tickets, we picked Fish & Chips. That might not sound so special, but the Chips (French fries) were organic and freshly made and the fish was simply delicious! Soda came of course in the recyclable mugs…
We had to try some Danish “aebleskiver”, apple slices. The fact that they are round like doughnut holes and don’t have a hint of apple in them doesn’t seem to bother the Danes whatsoever ;). But they were very yummy! At the waffle bakery, we bought some Danish aebleskiver (apple slices). They had not a hints of apple and not very slice like either, but they were delicious!
Music
There is more music than the Champagne Gallop at Tivoli. Friday night rock concerts are included in the ticket price and we enjoyed the 30 Seconds to Mars concert that June night. The ten minute drizzle while waiting for the music to begin, was soon forgotten.
30 Seconds to Mars with lead singer Jared Leto at Tivoli Copenhagen in June 2013.
Thirty Seconds to Mars at Tivoli Copenhagen in June 2013.
Wow, what a day! The 15 minute wait for the train home at 1AM felt like an eternity for tired kids and mom, but we’ll be back some day! Thumbs up and big smiles! We had an amazing day at Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen.
The funflector team, roller coaster test division 😉
Did you know that Walt Disney modeled the Magic Kingdom after the century old Tivoli in Copenhagen? In the space of a couple of city blocks, old fashion carousels are layered with modern and stomach turning roller coasters and rides. They are interleaved with parks, a concert hall, an aquarium, an amazing variety of quality food places and ice cream parlors. As we spent last summer in southern Sweden, my kids insisted our replacing our annual trip to Six Flags Great America with a trip to Tivoli. With “Puls Pakke” tickets (entrance, rides and one meal) for 329 DKR ($60) bought online, we set out to enjoy ourselves for the day (and night). As an extra bonus, Friday rock concerts are included in the ticket price and 30 Seconds to Mars did a great concert that June night.
Rides
The rides are layered and interleaved. It saves on endless walking and makes it easier to manage kids who want to go on different rides. But it does make it hard to find a place to shoot interesting photos. Here are some of the fun rides we tried. Tivoli Odin Express is not as innocent as it might look. It’s fast paste and surprising turns are beyond the expected. The back seat is the best (worst). Star Flier at Tivoli, 80 meter (260ft) tall gives you a great view of Copenhagen at 70 km/h (45 mph). Decoration on top is a nod to Tycho Brahe, a Danish astronomer in the 16th century. Bumper cars are always fun and when the cars are this richly decorated it is even fun to watch the kids go a second round.
Architecture
Buildings are carefully designed to fit in and although the space is tight, they have managed to create an airy feel. Both old and modern ones have interesting details, reminiscent of their time. The stylized green and yellow leaves decorating the wall of the Tivoli Concert Hall give away that it was build in the 1950’s. The railing carries the tune of the popular Champagne Gallop by Hans Christian Lumbye, the first music director and widely popular in-house composer for Tivoli. The Tivoli Concert Hall is decorated with Lumbye’s Champagne Gallop. Detail of Tivoli Glass Hall The Woodhouse built in 1997 for the Valhalla Castle ride, today used for a restaurant. Designed by architect Søren Robert Lund. Copenhagen sky is still bright past 10 pm on midsummer eve.
OMG, the blog post quickly got very long, so let’s save some yummy food, music and everything else we wanted to show you for another time.
So long & hav en dejlig dag! Elisabeth
“More Swedish than Sweden” was the title of an exhibition at the museum Kulturen in Lund (Sweden) many years ago. At the time, I was hanging out with mostly Americans, and curious about everything that tied Sweden and the US together. One of the display cases was jam-packed with coffee pots from the 19th century. The sign mentioned “egg coffee”. Egg coffee by the funflector Blog
Every Swede, or descendent thereof, knows Swedes drink a lot of (strong) coffee. But what was “egg coffee”??? I asked the staff but they had no answer. My American husband and I were on a quest to find out what “egg coffee” was (this was before google). We asked Swedes from Norrland, Gotland, Halland, Skåne and anywhere in-between but only got confused looks in return – for 12 years. Finally, after we moved to the US and visited Apple River Fort we found out. While the kids were making noodles, we chatted with volunteers in period costumes and we jumped high for joy when the conversation stumbled upon egg coffee. Egg coffee is simply what you get when you pour an egg over the coffee grounds in the pot to bind them and keep them from getting into the coffee cup. This was before coffee filters and French press. Today, “Egg coffee” gives 84,000 google hits and it is obvious from the comments, e.g. here, that it is truly a Swedish-American phenomenon, not a Swedish tradition.
Last Sunday morning, there was a stream of Facebook posts with adorable Swedish Princess Leonore being Christened at the Palace of Drottningholm. When I later that day arrived at the Swedish American Museum and the Andersonville Midsummer Festival in Chicago (two weeks before midsummer, but ok…), I was asked about the tradition of a Midsummer Queen. Midsummer Queen? My first thought that Sweden has a queen every day, so why a midsummer one? Swedish midsummer is about inviting family and friends to your summer cottage, about going to the neighborhood midsummer pole event and dance, about dancing all night during the night that goes directly from dusk to dawn and about girls picking 7 flowers to hide under her pillow to dream about her future husband ;). On midsummer eve, Swedish cities and towns are empty, very empty, and festivals or midsummer queens are only found abroad. (Watch “Swedish Midsummer for Dummies” if you don’t believe me.) Princess Madeleine, Mr. Christopher O’Neill and Princess Leonore. Foto by H. Garlöv / Kungahuset.se
It seems hard for some of my American friends to imagine kings, queens, princes and princesses being an everyday reality as it is in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and several other European countries. Maybe there is less need for “festival queens” when there is a charming royal family to pay attention to instead? Princess Madeleine, the youngest of the King’s children and mother of Princess Leonore, lives in New York with her British-American husband. I wonder what it is like to be a real princess in a country without princesses other than in fairy tales? Today happens to be her birthday; Happy birthday Princess Madeleine, enjoy it with your family in Sweden! Elisabeth
The long Scandinavian twilight summer nights peak today, June 21st. Swedish Midsummer Eve always falls on a Friday close to the old Midsummer Eve on June 24th. After long winters and slow springs, Midsummer is when Swedes head out to their summer cottages, invite friends over, eat herring, small fresh potatoes and strawberries, drink and dance all night long. If you are a tourist in Sweden, make sure you understand how closed down everything is and I mean EVERYTHING. Restaurants, coffee shops, stores, currency exchanges, and pretty much everything else. I got married on Midsummer day. One of the foreign guests had to borrow money for a taxi since they had not managed to get Swedish crowns. “I didn’t think it would be THAT closed”. Well, it was. Watch this if you don’t believe me!
Midsummer in Sweden
This summer, I have the fortune to be working and blogging from Europe. Early summer is a lovely time when nature erupts with leaves, flowers and sweet scent of lilac and “hägg” (prunus padus).
“Congratulations to Your Exam” – greeting card by kortgalleriet.se
Last week, I had the pleasure to to show my kids what a Swedish high school graduation looks like. The white caps “The Student Caps” originated among college students in the 1840’s to mark the affinity to their universities. At that time they were used daily, today they are rarely used outside of graduations and college ceremonies.
There is no Planet B. (duh!) Earth Hour (March 23rd at 8:30 pm) and Earth Day (April 22nd) are here soon to remind us to be careful with the only planet we have. However, it is not enough to be reminded, we also need to TAKE ACTION to leave a healthier planet behind for our children and for our grandchildren. As our followers know, we are all for walking and biking instead of driving, hanging out laundry to dry, reducing waste and recycling and more.
Superclean with just a cloth and water!
Here is another one, the ultimate no-brainer: With LESS effort, LESS time, LESS money and NO chemicals, you can get a cleaner house, office and car, a healthier family and a happier planet!!! Everyone is a winner: you, your wallet, your kids and the earth – can it get better? So, let me explain: With Norwex cloths you can clean your house, office, vehicle, windows, kitchen and bathroom – and your face! – with just water. It is not magic, just Scandinavian technology of incredible skinny polyester fiber (quality microfiber) that picks up everything – dirt, grime, grease, crumbs and dust without additional chemicals. Read more in the Norwex product catalog! So how can you get your hands on these amazing cloths? Here are three suggestions: 1. Buy them, either online or at my next party in Libertyville, IL (email info(at)funflector.com for dates and directions) 2. Get them for free!Book a real or online/catalog party. Introduce your friends to the amazing cloths and reap the rewards from the generous host gift program. As your consultant, I will guide you through and the online host portal will make it a breeze reaching out to friends and family near and far. 3. Earn an income on them! As a consultant you don’t only get free products, you also get a commission on every sale! Norwex has a figured out how to get you started with no startup cost! I did this a year ago and it’s been an amazing journey where each hour at work makes an impact in someone’s life! Be your own boss AND surround you with an inspirational team. Take action NOW – go green AND help yourself get more time for the things you love to do more than cleaning!
Take care, Elisabeth Hubbard Owner funflector.com & Norwex Independend Sales Consultant
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