dessert for walpurgis

And the bakemania goes on. My uncle and his wife came today for the weekend so I had a perfect excuse to make a nice dessert. Decided to make a panna cotta of some kind since it is usually so delicious and easy to make. In fall I made this incredible saffron panna cotta that is one of the best desserts I have ever made. And you can just imagine how beautiful it looks with its bright yellow color.

But this time I decided to go for a white chocolate panna cotta with a layer of mango on top. Really nice I must say. (Then I actually also baked another cake, a liquorice mud cake but that I am waiting to taste until tomorrow.)

Delicious white chocolate panna cotta with mango layer topped with roasted coconut flakes.

utrikesdepartementet, here i come!

May 17th I start working again.

At the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs (Utrikesdepartementet)! Cannot wait.

The meeting went well today and they just presented what they were doing and then I presented myself. They did not yet have specifics on what my tasks will be, only a few early ideas but they will figure it out until I start.

Sure, it is almost like having an unpaid internship but I do not care. I think I will get about half of what I had as a student, so it will not be a lot. It will be nice though, to do something. And especially to 'do something' at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.

i am updated

Finally it was time for my Spotify to get updated to the new version. Been waiting for a few days now. Love the fact that you now can import your local files, a feature I really like. There are still several tracks and artists that are not on Spotify and now you can just import them instead of having two different players. Me like.

The social aspect seems quite nice too, that you have a friends list in Spotify. Now I just have to wait until the friends get the new version too, cause now I only have me on my friend list.

raspberry and peach crumble

The bakemania continues. Something is baked at least once a week nowadays it seems. Tonight I was just feeling for something sweet and since I love pies and it is so easy to make I decided to go for that.

I took what we had at home and I ended up with a raspberry and peach crumble. Really nice combination I must say, especially with the touch of lemon peel I had in as well. A piece of crumble with some vaniljvisp (a type of light, fluffy custard). Yummy.





















I got the basic recipe from my new favorite baking blog Kalasgott where she had a recipe for a berry crumble.

one step closer to the internship

Two weeks ago I sent in my CV for the internship at Regeringskansliet (the Government Offices of Sweden) that I went to a meeting to hear about. Last week I finally got the call I had been waiting for. A woman called and wanted to have a meeting with me regarding an internship at the Foreign Ministry of Affairs. I think it is just to meet me and see who I am and perhaps give some information, I do not think it is even an interview. The word she used was 'meeting' and as they explained before, it is not like a normal procedure for applying to jobs.

Anyway, on Thursday I will be heading in to Stockholm to meet this woman for a meeting. Hopefully I will start my internship as soon as possible. Really looking forward to it.

Although, I am not looking forward to all the commuting. Approximately one hour in one direction. I also have to figure out how to actually get to the train station from home since I do not have a car on my own, but hopefully we will figure it out. Hopefully I can also stay at some friends' places a night now and then.

danish taxes, no like

After I got the bad news about my Danish tax declaration I was really bummed out. It said I had to pay 9 500 DKK since I had paid too little tax throughout the year. Which I totally did not understand since I had declared my yearly salary and for sure did not earn more than that since I stopped working and left the country. But somehow they have a system that I still do not understand at all, they apparently do some recalculations to get a new yearly income of what I earned during the months I was actually registered in Denmark. In the end that yearly income was a lot higher than my actual total salary during 2009. It is just strange.

I asked several Danish people to have a look at it to see if it was correct, a Danish man at mom's job looked through my papers and did calculations and came up that it all seemed correct. Damn. With one last effort I called Skat, the Danish tax authorities, to make them explain why they calculated the way they did. I eventually got hold of a man that talked English and actually could explain it a little (although I still do not understand the system). He suggested me to send in some papers stating that I wanted them to use my actual yearly salary and not the calculated one, and another paper stating that I did not have an income when I came back to Sweden. So I did.

That was last week and I have been waiting to get a new tax statement online and the other day it had appeared. I was really hoping that the amount to be paid had been lowered, the man I talked to thought that I should be able to get it lowered if I send in those papers which I did.

I check out the new tax statement and see that now the number is only 6 900 DKK instead of 9 500 DKK, and I feel good that it got lowered at least a bit. Then I see the text in front of those numbers and I realize that it is actually 6 900 DKK that will be paid out. It is not the amount that I will have to pay, I will get that amount back. I was truly happy, this was what I was hoping in the first place, to get money back.

It is all just so strange. It is a difference of almost 17 000 DKK just because I demanded them to use my actual yearly income instead of the calculated one. And I do not understand at all that I had to send in proof that I had no income here in Sweden. What if I had worked? If it was so I would have paid taxes on that in Sweden and why should I then have to suffer for that in Denmark?

Anyway. I am happy. I will get money back and do not have to worry about paying them.

what could have been

This could have been me this weekend, at the Indian wedding. At 51 seconds into the video.
And today I could have been lying on a beach in Goa.

wishing for a travel partner

Was just looking through Knivlisa's blog. She is in Asia and has been since beginning of February and does not know when she will be back in Sweden again. I wish I was there as well. Even more so now since my India trip fell through. I wish I had someone to go with me the Asia for a month or two. Or three. Or I wish that I could enjoy going by myself.

I want to travel somewhere warm. Lie on the beach somewhere in the hot sun.

Probably the best vacation ever, Bantanyan island in Philippines.

cancelling my flights

Went to Arlanda airport again today. Today I got the number 488 and the board showed 397, no fewer people in waiting this time. However, it took almost the same time as last Thursday since all the numbers ahead of me where actually there waiting and not many had left.

After waiting for about two hours the only thing they could help me with was the cancellation of the flights. Not any refund. For a refund I had to contact the company through which I booked the ticket. That sucked. Reading all the information in the news and websites I got the understanding that I in first place should contact the airline. But no. Now I have contact BudJet through which I made the booking and we will see how long it takes until I will get my money back.

I also called Kingfisher Airlines to see if I could get a refund. They were really helpful, I think all Indians in service centers of some kind are always so polite and helpful. To my surprise I actually will recieve money back, I thought that it would be money down the drain. I have to pay some cancellation fees, but I think I will get around 1500 SEK back out of the 2000 SEK I paid in the first place. Nice Indians giving me the money back.

my date with drew

I did get some warmth today, by taking a dip in our bathing barrel. We defied the weather, it was dark outside, wind and rain coming and going. But it was nice to sit in 38dc warm water and just enjoy. Zipping on an apple and elderflower cider.

Then I laid in my bed figuring out what movie to watch (on Voddler), I was just looking through the movies and came across the movie My Date With Drew. There were several comments to the movie on the site and they all wrote that they became so happy and positive when seeing the movie. I can do nothing but agree, the movie made me laugh and smile until the end.

It is about Brian who decides to make a documentary about trying to get a date with Drew Barrymore in 30 days. I really liked the movie and definitely got me in a good mood. I needed that after this last few days.

So, you need cheering up? Watch My Date With Drew.