The "E"s

Meet Emma and Evelina- the two girls from Sweden who spent Christmas with us. What fun we had! They had been sight-seeing all down the East Coast, so when they arrived at our house they were all ready for some quiet days. Neither of them had ever been away from home for Christmas, so staying with a real family was ideal.

We spent ages sitting around talking, laughing, discussing languages, discussing cultural differences, and generally enjoying each other. They had never eaten turkey before except in deli form, so out grand bird was a big attraction. I think they even took pictures of it! They had fun adding new words to their already excellent English vocabulary (such as pine needles) and we learned tiny bits of Swedish. Did you know that the name Thorpe is the Swedish word for a certain type of house in the woods? Or that the Swedish word for knife is knive?

I had previously decided that Swedish was an unexpectedly beautiful language and was glad to be exposed to it again. The two of them chattered away with each other in Swedish, leaving us clueless but amused. The funniest was when their Dad called them from home. They were in the living room with us. One would be on the cell phone while the other kept up a patchy translation for our benefit. "Evelina just said that..." "Our Dad is teasing her because..."

Christmas trees are very similar in Sweden, but Christmas dinner is a different kettle of fish (quite literally). Swedish traditional Christmas meal consists of sausages, omelettes, various fish dishes, mashed potatoes, and I am forgetting the rest. Most of it was equally gross. Christmas morning they have cooked rice for breakfast. In the evening they mix the leftover rice with cream and serve it for dessert with fruit sauce. Sounds lovely, what?

Okay, enough on Swedish/American Christmases.

And the title? My family called them the "E"s before they arrived because they couldn't remember their names. It stuck even after they arrived. :-)