Several people have asked me about what I think of the new series The Vikings (History channel). I`ve only seen two episodes but I will tell you my opinion if you`ll me yours 😉 First what I like about the series: The shieldmaiden. I truly loved her and I loved how we were told …
A lot of people struggle with the Danish pronunciations. Most of what Danes say sounds like mumbling to foreigners and nothing resembles the written language. Listen to these Danes and tell me if you think what they are saying is the same as what you can read they are saying: This might not be a …
I really shouldn`t be doing a count-down of the best Scandianvian actors because I`m bound to forget someone important or I may include someone who made a bummer movie I haven`t seen. But then I really want to show off all the handsome talented actors we have here in Scandinavia – so here goes: 1, …
I must confess to a youth as a stamp collector (yes, I did spend hours in the dark closet, trying to find out if a stamp was florescent or not) and when the Oseberg Viking ship project (I`ve written about them in an earlier blog post) started posting pictures of stamps with the Oseberg ship …
I`s not just one word – it`s both a noun and a verb. In Norway it`s koselig (noun) and kose (verb), in Denmark hyggelig (noun) and hygge (verb) and I believe the Swedish words for it is mysigt (noun) and mys (verb). So what is koselig/hyggelig/mysigt? What is that word that can`t be translated and …
FFFbone posted a link to this amazing list of 10 creatures in Scandinavian Folklore at the Random-Fandom . These are all creatures that are ingrained in our culture – especially the Norwegian culture which seems to have taken these creatures much more to heart than, for instance, the modern Danish culture. If my son spends too …
Public transportation is very important here in Scandinavia. A lot of Scandinavians take the bus, tram, subway, train or boat to work every day. Watching this Danish commercial makes one look forward to taking the bus tomorrow morning :-).
I felt the need for something lighter. A song, perhaps. I found this song pretty cute – about the letter Æ, Ø and Å and how size matters, even when it comes to the alphabet 🙂 And I`ll add a comic: Read more of the amazing Scandinavia and the World comics
Mama_Lovis gave me an interesting article where five myths about Vikings are discussed. I`ll come back to the other four myths but will deal with the one about what Vikings looked like first. Tall, muscular and blond or redheads I`m sure it`s no surprise that Vikings were tall (though not entirely as tall as the …
I found this incredibly interesting article which links the current good economy in Scandinavia all the way back to the Vikings. No, we do not still live off the gold and silver stolen from churches and monasteries by hordes of Vikings back in the days. The reason for our current high GNP is apparently the …