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Foreign Grocery Friday: The Glögg Mulled Wine of Scandinavia

When we travel, one of our favorite things to do is to pop into a local grocery store and check out the food products and candies we'd never find anywhere else. So we're trying out this new feature, Foreign Grocery Friday, where each week we'll feature some of our (and your) favorite overseas treats. Got a recommendation? Let us know!

With only so much time left before the holidays, it's now that we get serious about winter treats. Gingerbread houses and candy canes are all well and good, but going farther afield to foreign Christmas traditions yields such yummy drinks as Glögg. This mulled wine is a decidedly Scandinavian tradition, but Iceland and Estonia like to get in on it as well.

Since Glögg is essentially just one version of mulled wine, other country's attempts at the beverage are also totally fine if Glögg isn't available. Germany/Austria/Switzerland's Glühwein is, for instance, an excellent substitute, as is the vin brulé of Northern Italy (especially the ski resort towns). Just be sure to serve it with a bit of gingerbread or a few ginger snap cookies on the side.

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SAS Airlines to Hold a Contest for the World's First In-Flight Gay Marriage

It's a world's first! Just wait to hear what exactly "it" is...

(Same-sex) Love is in the air this winter aboard SAS. The Scandinavian airline is hoping to host the world’s first same-sex wedding in the air aboard one of their A340s between Stockholm and New York on December 6. To find the lucky couple for the mid-air nuptials, the longtime gay-friendly airline is launching a major social media contest campaign titled “Love is in the air.” Cute. Not fierce. But cute.

The airline has partnered with VisitSweden and Stockholm Gay & Lesbian Network to offer one European couple and one American couple the chance to get married aboard SAS flights and honeymoon packages—the European couple be married aboard the outbound flight to the U.S. and will get to vacation there, and the American couple will be feted on the way back to Sweden.

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Sweden to Become Hotspot Thanks to 'Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'

Chances are, you've either read the Stieg Larsson book Girl with the Dragon Tattoo or know at least two people who have, because that book is everywhere. In fact, it's the first book to sell over 1 million copies on the Amazon Kindle and now Hollywood wants a piece of the action.

It's been announced that Daniel Craig has signed on to star in the English-language movie version, and David Fincher will direct. And MTV has some exclusive and exciting news straight from Fincher that's sure to make the Sweden Tourist Board very happy: the movie will be filmed in "Stockholm. Uppsala. In the north." This means the movie will stay true to the novel's Scandinavian imagery instead of trying to Americanize it by shooting it in the States.

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Foreign Grocery Friday: Nordic Muesli is Far Sweder

When we travel, one of our favorite things to do is to pop into a local grocery store and check out the food products and candies we'd never find anywhere else. So we're trying out this new feature, Foreign Grocery Friday, where each week we'll feature some of our (and your) favorite overseas treats. Got a recommendation? Let us know!

Forget cornflakes or cocoa puffs; Sweden knows that breakfast is better with a bowl of muesli. And although we wish it had a funkier, Sweder name, one of our favorite bags of the good stuff goes by the simple name of "Nordic Muesli."

Grabbed by the handful, served in a bowl with milk or mixed with cut fruit, muesli is an essential snack in Sweden, so much so that the Swedish almost match the Swiss in their love for it. Grocery shelves offer a staggering variety, but we'd stick with this stuff.

The taste: Muesli is dry oats mixed with a some goodies, like dried banana chips, orange bits, raisins and slivered almonds in the case of this variety, and thus it can be quite dry. You'll need to either warm up your salivary glands or douse it in milk. We recommend almond or coconut milk (the latter used in the picture below) to enhance the flavors, and you'll end up having both a healthy meal and one that tastes of a nice fruitiness.

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How to Win a Free Road Trip through Sweden in a Volvo

If you want to plan your own road trip across West Sweden, there's someone willing to foot the bill. Volvo and West Sweden's tourism bureau are offering a contest that will pay for your trek across the Scandinavian country, and anyone is free to enter.

The thing is, you can't choose whatever pops into your head for the design-it-yourself trip's itinerary. Instead, you're provided with a list of activities from which to choose. For example, you could take in the art at the Nordic Watercolour Museum on the island of Tjörn, go on a lobster safari to catch the creatures and help cook them for your dinner at a hotel on Flaton island, dine on elk or beaver at Falktholts Gestgiveri in Dalsland, or go golfing at a number of courses.

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Stockholm Kicks Starbucks To The Curb With The Retro 'Konditori Valand'

Starbucks might be attempting to create more of a cafe with their concept "15th Street Coffee & Tea" restaurant, but it will simply never equal the awesomeness of truly great, very authentic cafes that still exist and serve up homemade goods around the world. One such spot, which might not last too much longer as the owners grow old, is Stockholm's Konditori Valand.

The cafe, in the Surbrunnsgatan section of town, is run by Magdalena Åström, who has maintained the original interior of the cafe since it was begun and designed by her husband in 1954. The result is a mid-century modern stunner, with well-worn teak furniture and an imported black stone floor from Italy. The cafe is a fixture in German guidebooks and on the lists of retro furniture enthusiasts, but that doesn't mean that a regular old, design-appreciating tourist can't enjoy a coffee and slice of cake here.

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The Movie that Created the Sexy Stereotype of Sweden

Much has been made of the idea that Sweden is filled with hot, sex-starved women, but where did that tantalizing myth originate? A video making the rounds right now might offer a clue. The 1968 mondo film Sweden: Heaven and Hell presents itself as a straightforward documentary about the sex lives of Swedes, but its staged footage of gorgeous Scandinavians finding any excuse to get naked and randy places it squarely in the realm of reality-based fantasy fiction.

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Nobel Prize Winner In Literature Afraid To Go Home To Romania

This must be the best day ever for all you Herta Müller fans! In case you're not caught up on modern literature, Müller is the 2009 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, announced this morning in Stockholm.

Müller lives and works in Germany now, but grew up in Communist Romania under dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, and many of her books describe the plight of young people in a controlling regime. She revealed in an essay penned earlier this summer for the online magazine Sign and Sight that she is afraid to travel in Romania even now because she believes members of the government are still following her.

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Nothing's Sweder Than Plane Spotting Straight From A Cockpit

We love airplanes, you love airplanes, so let's go look at airplanes! In our Prime Plane Spotting series, we'll let you in on all the best spots to whip out your cameras and binoculars for a piece of the aviation action.

Where is better for plane spotting than actually being on the airport's tarmac...or better yet, in a honeymoon suite on the tarmac? This actually became possible less than a year ago, when the Jumbo Hostel opened at Stockholm's Arlanda Airport.

This decommissioned 747 has had its seats ripped out in favor of installing 25 bedroom suites, complete with free wireless internet access and flatscreen TVs, and, for most rooms, full en-suite bathrooms. Even Singapore Airlines' A380 first class suites can't compare with these, but then the Jumbo Hostel no longer flies, so there's that.

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From The Swedish Road Trip Dept.: Buy Your Volvo Here and Get a Free Vacation

Formerly boxy, now looking cooler and always safe, the Swedish automobile miracle that is the Volvo – aka the official car of the European Union - is very keen to persuade you to visit Sweden.

The tourism attack being put on by Volvo is two-pronged – and the first involves actually buying your own Volvo. This won't suit everyone, obviously, but if you're in the market for a new Volvo and you live in the US, you can order one direct from Sweden, save around 8 percent on the price, and then get a free vacation in Sweden.

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Thank Sweden For Making Volvo The Official Car of The EU

If you’re planning an official state visit to Sweden anytime soon, you’ll be happy to know you will be riding in style. At the beginning of the month, Sweden took over the presidency of the European Union, and one of their first acts was to name Volvo as the official vehicle of the EU.

Hello, efficiency: Volvo will coordinate everything through its marketing company, and will pass on the administration hassles for Hertz to deal with. And these cars transporting heads of state won’t be the typical boxy Volvo grocery-getter wagons either. They’re all part of the car company’s DRIVe program and offer low emissions and fuel consumption.

Now, instead of gas-guzzlers, the EU will be street-styling in flexible fuel vehicles that run on diesel and bioethanol. If you are sadly not a world leader headed to Sweden anytime soon, then of course you may instead go to your local Volvo dealer and pretend to be such. Or just catch a free ride during the UN climate change conference this winter in Copenhagen; Volvo will be strutting their green stuff there as well.

Related Stories:
· Volvo to be European Union's Official Car Starting July 1st [Automotive.com]
· IKEA Furniture Not For Sale in Stockholm Art Gallery [Jaunted]
· Sweden Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo of a Volvo Helping Out a SAS plane: kjd]

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IKEA Furniture Not For Sale in Stockholm Art Gallery

While the name of the Swedish gallery Liljevalchs Konsthall may seem like a bit of a mouthful, its English subtitle "The Stockholmers' own public art venue" explains it pretty well. We can't pronounce it, but we want to go there, because starting this month they have a special IKEA exhibition happening.

We should admit, to be fair, that half our furniture has its origins at the local IKEA, so we're natural candidates for this kind of exhibition. The retrospective looks at the history of IKEA over its 50 years: starting back at the first flat-pack table it sold back in the 1950s and showing how furniture designs changed and developed over the decades.

There are also interesting anecdotes about IKEA life. For example, back in the 70s there was a big spate of denim-covered furniture, but it wasn't really about style – that was because the founder bought up a huge supply of denim at a bargain price from a Chinese factory that was going broke.

The IKEA exhibition runs until August 30 in Stockholm, and getting in will cost you 69 SEK (less than $9). In summer the Liljevalchs Konsthall is open every day except Monday (but on Mondays, of course, you can go shopping at the real IKEA instead).

Related Stories:
· Liljevalchs Konsthall [Official Site]
· Ikea Exhibition Showcases 50 Years of Functional Furnishing [Guardian]
· Stockholm Travel Guide [Jaunted]

[Photo: ktpupp]