Christmas Eve with Harry Potter

Yeah, Christmas Eve was a little out of the ordinary this time - the Stokoe Westbergs got out of bed early on a day off!!! On top of that, the day was spent in Harry Potter's footsteps throughout the wonderful city of London.
First out King's Cross station. We searched and searched, got bruised bumping into walls here and there, but alas.

Finally we spotted a long queue of people inside the station - aha!

If you go there, do visit the fabulous Harry Potter Shop next to the famous platform 9 3/4.

 Remember, swish and flick!

 Next stop - wobbly Millenium Bridge. No death eaters in sight on that day, pew!

A walk along the Thames took us to ...

... Gringott's Wizarding Bank. Well, they used the inside of this building, which is the Australia House.

It was getting late and we had a dinner appointment in the evening. Before that we just had to pay a visit to Hamley's 

Meet my family :-)

Father Christmas arriving on a ... bicycle rikshaw? This Christmas Eve certainly is out of the ordinary. Did make us feel a bit "at home" though.

We managed to find a double decker bus (check) to take us back to Victoria Station and as luck would have it the front seat upstairs was free, in fact, we had the whole bus to ourselves (for a while anyway).

A quick stop-over in Sweden

Christmas has come and gone. We had a fabulous few weeks with a lot happening in different countries, cultures and temperature zones! The world is a small place :-)

We start in Sweden:

Within 24 hours of landing in Sweden the party was ON! Friends and family from near and far, fabulous catering, good wine and ...

... an acclaimed appearance by the world famous Ungtupparna United

A BIG thank you to everyone who made the evening a very special one indeed.

Well, and since the timing of our arrival (once upon a time) was thus planned (or not ...) a few days later Christmas was suddenly upon us ... well, a slightly premature Christmas this time since the Stokoe Westberg had  engagements elsewhere on that particular day.
Preparations are on the way by the most competent people :-)

 Meat balls, brunkål, prinskorv, sillsallad and a load of other food soon ready.

 The last touches to the beautifully laid table.

 

Even upstairs everything seems to be perfect.

 Is everything ready? Oh, yes.

 ... was that a knock on door?

Let's check it out!

And a little something from far away for granddad.

A perfect fit :-)
The tree this year really does outshine previous Christmas trees in the Westberg history.

Well, that was that. We're off, UK here we come!

Lucia a l'Indien

13th of December is a very special day in Sweden - the darkness is dispersed by the bright lights brought by Lucia and her escort.

We were invited to the Lucia celebrations together with all the other Swedes living in Delhi/NCR at the Swedish Embassy. One simply cannot turn down an invitation like that!

Ambassador Harald Sandberg greeted us.
The beautiful garden was beautifully de decorated with lights everywhere and the .. leaning Christmas tree of Delhi.

The newly inaugurated fountain.

I have to share this picture - a Christmas tree together with flowering bougainvillea! A first for me.

Mingling (we seem to be doing a lot of that lately ...) with some lovely glögg (eng. mulled wine, germ. Glühwein - but none of them beat the Swedish version!), lussebullar (saffron rolls) ...

Maia is choosing carefully

...and appetizers in the form of dark bread or knäckebröd with pickled herring or köttbullar (meat balls) - not very convinced of this particular combination of food and drink.

The wonderful catering at the embassy then treated us to drinks of our choice and the very Swedish delicacy tjock grillad med bröd, a.k.a. hot dog. Delicious.
Today's weather - yes, I know it says Gurgaon, but Delhi is right next door.

It actually felt a bit cool and there was a little wind as well. Oh, I doooo know that many of you are looking out the window right now and see snow, strong winds and ... well, in short, winter. But after 9 months of HEAT 17 degrees actually feel cool! Go ahead, laugh ...

And now for the main attraction - here they come, Lucia, tärnor, tomtar and pepparkaksgubbar.

The children are all Swedish and they are all students at the Swedish school - a little bit of Swedish language training, culture, music and traditions. They had done a great job of rehearsing the traditional songs and performed wonderfully!

The lucky little christmas elves ...

... venturing out from hiding in the corners to feast on some christmas pudding.

The three Gingerbread men arrived, as tradition demands, with their hats askew and without the gingerbread pig.

After a long day with two Christmas (well, Christmas related anyway) dos we said our Merry Christmases and made our way back home. A few more pictures taken upon leaving the party.

Sunder Nagar market

A day out with french friends

Today's little excursion took us to Sunder Nagar market in Delhi:
"Just south of Purana Qila, this genteel enclave specialises in Indian and Nepali handicrafts, replica ‘antiques', furniture and glass doorknobs. There are numerous stores to browse, plus two outstanding tea shops, selling fine Indian teas." (link)

First stop Mittal Stores. Does not look like much, does it... then we went in ...

"Started by Lt. Shri B.D Mittal, Mittal Stores was established in 1954 as an all needs store. After about two decades it was converted into a tea store, making it one of the first shops to sell leaf tea in Delhi. His son, Mr.Vikram Mittal joined the family business after completing his engineering from IIT Delhi. He is a professional tea taster and lecturer. He loves to interact with people and recommend them teas that will be most appreciated.  His focus is to spread health and happiness." link

I suspect we were in the presence of Mr. Vikram Mittal himself! In any case, this lovely man loved to interact and spread health and happiness. He treated us to a very special tasting, a first for me and of course it had to be in India :-)

Three different kinds of tea were brewed in special little cups and a fourth one in a glass pot to show the beautiful leaves as they unfolded in the hot water.

He explained the difference between the different kinds of tea and showed us how a true tea taster tastes tea... *slurp*

 

The tea is strained and then gently put in a little tasting cup with a special spoon. It was a solemn moment.

To examine the leaves after brewing is part of the quality controll.

We have a winner! The Darjeeling vintage first flush

"So, Mr. Mittal, I see you actually have a few packets of tea in bags on your shelves." "Yes, indeed, to cater to our Japanese and Chinese customers mainly." ??? But these tea bags were not your ordinary blends in paper bags like you would find in Tesco or Sainsbury, oh no! Rather, cloth like cheese cloth, hand made out of organic clean cotton by women, who otherwise might have been unemployed. At Mittal's you can order any blend you like and have it put in these little bags.

Thank you very much, Mr. Mittal. Very interesting indeed.

Next stop was next door, the Asia Tea House, also with a fine selection of teas from the best tea growing areas of India as well as Sri Lanka - the full bodied teas from Assam as well as the more delicate brews from Darjeeling. Well, then of course all kinds of tea paraphernalia you can imagine, and some you probably can't.

Here my second tea tasting of my life was had. They offered us a taste of a very special tea - a hand made little bundle of tea leaves with a flower hidden in the middle, which opened slowly during 3 minutes in hot water!

  Like a work of art!

Does it not look like a raspberry in the middle?

And, pray, what does it taste like? Like a summer's day by the sea with a gentle breeze! The smoothest tea ever.

We were happy. Mr. Vijay Kumar Singhal was very happy telling us about his "garden" in Darjeeling, where he visits at least a couple of times every year, and sometimes brings guests. Hmmm, ok ... ;-) I think I know what I want to do in April.

Onwards and upwards ... or, more sideways maybe ... to a jeweller and art dealer a couple of doors down the road.

Oh, my gosh, the stuff they have!

How would this little Ganeesh orchestra look on my mantlepiece? Now I just need the mantlepiece.

Our last stop ... and words fail me. You will have to look for yourselves without me prattling on.

Prepare yourselves - here we go!

Told you!

At some point I had to leave, it was like my senses just could not take it anymore. So, I went outside and spotted the often spotted Indian fuse box, a fine specimen at that.