Warning! (OBS!) There are now five people who will be blogging on the Swedish language blog. If you want to turn back now, we completely understand.

We five have taken over for Anna Ikeda, and we know it will be hard (svårt) to fill her shoes.
The first thing we want to do is apologize. You see, we have been fighting for two months over what we were going to write here. Together with three negotiators (one of whom worked on brokering peace in Northern Ireland) and one very upset boss, we are happy to announce that we’ve had a breakthrough and are ready to start hitting the world wide web with our out-of-this-world material.

So, if you don’t mind, please allow us to massage our egos as we introduce (presentera) ourselves:

Jennie Jägeblad

Hi all! I’m a Swedish almost thirty something expat living in the great city of Bristol, England. I know, I have officially left the beautiful country of neutrality, pickled herring, midnight sun and paternity leave, but true love is a good excuse, isn’t it? I spend my days writing articles and taking photos for several Swedish magazines and my evenings exploring the many music venues of Bristol. Or – in front of the telly watching anything that contains a chef, a quiz or a top model. From now on, I will also be one of the new and proud bloggers on the Swedish blog! I will write about anything from my unconditional love for the Swedish west coast to the wonderful world of umlaut plurals. In short, pretty much everything my world evolves around.

Gabriel Stein

Hello. I grew up in New Jersey, a hop, skip, and a jump from New York City, and the home state of Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi and the Sopranos. Running away from the East Coast after college, I moved to Central America to study Spanish and backpack when I met a Swedish woman in Guatemala. I fell in love with her and we moved to Stockholm in 2005. We have a 2-year-old daughter named Olivia and another on the way in January. I will mostly be video blogging. You can be sure that I will carry my video camera with me everywhere I go in my attempt to bring you the Swedish realities, normalities and insanities and everything in-between.


Katja Gosser-Duncan

Hey everybody! I’m the youngest blogger in the team! I feel so lucky to get to work with all these pros, Jennie, Gabriel, Marcus and Tibor! I’m 15 and still going to school to a quite unique art program. Partly because I’m interested in art and designing and partly because it is a more creative way of working than most other programs and schools. Besides my creative streak I love to fence and I am also fascinated by learning languages and understanding cultures, which is one of the reasons why I’m now writing for the up-and-coming best blog ever! I live in the biggest city in the north of Sweden, Umeå. I’ll probably write a post about this newly elected Capital of Culture quite soon. We all have our different ways of perceiving the world let alone each and every situation therefore I’ll be writing mine. Feel free to ask us anything and we’ll try to answer in the best possible way!

Tibor Erdös

Hello America, tell me how you doing! My name is Tibor and I am here to entertain you, to initiate debates and discussion on Sweden, Swedish culture, and language and basically everything in between. It is a promising cooperation between people who are representing all kind of groups of the Swedish society. I live in the wonderful city of Gothenburg on west coast of Sweden which is one of the fastest growing industrial areas in the Nordic countries. Furthermore it is often mentioned as the Nordic Riviera, while Gothenburg also called as Little London (Lilla London). There is something special about this city, there is a unique spirit in the air. Gothenburg is a combination of Swedish, Nordic and international. When I am at work, I work at ABF which is a centre for adult education and study circles. I teach Swedish and Swedish as a second language here. Because I have Hungarian heritage I am also working for the Nordic House in Budapest so I travel a lot to introduce artists, to open exhibitions, to organize concerts and other cultural activities from Sweden. I am really excited to learn more about your culture and personal experience on Sweden in a comparative context.

Marcus Cederström

I was born in Stockholm, but moved to the US when I was nearly six years old. For the next 17 years of my life my father carried the Swedish torch and my mother the American. This made me a Swedish-American. It also made me confused. In the US I was seen as the Swede, in Sweden, the American. So, after 17 years in the US and having graduated from college, I decided to have a quarter-life identity crisis and move to Sweden to explore my roots. To answer those deep unanswerable questions. To find myself. What I found was a culture that was different than what I was used to, but strangely familiar. A language that I understood, but did not have full command of, and an adventure that was well worth the existential quarter-life crisis. A couple of years later, here I am in Stockholm, Sweden. With that in mind, what you’ll get is Sweden through my eyes. The Sweden that I see, hear, and experience every day. As a part of the Swedish blogging team, I can’t wait to start a conversation with you about Sweden. So feel free to get in touch with me, or really any of us, here on Transparent’s Swedish blog. Leave us your comments and your questions, your likes and dislikes, and of course your ideas to make the Swedish Blog a place where you can truly get to know Sweden.

Oh well, let’s do it, shall we? Welcome to the Swedish blog by us!

(foto: Privat, Kerstin Reiser Runesson)