A very special visitor in Stockholm

Apparently I haven’t been that bad and naughty this past year, because Sinterklaas thought it was worth it to make a small d-tour on his way back home to Spain and visit me in Stockholm! And thus I decided together with all the Dutchies to make it a special night during this special 5^th of December...

After classes had finished I went shopping together with Jolien. Our mission: finding all the ingredients needed for kruidnootjes, pepernoten, banketletters, schuimpjes, taaitaai and borstplaat. It resulted in a long afternoon; spend in a lot of different supermarkets, and walking around with our noses in a Swedish dictionary. How else do you know that you indeed need the ‘kryddnejlika’ and not the ‘kyckling kryddor’?!

When we finally got home, we spend the rest of the remaining hours together with all the other Dutchies in the kitchen, while listening to a lot of Sinterklaas songs, sang by ‘Kinderkoor de gouden keeltjes” and ‘De club van Sinterklaas’. The last cd also included a very fun movie. The song is still stuck in my head…

At nine quiet a lot of persons arrived from our corridors, our class or from whatever we knew them from. For example, besides Raheleh I met that night another girl who was in Holland 3 years ago – Rifat. Really nice seeing her again! It was fun celebrating Sinterklaas together with Swedish, French, German and Danish persons. Fun, especially for them. Because try to explain to a foreign person why we are celebrating this Dutch tradition… A guy from Spain is arriving on his boat together with all his black helpers, to walk on our roofs at night with a horse.

They were laughing even more when we enthusiastically started singing ‘Sinterklaasje kom maar binnen met je knecht’. But they stopped abruptly when they saw that our song had effect. Sinterklaas entered the room - just arrived from Spain! And that was actually really true since Aart had went to Barcelona for a few of days and got back in Stockholm that 5^th of December, a couple of hours before our small party would start. So of course we had to make use of this opportunity!

Yep, although far away from Holland, it was a very nice Sinterklaas evening. But now that Sinterklaas has left Sweden again, it’s time to start thinking about Christmas. This weekend I will probably buy a small Christmas tree for my room, and my Christmas star is already shining for more than a week nicely in front of my window. So bring it on Mariah Carey, I’m ready for your sweet but annoying voice again!

Kram, Yoline