The Girl with No Dragon Tattoo: splurge

Before going abroad the number one question that I was asked (other than "Why are you going abroad?/ Why are you going to Sweden?) was "How are you going to get through the holidays?"
At that time, it was springtime and the holidays were 8 months away, so I didn't think much of it.
When I went to a conference at San Francisco State, the question was brought up again, to a group of students who had studied in Sweden the year before.
Each of them had a different answer,
"we had a big Thanksgiving where we each made something and had a big dinner with Americans and other people from different countries"
"I visited my family in Stockholm..."
"my parents came to visit and we traveled...."
"I had a friend also studying abroad and we got together and had our own holiday..."

Even though it was 8 months away, the thought of being away for the holidays scared me.
What WAS I supposed to do? WAS my family going to come? I think we might have a Thanksgiving..Am I going to have to cook a turkey?

Well 8 months later and it's November and Thanksgiving is in 111 days and I'm doing pretty well.
Although the other day I did get a little homesick.
With the Sweden winter coming and the days getting darker at 3:30PM, it's a little hard to keep my positivity up. So I decided have Treat Yo' Self day.
Treat Yo' Self 2013
As said before, I had taken a trip to IKEA to buy baking goods, so my treat yo' self day was a baking day.
I went downtown to the American Store. Yes, Sweden has an American Store where they sell American stuff. LIKE EVERY AMERICAN PRODUCT YOU CAN IMAGINE IS HERE.

I wasn't kidding about any American product you can imagine.

So on Thursday, I took a pit stop here and got a tub of good ol' Betty Crocker Cream Cheese Frosting to go with the pumpkin cake I was going to make. (Cuz I mean there is no better combination than pumpkin and cream cheese).

And when I returned to my corridor, I got into baking mode.

I put on an old sweatshirt, pulled out the BAKING playlist* on my iPhone, and baked.

Now side note: Temperature and measuring is completely different than the states. Everything is in Celsius and milliliters. Now I just mastered talking in Celsius but baking in Celsius and measuring water and oil in milliliters was a new adventure.

Instead of preheating the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, I turned the knob to 100 Celsius because I thought that that was a good temperature.

I don't know, I was experimenting.

Now, luckily since I have baked since childhood, I didn't need to do too much thinking when it came to measuring the water and oil. I recognized the measurements by size and knew what was the equivalent to 1/2 cup and 1 cup, so I felt pretty confident in that.

After that, it was a breeze.

Just standing in the kitchen with my playlist going on and watching the Swedish sunset at 3:30PM with the smell of pumpkin cake batter, I was at peace with myself.

I needed this and knew that I needed to do more of this now.