almost holidays ;)

I suppose this will be my last blog entry (at least for now and for this semerter) ;)

I honestly couldn't be more happy that this academic year is almost over! I'm sick and tired of preparing for courses etc. We just have our one last week ahead of us, and than exams and finally our dreamt holidays. Even though I don't have any particular plans for some adventures and I'm going to stay at Poznań and work I'm glad that it will be only working and nothing else, no translations, no tractors, no seeders and any other bizarres machines ;)

My only hope is I'll somehow gather energy for this final year and I'll graduate. 

Take care and enjoy summer ;)

The Black Series - continuation

Liza Marklund is another Swedish author, she’s even less know than Camilla Lackberg but she’s also very talented. I really enjoyed her whole crime series about journalist Annika Bengzton.

Annika works for a Swedish journal called Kvällspressen and she’s a crime reporter. She’s successful, her boss likes her but doesn’t like the way she works because she always gets in trouble (she was kidnapped couple of times, someone sent her a bomb in a letter, her house was set on fire, etc.). Annika’s coworkers hate her. She has husband and two little kids but her private life is a mess because her work is the most important thing in her life - of course she denies it. She's struggling to combine motherhood with her career ambitions.

What’s quite interesting about this series it’s its structure. In first part we meet Annika as a successful journalist, just after another promotion when she becomes a director of crime department in Kvällspressen. Her private life is quite ok and calm – if you don’t take under consideration the fact that in the end she was kidnapped and almost killed. But in the second part Annika has just started her carrier in journalism, she begins an internship and she isn’t even sure if journalism is a right path for her (but the readers know it is). So the chronology is really disturbed in this series but I’m not sure if it is some extra value or a flaw… Though it's interesting and worth reading.

The Black Series

After reading The Millennium Series I had felt I want to read something similar so I started looking for new books and I discovered The Black Series (Czarna Seria) - it's series created by polish publishing house which gathers together different authors. It's over 60 books so a lot of reading. I decided to go by authors and I started with Camilla Lackberg because I heard her books are really good and entertaining. Lackberg wrote (for now) 9 crime stories, she's sometimes called the Swedish Agatha Christie. 

The plot is always set in Fjällbacka (author's home town). The main caracter is Erika Falck who is a very curious writer and who likes discovering mysterious incidents that happends in Fjällbacka. Erika helps the police to resolve murder cases and she marries policeman Patrik Hedström. It's a couple that lives for finding solutions to murder cases, Partik is doing that professionally and officially and Erika helps him off the record and at the same time she gathers material for her new books...

These books are good written, with rich descriptions and interesting ideas. The solutions at the end of books are not obvious so it keeps reader reading as Lackberg wanted ;)

Watch short interview ;)

Cheesecake

My family is quite big so for each occasion, when we’re meeting everyone prepares something special to eat. My mum is always the one that is responsible for desserts. As I spent a lot of time helping her when I was younger I’ve learnt how to bake some cakes.

The most popular cake in our family is a cheesecake. I have no idea where does the recipe of my mum’s cheesecake come from, but it’s really old one in a notebook with yellowed pages and faded ink.

I’ve baked on my own my first cheesecake when I was 13 or 14 year-old, it turned out that the cake was as good as my mum’s (or even better) so since then it became my “duty”. My dad and my brother could eat this cake every weekend and they constantly asked me to do it so I did it many times and sometimes every weekend for a month. Even though I loved cheesecake and especially this one, now I can’t even take a small bite, I just have enough of it for a very long time!

Once for Christmas I’ve decided not to bake a cheesecake but instead prepare something new – chocolate cake by Nigella Lawson (Christmas Chocolate Fruit Cake). BTW it’s a great recipe, and I strongly recommend it!

My family was furious! My brother was angry, my dad said the chocolate cake is ok, but it wasn’t what he had wanted, my aunt and cousins ate with pleasure this new cake, but kept asking “why didn’t you prepare the cheesecake?!”

I guess I’m stuck with this recipe and baking cheesecakes for ever.

I won’t give you the recipe, because it’s really long and complicated and I’m pretty sure if it’s a family secret. But preparation takes over one hour and then another hour and a half in the oven and plenty of dishes to wash…

Movies of my childhood

Our really long weekend has already passed, I hope you spent nice time. For me it was the time for first garden party of this season ;) I met my cousin and his familly, we ate nice meal and I had opportunity to play with two doughters of my cousin. They are lovely, but after few hours I got tired so I came up with great idea, I looked for some movies of my childhood and chose my favourite one - The Lion King! :)

But these two little girls just broke my heart by saying it's borring ... How anyone could say something like that?! I can't imagine it.

Just take a look :)

I think that nowadays movies for children are not the same. The Lion King, Pocahontas or Little Mermaid these were great, and I will always have a sentiment for them ;) 

The Millennium series

One day I was looking for some book to read, but I had no idea what book. So my friend lent me one of her books, first part of the Millennium series. I'm not going to desribe it, because probably majority of you has already read it or at least is familiar with the plot. 

I wasn't a fan of crime stories at that time, but it has changed ;) I finished quickly this first book and then both other parts. I've seen the movie (american one), but didn't like it. There are also Swedish adaptations, but I haven't had the chance yet to watch it. Though, I've heard it's much better.

All in all, I discoverd whole new universe of books ;) For now, I keep reading only Swedish novels, I enjoy them and I still have a lot of them to read. 

Soon I'm going to present you other series ;)

Memory box

We've been talking about memory box during last classes and to be honest I've got one of my own! 

Once, when I was in high school, I came up with idea to put all things that has some sentimental value in one place to make sure nothing gone missing (it was before moving to new house). I bought a nice, quite big box and started looking around my room in order to choose some things that I want to keep forever to always remember same events, friends, holidays, parties and of course boyfriends ;)

It's extremly funny what's inside! Do you remember diaries where your friends wrote some cute poems for you? Or someting called "Złote myśli" with questions for your friends? There are also some handmade birhday cards, postcards, pictures, gifts, some useless things with no value at all that I've brought from holidays, concerts or best parties with my friends.

It doesn't really matter what's inside. It just has to let us remiscent of good times;)