Fika is a deeply rooted Swedish cultural institution involving a social coffee break designed to slow down, bond, and recharge. It is more than just a drink, usually featuring coffee, tea, and pastries (often cinnamon buns) with colleagues, friends, or family. It is a vital, regular part of daily life and work-life balance. I really like this tradition! We had fika at least once a day. And late morning or around noon it’s time for coffee and usually some kind of sweet snack. If we are out and about we will stop at a cafe for fika. I definitely have adopted this custom!
Sweden has many many cafes with pastries and snacks available. Tim and Annalena find very charming ones! Vete-Katten was on the day of the art show. Their son Finn was there with his 10-year-old daughter, Momo. She was sweet – very friendly and outgoing. I showed her a picture of our dogs and she drew a pretty accurate picture of Finnegan for me.
Another one of our fika stops was the cafe with the restored cars that I featured in an earlier post.
And here is another great location in Uppsala. You can see people gathered or working on their computers (like at a Starbucks). What atmosphere though! We actually had lunch here instead of fika. Uppsala is a university town, and this is close to the university. (Uppsala University was founded in 1477 and is the oldest university in the Nordic countries.)
Rich what a great tradition, the family is so loving and welcoming giving us a peek into their everyday lives and serves as a wonderful lesson for sharing thank you!
I love that you have adopted this. My mother in law also loves the idea of Fika since she visited and does something similar. I love the Finnegan drawing also
This is wonderful!! Thank you for sharing, Rich!
We can learn a lot from the Fika tradition!
And Momo’s drawing of Finnegan is adorable!!
Love to you,
Pat, for Roy & Pat