Letter for the moose who jumped in front of my car

Dear moose,

You should know that it was not nice at all from you to do what you just did the other night. Who taught you that you just can jump in front of my car and scary the hell out of me?

I definitely did not expect that! I was driving carefully back home to Kopparbo after having a nice time with Ann-Sofie’s family, Bubu and Monica were singing and having fun in the back seats of the car, when you considered it is a right time to jump in front of the car.

Is it because we did not really know how big and powerful you can be? Was that any kind of punishment for us because we disturbed your peaceful dinner? Or you tried to kill yourself? But why would you do that? Swedish forests offer you a nice home. I just think you are very stupid. Beautiful animal, but stupid.

So please, read carefully my letter and take into account that your stupid action might have sent me and my family to the hospital, at least. We appreciate your beauty, we try not to bother you, but you have to promise you will not do this again. Also, read my letter to your friends and let them know that we do not really want to die in a car accident produced by a moose. It is just not funny at all.


Let’s do that: I will tell everyone what beautiful creature you are and you tell your friends what I have just asked you. Do we have a deal?


Facts about moosses (just to keep my share of the deal!)

The animal bearing name Alces alces is known in Europe as elk and in North America as moose. The name elk is connected with several earlier European variants—Latin: alces, Old Norse: elgr, Scandinavian: elg, and German: Elch—all of which refer to this animal.

In Europe, moose are found in large numbers throughout Norway, Sweden, Estonia, Finland and the Baltic States. They are also widespread through Russia. Small populations remain in Poland (Biebrza Nat. Park) and Belarus.

On average, an adult moose stands 1.8–2.1 m high at the shoulder. Males weigh 380–720kg and females weigh 270–360 kg.
A moose's body structure, with a large heavy body suspended on long spindly legs, makes these animals particularly dangerous when hit by motor vehicles. Such collisions are often fatal for both the moose and motorist. Generally, upon impact the bumper of the car will break the moose's legs. The main body of the moose will then collide with the windscreen, often with disastrous effect to both motorist and animal. In a collision of this nature, a car's airbags may not deploy or be of much use if they do. These risks led to the development of a vehicle test referred to as the "moose test" (Swedish: Älgtest, German: Elchtest).
Moose warning signs are used on roads in regions where there is a danger of collision with the animal. The triangular warning signs
common in Sweden, Norway and Finland have become coveted souvenirs among the many German tourists traveling in these countries, and authorities have had to issue warnings that it is dangerous and criminal to remove these signs.

Alice in the Wonderland –the theme of Bubu’s Swedish experience

For a month or so Bubu has been watching Alice in the Wonderland (in Swedish) on a daily basis…sometimes twice a day. It can be early in the morning, when mamma and daddy are taking breakfast in a different building and Bubu is too sleepy to join the Kopparbo team; it might be later during the day, when Bubu is getting bored or tired of climbing or of watching other people climbing (because mammy and daddy are in charge with this activity); or it can be in the rainy days, when we have no energy or funny ideas to entertain our daughter. After watching it for so many times Bubu is able to sing several lines in Swedish (this movie has beautiful songs) and to speak Swedish words or phrases that are not familiar to me, but that are useful so I have to learn them, as well. Bubu watches this movie every day because she likes its songs, she is fascinated of the ‘non-sense’ of the characters’ actions, but most of all she likes Alice –‘because she is beautiful, she sings very nice and she is so brave to travel by herself in such an unusual world’.(Alice is beautiful even if she is not a princess…it’s very nice that Bubu likes a ‘regular’ girl; she is not crazy about princess anyway, but we expect that time will come).

It took me some time to realize that Alice in the Wonderland is not just a children’s movie for Bubu and for her new life. There are many things in our life here that are similar to the movie and so many changes in Bubu that makes her to be like Alice in certain ways.

It’s not hard for me to say that Kopparbo is a Wonderland for Bubu (and for Vali and me in many ways). This place is so safe, beautiful and vast that Bubu feels very confident to explore it and most of the time she does this without me. Vali and some of our volunteer colleagues are her favorite companions. Vali is the best partner for swimming in the deep waters of ‘our’ lake (of course, Bubu is using a floating ring, but when we started to bath in the lake she wouldn’t have left the shallow waters, where she could feel the ground under her feet; now she is swimming next to Vali, where the lake is very deep), for drawing, reading and singing in Bzzz’s house (a small wood house where Bzzz stayed when she had visited us) and for riding her three wheel bicycle to Leif’s house and back (half a kilometer far from the house we live in). Then, she likes to take the meals next to Malin (one of our volunteer), to roll in the grass with Ida, to play tricks on Hampus (Bubu is filling up his boots with grass or she is hiding his hat) and to lay in the grass like a lizard with Ester. I can finally say that Bubu has begun to detach from me and to become independent and brave among new people and places (just like Alice is brave in her non-sense world; the way Bubu gets along with all these new people and the way she communicates with them it’s a non-sense for me…but it’s important that she is willing to communicate and that she can understand some Swedish in a very non-rational, emotional way).


It took such a long time…perhaps we live in the proper environment now. Of course, we met these great people, the Kopparbo team, that are so patient, friendly and good to us (especially to Bubu); they make this great environment for us; they teach us the calm, patient and relaxed Swedish way of life which is so healthy for our family. This proper environment brought Bubu and Vali very close to each other; Vali helps Bubu to explore this new world and to get the physical and the moral confidence that she is safe and strong. This father-daughter relationship started only here, at Kopparbo…it happened that the theory of the father’s role of helping his child to adapt to the environment worked in the opposite direction –the environment helped the child and her father to discover themselves and to start a close relationship. I’m so happy for that and so thankful to everything that Kopparbo means.


Remember how Alice is suddenly growing up after eating from a mushroom? We have the feeling that Bubu must be eating from a miraculous food every day. She is growing physically a lot. But more than that, she does lot of things by herself, just like a big girl (she can put all the cloths on her, she can take a good shower, including hair washing, she can take the things she needs without asking for help, she can stay by herself for a while and find her own ways of keeping herself busy).

Alice’s constant searching of the way home is also present in Bubu’s Swedish experience. She talks about our turning back home almost every day; sometimes she talks about it crying, because she misses her friends and our families (we noticed that she is getting into this sad mood when it’s raining a lot so that we cannot play outside and explore the surroundings); other times she talks about it very proudly –‘what would Doinita/Georgi/Nico/Ioana/Briana…(a long list of people and pets can go on here) would say about me doing this and that all by myself?!; some other times she talks about going back home with the regret of leaving behind the Swedish experience (we don’t have a lake with such clear waters back home; we don’t have so nice playing grounds in Pucioasa or in Lupeni; streets and playing grounds are not so clean back home; we don’t have the climbing towers back home…the list of what we don’t have is also long). Anyway, her way back home is constantly ‘interrupted’ by the good moments she is having in Kopparbo or Smedjebacken and by the good people she lives or she meets with. These are making Bubu a wise and brave Alice.

Vill du leva livet glatt, köp en Riesen svart!

…if you want to live happy, buy a (Riesen) dog!

This was the motto of this great week we had at Kopparbo.
We were part of the biggest dog camp in Europe as one of the organizers told us the other day: 160 caravans, 340 persons and 200 Riesen Schnauzer dogs turned the quiet Kopparbo camp into a real small town.

For 25 years this sweet crazy people came in the same week of the year to share their passion on their dogs. As I found out, this is what motivates them when they go to their jobs; they just live for this camp.

At first, I was looking at this people with such kind of irony, just because I had the feeling that they look so stupid with their dogs and it seemed to me that people are owned by their dogs, and not the other way. They walk and stop every other meter just because the dogs want that, they wake up early because the dog is hungry, gather their pup and carry it around, keep the dogs in their leashes while their children are running away from them.

It seemed kind of stupid…but it was stupid of me to think this way. We discovered some great people that just have a great hobby, know how to have a great time together. I think that they just have some extra love and energy to give to their precious dogs which are part of their families.

And it was inspiring for us to see so much good mood and happy spirits from everyone while they were having some beers, singing around the camp fire, competing in silly funny games, but also in the dog contest, parades or trainings. This people were mostly from all over Sweden, but also from Norway, Denmark and Finland, the four sister countries, but I could feel that the passion for their dogs makes them like one happy family. In one of the drinking songs I could understand some guys from Finland singing: “I do not remember if I am Finnish or Swedish, I only remember that I like alcohol and women.”
For us, it was definitely one of the best weeks at Kopparbo.
We met so many new people, great ones like Theresia. She was here as the chief cook for the dog camp and we admired her energy and openness. Her husband is from Norway and he is going there every other week to load a truck of fish from the North Sea. (I might have the chance to go with him also).Bubu played a lot with her little son Tom Eric.
Bubu found herself a little five year old girl to play with, named Amanda. They had such a great time together, we could feel that she was really happy this week, because at some point we realized she is missing a lot playing with little kids of her age. But Amanda came right in time. We know that Amanda also liked BuBu and before she left she came to hug her and give one of her books as a present. It was really nice.
Even it was a little bit more work to be done, for us it was a great week. Also we got to know better our new colleagues, Hampus, Esther and Ida. They are all great young people and we feel that we make a good team here.

The dog camp is almost over and we already made hopes to see some of the people next year in the same camp. By the way, there are high chances to come back next year, we do not want to be really happy now until we know for sure.


But there’s one aspect that we really have to mention: this place looks almost as clean as it was before this 300 people and 200 dogs settled down here a week ago. Can you imagine how it would look like if 300 Romanians would spend a week together? I can only picture a lot of trash everywhere… at least a mountain of trash plus 300 manele songs in the same time!

This is one extra reason to be thankful for being able to experience living in a civilized country with civilized people. It linked me again to one of the comedy shows of the great George Carlin in which he was making fun of those who want to save the planet. He had a great line: “The planet is fine, the people are fu_ked”! But we learn every day.

How much do you weigh on Sun?

If you go Framtidsmuseet (The Future Museum)in Borlänge you can find out what is your weight on the planet Mars or on Sun..we went there last week when Bzzz was here and had a great time together with our colleagues from the camp.

I visited this museum for the first time while my two week trip to Sweden in January
this year and i really wanted to bring my girls over there. It's a nice funny way to spend one or two hours discovering a lot of interesting things that could chalenge both kids and adults.

You can pass through a past-to-future house in which each room is different according to the time fashion and habbits, you learn about planets and solar system, find a lot of curiosities about human body, animals, scients in a really funny way, you can even fly a plane.

Did you know for example that each human being has in total 96 000 kilommeters of veins(if we were to tie them)?.. and if we were to transport them we will need 3 trucks!

Monica ans Bzzz tried the MindBall: a competition in two where you win if you can send a ball to the other person, small wires are conected to your head and they dedect the activity of your brain. If you succeed not to think of anything you can send the ball to the other person and that's how you win.

BuBu tried games for little kids and of course, slides.

I was never worried about my weight but i got a little bit nervous when i realized that i have 2510 kilos...but that would be on the Sun. So i tried more and i found that i weigh 219 kilos on Jupiter, 33 kilos on Mars and only 15 kilos on Moon.

It was great! If I were to choose the planet i want to move and live it will definetly be... Sweden!