Year in review, 2013
This is the 10th time I write a year in review. The first years I published it on the web community Lunarstorm. Since 2008 I do it here on the blog, and since 2009 it’s also in English.
As usual it will be my personal year, news, good songs, movies and much more. Enjoy!
- My 2013
- News
- Enteratainment
- Best songs
- Sports
- Dead celebrities
- My guesses about 2013
- My guesses about 2014
- New years resolutions
My 2013
At work, 2013 started as I was used to, and not knowing what was gonna happen. The paper has gone through many changes this year, and people had to go.
I applied for the position as public opinions editor, and I got a temporary job as that. But by the end of the year, I was finally hired permanently. I started at HN (another paper, but in the same company) in the summer of 2008, and in December 2013 I finally had a job.
In the spring I went to America with Andreas and Henric to America. After some troubles on the trip there, we got a few weeks of wonderful vacation, loads of stuff to do, see and experience. We were in San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Hollywood/LA, San Diego and Las Vegas. We rented a car for wherever we went. Many roadtrips, lots of good food, went to se many movies, met with my friends, partied, cilled, and had a great time.
The best thing was in Santa Barbara, when we were going out to dinner with Gabt and Paige. Then all of a sudden, Cecily showed up. She had driven all the way from San Diego through a traffic-heavy LA, 8 hours, just to come and see me. Lovely!
I always love to return to America.
Many fun parties at home too. Here was a costume party with a travel-theme.
The summer was great in Sweden. Many sunny and warm days, hardly any rain at all. I didn’t go to the beach a lot, since I was working so much, but the evenings were great and long.
This summer I went to a big arena concert again. This year it was Robbie Williams who had an amazing show, and I was standing at the front my the stage.
I tried standup paddling. Along with some friends from work, we slowly paddled at the river Fyllån a lovely and warm summer day.
And speaking of standup, I saw two great shows. Eddie Izzard in the spring, and Al Pitcher in the fall.
I went on a weekend trip to Germany with my dad. A nice little town called Burg.
In the fall I went to Öland for the harvest festival. It was the first time I went to Öland in the fall, and the first year ever I didn’t go there in the summer. But it was nice in September too.
And I finniesh off the year by winning double star prices at Liseberg :)
The news year of 2013
One of the biggest things happened in December, when Nelson Mandela died. He had been ill for most of the year, he almost died in the spring, and he was 95, so it wasn’t unexpected that it hapend. But the whole world took this to their hearts, and at the memorial ceremony leaders from around the world came to celebrate Mandela’s life. It was nice to see leaders from Iran, America, Cuba, Sweden and many others come together in honor of a great person.
Syria was a standing subject all year. Many refugees, and some of them came to Sweden and Halmstad. That created many letters to me at work from people who were both for and against that.
Obama visited Sweden. This was the first bilateral meeting between Sweden and America in Sweden (earlier it has been EU summits) and the security was huge. But all went well, and things went well.
At home Obama didn’t have quite as good year, though. He launched the health care reform, which his opponents call Obamacare, but the website were people applied had many problems at first.
There was also problems for America with a surveillance scandal, that whistleblower Edward Snowden exposed.
During Boston Marathon, two bombs exploded by the finishing line.
In Russia, an asteroid crashed outside a city.
In the Philippines hurricane Haiyan killed thousands of people, destroyed a lot of the country and made many people homeless.
Big news in Sweden too – secretary of Finance, Anders Borg, cut of his iconic pony tail!
Another hilarious thing was the horse-meat scandal in the spring, where it came up that some companies had used horsemeat in their food with out telling it. Many jokes came up, and one of the new words created was “horse lasagna”.
Two thing happened at the same day in Sweden in January. A subway rain took off in Stockholm and crashed into a house. At first it was said that a cleaning lady has stolen it, but it turned out that it wasn’t so, and she was innocent.
The same day there was a huge pileup in Skåne, the biggest ever in Sweden, nut only one person died.
Police officers in Malmö got in trouble after it came out that they had secretly registered roma people.
Many storms in Sweden during the fall.
Princess Madeleine got married, and is expecting a children next year. England also got a royal baby, George.
The Pope resigned, for the first time in many hundred years. The new one, Francis, is form Argentine, and is a little softer on some weird catholic things, like allowing homosexuals to be Christian.
Selife was one of this year’s words.
Entertainment year of 2013
Melodifestivalen didn’t get the winner I hoped for. The European final, Eurovision Song Constest was held in Malmö this year, but someone failed to get the tickets to me…
My favorite song was the entry form San Marino, but that song didn’t even reach the final.
The most played artist on radio and in the clubs this year was Avicii, with his songs Wake me up and Hey brother.
But to most talked about person 2013 was Miley Cyrus. The former Disney- child star dropped her cute image and has crown up. People got upset when she twerked half-naked on stage during the MTV video awards. Then she was completely nudein the video for Wrecking ball. She sat on a wrecking ball, and licked a sledge, and people freaked out. Relax. She had great songs, as you can see in my list below.
Many great movies this year too, and during the Academy awards, I had seen most of the nominated movies. Let’s see how it will be next year.
Great movies I’ve seen in theatres 2013:
Carrie, Evil Dead, Django Unchained, Olympus has fallen, Monica Z, Mama, Iron Man 3, Hunger Games: Catching fire, Man of Steel, Silver lining's playbook
Best songs of the year:
- Britney Separs & Will.i.am – Scream & shout
- Pitbull & Christina Aguilera – Feel this moment
- Macklemore & Ryan Lewis – Thrift Shop
- Valentina Monetta - Chrisalide
- Miley Cyrus – We can’t stop
- Miley Cyrus – Wrecking ball
- Ellie Goulding – Burn
- Olly Murs – Dear darling
- Pink & Nate Russ – Just give me a reason
- Elin Bergman – The Fire
- Pitbull & Ke$ha - Timber
Dead celebrities:
Princess Lilian, Margaret Thatcher, Nelson Mandela, Paul Walker, Hugo Chavez, James Avery, James Gandolfini, Rolv Vesenlund, Tom Clancy, Lou Reed, Doris Lessing, Marcia Wallace, Michail Kalashnikov
2013 in sports
Sweden won the world championship in ice hockey, and they were also hosting it.
Soccer didn’t go as well. Sweden failed to qualify to the world cup of soccer.
Halmstad didn’t do as good either. They barely managed to stay in the highest division. 2014 they will celebrate their 100th anniversary.
The women did better. The European championship was held in Swden, and Halsmtad hoested a few games. Sweden go to the semifinals, where they were defeated by Germany, who one the whole thing.
NHL started in January. Chicago Balckhawks had a great season, and won the Stanley Cup.
My guesses about 2013:
The summer will be awesome!
It sure was!
Al-Assad will be forced away from the ruling of Syria, one way or another.
Nope, he’s still there.
I will sit in the audience of Eurovision Song Contest, watching Sweden bomb.
No, I didn’t. But Sweden didn’t do well.
Sweden will qualify for the World Cup of soccer.
Stupid Portugal…
NHL will start in January, and the Rangers will at least reach Conference final.
It did, but the Rangers only got to the second round in the playoffs.
Not too good guesses.
Here is what I think about 2014:
Germany will win the World cup.
Sweden will win the Olympic hockey, and get a total of 13 medals.
It will be a great summer, with many things to do.
Change of government in Sweden after the election-
I get a car.
And as for my new years-resolutions:
Promise 1: I'll go and visit in the U.S.
Promise 2: I will somehow work out at least three times a week, preferably more. Does every week, except when I am out of town or sick.
Promise 3: I'll update the blog more often
Maybe I’ve could have blogged more, but I would say that I succeeded with all three! I’m especially glad I managed to do the second promise.
Resolutions about 2014:
I dodn’t know if I can go to America, so I’ll scratch that, but keep the other two. And also adding this: I will make sure that 2014 turns out to be a great year!
There we go. A few days into the new year, but here it is. Hope you’ve enjoyed the read, and we’ll keep in touch!