212’2026 (2026-07-31) – Tropical winter

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Today, I learned about:

One should never be too certain about what is going to happen, even in the near future. My blog last month was dedicated to the World Cup in football and when I wrote it, of course I could not know how it would end or even about all the events and incidents that were to take place. I have a lot of comments to make, but unfortunately I must ask you for a little patience, because there are quite a few things that needs to be said, and I would like to do it all in one piece. But in August, you can be sure that it will all come out into the open!

I promised to talk about the Football Museum in São Paulo. It was created inside the Pacaembú stadium, inaugurated in 2008. It is worth visiting, there are a lot of details about football, the players, the games, the trophies etc. Reference #1 below gives a good description and if you know Portuguese, then I urge you to also read the paper of Reference# 2, in which one of my Swedish language students, Bruna Rocha, together with her university colleagues, talk about the significance of this museum.

Reference #3 below gives the content of panels about the exhibition, and here are some photos I took while visiting the museum.

Photos taken on 171’2026 (2026-06-20) at the special exhibition Amarelinha (meaning “the little Yellow one”) showing 18 different jerseys worn by the Brazilian national squad over the years. The top photo shows the current version and the five stars symbolize the World Cup trophies won by Brazil. In the lower row are a jersey from the first trophy in 1958 (to the left) and the one worn by Pelé when he scored the first goal in the final against Italy in 1970 (to the right). Between them are some souvenirs brought from Sweden in 1958.

That’s what I learned in school today! 

Ref.:

1: Football Museum

2: Museu do Futebol, Uma Experiência de Entretenimento, Muito Além da Contemplação

3: Panels with descriptions of the exhibition

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173’2026 (2026-06-22) – World Cup Fever

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Today, I learned about:

Every four years, there is the FIFA World Cup in football. This year it is bigger than ever before, 48 national squads competing at arenas in three different countries, Canada, Mexico, and USA. Of course living in Brazil, the only country that has won 5 different cups since the start in 1930, make things even more exciting. But since the last time it happened was in 2002, the Brazilian population has many doubts if yet another cup will be won. And the first game between Brazil and Morocco was the dullest game of all in the first round.

But Sweden, that only qualified after an in-play at the end of March, started out excellently, with a 5-1 victory of Tunisia. I am an associate of the Swedish-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce (Swedcham) and had wanted to participate to watch the game via a big screen there on June 14, but an irritated throat stopped those plans. The Brazilian Youtube channel CazêTV showed some instants from a Swedish goal commemoration during the first game, and they were also present with lengthier insertions during the second game, see the next paragraph.

It was therefore good to know that Swedcham had arranged another supporter get-together during the second game, against the Netherlands, together with its Dutch counterpart. The game could be watched on a beautiful Winter Saturday, June 20, in the Museum of Football, located in the municipal stadium Pacaembú in São Paulo. The header photo shows the stadium. In its lower left side there is an orange colored portal and entering through it, there were two alternate places to enjoy the game. Together with my girlfriend Valéria and my daughter Karina, as well as my Swedish student Vitória and her friend Juliana, we opted to watch the first half of the game in an auditorium inside the stadium. As you can see from a photo below, there was a Swedish majority inside, but on the outside where food and drinks could be consumed, the vast majority wore orange jerseys, routing for the Netherlands. Unfortunately, the Dutch squad was far superior in making goals, 5-1. But there is still a lot left of the World Cup!

Three photos from the game between the Netherlands and Sweden on 171’2026 (2026-06-20), the leftmost shows CazêTV interviewing the leaders of the support teams, David from Sweden and Ivo from Holland. To the upper right is a view of the last minutes before the game would start, and the lower right photo was taken during the water break of the first half.

In reference #1 below is a complete video coverage by CazêTV of the matches played on 171’2026 (2026-06-20), where the game between the Netherlands and Sweden was the first one. If you fast forward to 01:17:25 and then 01:18:46, you can see the video transmitted by CazêTV of the futmesa game. In a near future post, I will talk more about the fantastic Museum of Football.

That’s what I learned in school today! 

Ref.:

1: FIFA World Cup on 171’2026 (2026-06-20)

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151’2026 (2026-05-31) – Last Sunday in May

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Today, I learned about:

In my post last month, 120’2026 (2026-04-01) , I foresaw that this month of May 2026 would also bring quite a few events that would make me a very proud father.

First in chronological order is an international language congress, named LREC 2026, which was held in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, during the second full week of the month. You may remember that in an earlier post, 304’2019 (2019-10-31) , I showed my daughter Karina and her colleague João presenting a project named “Linguistic improvements on the text-image aligner LinkPICS”. And this time, Karina and her colleague Aline presented a paper named Meta4XNLI-ptBR: Brazilian Portuguese Extension of Meta4XNLI Corpus. It is the first corpus that deals with NLP processing of Brazilian Portuguese metaphores. See also reference #1 below. The following photos were taken during LREC 2026 on 131’2026 and 133’2026 (2026-05-11–13).

Photos taken during LREC 2026 in Palma de Mallorca on 131’2026 and 133’2026 (2026-11-13–15), with Karina Johansson on both photos, and together with Aline Paes presenting their paper during LREC 2026.

The following photos were taken in Switzerland. On her way back from Mallorca to Brazil, Karina stopped over in Zurich to visit friends and go on a sight-seeing, as wll as taking the following photos. More about Zurich can be found in reference #2 below.

Picture of a steamer on Lake Zurich, take on 137’2026 (2026-05-17) by Karina Mayumi Johansson.
Pictures from Zurich, Switzerland, taken on 137’2026 (2026-05-17) by Karina Mayumi Johansson

But wait, here comes more interesting facts from May! On 142’2026 (2026-05-22), Karina defended her master’s thesis in Data Science. Below are two photos from that event. My congratulations to her and her mentor, Helena Caseli, for eight tough but really fruitful years!


Photos taken on 142’2026 (2026-05-22) during the presentation of the Master’s thesis “Automated Metaphor Detection in Brazilian Portuguese” by Karina Johansson, together with the three jurors, from left to right Heloisa de Arruda Camargo, Helena de Medeiros Caseli, and Ivandré Paraboni (online).

That’s what I learned in school today! 

Ref.:

1: Meta4XNLI-ptBR: Brazilian Portuguese Extension of Meta4XNLI Corpus

2: Zürich

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120’2026 (2026-04-30) – Sköna maj välkommen! *

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Today, I learned about:

As I promised one month ago, this post will be all about pride, the feeling one has when someone near and dear deserves to be recognized for their deed.

First in chronological order is the entire Brazilian population, that finally could be proud and see a Brazilian citizen in the highest place of the prize tribune in an event belonging to an Olympic Winter Game. Here is a photo of Lucas Pinheiro Braathen and his colleague medalists at the ceremony after the alpine giant slalom skiing event. For more about Lucas, see also my earlier posts 91’2024 (2024-03-31) and 320’2025 (2025-11-16).

The first ever gold medal won by a tropical country in the history of the Winter Olympic Games. The Brazilian Norwegian Lucas Pinheiro Braathen on the podium of the men’s giant slalom on 45’2026 (2026-02-14).

Still in February, my niece, Ylva, showed her muscles and determination and concluded one of the events during the week of Vasaloppet, named Tjejvasan (the girls’ Vasalopp), making of course her family and my brother with family so proud of her feat. More about Vasaloppet can be found in my posts 66’2016 (2016-03-06) and 87’2021 (2021-03-28).

Ylva Norlin relaxing after arriving in Mora. on 52’2026 (2026-02-21). Photos taken by Reino Johansson.

Now during the month of April, I can also be proud of announcing that the number of my Swedish language students already has reached a gold jubilee, 50! Welcome Vitória and Milienne to that exclusive group!

But there is so much more to be proud of, I can already foresee some interesting things that will happen in May. See my upcoming post.

Finally, today’s header photo was taken by my friend Ana Maria, who travelled in good company to the southern tip of South America, the region of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego with Antarctica. Here are some more photos from her delightful trip. Thank you, Ana Maria, for sharing them with us!

Photos taken by Ana Maria Diniz in April 2026, while visting the region between South America and Antarctica.

That’s what I learned in school today!

Ref.:

*: English translation: Welcome, ye merry month of May!

**: What did you learn in school today?

90’2026 (2026-03-31) – Fotbolls-VM räkna med Sverige!*

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Today, I learned about:

I had planned on writing about pride in this month’s post, of which I have collected many examples during the months of February and March, 2026. But the time does not permit me, I promise that I will give you various examples in my April post.

However, I will anticipate one pride today:

I am so proud of the male Swedish national football squad that was so utterly inefficient in the first qualification phase for FIFA World Cup 2026, came back in phase 2, beating both Ukraine and Poland. GRATTIS!

That’s what I learned in school today! 

Ref.:

*: English translation: FIFA World Cup, you can count on Sweden!

**: What did you learn in school today?

40’2026 (2026-02-09) – Ärans och hjältarnas språk! *

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Today, I learned about:

Exactly 10 years ago today, I gave my first lesson as a teacher of the Swedish language, although I already had had a temporary assignment during my first ex-patriate year (1986) in Brazil, teaching English and German to Brazilian students.

My first student of Swedish was Dina Giltinan, and ever since that moment, she is still my dearest friend. More about Dina can be found in my post 243’2025 (2025-08-31). Dina was living in Ireland at the time, but now you can find her mostly in Portugal.

And from that point on, here are my other 47 students of Swedish, in alphabetical order: Adriana, Amanda, Ana, Andressa, Andrew, Anne, Arthur, Brenda, Brianne, Cecilia, Davi, Debora, Edgar, Elena, Elias, Gabriel, Geancarlo, Giovana, Giulia, Graziela, Guilherme, Gustavo F, Gustavo R, Gustavo W, Helen, Isa, Jhessyca, John, Joice, Juliane, Karina, Katherine, Kieran, Lacey, Laura, Luciana, Luisa, Patricia, Paula, Paulo, Raphael, Rodrigo, Seth, Sheila, Slavica, Victoria, and Yohannes. They represent Australia, Brazil, Croatia, England, Germany, Ireland, Scotland, Spain, Sweden, and USA.

Some of them can be seen and/or mentioned in my posts 255’2016 (2016-09-11), 107’2017 (2017-04-21), 181’2022 (2022-06-30), 151’2023 (2023-05-31), 366’2024 (2024-12-31), 58’2025 (2025-02-27), 151’2025 (2025-05-31), and 304’2025 (2025-10-31).

Thank you very much, all my 48 students of Swedish! You have been like an oasis to me in the occasional dull desert of translations!

That’s what I learned in school today! 

Ref.:

*: English translation: Language of honor and heroes! (Esaias Tegnér, 1817)

**: What did you learn in school today?

19’2026 (2026-01-19) – First day of the week

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Today, I learned about:

Have you ever thought about why the week contains seven days, at least in Western cultures? In Western cultures, it seems that 7 is a holy number used in many contexts, although Asians many times consider it a number that brings bad luck. More about that can be found in reference #1, under the heading History.

As I told you in my 10-year post on 9’2026 (2026-01-09) , during the upcoming posts I will review some of the older posts, and in fact, in the very second post on 10’2016 (2016-01-10), I mentioned that according to the international standard ISO 8601:2004, there is a normalized manner of writing dates in the format of “YYYY-MM-DD”.

But there are many more things to be considered in that standard, e.g. it states that the first day of a week is a Monday. However, you may live in a country that has the tradition of using Sunday as the first day of the week. Where I live, in Brazil, that is the normal way of thinking. And as a consequence, the days in Portuguese are named as Domingo, Segunda-feira, Terça-feira, Quarta-feira, Quinta-feira, Sexta-feira, and Sábado. You probably understand the meaning of what Monday through Friday is in Portuguese, but where does it come from? The Portuguese word “feira” means a sort of street market, where you can go and buy fruits, vegetables etc. In ancient Portugal, Sunday was the first day of the week with such a market, Monday was the second day, thus Segunda-feira, etc.!

A photo of the magnificent castle of Schwerin, taken by Alfredo Acosta on 10’2026 (2026-01-10).

This photo was taken in Schwerin, Northern Germany, by my friend Alfredo Acosta. It shows the castle built in the 12th century, replacing the ruins of a former slavic fortress and that is also the birth date of the city of Schwerin. More about Schwerin can be found in reference #2. (Alfredo’s wife, Laura Ponce, contributed with a photo from another German city, Greifswald, in my post 151’2025 (2025-05-31). Thank you both for your valuable contributions!

That’s what I learned in school today! 

Ref.:

1: Week history

2: Schwerin

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9’2026 (2026-01-09) – 10 YEARS/ÅR/ANOS

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Today, I learned about:

Today has passed exactly 10 years since I started this blog, 9’2016 (2016-01-09) , and of course I am very grateful to all of those who have followed me this far! If you are a recent follower, then I suggest that you look at this post, 14’2017 (2017-01-14) , where I describe how my friend Tereza Vieira gave me the idea. Once more, Tereza, I am much obliged to you!

During the upcoming posts I will also give everyone the chance of discovering which posts and their respective contents that have been most appreciated during these years and now can join Tom Paxton, Pete Seeger, and me for this Tin Anniversary! (See reference * below)


That’s what I learned in school today! 

Ref.:

*: What did you learn in school today?

363’2025 (2025-12-29) – END OF 2025

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Today, I learned about:

One can never wait too long to experience, even indirectly, the sensation of being to a totally different, very interesting place on this globe. In 1975, I had the pleasure of taking a round-trip by train in Europe and as such I left the Greek Island of Corfu after some marvellous days and took a ferryboat to Italy, arriving at Bari, on the Southeast coast. Unfortunately, I did not have time to explore that part of Italy, the regions of Basilicata and Puglia, but now 50 years later, my friend Adriana went there with her siblings to discover further about its enchantements, as well as meeting some distant relatives.

In the following photo you can see typical houses in the village of Alberobello, famous for their trullo houses, named as World Heritage by Unesco in 1996.

This photo with typical houses in Alborello, Puglia, Italy was taken by Adriana Bizzotto in November 2025.

And below are some more photos from Basilicata and Puglia, the first ones from Matera, well known for the caves in the mountains which served as human settlings in the very early days of Italy.

These pictures from the Southeast corner of Italy, regions of Basilicata and Puglia, were taken by Adriana Bizzotto during the first half of November, 2025.

More about these interesting places can be found in references # 1 and 2 below.

I wish all of my faithful followers a VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!

That’s what I learned in school today!

Ref.:

1: Alberobello

2: Matera

*: What did you learn in school today?

320’2025 (2025-11-16) – SPECIAL EDITION

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Today, I learned about:

For the first time ever, a Brazilian wins a World Cup event in alpine skiing. It was Lucas Braathen who made the feat in the season’s first competition in Levi, Finland. Here are two images from the exciting turnout:

Lucas Braathen celebrating his first World Cup victory for Brazil in Levi, Finland on 320’2025 (2025-11-16). Image by ESPN.
The final result of the World Cup event in slalom. Image by ESPN.

More about Lucas can be found in my blog post 2024-03-31

That’s what I learned in school today!

Ref.:

*: What did you learn in school today?