Last Swedish Class

Monday is a sad day, as it marks our last Swedish class with Frida. I head into town early to get myself a haircut. I walk into a place that has a sign for student haircuts for 190 SEK ($28). After I am done, I go to check out and hand him what I think is 240 SEK. I am not sure whether or not to tip, but I just figure I will anyways. He looks at me like I am crazy, and I say, yeah that is for you. He looks at me even more confused, and it takes me a second to realize that I have only given him 140 SEK. This would explain the reason that he wasn't happy with his tip. I give him another 100 and he seems very pleased. Joe says later that people don't tip for haircuts....oh well.

Our last Swedish class is a lesson on all of the Swedish holidays. They certainly have a lot of them, and most involve tons of food, dancing, and singing. Most of the holidays seem to involve a specialty food that sounds....well kinda gross. And Frida doesn't seem to disagree with this fact, as she makes interesting faces while describing most of the dishes. The worst of which seems to be some sort of rotten herring they bury underground. However, the holidays all sound like a lot of fun, especially MidSummer. This is the biggest holiday in Sweden. Everybody leaves the city and heads for the country for 24 hours of daylight to drink, sing, and dance. She teaches us a midsummer song that they sing while they dance around a maypole. It is called Sma Grodorna, and the words are as follows:

Små Grodorna, Små Grodorna
Ar lustiga att se
Små Grodorna, Små Grodorna
Ar lustiga att se
Ej Oron, Ej Oron
Ej svansar hava de
Ej Oron, Ej Oron
Ej svansar hava de
Koacka ka koacka ka, koacka kacka ka
Koacka ka koacka ka, koacka kacka ka

Translated that is loosely:

Small Frog, Small Frog
Funny You Are To See
Small Frog, Small Frog
Funny You Are To See
You have no ears, you have no ears
you have no tail
You have no ears, you have no ears
you have no tail
Ribbit Ribbit Ribbit, Ribbit Ribbit
Ribbit Ribbit Ribbit, Ribbit Ribbit

and here of course is a clip from youtube to illustrate

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on9PLzlY0Ww

Frida sings it for us and does the little dance, which is pretty awesome. She then gets the group of us to do the same. It is pretty funny, and she gets a huge kick out of it. Certainly the highlight of the Swedish class. We collect our certificates for having attended enough classes to be Swedish pros, and we head out. It is definitely sad to know that Frida is walking out of our lives forever....

Also, the other thing that comes with the even colder than normal weather is that the bus schedule has turned erratic and impossible to count on. This makes getting to class on time, very difficult. We will be walking more places until it warms up I suppose....

In unrelated to Sweden news, I will be flying to Dallas for final rounds with AT&T on March 8th. Awesome way to spend a birthday....but definitely excited about the opportunity. Poor timing, as I miss almost a full week in Europe, including my planned Barcelona trip. However, certainly glad to have the opportunity.

Drew