Stockholm Updates

It has been about a week since my last update, so I won't bore you with absolutely everything, but I wanted to let you know what Joe and I have been up to in the past 7 days. So I will dip into some highlights.

The week started with a little bit of a late Monday morning as we had stayed up to watch the Vikings and Saints battle it out in overtime. While I like an exciting football game, the one thing that a game that started at 12:30 am local time didn't need was overtime.....I would blame Favre, but the reality is that Peterson needs to hold on to the football, and Childress needs to hire a VP of Common Sense for the end of game decisions. The only class we have on Monday is our Swedish class at 5:00, but we have a meeting with our finance group, so we hop on the bus towards school at 2:00. We get to Swedish class and there are only 6 of us. The bad news is that it is very intense and your blank stares are much easier to pick out of a smaller crowd. The good news however is two fold: 1) we learn quite a bit from the individual attention that we get from Frida 2) well....individual attention from Frida

On Tuesday, we had our two classes, and I had a meeting with my Leadership group. We start to put together our project that we have due at the end which is on the auditing industry. It is starting to get very cold as we prepare for what is supposed to be the coldest weekend in Stockholm since we have been here. -20 degrees.....so I buy a scarf. The prettiest one is the Celtic FC team from Scotland....so I am now a Celtic fan. This has the added bonus of being a country from which I look like those that live there. So now I look like a wandering Scotsman that is lost instead of a wandering American that is lost....just need an accent. I head home to study the Celtics and find out that they are 7 back of the Rangers with a game in hand.....damn you Rangers. I hope I don't meet any Rangers fans while I am here, or I will be forced to be mad at them before they pummel me. Also, they signed young sensation Robbie Keane; I am very happy about this!

Wednesday is another day that has Cafe Opera on the menu. After Swedish class, which unfortunately had more people in it this time, we head to NSee bar for some food and a beer with Corne and Yogesh (one of the Darden School kids). In Swedish, btw, we have to perform dialogs. I can actually make out a decent amount of what everybody is saying, and hopefully ours made at least a little bit of sense. After the NSee bouncer/bartender/busboy/cook/owner made us feel like we didn't belong there at all, we head back home to get ready to go out. I think he was just having a tough day as he was wearing many hats, but when I asked him for a beer, I thought he was going to go all Vasa Warship on me. We head over to pregame at Saltis before we head out. Corne hands Joe and I the first beer that I think I have ever had to set down and not finish. Apparently the most awful temperature to keep beer is about 5 degrees below room temperature as this sat in the fridge for just long enough to get there. Also, many of the exchange students have gotten very caught up in the Jersey Shore mania that has swept the USA. As a result the following things happen: a) they think we are even more retarded b) much fist pumping goes on at Cafe Opera. The nice thing is that they look to me for fist pump tutelage. I glady oblige......we rock the night away. A cab ride home awaits as public transportation shuts down early on the weekdays. Luckily, we have Corne, Dana, and Kamilla to share one home with us. Ahh, correction, Corne got swept up by a German lady and is not in the cab with us. Poor Corne, I hope he is alright.....Germans have not been historically nice to the Netherlandish....

On Thursday, AnneChristine (Danish girl that was in Chapel Hill), has invited us over for beer and pizza. Apparently, it is very clear to everybody that the fastest way to an American's heart is beer and pizza. We are set to meet Oskar over there at 7:00. We get out of class at 5:00 and decide to kill time at the computer lab. We get over to AC's apartment at just after 7:00 and it is dumping snow. It has been snowing all day, (really the first real snowfall we have had) but now it is just pouring down. AC's has a very nice apartment off of the metro stop St. Eriksplan. After a couple danish beers, we order pizza from the local pizza place.....there are lots of those. I get three different kinds of salami on my pizza, two of which are very tasty.....We also get served a helping of "pizza salad." As best I can tell, pizza salad is an even cheaper form of coleslaw. Oskar inhales his like the plane is going down....I try a bite and then head for the pizza. For dessert, we try one of the salty chocolate candies that Frida Mol has told us we won't like. Once again, Frida is correct, and she gets another point in my overflowing point book.

After dinner, we head out to meet up with Gustav at Stureplan (sp?). He is with shipdriver Martin from previous posts. SDM is entertaining a young lady, so Gustav and us grab a drink at the bar. Once again, I am torn by the instinction to tip when I am told not to. So I tip a little...apparently this is worse than tipping none as I am somehow insulting the bartender. I have got to learn not to tip. Apparently SDM is leaving for a 3 month trip on an oil tanker down to Mexico on Monday, so he is throwing down hard this weekend. I have no idea how a man that woke up, drank bloody marys, and went to Finland...on a SUNDAY "throws down hard," but I am scared for the city. We are smart enough this time to leave before the bus shuts down but too dumb to actually have checked the bus schedule. We get to the bus stop at 12:04 for a 12:30 bus....26 minutes waiting in about that much negative temperature. Oh well, good night all around. Also, Oskar had one of the funniest/wittiest comments I have ever heard tonight. I can't replicate it, but it was amazing.

Friday, we have some great things to look forward to. First, we meet Gustav and some of his work friends after they are done working around 5:30. It is absolutely freezing outside.....-18 degrees Celsius. Luckily, the new scarf is keeping me extremely warm. After work drinks, we stop at a burger place and then head to Gustav's to watch.....ESPN America! At the burger place, I order ice cream to go. The guy ringing me up looks at me like I am an absolute alien. Gustav laughs and says "it is going to melt"...to which i reply "you live 5 minutes away and it is -18 degrees outside....if anything, it will just freeze even more." Apparently nobody in the history of this restaurant has ordered ice cream to go. As they are packing up our orders, you see the guy say something to the kid preparing our orders and he makes a weird face to which Gustav says "that was him telling him to add an ice cream to go." Starting trends baby. We flip on ESPN America and low and behold, hockey is on. Seems like ESPN Sweden to me, but nice to hear english announcers.

We head to Gustav's friends place who is turning 30. As we walk in, we realize that everybody is very excited about Rock Band Hero being played. There is actually a Rock Band Hero tournament scheduled.....awesome. There are about 30 people there and we are having enough fun that we end up not going out. Also, it is harder to go out when it is cold enough to freeze a shot of vodka before SDM has a chance to even take it. Also, SDM and his brother show up and turn the party up a couple notches....at 3, as we leave, he invites me to his place at 7 am for hockey on his big screen.....i politely decline as that is about 3 hours from the earliest that I will possibly get to bed.

On Saturday morning we have been invited to brunch at Joe's old Opares house. He apparently had a Swedish Opare growing up, and they are being reunited in Stockholm. They live at one of the highest points in the city, and it is a beautiful view. Their young children do not speak English, and I believe they are terrified of us. Who are these giants that speak gibberish? After a nice meal, we think to stop at System Bolaget as it closes at 3, and we have a party at Oskars place tonight. We are full on Swedes. Back at our place, we get a nice nap in before waking up for some pregame college basketball. We watch as Georgetown and Duke squareoff in the "We are not an Ivy League School but think we are with twice the arrogance and dorkiness" semifinals. Winner plays "The Darden School"....still don't know what state that is in. Then we head to the old town to meet up with Oskar.

Oskar is hosting a party for his roommate who is turning 27 today. We have been to Oskar's before, so we are familiar with all of his roommates. In addition, there are many new faces here to celebrate. One of them is a guy who is working here for the next couple months from Portugal. The amount that this guy looks like Tim Fraraccio astounds me. He is an exact replica of Tim with a slight Portuguese twist. I can't think of anything else as I chat with him. Unfortunately, I did not get a picture as there was no easy way to ask for a one on one picture with a guy, and I didn't think that "you look like a portuguese version of a friend of mine" would be kosher to a stranger. Oskar has us in stitches most of the party. The kid was funny in Chapel Hill, but now that he is in his own environment...he is on another level. He also mentions that he was proud enough of his thursday joke, that he emailed it to his friends. Awesome

We head to a bar called Patricia's. This is a ship that has been converted to a bar. It is very similar to the other places we have been. Lights, dancing, expensive drinks. We head back out into the cold, and the group declares that we are going to McDonald's before we head home. Apparently this is very common as McDonald's is absolutely slammed from wall to wall. We head home after another great night, and I prepare for a productive day of laundry and kitchen mastering tomorrow.

Sunday is relatively boring....laundry (of which i stumble through as the machines are all in swedish and Frida has not taught us common laundromat words yet.) I go for lunch while my clothes are being cleaned and I run into my corridor mates. We chat and get to know each other a bit better, and then I head to grab my clothes. I am praying that they have not shrunk to 60% their former size as I have no idea what I picked for a drying cycle. They seem to be ok, and I head back to wrap up my kitchen duties. I was kitchen master for the week, so on Sunday I have to sweep, mop, and take out the 40 different recycling bins. I finish my duties, watch a little Family Guy with some people on my hall, (this show is always on), and hit the hay. Another big week in Sweden ahead. Super Bowl Sunday on the agenda!

Drew