Heven and Hell

As many of you know, I'm fond of the potato chip. Terry and Travis I think share this affliction as any open bag of chips in our house was fair game and never lasted the day. Unfortunately, Sweden is terrible for chips. Oh, they have them, but their selection is very limited. There are none of the major brands here and it seems they are limited to three main flavours: sour cream and onion, dill and bbq. Its outrageous, I demand some sort of nacho! However, they do occasionally have pringles (although still limited to those 3 flavours - actually only 2 - no bbq) but while shopping I did come across this gem of a flavour. Gourmet chips! As you can see from the picture, Thai Sweet Chili and Lemongrass flavour. Let me tell you, they were delicious. A little bit thicker than a regular pringle chip too, although they came in a much smaller can. I had to pay through the nose for them but I gotta say, they satisfied that potato chip urge like 3 crappy flavours never do.

Getting home in Stockholm

Unfortunately my life is not scandalous enough to have fun posts of gossip and rehab visits like the celebrity sites so you'll have to deal with the details of my average nightlife. Sandy and I attended a houseparty at Olov's last night, a nice affair in which we met some more Swedish people. And incredibly one of the girls there was related to a member of the Concretes - an awesome Swedish pop band. Considering Sofi, the exchange student from last year, went to the same high school as the guys from Mando Diao (another good Swedish rock group) it seems that everyone is related in some form or another to awesome bands. I figure it won't take long before I find someone that can introduce me to backstage passes to hip shows of even cooler Swedish bands.

After the party was winding down Sandy and I ventured off to catch the last metro of the night. Never a good idea in a strange city and no back-up plan. We had timed it well but were distracted by the idea of late-night snacking. I'm sure you will all be pleased to know we have found the Swedish replacement to poutine! Its call tunnebrodrulle and its basically a flat bread with a hotdog, potatoes, condiments, lettuce, peppers, etc. Its pretty damn delicious at 3:30 in the morning (although I'm pretty sure that we will find out later that only the hobo's in Sweden eat this stuff as we were informed at the party that the beer we have been drinking is the cheapest crap in town and that most of them wouldn't even think about buying it).

So after grabbing our food we dashed off to the metro and from running down the stairs and onto the platform quickly jumped into the open doors of the last train. Too bad it was heading the wrong direction and we passed the train that we actually needed to be on. So now we were even further away from home with no metro's left to get us back. Thus our multi-hour and multi-bus adventure began. I think we asked about 6 busdrivers how to get home and I swear each one only knew their own routes. Good thing they all spoke English though. So our planned trip of 30 minutes turned into a 2 hour tour of the Swedish bus system - which incredibly runs quite well at 5 in the morning, dropping us off fairly close to our residence. Another night safely completed - and with the amount of darkness up here it was easy to fall asleep and get some hours in before the sun came up.

PS. I don't have any pictures of buses or anything so this picture from my window will have to spice up the text.

PPS. In Swedish, I took the bus this evening is: Jag aker buss i kvall. But I'm sure I wouldn't pronounce it right if I said it.

Waddle, waddle

As a result of spending waaay too much time with Sandy I have begun my slow decent into becoming Sandy. Thus you may not be surprised to learn that I have become a runner and have now signed up to run the Stockholm Marathon in June. Only after signing up did I learn that the biggest party that SSE holds is the night before the race, but since it cost 108 bucks to sign up and there's no money-back policy, I'll have to just find an appropriate balance of partying the night before.

However, I am not a runner yet due to two main reasons: first, it dumped a foot of snow on us this past weekend so the entire city is slippery and gross; second, my running shoes were casualties of the lack of space in my bag and I have no shoes. So I set out on a quest to find a decent pair of runners that wouldn't cost me an arm in a leg (don't worry, this won't turn into a rant like Terry's about how great European shopping is - I promise). I went to the Swedish version of Sportchek (Stadium) but after being ignored by salespeople I learned that they had crap for selection and no shoes even remotely close to my size, which is odd for a nation of tall people. I finally found the sole running store in Stockholm and went yesterday to get a pair. They were awesome and quickly helped me find the pair I needed. But to find the pair they needed to see me run and video tape my feet.

Now do not fret, just because I'm slowing becoming Sandy does not mean that I will soon be running like I have a stick up my ass. However, as the video tape showed and the salesperson so nicely put "You run like Charlie Chaplin". Which basically sounded to me like "You run like a duck". And its the terrible truth, I run like a duck. I've always considered myself reasonably athletic and pretty decent at most sports but to actually see my feet when I run and to find out that I run like a duck really was a blow. Apparently this is a genetic thing, so thanks Mom and Dad, but it can be dealt with. I will forever run like a duck but my pronation during running - yes, I am a pronator too - has been corrected with the appropriate shoes now.

So now I'm ready to go. I will never ever ever wear those little running shorts people wear but I now have a good pair of shoes. Let's hope that helps in keeping up with Sandy and somehow propels me the 42Km that I have so blindly signed up for.

(PS - Running a marathon has been a bit of a goal of mine so I wasn't exactly tricked into this, I just thought I would work my way up to it with a half-marathon first)

1000 Words without typing any

London and Stockholm

Despite the claims that Picassa was easy to figure out, I have finally managed to post some initial photos of london and stockholm. I'm not really in many of the photos but I never was a big fan of getting my picture taken anyways. Enjoy. Now that I've figured out how to post them I will hopefully post more shortly.

I Hope Everyone Is Happy Now

Here is my first blog post. After Matt's comments regarding my lack of communication with everyone I had to finally get off my lazy ass and figure out how this blogging thing goes. Plus I had to have some medium to share with everyone that Sandy got picked up by a guy in the grocery store yesterday. The guy was Swedish but unfortunately not blonde, so I'm sure Sandy was slightly disappointed. I also don't have any epic journey's in search of internet like Angus, just random amblings around the Stockholm area in search of ticket stores to buy tickets for the Arcade Fire show here in March (a successful journey eventually). I've mostly been just adjusting to living in residence again, which despite having my own bathroom is still taking some time. Sharing a kitchen with 10 strangers who all seem to know each other is a bit intimidating, especially since the rules for garbage here are ridiculously complicated (more on that later). School has also just started and I had a two page assignment due before the first class even started. Its tough to complete an assignment when you don't even know what is expected of you - Sandy and I guessed that double spacing was a universal standard for assignments - it is not. Good class though, apart from everyone of the guys in it looking like they stepped off their yacht in the J. Crew catalogue and came straight to class. That and there were only 4 girls in the entire class of 60 people (only two were blonde). That is all that I care to share in one posting, that way I have something more to talk about shortly. Time to click submit and hope this thing works. Fingers crossed...