Happy Semla Day!

Apparently to celebrate Fat Tuesday everyone in Sweden eats a semla today. What is a semla? Its basically a roll that's been hallowed out, filled with cream and almond paste (which is kinda like custard) and then the top is put back on and covered with icing sugar. Delicious. Had one today while practicing some Swedish with Sandy and his exchange buddy - who is incredibly nice and gorgeous and female while mine is male and AWOL. I really lost the exchange buddy lottery. Regardless, she put up with our butchering her language and we countered with blank stares whenever she chose to speak at a normal pace. Our Swedish is getting better but still miles away from being able to even have a basic conversation. But we're still trying.

Our official Swedish classes are now over and I'm proud to say that Sandy and I were two of only three who maintained perfect attendance. The class went from 52 students to 8. I feel sorry for the professor though, because while we attended we were by far not the ideal students. We tried but she quickly learned that we were to be chosen last to read aloud due to our poor pronunciation skills - apparently the Dutch and German students are the best. But do not fret, I still received my certificate that says I showed up and might have learned something which obviously means that I have proof to justify my claims of knowing Swedish on my resume. Now if I could just get someone to read it...

The Swedish Paradox

Every time I used to get a hair cut my mom used to always sing a little bit of that old song "get a haircut and get a real job". Well I recently bit the bullet and finally went to the barber(well, stylist) in Stockholm and had the most expensive haircut in my life - frickin $40 bucks! Which is basically par for the course for any haircut here. I was almost semi-excited at the idea purely cuz I've secretly wished to buy a nice $50 haircut, which I've heard can be really worth it when your hair starts growing out - which mine has a tendency to do. And let me tell you, I was severely underwhelmed (which is a word, I looked it up - its one of those things I learned in my school). 40 frickin bucks for a shampoo and a hair cut. That probably will be my first and last in Sweden.

It got me thinking though - if you need a haircut to get a job, but a haircut costs so much, how would a homeless person ever expect to get enough money to get a haircut and get a real job? More perplexing is that I don't see many homeless people, and what's more, those that I do see don't seem to have extremely long hair. Thus, the Swedish Paradox. Hopefully my haircut will lead me to a job, as I really need to step up my efforts in that area. If any person in the venture capital or biotech fields is looking for a person with both business and science experience and an expensive haircut, you've found your man. Call me.

I wear no cape...

Last weekend Sandy and I, along with most of the other exchange students took a cruise to Finland and back. Sounds wonderful. I pictured a small boat much like the ones you take on New Year's Eve cruises around the harbour in Vancouver. Wrong. This thing really was a cruise ship. I was impressed. It all started well but it quickly became apparent that this cruise was not a sightseeing wonderland when I noticed that the Duty-Free shop was about the size of half the ship and there was a mob waiting for it to open a half an hour after departure. It further dawned on me that the people on this cruise were not of the upper class. There was no Professor, Millionaire and his Wife and no Ginger. The purpose of the cruise was basically to buy as much alcohol and cigarettes as possible tax free. The other catch is that you are only allowed to bring 1L of liquor back, so you have to down as much as you can during the night. Let the fun begin!

We soon joined in the party, drinking in a cramped cabin with no window (although curtains to fake a window). Soon we were visiting several of the bars on the ship and I ended up at the roulette table. I did well for a while but nothing noteworthy. Eventually Sandy and I decided to get some air up on the roof and see the view - there isn't much of a view at 2 in the morning by the way. Immediately we met an incredibly inebriated swede who found out we were from Canada and promptly told us how he loved Mats Sundin and was sad that he will never win a cup in Toronto. It got worse from there. He then told us that he hated his life and was going to jump overboard. We basically started trying to reason with this guy cuz he was clearly serious and was attempting to scale the railing. Sandy left me with the guy to go get help while I had to basically pull this guy down several times and keep him talking to avoid him from jumping over. I had to support Sundin and Leafs as much as possible. I suggested a trade so that Sundin could win a cup and that pissed him off even more(this was quite difficult as I hate the Leafs as any true Canadian not from Toronto does). Eventually after I pulled him back multiple times Sandy showed up with two security guards and 3 crew members. They eventually started talking to him and ultimately had to drag him inside and handcuff him before taking him to the drunk tank. It was an amazingly taxing experience on the emotions.

We basically went back to our cabin to collect ourselves afterwards. Any inebriation is quickly lost by something like that. No one really believed our story until the next day. I tried to party it up for the rest of the night but there really is nothing to do on a ship when all the stores close. Eventually avoiding the drunk old man in his tighty-whiteys in the hall was too much and I called it a night.

So quite the trip. Two cameras were also stolen and I think everyone was just happy to get off the boat. Oh, and the archipelego was really nice, but the weather was miserable, which is why in the photo I look so cold. In the summer though, I can't wait to go from little island to little island. But not on a big cruise ship, I'm done with those.