Blogs from Sweden, Europe - page 208

"...or that burrito I had for breakfast" T-7 Hours. I got a confirmation for a room on the night of July 25th, which I will spend at the Comfort Suites Airport Bangkok Hotel. I need to get sorted on the packing, pay my bills and do some last minute errands, but all in all nothing to panic about. As the taxi arrives I am actually prepared to go, and make it without further hassle. Flights are pretty much on schedule too, and it is a sleepy day over at terminal two in Stockholm. Even duller is Vantaa airport, with only one scheduled flight left for the evening. I walk around the concourse for a few hours until it is time to board the plane. This is when things go pear shaped. I have not been paying ... read more

This past weekend we held a house party to celebrate Linn's birthday. There were 16 people who came for dinner and 7 who stayed overnight. Friday, Linn and I prepared by cleaning, grocery shopping and cooking. She made this fabulous bread... (yes, I am planning to get the recipe). Saturday was again spent preparing... Imagine peeling, cooking, and chopping 5 kg of potatoes?! The guests arrived between 6:00 and 7:00... luckily the rain had stopped and we were able to eat outside. We served potato salad, tossed salad, bread, cheese (Greve... my favourite!!), and a meringue cake for dessert (everyone brought their own meat). It started getting chilly at around 10:00, so we moved inside... and stayed there until 3:00am when the last of us went to bed. All I'm going to say about the evening ... read more

My mother came by today to hand over a curious item; for some reason she wanted to give me my army dog tag, the metallic I.D. badge you are supposed to carry in a chain necklace during times when there is risk of war. Is she trying to tell me something? Oh well, it came intact in the brown envelope with warnings about refraining from carving my blood group data into the tag, a lovely piece of cold war nostalgia.... read more

I LOVE this city! 5th July After a dreadfully boring trainride, possibly six of the longest hours of my life, I arrived in Stockholm and immediately set about getting my bearings on how to get to my hostel which is located in an area known as Zinkensdamm. A quick metro check revealed that there is a stop within 1km of the hostel, brilliant. I grab a 10 stop ticket to see me through my stay here and then head down to catch the train. The metro stops in Stockholm are, as the Californians I have bumped into during my travels would say, hella nice! They are all sparklingly clean, and feature many murals and cool tiled patterns or decorations, with almost no signs of grafetti which is not the norm for subway stops in general. No ... read more

Another weekend where I was overcome by a wave of tradition. Tommy picked Linn and I up from work at 3:30 on Friday and we drove up to Leksand to meet Ylva (her and a few friends from the choir had rented a house for the week prior to the concert). We dropped Tommy off and then Linn and I headed to Mårsgården. Everything looked exactly as I remembered it... We ran into the usual problem of not knowing which house to go to (there are 24 buildings)... Finally after a few tries we located Kiki and Bengts house, only to discover that they weren't home. While we were pondering what to do, they arrived (had only been down swimming). We had a lovely dinner with them and they spoke mostly Swedish (and I understood!!). They're ... read more