3 months in....

2 paychecks in to the new job here and they haven't let me go yet. It's a small victory each day. Things are a bit slow, so hopefully this pesky little financial crisis will get itself cleared up and we can all go back to being productive.

Won free tickets to a stand-up comedy show a while back from the English news website here in Sweden. What I didn't know when I got there was that the opener was in Swedish ("headliner" was a Brit). I settled in for what I thought was going to be a loooooong 45 min of staring blankly at a guy doing his damndest to make me laugh. Fortunately my comprehension has picked up a bit since moving here. I laughed at everything I understood, which was about 10%. Unfortunately for the guy, everyone else only laughed at about 20% of his jokes. That means, I'm 50% fluent right??

I've all but quit the free gov't sponsored SFI language program. It's just not structured enough for me. I had 1 good teacher for a while, but even she couldn't compete with the constant flow of new students with varying levels of comprehension. I'm studying at home for a while and I think I'm going to pay to go to a class at the "Peoples University", folkuniversitet. Classes are a modest 2.000 SEK (~USD250) per 10 session class. Hopefully the old economic principle of free ridership (WARNING: that is the first of many in what is likely to be the blog post for how not to use hyperlinks) holds true and classes will be better/more efficient if students are forced to pay.

The only other thing keeping me from attaining fluency are these damn Stieg Larsson books. I have never really been one for crime thrillers, but I'm certifiably addicted, about a year later than everyone else in Sweden. It's like reading the DaVinci code after Tom Hanks went off galavanting after the holy grail on the big screen and EVERYONE already knew the story. It's exactly like that actually. The cinematic interpretation of the first book is in theatres now, with the very talented Mikael Nyqvist playing the Tom Hanks role. In fact, if anyone is looking for good foreign movies, he's got a couple really good ones: As it is in Heaven and everyone's favorite pre-almost-too-disturbing-to-watch Moodysson film, Together about life in a 60's commune in Sweden.

Winter looks to be on the way out, but as I've been warned by many a Swede here, there is really no telling in April and May. We could be in for more snow, which seems pretty unlikely to me, but then again, I've spent the majority of my life in tropical climates...it hurts just writing that. I didn't know how good I had it.

Anyways, we had a great Easter break, and I use "break" to the fullest extent of its meaning, boardering on "hiatis". Somehow a Sunday holiday turned into a 5 day weekend. For being a pretty non-religious society, they like to celebrate the religious holidays...in the most pagan nature worshiping ways of course. Apart from the symbolism of eating lamb, there is really nothing "churchy" about it. We went out to Cecilia's aunt and uncle's summer house about 2 hours outside Stockholm in the archipelago. The spot is amazing, and despite my aforementioned tropical upbringing and the fear of all water colder than body temperature, I managed to hop in the just above freezing (3degC/37degF) water after a litte bastu/sauna. Unfortunately, I wasn't intoxicated to the point of numbness.

Here's some picture of what is hopefully the end of winter and begining of spring, taken over the last month or so...

(Cecilia outside our apartment building here)

(Walking up some old streets on Södermalm, where we would like to live)

(Very suprised to see this since they are all but failing in the US. Maybe the only Tully's in the world serving Nacho's. Unfortunately they found it utterly incomprehensible that "dirty chai" could exist...."but a chai doesn't come with espresso!!" " No, @$%^, buddy, but amazingly enough, if you dump a shot of espresso in an ordinary Chai beverage, you can make a whole new and doubley wonderful beverage". I stomped out in disgust, which Cecilia quickly reprimanded me for. )

(Spring arrived bringing cucumber mint cocktails)

(Cecilia's uncle's house. We stayed in the little house in the foreground....

...with a sweet view of the water)

(Heading out for a run with the Lago's)

(Breakfast on the water)

(Sunset on the water)

(Despite the thin layer of blubber, I am not ready to traverse the arctic waters)

Apartments, Language and TV in Sverige

This weekend we went around to take a peek at a few apartments on the market just for fun. The whole process of purchasing an apartment here is wildly different from what I imagine it to be in the states. Places get listed about a week before the viewing. Viewings are almost exclusively on Sunday afternoons and Monday evenings. You write your name down if you are interested and the broker contacts you on Tuesday to start the bidding process, which lasts roughly a day. You bid against other interested parties, where the price you get can go up by 10 - 40% depending on the level of interest and the starting price itself. The deal is done on Wed or Thu. So, impulsive behavior is a must if you are going to get anything. Fortunately both Cecilia and I have impulsive tendencies. The 2nd place we looked at we wanted to buy. The only thing holding us back was about 3 million kronor.

On what is sure to be the first of many comments about language difficulties, I am having language difficulties. I thought learning a bit of Spanish in South America would help me when I came here to learn Swedish. That may still be the case as I don't start Swedish classes for another 2 weeks. However, right now it's backfiring. Whenever I stop thinking and try to let my subconsious Jens do the work, my subconsious Raul takes over. He's always right there to say, "No gracias" instead of "Nej tack". Hopefully over time Jens will get in some workouts and take Raul out. I imagine he'll do it out of jealousy of his fabulously lush mustache. What's that you say? Of course I don't miss my facial hair.

On another note, TV here isn't too bad. For some reason they have Family Ties on every night. In the two episodes I've seen they've covered my 2 favorite things...gambling and drinking, and I almost got to learn some valuable life lessons. Don't drink or gamble. Family Ties can be a downer but you can't really take it seriously as it is set in the 80's. What a rediculous time. Tom Hanks (I forgot he was Elise's (the mom) brother) made a fool of himself b/c he was an alcoholic and they had an intervention. Then Elise went to Atlantic City for an architecture conference and played Blackjack all night. That's when I knew I couldn't take it seriously. Blackjack?!?! Everyone knows you play craps at the casino. Silly Family Ties.

I promise next time to have pics of our pad. Stupid memory card won't load and the Simpson's just came on.

Later,

B