Unforcasted Weekend

What a weekend. Friday night I met a girl from school and a friend of hers at an Irish pub downtown and found out that they had Hoegaarden on tap...funny how I have to come all the way to Sweden to find that. So happy. Turns out that 3 big beers that are all different and all heavy, even when you've eaten, can make you walk pretty funny, but the sunset was beautiful and I got yelled at by a Swedish man on his bike when I was taking pictures. I couldn't stop laughing. Saturday I went on a boat ride with Eva, Mats, their daughter Cajsa, and a friend of hers to an island in Lake Malaren. It was like we stepped off the shore of civilized world and into a 1,000-year-old time warp, and it was awesome. Only a handful of people still live on the island, but we hiked and picnicked for several hours without seeing very many of them. The flowers are starting to come out and, despite the unforcasted cold and clouds, it was beautiful. I've been on more picnics here in the last month than I have in the entire last year in the States. Picnics are soooo underrated. Speaking of unforcasted cold, apparently Sweden is famous for that, too. Everyday the past week has been a mix of t-shirt warmth, clear blue skies, thunder, lightning, rain storms, hail, and bitter cold. Dressing for the weather is more of a challenge here than I've ever encountered before and, honestly, I've never been all that good at it anyway. Saturday night Mats's 18-year-old daughter Sara and her friends made dinner for us, and we talked about how Swedish sheets make more sense than American sheets and Americans can't pronounce Swedish words correctly. However, I am the apparent exception, thank you very much. Sunday I went with Martina and her girls to the fair (really similar to US county fairs with dinky rides and overpriced crap for sale). Then we went to Anundshog, one of the biggest and oldest burial mounds in Sweden with rock formations that look, from above, like boats. We climbed to the top of this huge hill and then the Swedish unforcast kicked in and we had to picnic under the roof of a nearby building instead. After lunch, the rain stopped, and we walked around the hills and watched the girls play. And then the hail started and all 4 of us ran across the field to the car holding the picnic blanket over our heads. Martina and I left the girls at home playing the coolest Playstation game ever and went to see her husband, Christer, at their sailboat in the marina. If I had a sailbot, you know that I'd wear an eyepatch, hair beads, and lots of eyeliner all the time. I had to spend the night last night at Mats and Eva's house to take care of their cats while they were away. No, I have not developed a liking, per se, for cats, but these were pretty cute. I watched Anna & the King and Tomb Raider 2, interspersed, with Swedish subtitles. Funny, because both of those movies have a lot of other-language speak, and without English subtitles for those parts, it's impossible to understand. I slept like crap because of the 2 skylights in the room I slept in. The sky didn't get completely dark until around midnight or 12:30, and the sun came up again around 3:30 in the morning. I kept waking up and looking at my watch and wondering if I had slept until 3:30 in the afternoon, but no, it was fake afternoon. This morning I walked home in BEAUTIFUL weather and was so warm when I got home that I opened all the windows in my apartment. I got into the shower and when I got out, it was freezing and getting ready to pour rain. Ah, well. It's my last week in Sweden (and I just now learned how to pronounce goodbye in Swedish correctly...sigh).