HOORAH

I'm updating!

I will be back in KS from like Nov. 25th until Dec. 4. Give me a holla and we'll drink beer.

We went to a nation last night (like a bar/club for students, Uppsala is a university town after all) and I drank enough to dance, so it was a good night. They played Thriller, and my favorite Swedish song by Håkan Hellström, it's sooooo awesome. Like jangly guitars and all upbeat. People scream the lyrics, everybody's all sweaty and happy. Nations are fun. At the pre-party I could juuuuust understand what people were talking about in Swedish, some of the time. It's weird because I've been concentrating so hard on understanding people and now that I actually barely can, sometimes it's when I'm not concentrating so hard that I understand the most. Weird how it works.

Yesterday I was walking around downtown and in the main square area there was like tons of people holding banners and handing out literature from all different groups including one with a red banner with a hammer and sickle on it and something about the "proletariat" written on it, and a dude on a loudspeaker harrassing everybody, and I think people were walking by and snickering at him. No idea what was going on there. My favorite part though was that amidst all the political activists and survery takers and solicitors and Serious Business was a dude in a giant tiger suit walking around handing out balloons to all the kiddies promoting the fast food chain Max. I wanted to give him a hug but I was too shy : (

It's not really cold here yet, in fact the weather is really similar to KS so far, at least surprisingly so for me. It's just darker a lot more than back home, and getting darker every day. I hear repeatedly all the time from basically everyone about how much warmer the winters are and how much less snow they get than when everyone was young. The older the person the bigger the difference It's kinda scary I guess. I'm definitely not on the doomsday predictions and mass extinctions tip, but damn, it really hits home up here.

Watching season 3 of Dexter and it is just as good as the first two seasons, if not better. I'm really pleased about that, hopefully it continues on this path for a few more seasons.

Mainly playing Castlevania SOTN for PS1 on PS3 (downloaded it off the playstation store). The game is classic, I really really like it. I really really like the PS3 too. Glad that I bought it. I'm also looking forward to buying Rock Band 2 when I'm home (it won't be out over here for several months I think) and I'm probly gonna get Little Big Planet too. Really dumb they had to pull it out of stores to take a song off the soundtrack because it contained lyrics from the koran, but whatev. Guess we gotta be P.C. At least it wasn't like the "Little Mommy Real Loving Baby Cuddle and Coo" doll:
www.kjrh.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=5c383aca-c3d2-4b3d-b4a5-5a8108ba4971

I got a bike now so I've been riding that to the houses of the guys who give me a ride to work, and that's been workin out ok, but it kinda sucks being sweaty on the car ride there. Also bought the cheapest electric guitar that the music store here had, just to mess around with, I was dying to play something even though I'm pretty terrible and can only play "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" right now. I've been working on some slayer, but doggone it if their songs aren't a little tough. I can play some of it about 10 times slower, and thus not nearly as cool. Oh, and I can kinda play some of "Gimme Danger" but it sounds funky. I forgot to buy a tuner (don't really need one anyway, I just tune by ear off websites set up for that purpose, I mean, I'm no David St. Hubbins so it works for me) so maybe thats why it sounds funky, the B string may be a little off... but more likely the tab I was going off of is wrong. Anyway... Frida needs to use the laptop so I'll sign off for now.

ta-ta

RIDICULOUS

Here's your update you vultures:

-Frida was in the hospital with meningitis. That sucked. She is 100% recovered now though. It wasn't the bacteria type that can kill you in a few days, so that was a plus. It was a regular ass rhinovirus that decided "Wouldn't it be sssssupersssssweet if instead of infecting her sssssinussssesssss we infected the membrane between her brain and ssssskull? C'mon! Let'ssss do it to it dewdssss!" She was sick for a good two weeks, half of which was in the hospital supersick. And yes, rhinoviruses all have lisps.

-Went to Rome for 4 days. No way to describe it, you just gotta see it with your own eyes. Favorite parts were: Sistine Chapel - Pictures don't do it justice, you just gotta see it in person, St. Peter's Basilica - it is impossible to have any concept of the size, even when you are in it your brain cannot process how big it is, awesome, Colosseum - again with the size, I thought it was gonna be much smaller. I can't figure out how they built these things. If I tried to make a wall of bricks more than 4 ft high it would tip over forthwith. How their shit is still standing... Well, I guess that's the draw isn't it now? Rome overall was pretty nice. Good weather, not polluted, relatively small area, well dressed people. I'm sorry but I thought people there were in general more attractive than people here in SE. But you know me, I like tall dark and handsome *BLUSH* Plus Swedes dress weird. I'm used to it now I guess, but Italians just dress nice. Oh, also went to this monastery where they have like thousands of monk bones and skulls all decorating the inside, all over the walls and ceilings, including kid skeletons. Really macabre, kinda sick, yet super awesome.

-Got the new 46" HDTV and have been playing tons PS3 in my small amount of spare time (and not updating the blog, obv). Mainly GT5 Prologue and GTA4. Can't freaking wait for Rock Band 2 tho. Will def. pick it up when I'm home for Thanksgiving.

-Started Swedish classes. Interesting folk in the class, all different countries. The french girl has the thickest accent ever. I try not to laugh. Two Americans besides me. Haven't talked to them, mainly to this Greek guy, Spyros, an Australian girl, this kinda odd Italian guy, and the teacher. Everyone is about my age, including the teacher.

-One of the guys I ride to work with bought his car off a gypsy. I told him we think of gypsies in the US the same way we think about fairies and dragons. Some kind of mythical beast. But he bought his car off one. Classic. Gypsy isn't the P.C. term by the way. In case you ever meet one. Kind of like eskimo.

-Harris was eating a hamburger sandwich on break the other day. Not too strange you think? Well, that's what they call horsemeat here. Our hamburger here is "hamburgare" in Swedish. Anyway, the meat is kind of dark and when I saw it I figured that's what it was so I had to call him out on it. I'll get around to trying it one of these days. It sounds pretty tasty actually, it's smoked, for flavor! What I may never try is the rotten herring "surströmming". I probably couldn't get past the overpowering rotting fish smell to actually put it in my mouth.

-Still hate Jason Mraz. Had that fucking song stuck in my head the whole time in Rome. It very nearly ruined the trip. They play it every morning on the radio when we drive to work. I HATE IT SO MUCH



My October resolution is to update more.

Later fools.