Svart Fredag

How Much Is Your Dollar Worth?
$1 = 8.0882 SEKHappy Black Friday everyone. Hope you all are out finding some holiday deals and pumping some cash into the economy and get that thing turned around.

Above is a picture of Gamla Stan in Stockholm from Monday. You'll never believe what I was doing. I was down there to audition for a part in a video game of all things. I mean, why not, I had some extra time on my hand. I responded to an ad looking for an "authentic American voice." I have one of those so I read for a voice part as a young marine in the Pacific during WWII. It was really fun to go down and yell things like "grenaaaaaade" and "meeeeeeeedic" into the microphone. I got some good feedback from the sound director who said I had a real shot. It was good to know that I didn't totally suck at it. As a thanks for coming in I got to pick a game from their game shop, which was sweet. Unfortunately they decided to go with someone else this time but they'll keep my audition on file for future projects.

And so, the job search continues... (not that that was a career choice or anything, it was only going to be two half days of reading, but to hear myself get shot and die in a video game, priceless.)

Happy Thanksgiving!

How Much Is Your Dollar Worth?
$1 = 7.9699 SEK
Do your Black Friday Shopping in Sweden!

We thought we'd say Happy Thanksgiving to all our readers back home and around the world. Hope you all are imbibing and enjoying your turkey dinners with all the fixin's and some pumpkin pie for dessert. Due to the lack of turkeys and pumpkins we enjoyed some good ol' American homemade hamburgers with some "American Style" Ginger Ale and we'll have some caramel apple empanadas for dessert (so it's kind of like apple pie which we would have made but you can't find pie pans anywhere, just so you know). So eat, drink, watch the Seahawks lose again, d'oh!

Peace Out!

P.S. If you have Skype look us up so we can wish you Happy Thanksgiving over the magic of the internets.

Winter Wonderland

How Much Is Your Dollar Worth?
$1 = 7.8918 SEKFirst things first... GO COUGS!! It wasn't a pretty game but a win over the Fuskies is the highlight of any season really. Especially in dramatic fashion. If you weren't in Pullman this weekend, and CougsInSwedeland obviously wasn't, but our man in the street said the huge mob that rushed the field took over downtown en masse. It doesn't matter what the rest of the season looked like, but on one afternoon it was if the Cougs had just won a national title. Hopefully it carries over to the islands this week against Hawaii.

Meanwhile we have just experienced a winter storm Sweden style. In the last post I put up a picture taken on Saturday morning. Here are some pictures from last night. For the most part Saturday was a nice day, the skies were pretty clear. In the evening it started snowing again but not much additional accumulation. When we woke up Sunday there was a little more snow on the ground but not much else happened during the day. That evening the wind started to pick up and it started to snow harder. I think it was the windiest day we have had here, and it is pretty windy up here. In fact there were hurricane force winds recorded less than a hundred miles south of us in and around the archipelago. The snow started to pick up that night and snowed all day on Monday. It was almost like a blizzard from Sunday night into Monday. I would say we have about a foot of snow, more in places due to drift. The bus schedule is all messed up, buses have gone into ditches, found themselves stuck after stops, and getting caught in an intersection as they try to take a corner. Craziness ensued. Not really. So we thought we would put up some pictures to show off.

Bicycles in downtown. Some of these are cleared off because people actually do ride through town on them. In the street because the sidewalks aren't always cleared off. But sharing the roads with Buses that occasionally slip and slide, I don't know if that's an idea I can get behind.

Make sure to check on your cars often other wise you should bring a shovel with you if you want to go anywhere.

Some bicycles parked in front of our apartment building. Unfortunately we just found out that we will be unable to rent our apartment for the next year. Since we are heading back to the states for the holidays on the 16th and our lease ends before Christmas, we only have a couple weeks to find a new apartment and move our stuff before we go. Or we could return to Sweden in 2009 without a place to stay. That would kind of suck. We looked at a couple ads last night for some swish apartments in downtown. They cost a little more than our current place but some are a lot fancier. Fortunately people seem eager to rent to young professional couple like ourselves as over half of the people we contacted last night have responded.

Star lamps are pretty traditional Christmas decorations and most homes and storefronts have them hanging in the windows. What we were surprised to learn is that red, white, and blue are traditional Swedish Christmas colors, much like the red, white, and green back home. As a bonus we now have some 4th of July decorations when we move back.

Basil. Also note how much snow we have on our windowsill. A lot.

Finally a picture taken this morning to compare to the picture from Saturday morning. Notice the difference, and also the windowsill snow in the foreground.

GO COUGS!!!!

How Much Is Your Dollar Worth?
$1 = 8.3618 SEK (Now's the time to come visit if you want to stretch that dollar a little more!)

What we woke up to this morning!

A quick update today to commemorate the big day. The battle for 9th place. The 100th Apple Cup! Or as some people have referred to it, the Crapple Cup. Anyway we take the snow this morning and the scheduled cold weather in Pullman, as an a good luck sign and hope of a new Snow Bowl. We'll be watching here in Sweden cheering along with the rest of you. So as always... GO COUGS!!!!

Election Fever... Catch It!!!

How Much Is Your Dollar Worth?

$1 = 7.6107 SEK

Ok folks it is finally here. ELECTION DAY!!! Get out and VOTE!!!

(Those of you who know us know which way we lean... HINT we are strongly PRO-POLAR BEAR)

Please note that the Swedish state television station has crews in DC and other parts of the US to cover the election. We are personally planning to have people over to watch two Swedish comedians cover it. Should be fun. But needless to say that the whole world is watching this thing. Even if we have to stay up all night to follow it. But what happens today does have an impact on the entire world, and for the most part the rest of the world really really perfers one guy to the other.

VOTE OR DIE!

CHOOSE OR LOSE!

DO YOUR DUTY!

INSERT OTHER OBNOXIOUS VOTING SLOGAN GEARED TOWARDS THE YOUNG FOLKS!

(update 10:15 pm Sweden - Starbucks is giving cups of coffee if you tell them you voted, and Krispy Kreme gives you a free donut if you show them your I Voted sticker, just so you know).

Of Snow and Coleslaw

How Much Is Your Dollar Worth?

$1 = 7.7097 SEK

Sunset here in Uppsala, at 4:00

Winter is here! Winter is here! We had our first snow Friday afternoon. It was only a dusting and pretty wet stuff but it lasted a couple days in the shadows. I think it is now official that winter is here. Now is when Swedes like to get out of the country for awhile before the darkness and the rain sets in. Nice.

In other news I had an opportunity to work in a local Irish pub here in Uppsala on Thursday night. Long time readers might recognize it as the pub we celebrated St. Patrick's day in. I got to spend a shift in the kitchen that night to see if it would be a good fit. So this is an Irish bar, the owner is Syrian perhaps. The head chef might be as well and doesn't speak English, not a good sign for me, only Swedish and Farsi perhaps. My mentor for the night was born in Sweden and his family is Syrian. Other employees out front were from New Zealand, Ireland, Canada, and Sweden. A pretty global place to say the least.

My first task was to make coleslaw. I walked in the kitchen and the head chef had shredded up a couple heads of cabbage and a few bags of carrots into a large Rubbermaid-like storage container. Then he "added" a Costco size container of mayonnaise and a bottle of molasses or other syrup like substance. Then it was my time to shine. I got to mix it all up... with my hands. After scrubbing up of course. I dug in, elbow deep, pulling and mixing and squishing coleslaw. And let me tell you that stuff is cold after some time. My fingers were freezing and were getting a little numb. But I'm glad to know that I can make three or four days worth of coleslaw.

After that it was a brief tour of the kitchen and waiting for the first orders to come in. The first things I was shown how to make were burgers and club sandwiches, which they call "chicken bacons," to avoid confusion I suppose. Although its not really a club sandwich, I mean it does have the three pieces of bread and some chicken breast and bacon. But they don't cut into four pieces like they should. For shame. Well I'm sure you can tell where I'm going with this. It was fun for the first couple hours, but then it was slow, and then the dinner rush, and then then slow again. I must have made like 25 chicken bacons and well over a dozen burgers. Along with a couple orders of Guinness-battered fish and chips and nachos I think covered it. Six hours of that and then 20 minutes of cleaning. Not too bad.

I went in and talked to the owner at the end and he told me that if I wanted to come in a couple more times, work for food and drinks and tips (ha ha, people don't really tip in Sweden, and who ever tips the kitchen anyway) and then he'll decide if he wants to offer me a job. At that point I told him that I had to be honest and I didn't think it was the job for me. He asked if it was too hard and I said, "yeah, too hard... let's go with that." But he was cool about it and realized that not everyone likes that kind of stuff, so he told me the next time I came in, two beers on him.

And so the saga continues...

OH, AND DON'T FORGET TO VOTE TOMORROW!!