A Polish Igloo, Fires, Hockey, and Brussels

It's been another fun week here in southern Sweden!

Earlier this week several Polish engineering student friends of mine built a real and structurally sound igloo. They had talked about building for a while but I was a little skeptical to be honest. But when someone mentioned that they were actually building one night early in the week I raced to my room, threw on my coat, and flew out the door. I was very excited to see a real igloo. I had tried to build a couple when I was a little kid but it never worked so I was doubtful it could be done by non-polar inhabitants. I arrived to a nearly completed snow and ice dome. They said it took them about four hours to build. They let me slide in, which I had to do on my back because it had a small entrance. It was surprisingly comfortable inside it. I wouldn't say warm but a lot better than outside. Well done boys! They have talked about building a bigger one eventually

Wednesday saw quite a bit of excitement around the house. I was working in my room when

the fire alarm went off. It sounded more like a fast non-stop school bell. We all left our rooms to

leave but someone said the was not fire and it was burnt food form the first floor kitchen. We went

down the spiraling concrete steps to investigate. They were right. I and a few others didn't want to

pay a possible fine so we exited the building anyway. The fire department is downtown so it took

them about ten minutes to get the house. The pulled up and jogged inside. The funny thing is that we

were scheduled to have a fire safety seminar with them later that night. We got quite a talking-to at

it. We each got to put a gas fire with the extinguisher and put out a fire on a dummy with a blanket.

On Thursday night a group of us went to see the Jönkönping hockey team, HV71, play. The team is in the elite national league here in Sweden. The game play was a little slower than North American and there was no fighting, much to the dismay of my friend from Quebec. The game also ended in a tie which was disappointing. Instead doing a "shoot out" like in the NHL they added time to the end of the game with the hope that someone would score. Overall it was fun though!

On Friday I tried going to another "afterwork" cheap buffet; this time it was at a Irish pub. The

food was as bad as the others. It did come with a decent white wine though. The bar also required

you to check you coat for 20:- so that made the meal not so cheap. I don't think I'll be going to

another one. My Finnish friend and I decided to go for pizza afterwards and managed to find a

place that had American (thick crust) pies.

Today I walked from downtown to our dorm which is 2-3 miles. I took the path I mentioned in an

earlier post. The path is on the edge of a cliff overlooking the lake and the fishing and boating

cabins that seem to run all along its edge.

Plans to go on the cruise to Riga fell through because of multiple factors. There weren't enough

cars and people didn't want to pay for bus tickets. Even with bus tickets we'd still going on a cruise

to another city for less than a $100.00.There is good news though. Four of us will be going to

Brussels, Belgium at the end of the month. We found really cheap tickets through RyanAir and it

looks like bus tickets to and from Stockholm will be a lot more than the flights. I'm really eager

to see the historical sites and the European Quarter. The EU fascinates the geeky government

major side of me. Hopefully there are tours of the European Parliament and Commission!

It's very curious to watch the "snowpocalypse" from a Nordic country. Fairfax County, VA has

had more snowfall in the last week than I think we've had all winter. Sweden has been covered in an

seemingly permanent layer of snow since December but it's not that deep. Shouldn't it be the other

way around? The weather forecast, at least the one I look at, always predicts snow within the next 2

or 3 days but it never seems to happen. The forecast gets pushed back every time. I don't want to

sound like I'm complaining because we'll probably have our own snowpocalypse, or in honor of local

Norse mythology "winter-ragnarök." Credit goes to a friend back for that one. The picture of a GMU

parking lot was taken by my good friend Blaine Darnell. It's his unfortunate car covered in feet of

snow.

Random Observations:

1. The flusher (is that the right word?) on every toilet is on top of the tank not the front side.
2. Swedish people rarely say "excuse me" when passing. There more likely to shove you.
3. Europeans think it's strange to only have cheese on a pizza. Good luck finding that here.
4. Cars are legally required to have their lights on all the time.
5. Modern buildings are built with spiral staircases that only let one person walk at a time.