Lessons

It seems that some of you want me to study 9 hours a day. One person emailed me to tell me to study 18 hours. (I would like to see you try it Mark.) I am really only studying Swedish right now. To study one subject for that period of time is a bit frustrating. At least for me. I like to get some fresh air. Socialize a bit. i have been play badminton every day. Did I mention that I get paid for every day that I go to class. What is the rush? I like to consider my leisure time here to be, "Cultural Studies."
So today I was on the bus and I saw a stroller in parked on a grassy hill. The stroller started to roll down the hill. I couldn't tell if the baby was in the stroller or not. I instinctively started banging on the window and pointing. A group of women sitting on the bench, with there backs to the hill, suddenly stood up and one of them started running after the stroller. Judging from the way that she was talking to the stroller the baby was indeed inside. A lesson to everyone: use the breaks on the stroller when parking your baby on a hill.
See that experience right there would qualify as, "Cultural Studies." If I had been studying instead of listening to my Ipod, well who knows how many babies I would have sent flying down hills?

Birthday Party

So Alex and I began his little brother's birthday party by barricading ourselves In our room. Meanwhile outside the bedroom we could hear an army of little boys attacking each other with a plethora of sound affects. It sounded like star wars verses power rangers.
I honestly could not believe the birthday boy had any energy left. He had been jumping around all morning. I even spent an hour playing badminton. He was diving for every shot.

Anyways after a few hot dogs and some running around on the playground it was time for cake. Sadly the birthday boy had gone to bed. Apparently he had a bit of a headache. He did however come out so we could sing, "ja må hon leva."
After another brief disappearance he was back again for presents. Still looking under the whether.
I am happy to announce that the next day he was all better and ready to have another birthday.

I did however get a picture of Alex enjoying his brother's birthday!

Vlogging

I attempted to make a vlog this week. (blog+video=vlog). I took my digital camera downtown to view the sights. Only my camera, with all the pictures deleted, would only let me take one minute of film. So I adjusted the settings to low quality film. Seven whole minutes. So much for having to edit. The video was bad. I blame the fact that seven minutes does not allow for a lot of taping and the fact that I had just spent some time talking to my friend Kate from Manchester. She has a thick British accent and it does not rub well to me. I sound bloody ridicules, if I do say so myself. Anyways you can't even see half of the things that I am talking about. Even so I posted it on my youtube site.
As of right now 12 people have looked at it. One person even commented and gave me five stars. Crazy. It really is a horrible video.

First

Ok so I had my first experience with Grand Theft Auto IV. Totally cool. If your character is just hanging in his flat you can play a game or watch TV. The comics that they hired for the comedy central station were actually really funny. They have a pretty funny VH1 spoof. The best TV program though is the Republican Space Rangers. If you are a republican you will probably get offended. It is a great satire covering both the Iraq war and typical science fiction space show. It was fairly entertaining to watch. The online dating is also full of surprises. As it should be.
When I moved here I knew that there would be no Starbucks, red robin, dennys, although I never expected this. There is no ranch here! If it does exist here I can’t find it. I thought it was weird when I ordered my pizza with ranch sauce and they didn’t have it. Now I can’t find it in any of the stores. Have I mentioned that toppings for pizza include baked bananas and fried egg? The egg one is really good! I am not crazy about baked bananas. Although, we do have baked bananas as a side dish once a week for dinner. So my first big food miss is ranch.
I had my first Swedish boat ride. Really beautiful. The pictures say it all.





Apparently I am the first American that a lot of people in my class have ever met. This really surprised me. They all agree that I am not what they expected. They thought that Americans were all “hard” and “selfish.” Consider their idea of the USA comes from shows like “Jerry Springer” and “The Hills” those thoughts can be justified.