Happy holidays

Happy belated St. Patrick's Day, everyone! Unfortunately, we missed the parade here (it started at noon, we had the time wrong and showed up at 2 p.m.), so I don't have too much to report on how the celebration went. I also wasn't able to enjoy my annual corned beef and cabbage meal here, but tried to make up for it with a delicious kabob sandwich last night. It was amazingly good, I'm happy to report, and would have fit nicely in my softball glove. If you visit, I'll definitely introduce you.

We just got home from the movies, er, cinema, tonight. We saw Sweeny Todd, which was not too bad for a musical, in my book. It was no Chicago, but definitely better than the torture of Dream Girls...although we did squeam quite a bit from all of the gore in that barbershop.

Scott commented that the one really good thing about watching a musical in English is the Swedish subtitles; the subtitles are worthless on television as the dialogue moves so quickly. And thanks to the repetitive nature of most musical songs, the subtitles were repeated over and over again, meaning it was possible for somebody who knows few Swedish words to match them up with the dialogue. He also pointed out that the Swedish language seems much more direct, because the subtitles required significantly less copy than the English dialogue.

The movies are certainly not inexpensive here. For the two of us, it cost about $30US dollars. Concessions, on the other hand, were quite a good deal compared to their American equivalents, and the price of the tickets. When you purchase your tickets, you are asked where you'd like to sit, and then assigned seats - it's brilliant. Shortly thereafter I felt like an American idiot standing outside of the locked women's restroom. Fortunately, an employee walking by offered her help in Swedish. After a quick switch to English she pointed out a key pad by the restroom door. (The theatre prints the restroom code on your movie ticket to avoid non-patrons using the restrooms. Brilliant again! Of course.)

On the 1.5 mile walk back home, there were already people out at one of the nightclubs we passed downtown. Since it was really cold out tonight, I commented on a girl smoking a cigarette outside of the club, wearing only a tube top. "She's smokin," replied Scott, "she's fine." Well, tell me how you really feel, Mr. Striegel! Okay, so maybe it was just a great word choice. But it just goes to show that, as a wise man once said in downtown Minneapolis, skanks (as we'll use the term loosely here) don't feel cold. No matter where you live!

I'm excited for the weekend, which officially starts tomorrow. Okay, to be honest, Scott's weekend starts tomorrow...my weeks never end, exactly... But either way, his office is closed on Thursday, Friday and Monday for the Easter holiday. We've put together a long list of local Stockholm sights and Ikea shopping to take care of. At the top is a trip to Skansen, a living history museum in Stockholm. I've read that the houses will be decorated for the Easter celebration, which should be fun to see. We've also been told that the children will dress up as Easter witches tomorrow and go door-to-door for candy, similar to Halloween back home. Not sure we'll get to see too many Easter witches though, as Scott has already threatened to eat all of the Easter candy before they arrive. Except this candy pictured below. Don't be fooled by the oversized Sno-Cap.



I tried one, too, and they really are terrible.

Oh, and one more thing - I'm looking for someone to stand in for me at the annual Fischbach Easter Egg Hunt. It's become quite competitive over the past few years, now that my dad has started putting money in the plastic eggs hidden throughout the yard, so please drop me a line if you're up for defending the 2007 title. Cheers!