Dagensparty

My friend Johanna and I at a Dagensparty in Iida and Erik's apartment. Dagens are a drink made of white wine, Sprite, and frozen strawberries. Sometimes they are frozen raspberries instead. The name "dagens" means "daily" or "today's" and is usually used for the daily specials at restaurants. I'm not really sure why this drink is called the daily special, unless you're supposed to have it every day.

Maoam candy package

A really hilarious - almost profane - logo on a candy box. Those cherries are waiting in line to get licked by that jelly bean!

Everything I own*

A couple days after moving into my apartment, I took this picture of everything I own fitting nicely into these closets, with room to spare.

*=Not pictured are some boxes of photos and other "archives" I have in my parents' basement in Louisville. Those boxes would fit here in this photo, though. I also have a guitar case that isn't in the picture. But, okay, other than those things - which would all fit in these closets - shown here really is everything I own.

Oh yeah, and I guess you're not seeing the clothes I was wearing or the camera I used to take the picture. But seriously, other than those things...

Home sweet Hagsätra

After a few days, I moved in with a Dutch guy named Sander in another suburb of Stockholm called Hagsätra. I found him and the apartment on the internet and made contact with him from America, so I already had this lined up. He is a carpenter who moved to Sweden about a year ago. Because of all the snow, moving in took a few days, even though I only own two bags of stuff. These are some photos of the apartment. It's about a 10-minute walk to the Tunnelbana (subway) and from there it's only about 17 minutes to the center of Stockholm.


The living room.


My room. Nothing fancy, but I don't really have any stuff.

Map of Hagsätra in relation to Stockholm.

Coffee cup

A paper to-go coffee cup with the heat sleeve built-in!

Night views in Haninge

Night view of a frozen park and forest seen from Iida and Erik's kitchen window. They live on the eighth floor, which Swedes call the seventh floor. The ground level is always zero. You can't really see it in the photo but there are some people out there cross-country skiing.


A quiet scene of the courtyard between the apartment buildings. I thought this looked kind of scary and reminded me of the awesome Swedish vampire movie "Låt den Rätte Komma In" (trailer).

Haninge

When I first arrived in Stockholm, I stayed with my friends Iida and Erik in a suburb called Haninge. This is the Handen station of the Pendeltåg (commuter train) near their house in Haninge. I was greeted with several days of heavy snow. Welcome to Sweden!


This is an attempt at a self portrait in the swirling wind and snow.

Map of Haninge in relation to Stockholm

Billy Mitchell is a winner

This is a photo of the television playing the amazing movie "King of Kong" which is a documentary from 2007 about the fight for the world record Donkey Kong Score. As you can see, it is subtitled in Swedish. All the programming shown here is run in its original language with subtitles. This is part of why Swedes speak perfect English. An interesting fact I learned about the Swedish language is it contains no words which are considered inappropriate for broadcasting. Every word in the language can be said on television.

Stockholm

A mail train passing through Stockholm Central Station - quite pretty compared to US freight trains.

Malmö, Sweden

My dear friend Emma Pettersson and her cat Skrållan, whose hair is still all over my stuff. This was the third occasion in a year's time that I have stayed in her Malmö apartment. We also met up last summer when she and fellow Malmö friend Wictoria Trei were visiting New York City.


The cold scene on the bicycle/pedestrian lane near Emma's apartment. It's a long way from New York last July when it was so hot and sunny that we were sweating all day and had sunburns at night.


The train I rode from Malmö to Stockholm.

Copenhagen, Denmark

Jackie picking up her little boy Oscar from daycare.


City of Louisville sticker on Jackie's bicycle in Copenhagen.


Scott Ritcher for Senate sticker Joen put on a pole near their house in Copenhagen ("South Harbor Place")

Evanston, Illinois

Coffee with Greta and Brian who were coincidentally in the process of moving to Louisville after many years in Evanston, Illinois. They were staying in a hotel.


Greta and Brian with all their stuff in storage, shortly before they dropped me off at the O'Hare airport.

On the runway

In the months leading up to my departure for Sweden, I had a countdown clock running on my iPhone. It was counting down the days, hours, minutes, and seconds until I left. I took this screenshot of it as I was sitting in the plane on the runway in Chicago. This was right when they were asking everyone to turn all their shit off.

At the time, I was really sad. I had just said good-bye to my sister and I was thinking about how much I was going to be missing my friends. As I'm posting this photo about six weeks later, all I notice about it is the AT&T service in the top corner and how much I miss unlimited data plan on the iPhone. Of course, I miss everyone a lot, but I can't think about it too much.

This image also reminds me of how I searched the O'Hare Airport for a burrito while I was waiting for my flight. I knew from previous visits to Sweden (and Europe in general) that Mexican food is either nonexistent or a pale imitation, so I wanted to have one last feast. My search for a burrito was fruitless. I ended up having a deep-dish pizza and a local Chicagoan dark microbrew. Worked out great.

Chicago

Photo booth fun with Mary Regal at the Rainbo Club in Chicago the night before leaving America.

Grinstead Drive

Cleaning out the apartment in Louisville was delayed almost a week by a crazy ice storm and a lack of electricity in most of the city.