Sweden has hurricanes ?

Alright , so we don't have snow just yet - but we do have wind. It is soo windy right now that trees are falling down and an entire town near us ( the town Jack lives in ) has no electricity right now.The news has southern Sweden on red alert and is recommending that people stay indoors and avoid driving and taking public transportaion.We really did not expect this.Today Ron was helping Jack move some furniture from a friends house to Jacks house and they saw trees laying in the road and when Jacks electricity went out they decided to come to the apartment and hang out here.I had no idea how windy it was outside because the windows here are so advanced that no sound comes through and the windows are thick so they dont shake .I decided to go to the grocery store and it was really strange because it was like a ghost town outside and no one was grocery shopping and its Sunday!! Well when I was walking home with grocerys I realized why no one wanted to go grocery shopping! I seriously felt like the wind was going to blow me away! Haha.I am really suprised my grocery bags didnt fly out of my hands! Well , after that I decided to stay inside. So Ron and Jack came here to the apartment and we have all been hanging around.We looked up a local Swedish website and we got this picture ... pretty scary.This is a picture of a tree that fell and smashed a bus stop.This happened earlier today and Ron and Jack actually drove past it!!!

Yummy !!

Amazing food choices here at the grocery store ... haha.



Peanut butter here is expensive .And not all grocery stores carry peanut butter.This is our peanut butter selection at the large grocery store in town.

We think the movies they sell here are funny ... of all the great movies from America ...

Jacks Birthday

Last week was Ron's co - worker Jack's birthday! It was fun.Ron and another co - worker (David) went to the grocery store and bought some fruit like cantalope and pineapple and grapes to make Jack a fruit salad and they also got a cheesecake to take to work.I drew a little happy birthday card and Ron and all his co workers signed it for Jack.So they had a small birthday celebration for Jack at the office and then in the evening we all went downtown together. Originally we were going to go get dinner together but that idea got scratched and we ended up at this pool hall. Which is really weird because Sweden is not like Huntington Beach.In Sweden all the stores close at 6pm.So if you want to go downtown at night you can either go to dinner .. or go to a bar.Or better yet , the adults go to dinner and all the kids go to the bar ... and the pool hall.The drinking age here is 18 and older.So , we did not go to dinner , and we ended up at this pool hall.You would not believe this place - it was hilarious! It was a pool hall AND a conveinient store with snacks and magazines AND it was a video rental AND an internet cafe !!! It was a pretty cool spot.Ron and I played about three rounds of pool and we had two pool tables going in our group and there were some other couples with us along with Jack and Sam who are single.So that lasted about an hour or so .Looking around us we started to notice that everyone else in the place was really young! The kids had to have been around 16 or 17 years old.So we left that place and headed downtown to a bar/restaurant called PM ( It stands for pub and mat) .This place was empty , but it was early and they were playing good music and there were nice areas to sit in and you could still talk over the music , so it seemed like a great spot.Of course someone in our group of friends ordered Jack this super fruity silly blue drink - so we got a picture of that.Haha. We stayed there for a little while and then some of the guys with us were getting antsy because there were no girls there .. haha ... of course! So we left PM and went down to another bar called PlayBar . This place was super loud , music blaring , strobe lights , huge flat screen tvs everywhere and alot more crowded.We got there and it was difficult to find anywhere to sit . Ron and I started to get a little annoyed and then finally a group of people left and we grabbed this long couch for us all to sit on.Ron and I werent drinking but we were having fun watching everyone else drink.At one point some of the guys were drinking this drink that was a shot of red wine in a glass full of whiskey ... yuck!! Well , we ended up going home early but we had fun and here are the pictures from our night ..

The Container

Alright , so Outpost 24 ( Ron's work ) ordered a container for Jack ( Ron's co - worker ) , Ron and myself.The container was ordered through a company that offered "door to door" service.This meant that the container would be brought to us and that we would fill it with all our belongings and that everything would be shipped to Sweden . We were really excited about this because originally we thought that we would have to leave everything we own in America and bring only a suitcase of our belongings with us - and believe me , as much as I tried I could not fit all my clothes and shoes and beauty products in one suitcase !! The container was going to show up at Jacks apartment in Costa Mesa for us to put all our stuff in.Ron was the one doing all the organizing and making sure everything was happening on schedule since Jack had already moved to Sweden.We were leary of the container company from the get go because the date that the container was supposed to be at Jacks got delayed a day on short notice. Ron and I rented a U - Haul truck to load all of our boxes and furniture into and then drove the U-Haul to Jacks apartment so that we could load everthing into the container at the same time. We labeled all of our boxes and made lists of what was in each box ... then we went to Jacks apartment early on the day of to label his boxes .We also bubble wrapped everything and used this crazy green wrap stuff ... we were pretty careful and just wanted to make sure everything was ready to go.

The day the container came ... was a mess.The container was supposed to be at Jacks apartment at around 10 am , so Ron and I got there early and Ron called some friends to help us move stuff once it got there.Of course hours go by and we are all sitting around wondering where this thing is! Ron is on and off the phone all morning with the company asking the where abouts of the container and asking why the container was not on time.Of course we get no actual anwsers and just end up waiting. All Rons friends left because they had to go to work so Ron and I were left twidling our thumbs for a few hours.

Finally the truck driver with the container calls Ron and he is near Jack's apartment complex.We call Tyler , Rons friend, and he comes over right away to help.When the driver pulls up he looks a little confused and then goes on to ask us where the loading dock is.He might have been expecting a loading dock but that was not the case in this situation ... he would be pulling into an apartment complex . Haha. You can only imagine. After watching a huge truck with a container come down a slim alley way behind the apartment complex and then do a 38 point turn down a driveway to Jacks apartment - we were pretty impressed.We had one hour to load Jacks stuff into the container and our stuff from the U-Haul to the container .So we got started.Our roomate Eric also showed up to help out. The only problem with loading the container was that it was about 4 feet off the ground ... so with some stuff being as heavy as it was I was suprised we got everything thing in the container without going over the one hour time limit and without anyone seriously injuring themselves! Well , here are the pictures ......





So here we are in Sweden and our container has arrived.Let me tell you , it was a strange feeling to see this large green container that we packed all our belongings into when we were in Huntington Beach.We felt really excited and just happy that it made its way across land and sea all the way over here across the world to Sweden.Of course receiving the container did not run smoothly either.The driver only spoke Swedish , luckily we had Ron's co - worker Sam with us to talk to him and translate for us.Well , Jack lives on a single lane road down in the forest.....and apparently these truck drivers get really nervous about driving down narrow roads and are afraid of not being able to turn around ... which is understandable.Except that the company sells door to door service to people like us and we are not prepared to accomodate industrial trucks ... so why offer this service? We dont have loading docks or huge driveways ... or well, anything that these truck drivers seem to expect when they arrive.Sam said that the driver was unsure that he would be able to drive up to Jacks house.So that presented a huge problem.We started to think about what we could possibly do ... maybe rent a trailer and have the truck drop the container in a spacious area and we could drive the trailer back and forth to Jacks ? But that would take forever and would just be more expensive . So we found a street the driver could turn his truck around and everything worked out fine.Well , until we opened the container. Ron had purchased this nice filing cabinet right before we found out we would be taking off to Sweden.We were so sad when we thought we would have to leave it in America.Well we were even more sad when we opened the container and saw that it was destoyed!! We came to find out later that at some point in transit the container got flipped over!! Haha ! Can you believe it ! Well, everything else made it and we were happy to just have our stuff and be done with the container situation! Here are the pictures ...

Happy New Years !!!!

I hope everyone had a great New Years ! We had a great time last night.Originally we were going to spend New Years at Jacks house - but because everyone does fireworks Jack was worried about his dogs.So we went to Roberts girlfriends apartment at around 7pm and made tacos and listened to music while people were showing up.It was really fun.
I would say that we had a small group of about ten people.I was suprised to see that the other girls there were wearing fancy dresses ! And the guys had on button up shirts and blazers .We thought it was funny because it seemed like we were going to prom later or something - haha!! I never seem to know when its appropriate to dress up or not ! But I was happy because I had just gotten the sweater I was wearing and I was dying to wear it!
I actually made friends with Roberts girlfriend and another girl at the party ( pictured below ) named "Lotta" .Her name is actually longer - but its really hard to pronounce so she said to call her Lotta.Its sounds like lah - dah when you say it . Anyways she was so cute because she is trying to learn to speak English and I told her I want to speak Swedish - so we said that we will teach each other!! She is really nice and she was telling me that she loves the way Americans sound and she loves the way English sounds.And another swede last night also told me that it was considered "cooler" to speak English with an American accent and not a British accent.I guess in school they are taught to speak English with a British accent.Anyways so her and I really hit it off and were talking all night - I was really happy to have made a friend!!
Alot of the night we spent at the apartment at a table eating and drinking and talking with all the Swedish people about all kinds of stuff.Mostly talking about the difference between America and Sweden.Swedish people always look at Ron and I like we are crazy to have left exciting California for boring Sweden! We try to explain that there are lots of pros and cons to living in California and America in general.At about 11:30 a lot more people showed up and we all walked in a group down to the water.It was crazy because people were walking from everywhere - tons of people - down to the water to watch fireworks!! We had a guy with us who had actually made a bunch of fireworks himself!! It was awesome - like Disneyland times ten! Definitely a surreal moment - being in Sweden by the water with tons of people watching fireworks go off - really amazing.At midnight everyone was hugging and yelling "Happy New Year!!!".I think this was the best New Years I have ever had.
So here are the pictures below.The one where it looks like nothing was me trying to take pictures of all the people and the fireworks!! Haha. That didn't really work out . =)

Laundry Time !

I thought you guys would get a kick out of the laundry room here! The machines instructions are in Swedish and there are two washing machines , one dryer machine and a cabinet dryer .There is also a table and chair set up and some other weird machine but I have no clue what those are used for.After you do the laundry you must clean the machines and clean the "fluff" aka lint from the dryer - or else you get in trouble - haha.Oh and that weird board with the slots on it is how we researve the laundry room - you choose the date and then choose either morning ( 7 - 14 ) or afternoon ( 14 - 21 ) .Ok here are the pictures ...