Best Hubby in the World!!

So when DH got home last night (super late - poor baby is working crazy hard right now), he said he had a surprise for me - on Sunday, we are going on a Millenium Tour!!  It's the coolest thing ever, they take you on a walking tour of the city and show you all the locations that are in the books and movies.  I am so excited, I love it here already but I think when I really see the Stockholm that I imagined, it will feel even more real.

Although I've already been to the 7-11 of course - I wonder if it will be on the tour?!  AND!  I went to a coffee shop the other day and a little birdie told me that they had been filming the American version of the film there a few weeks ago!!!  I might have sat on the same stool as Daniel Craig did - there basically aren't enough exclamation points to say how exciting that is!!!!!!  I seriously think he is just the BEST actor to play that part - the guy who played him in the Swedish one was okay I guess, but not that hot.  But Daniel Craig is HOT.  I wonder if they will be shooting any more around here?  Not that I would go and watch or anything, I don't really get people who are obsessed with celebrities and stuff (like, I heard that the guy who was in Pirates of the Caribean and Mama Mia is practically one of our neighbours, and I was like... and?  cool and everything, but whatever), but it would be cool just to know that this major movie was filming right in "my" neighbourhood.

It's really starting to feel like "my" neighbourhood, and I'm sure that after Sunday it will even more!

The Coolest 7-11 in the World!!

So why am I uploading a picture of a random 7-11 I hear you ask?  WELL!

When Dear Hubby announced that he got transferred over here and we were going to move to Stockholm, Sweden, the FIRST thing I did was read all those Dragon books so that I was prepared for life here.  I thought they were AMAZING and it made me even more excited to live in the world where they were set.

I got talking to one of our neighbours last night, and she told me that the 7-11 right near our apartment (which is super different to the 7-11s I am used to - no slushies!!) is the very one where the Lisbeth Salander character goes to all the time in the books!  I guess she didn’t get slushies either!!  So I felt kind of stupid taking a picture of 7-11 but it was so cool I had to share!

No I just have to hope that the Secret Police don’t have the place staked out and now they are after me!!!

Swedish People

So the jet lag is clearing a tiny bit and I’m kind of feeling less like a crazy person from wandering around the apartment all night, watching TV on the internet and nearly crying when I hear Oprah’s voice, then sleeping all day and eating at really weird times (I guess I’ve kind of been living like a college student!!), I’m starting to explore a little bit and feel like I really live here.

The people are different here.  For a start, they all speak Swedish!!!  It’s weird, but I realised yesterday when I was sitting having a coffee (luckily the baristas all speak English so I can actually order a coffee!!) that I’d never really heard people talk a foreign language before.  I mean, in French class in high school of course, but that would just be a sentence or two, and I was looking around at these people, and kids too, and just thinking wow, they speak Swedish all the time!!  And before you all think I’m just a stupid American, of course I knew that already anyway, it was just weird to experience it in real life.  I mean, to me, everyone seems super smart because they can all talk a foreign language, but maybe I seem super smart to them because I can speak English!!  Or American!

Anyway, one thing I noticed is that some words sound kind of like English, like they say ‘okay’ which pretty much means ‘okay’!!  And to say hi, they say ‘hey’ (they spell it hej, which makes me want to say it like ‘hege’ but you don’t pronounce the j).  The first time I walked into a store and someone was like ‘hey’, I was like, ‘hey, what?’ like they were kind of being rude, but then I learned that they were just saying hi.  I think maybe that when people say that Swedish people are being unfriendly, it’s just because it sounds like they’re saying ‘hey’, like ‘hey you, cut that out’ when really they are just saying hi.  Because I think they are super-friendly!!!

This is the view of the island opposite from near our apartment.  Did you know that Stockholm is on a bunch of islands?

Välkomen!

So here I am.  American gal, born and raised in Toledo, Ohio and now living here in Stockholm, Sweden!  I kind of have to pinch myself a little to think I’m really here - maybe I’m partly writing this blog to convince myself it was all real!

Not exactly sure what my impressions are so far, it’s all kind of in a haze of jet lag, and just kind of ‘did I just step into Oz weirdness’.  I’ve been kind of Euro-obsessed my whole life, I took French in high school  (bonjour!) and feel like my personality and outlook on life is kind of more European.  I’m pretty open minded.

Which is a good thing because when I went into the tiniest pharmacy you ever saw in your entire life last night, guess what was on the self, right there for everyone to see - vibrators!  I swear to God (sorry mom, you know I don’t know what one is or anything!!) - they were right there on the shelf next as bold as day.  Where I come from, that’s the kind of thing you order off the internet and it comes in a plain brown envelope (not that I ever did!!!).  I mean, kids could have seen them!!  But whatever floats your boat right, to paraphrase, I guess I’m not in Toledo any more!!