Burgers without a grill...round two...

So I decided that despite being absolutely worthless in the kitchen, now is the time to learn at least how to not have pasta for three months straight. So, I get some ground beef, Worcestershire sauce, garlic salt, and pepper and I'm on my way. I decided this time to cook the burger on the skillet at around medium high for about 3 minutes both sides and then finish it off by broiling in the oven. Here's what ACTUALLY happened...

The preparation went fine, but I soon found out the little fan above my stove doesn't do anything as my smoke alarm started going off as soon as I put the skillet in the oven. I grab the closest towel/rag/whatever and start flailing at it like a madman. I also was trying to jump up and slap the battery out of it, but I have no ups. Anyway, after that fiasco was averted, I had to open my window to deal with the smoke (there really wasn't even that much). Anyway, I get my burger and it's a sad little patty, but it's more because I made it too small than that I overcooked it (which I also did). After I put the burger on its bun, I decided to forget that the skillet, which is steel with a steel handle, was still hot and proceeded to grab it to put it in the sink. After doing the HOLY SHIT I JUST BURNED THE HELL OUT OF MYSELF dance for about two minutes, I ran from the kitchen to deal with the skillet later. (It should be noted that since this I have actually made decent burgers using the skillet/oven combo, go me!).

I have recently found out that Sweden has a variety of sodas native to the country. One of these is called Julmust, and it's basically a Christmas Coca-Colaesque soda that tastes basically like a spiced coke...with a bit of a bitter initial flavor, which I'm guessing comes from the hops. It's not bad, but I'll stick with coke.



Friday was supposed to be a co-worker's (Mats's) last day, but turns out he's going to be around for a few more weeks anyway; we went out despite that. Four of us headed out to a pretty chic bar/lounge called Allmänna Galleriet 925 which claims to be very SoHo-like. I guess I'll give it to em. The place was nice and the drink prices were pretty reasonable. I have to mention that even though I am all for the U.S. switching to the metric system, I always want to order my beer by the pint.

In other fun and interesting news, I was woken up abruptly this morning by someone incessantly ringing my doorbell. Actually, they'd ring twice, wait five minutes for me to fall back asleep, ring twice, and so on. Eventually I just got up, threw on pants and opened the door with what I'm sure was a wonderful you just woke me up expression on my face. They were here to fix my radiator which the landlord knew was not broken, everyone else on my floor however, yes, broken. Not mine. Sigh.

-Brandon

Blåbär Soppa

So while on one of many coffee runs with some of the team throughout the day, I noticed one of our machines has blåbär soppa on it. It has a picture of blueberries and I had to assume soppa meant soup. After staring at it quizzically I asked if that's what it was. After confirmation that it is in fact blueberry soup in our coffee machine, I asked what it's doing there. Turns out it's traditional Swedish food that you can find anywhere. Here's a picture of soup in a carton that you can buy at the store:



Anyway, being my daring self I decided to try it. It should be noted that this can be served hot or chilled, and I'd have to say after trying it hot, chilled can't be worse. Now, I did get this out of a machine, and I did not have high expectations. It smelled like hay (I have no idea why) and it tasted...well it tasted like a less viscous blueberry smoothie...except warm...and with a hay scent. It really wasn't all that bad actually, the scent really threw it all off though. After I gave up trying to finish it and it cooled down for half an hour or so, it started to get a little thicker. I decided it would be best to leave it til morning to see if it turns into a giant blueberry monster and then blows the building up much like I expect.

So far with traditional Swedish foods, semla +, blueberry soup -. Apparently there's another traditional soup called nypon soppa that I should try, translates to rose hip soup...hmm...

-Brandon

Chucks vs. the freezing cold.

It's come to my attention that Converse All-Stars, while quite stylish indeed, are not great winter attire. It's also come to my attention that going shopping in Liljeholmen when everyone I know is telling me it's way too cold to go out is not a great idea. Despite the fact that this weekend has been the coldest temperature I've felt in many years, I went out Saturday night and Sunday. Shoe prices here are silly and I mean silly, we're talking $110 for some basic Reeboks. This weekend has made me realize that even though my feet are frozen and the temperature is cold enough to flash freeze your mucus within about 10 seconds of getting outside, I can in fact tough it out.

Once again exploring the city, Amy and I met up at a pub called Oliver Twist. The place was actually really neat, and the beer selection was ridiculous. The prices were pretty reasonable (sad that I consider $7 for their cheapest beer reasonable now) and the atmosphere was great, lots of locals.

I've also managed to find a tumble dryer in the laundry room. Turns out it's a steam dryer, but I couldn't read the settings so I just guessed and left it. My clothes are certainly wrinkle free now though, hoorah!

The snow accumulation has gotten absolutely ridiculous, if I weren't lazy I'd show you a pic of the bicycles outside that are literally buried at this point, but just picture it. It should be warming up soon (all the way to the 20s! Wooo!) but until then I just hope it isn't windy.

The end of this week is when a lot of Swedes get paid, and everyone tends to go out. Hopefully this weekend will bring interesting stories that don't involve me freezing.

-Brandon

Fettisdagen

Today is Fat Tuesday, and it is celebrated here by eating semlor. Here's a picture:





These little pastries are absolutely delicious. Someone from my office brought some homemade ones in and man, they need to make their way to the states.

I haven't updated in a while, but that's because nothing of any real interest has happened. They gave me a new box for my television, so now I get over 100 channels including a few hockey-dedicated channels that give me a lot of NHL games! Pretty happy about all that. Friday involved going out with Amy to find the elusive K.G.B. bar, wandering for an hour, then finding out there's a cover and frowning at each other before parting ways. Saturday we left WITH directions and wound up at Marie Laveau for some mixed drinks which were delicious. I drank about $50 worth of white russians and am still pretty satisfied with my decisions.

I'm really starting to make this place my home. By that I mean I have completely covered my apartment in dirty dishes and dirty clothes. Now that the Olympics are on and I actually have coverage for them, I plan on spending the next little while keeping track of the more interesting events (men's hockey anyone?). In honor of Fat Tuesday, I'm going to go eat fast food Chinese and possibly die from the bad cheese I think I just ate.

-Brandon

Pancakes and pea soup.

Let me preface this by saying I successfully managed to pull a muscle the FIRST TIME I WENT TO THE GYM! My left arm can't naturally extend past about 45 degrees for a couple days now. Excellent. I also did my laundry, which turned out to be more interesting than I had thought, and had a traditional lunch of pancakes and pea soup which is served on Thursdays on months that have an 'r' in them. I'm not making that up.

The laundry here works by signing up for a four hour time slot in which you can do your laundry. You have thirty minutes after the start of your time slot to get in there or someone can just take the machines because you waited too long. Anyway, I loaded my clothes into two washers and proceeded to stare at the foreign language scrawled across my laundry detergent trying to estimate how much to use. Eventually I went with the just-dump-in-a-random-amount method. One of the machines started fine, the other one I had seen someone switch to English, so I tried to and wound up canceling the washing cycle and I had to punch at it remorselessly to get it to start back up.

I came back down to put my clothes in the gigantic dryer that they use here, which looks like a small metal storage crate with two sets of racks and a little generator-looking dryer at the bottom. I loaded my clothes into this contraption, turned the thing to 90 minutes and went upstairs. 90 minutes later I came back to get my clothes. Turns out this type of dryer is very similar to hanging your clothes on a line to dry and then spraying them with all the starch you can possibly find. My clothes feel very much like paper now, and are crazy wrinkled.

So yes, it is traditional to have pea soup and pancakes on Thursdays on months that have an 'r' in them. I was at a meeting at a television station owned by Bonnier when we grabbed lunch and brought it back to the room. Everyone had courteously switched to English during the meeting, but back to Swedish for regular lunch chatter. After a while someone started to speak to me in English. I got so excited I slapped my knife, which was covered in whipped cream and some sort of berry jam, on to the floor, and then proceeded to look at the guy who was talking to me in shame. Other than that the meeting went fine though, and I actually felt like I had some input which was nice.

Hopefully I'll get a haircut this weekend.

-Brandon

Sometimes you're bust.

So two things of interest have happened in the last couple days. One being the plumbers coming to work on my bathroom, the other being my trip to the casino. Chronologically, I'll start with the plumbers.

One of the guys fixing my bathroom was English. This wouldn't mean anything other than the fact that he asked me if I was English, which confused me since I think my accent is very clearly NOT English. Anyway, the guy proceeds to tell me how he has to run a hose out the window down the side of the building (or something like that I wasn't really paying attention). So I'm looking out my window and I hear "AUGH" and I see the hose go flying out the window (which was hilarious in perspective). He comes out of my bathroom. "I dropped it," he says and proceeds to walk out my door and down the stairs. An hour or so later they finally fixed everything.

Next I went to the casino. Nobody spoke English, but if I actually needed something the dealers did, so basically I didn't engage in table chatter. I realized after getting there that it was a rebuy tournament. Oops. Everyone is playing like maniac and the game could only loosely be called poker. For those of you that play, I lost when I hit top pair of Queens on the flop, got pushed hard, and lost to someone that pushed me all in with 9 6 offsuit DESPITE a big raise on the flop by me who hit 3 of a kind on the river. Fun. I have decided to make sure it's a knock out tournament next time.

I've also started going to the gym since it's free, wooo! Urban has shown that he has good music taste, so it's nice to know I have someone to go to shows with when there are good ones around.

-Brandon

My first apartment problem.

Let me start this off by wrapping up the weekend before I go into the terribleness that is today.

Saturday consisted of me doing next to nothing besides buying prosciutto and gouda and proceeding to make delicious sandwiches with them. Sunday on the other hand involved me trying in vain to find a USA to European plug adapter since I apparently lost mine. After staggering around the gallerian, which is basically a mall, I gave up and met up with Amy to go to eat and go to the Hallwylska Museum. We ate at a place called Taco Bar, which despite its name was actually pretty delicious and reasonably priced. It actually is a bar as well, that's not just a name. The museum was the house of a countess back in the late 1800s that was converted into a museum after she died. We got an English guided tour which was really interesting actually.

On to today then. Today I woke up and did my dishes because I was going to have someone over to fix my cable so I can get the one promised English channel. After I finish doing my dishes I hear dripping in the bathroom. The toilet had completely backed up and there was naaaasty water everywhere. Good God...I decided to call my landlord despite it being about 8. He didn't answer. I eventually gave up and went to work to call him later. I got back home at about noon and mopped the bathroom (I had already turned the water off to the toilet). My landlord showed up, explained the laundry, and called a guy to fix the bathroom who I am now waiting on.

What a shitty day, literally.

-Brandon

First weekend, first post.

Because I was undecided about whether a. any of you are going to read this and b. I actually want to put forth the effort, this will be my first entry...obviously. So, here's how the trip began...

First I have to give super props to Ashley for taking the time out of her day to drive me to Newark, big winner. Lucky for me, they decided to let me carry on my gigantic travel backpack, which was about double the weight limit for a carry on. My flight was not even remotely close to full, so I had an entire row to myself...until some random jerkass decided to steal the two seats next to me leaving me with only two to myself. This didn't really bother me THAT much, but then he proceeded to use three, count em THREE of the seat trays, leaving me trying to juggle my food and laptop. I asked him to move his crap so I could use one and he did so I guess that's alright...still though three? Let's be serious for a minute.

After spending $30 some odd dollars for the train to the city from Arlanda ($5 Airtrain never sounded so cheap) I met up with my boss Fredrik, who is a relatively metal looking beard toting Swede. We wander around getting me some essentials (bus pass, etc etc) and then head to the office. I'm going to be working at Expressen as a developer just like back home. The difference is, the numbers of viewers on this page is astounding, like 100M+ per month page views astounding. Anyway, at this point it's like 3a.m. back home, but only 9 here and I was determined to stay up and get rid of jet lag on the first day.

I drank more coffee than I have probably ever drank in my entire life this day. My new work buddy Urban showed me around town a bit, explained where some good food is and how to get back to my place. My apartment is nuts, pictures are up on my facebook, but that doesn't really do it justice in perspective. It's also located above a 7-11, liquor store, grocery store, bus stop, two fast food joints, and a subway stop...and this is all on the same BLOCK.

The work so far has been uneventful, just learning and what have you. I did meet up with the other American that I know here, Amy, to go to the Vasa Museum and to grab food during the week. Also went to a screening of The Men Who Stare at Goats, which is just releasing here. Here's a pic from the Vasa Museum.

This weekend so far has involved one instance of me attempting to buy groceries based on which label is the prettiest, one instance of a garlic themed bar, several instances of being talked to in Swedish, even after saying I can't speak it, and one instance of me just about burning down my apartment, not necessarily in that order.

I decided I wanted yogurt and granola for breakfast (because I'm awesome like that, and for some reason they have TONS of granola), so I went to the grocery store and had to decipher which color of yogurt is correct because the only picture on the yogurt was that of a grizzly lumberjack just staring right back at you...it's a little unsettling actually. A choice had to be made between green and white, after sitting there for a solid three minutes, I went with white, which turned out to be the right choice thankfully.

I came back home to make burgers on a skillet (preface: I have never done this in the first place). The stoves here have both a dial for temperature and a dial for the burner itself. This confused me. I decided I should put the temperature at about halfway and the burner maxed. After I seared my patty and had my kitchen smokier than Rummer's on a Wednesday, I turned the heat down a little bit and was forced to overcook the burger as I had seared both sides like a good cook. Somehow, it really didn't taste all that bad, but that's probably the great bread here and not the actual burger.

My Swedish friend here Linnea (sorry, I'm not going to bother finding the accent for the n, DEAL WITH IT) took Amy and I around town to some bars last night, which was great. We went to a few hip places and then to a place called Garlic and Shots which was definitely the coolest bar I've been to in a long time. The downstairs area really separated the crowd from the middle-aged ish people at the top floor. Everyone downstairs was young, and most looked like they worship The Casualties, which I'm fine with.

And now we're at today, a day I managed to sleep in until 11:30, which I'm happy about. I just found out Billy Talent is playing a show here tonight (by literally walking on the flyer) so I might go out and do that. Also attempting to not be lazy and take advantage of the free gym we have at my office here.

If you'd like to see my area, here's the map. The address is Långholmsgatan 19.


-Brandon