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