Friends: a blast from the past

0042 hours
Uppsala, Sweden

What an interesting couple of days! After Saturday' s splendor of a day spent in Oslo, we moseyed our way back to Uppsala by way of Karlskoga and Stockholm. And I do mean mosey! Our train ride turned into a series of trains and bus, and just before our station, for some reason, the train was forced to meander along at the pace of Quasi Modo with a heavy backpack. (This is now the pace at which I move, stupidly having bought wine, Norway's heaviest souvenir. Suffice it to say there will be merriment in *somebody's* future!) Also suffice to say, our long awaited arrival was late!

Anyhow, our 1st arrival was in Karlskoga, where my college (that's college the 1st time...in the 90s!) friend Michael is currently living with his wife Mia. (In a dramatic display of irony, having stuck out the bleak pre-, mid-, and post-Winter, Mia recently got a job in Gothenberg, and now that the weather is nice, another relocation seems to be in order for Michael and Mia. Is God laughing?)

It's a constant source of amusement to see how your friends do and do not change...Michael still has a neverending fountain of knowledge and reveres his professors, and he has the same hand gestures and pique of they eyebrows...but I suppose a videotape of Beth might produce the same observations about myself.

One's definition of good weather is all relative to the average expectancy for a given climate. So considering that snow is Karlskoga is a pretty recent memory, we had to seize the opportunity to barbeque outside in non-snowy, less-than-frigid temperatures. Never mind that the rather convincing winds forced us to keep potato salad constantly on our bowls and beer constantly in our cups. All vitally necessary components for the ultra enjoyable Scandinavian game of Kubb: a series of knocking down the other teams blocks until the end when both teams attempt assassination of the king, the winner determined by the 1st to depose. Those in attendance at the next birthday party may be corralled into a round of said knocking down and assassination.

After a nice breakfast with Michael and Mia (cheese and marmalade on bread, yum! I guess in the right circumstances, marmalade CAN be good!), we ambled our way back to Stockholm to meet up with Trevor's friend Malin. Another old friend from a long time ago!

She took us to a cafe called "Vate Kätten", which translates as "Wheat Kitty", and which Trevor raved about from the last time he was in Stockholm. So while Malin was embarrassed to be taking Trevor to the same place twice, Trevor and I were totally psyched to be at the Wheat Kitty again. I don't know where the wheat is, because Malin and I had chocolate and Trevor had...um....sugar. But the place was cute and had lots of little alcoves and rasberry mineral water to boot.

Herres Gött, so much to tell!

After Malin had to go home and tend to her Kinder, we happened by a cafe playing jazz. That was one of those serendipitous findings, a little sound of home floating out the big open windows, with Gen-X looking kids scattered among a variance of couches. There were a handful of tunes with just good rhythm and sweet solos (I especially liked the guitar player...who looks like our friend Phillip!), then all of a sudden we are listening to Superman and Route 66. Honestly, I have heard more American pop music in the last 2 weeks than in the rest of of 2006. A little Madonna here, a little Spiderman there, and God help us, Rod Stewart is one of the top-selling albums this week.

As if to anticipate the imminent discomfort of Stockholm to SF jetlag, here I am wide awake at 1:30 in the morning. No Gamla Stan is open at this hour, so better get to sleep. Ciao!