You call this a beach?

I type this as I sit here sipping my 3.5% alcohol beer, bought at my local supermarket. Apparently you can only buy up to 3.5% alcohol at the supermarket, and anything stronger must be bought at a government store. I've yet to venture into one, but I am imagining a gestapo type establishment, where they question you extensively to ensure you won't be using the alcohol irresponsibly. I'll let you know how it goes when that happens...

Today we went to a 'beach'. Hmm. Another comedy of errors, which seems to be a recurring theme here so far! We needed to catch a bus in the city to get to the beach, and instead of catching a bus to the city we decided to walk. After walking for about 10 minutes it was realised that if we had any chance of making it we really needed to run. So through the city centre we ran...and ran. Past beautifully dressed people enjoying civilised street music, past people trying to pass us flyers (yes you can't escape those people in any country) we ran in our boardies and thongs. We ran until we thought we could run no more, and of course we missed the bus by *this much*. Dóh!

So...we caught another bus to go to a different beach. But no, of course it couldn't be so easy. It was the wrong bus and we had to walk (not run) another 2km to get to this beach. It was another very warm day and so by the time we got there we were ready for a swim. However, it appears that our idea of a beach, and the Swedes idea of a beach are two very different things. This was a vast green lawn surrounded by trees, leading down to a gravel beach and then to green, algae filled water which looked to be part of a river or lake. There were others swimming tho, and we were told the water was safe, so after relaxing on the grass we went for a wee dip. Needless to say however I did not put my head under. Apart from the fact that my hair takes forever to dry, I also didn't think that green algal dreads are a terribly good look. Although my rant may suggest otherwise however, we had a good time in the sunshine and I'm glad we went.

After we dried off, we played an old viking game, which I think is called kubb. It involves opposing teams trying to knock over each others wooden blocks with other wooden blocks, and was quite fun. I'd like to show it off when I get home..perhaps I can make a set myself. It consists of quite a number of wooden blocks so I think it wouldn't be the most practical souvenir to bring home. Hopefully I'll get to play it some more while I am here.

Well the rest of my day wasn't too noteworthy, consisting of getting home and eating dinner. I won't go into the details :) I will however make mention of a strange custom that goes on every night here in our housing. At 10pm every single night, and particularly so on the weekends, peoples open their windows and yell. We've heard that it may come from a student years ago who was so frustrated whilst studying that they yelled out their window, and it has continued on, but whether this is true or not I don't know. I'm yet to participate but I'm sure I'll be getting frustrated with my studies soon enough!

Tomorrow Preethi and I plan on going into IKEA to buy all the little odds and ends we need to make our rooms more liveable. Will let you know just what the IKEA mothership is like.

Conor xx