brrrrrrrr

They don't mess around with autumn round these parts. Right, summer's officially over is it? Then bring in the rain and freezing temperatures! Take this, unprepared Aussies! Not quite so much fun hooning around on your pushy when your jeans are soaking through. I am on a mission in the next couple of days to buy myself some waterproof pants! Daggy yet necessary. Plus a nice waterproof jacket to see me through the winter. I have a nice warm jacket that Tim gave me but it's not waterproof I'm afraid so I gotta spend some more money.

Preethi and I are going to check out the shops in Stockholm on Saturday before heading to a viking market! Hopefully the weather won't be too nasty..my trusty forecastfox tells me it'll be a balmy 12 degrees, with sunshine and patchy clouds.

'twas very cold on Saturday night, when we ventured out to see some of the kulturnatten. Firstly we made our way to the botanical gardens where we caught the end of a fire show. Unfortunately the ground was pretty level and there were quite a few people there so it was hard to see much but what we could see was good! We then wandered into the centrum (city centre) to see what else was going on, and there were people everywhere! Lots of police too. By this stage it was about 10pm, and the city mainly consisted of drunk teenagers. It also seems that no matter the country, it you have this sort of public event then crappy street vendors will come out of the woodwork. Want a Metallica bandanna? Or a battery powered puppy? What about some cheap nasty candy? I can only assume that the more cultural stalls had done their dash earlier in the day and left before the teenagers descended. After a bit more of a wander we decided it was too cold to stay out any longer so we caught the bus home.

There was a massive korridor festen (corridor party) on the 7th floor of our building that night, still in full swing when we got home, but we just had a cup of tea and some toast and went to bed! Not sure how I got to sleep given the noise filtering down from above but I think I was so buggered it didn't matter.

Preethi and I have started our Swedish lessons, and not doing too badly! They actually have 9 vowels, which makes things a bit tricky. The Germans seem to have an easy time of it, as the two languages are pretty similar. We learnt how to ask people what languages they speak yesterday, and everyone else seems to know at least 2 languages. Well I guess that makes sense at most of the other people come from non-English speaking countries, but it still makes me feel pretty ignorant. Ah well, at least by the end of this course I shall know a lite Svenska.

That's it for now..

Conor