Sleepy but happy

What a great weekend! Kate arrived in Sweden on Friday, and we went to see Laura sing in her choir at a church in town. It was a performance for Lucia, which is tomorrow (13 December) and so we were expecting a traditional churchy sort of performance. Well we got that, plus a very impressive rendition of the Beverly Hills Cop theme (with the words changed to suit the occasion). Damn that song for being so catchy!

Friday night, my toilet decided to go to toilet heaven and stop working. The one time that I have someone staying in my room. Handy. It wasn't blocked at least so it could be flushed with a bucket, so luckily I'm Australian and have a bit of experience with such toilets. At least it wasn't outside.

After a lovely sleep-in and scrambled egg breakfast, Kate and I treated ourselves to a sauna. I couldn't let Kate come all the way to Sweden without experiencing one. I noticed while we were in there that there was a radiator in the sauna room. What on earth would possess you to put on the radiator whilst having a sauna? And given the meagre amount of heat put out by the radiators in this building, it seems quite pointless when you have a pile of steaming rocks in the same room. Perhaps it's for the more sensitive sauna user who wants the sauna experience without the heat.

On Saturday night we had a corridor Jul dinner, with all sorts of delicious treats. We started off wth glögg (the photo above shows Tomas serving it), before moving onto the mains of gnocchi, ham, german meatballs, potato bake, salad, sill (pickled herring), rödkol (red cabbage) and some sort of christmas bread which was like raisin bread. After a break it was onto dessert, which included luccekatt, which is a saffron/raisin treat, shown being made below. Very yummy. It was another great corridor dinner and a most enjoyable night.

Kate and I got up fairly early Sunday morning to get on the bus to go into Stockholm. After dropping our stuff off at the backpackers we had booked a room in, we headed off to Gamla Stan, which is Stockholm's Old Town. It's really a lovely area, with narrow cobblestoned streets and lots of nice handicrafts shops. A tourist district really. This time of year there are Christmas markets in the StorTorget (big square), selling lots of glögg, sausages, handicrafts, misteltoe etc. One of the stalls (shown below) sold ceramics, and Kate bought herself a mug which we learnt was called Emily. She was tossing up between that and Johanna, but Emily won her over.The afternoon consisted of seeing the changing of the guards at the castle, spending more money, and eating more goodies, before we wandered back to the backpackers for a bit of a rest before heading back out and eating some more. We went to a nice Japanese restaurant and had some great sashimi. Didn't realise how much I missed it until I ate it.

Poor Kate had to catch the bus from the Cityterminalen at 3:45 so we had a fairly early night in anticipation of the very early rise. We got there on time, I saw her off, then wandered back to the backpackers to get a couple more hours of sleep before heading home to Uppsala. I'm incredibly tired now, and looking forward to getting to sleep tonight.

Might have another early start tomorrow, as it is Lucia and my department at uni is having their Lucia singing at 8:00. Am thinking of going just to see my lecturers singing their hearts out, but I guess I'll see how I feel in the morning. Some of the nations are holding Lucia functions tomorrow night so perhaps I'll just go to one of those. Apparently the singers dress up in white costumes not unlike those of the Klu Klux Klan which will be quite strange to see.

Oh and I should finish the broken toilet story before I go. I called Studenstaden on Saturday to get someone out to fix it, and was very impressed when someone turned up 10 minutes later. Unfortunately it was broken beyond his abilities to fix it, and he told me he would contact someone on Monday to come and fix it. I wasn't holding my breath (though perhaps I was holding something else) as Studenstaden are notorious for being very unreliable but it was a nice surprise when someone turned up today and fixed it. It took him a few curses (in Swedish) and he had to call a friend in (who just seemed to hang around and look at my photos) but he got there in the end. Hooray!

Alright time for me to get some proper sleep I think! I have been having very odd dreams lately so I wonder what's in store for me tonight?