Sleeping still erratic. Conked out at 7:30 last night, woke up at 7 this morning. I suppose I've kept myself active, walking around all day and going out most nights.

It's still dark out. Uppsala's covered with a thick layer of snow which fell yesterday. Most of the foreigners, not used to snow, were scared/excited. I was pleased. My winter thus far has been very lacking in snow, and this makes up for it.

Sweden kind of reminds of of the Ursuala LeGuin book "The Left Hand of Darkness." It's about an alien ambassador to an ice planet. The book starts out in the planet's summer, when there is only the occasional light snow. Also like the book, things are foreign but not too foreign.

Not too much happened this weekend. A group of us went walking to the city to take picture of the newly fallen snow (pictures forthcoming). It was quite beautiful. Nothing like a little Nordic city covered in snow. Then we went to a 'fika' (kind of a midday coffee and snack break) at Kalmar nation. The others were cold and went back to Ekeby, but I wandered about some more. There was no shopping to do, as everything is closed on Sundays. I found the English book store, and the city library. I saw people (adult people) walking into Smårlands nation, so I followed them in. Turns out there was some lady who was signing for a photography book she was recently published. I wandered about, looking at the photographs (flowers mostly, not too interesting), and eating the free food and drink. There was some talking in Swedish, people clapped, and then the Gotlands nation band played a few songs. I liked them a lot. They were like a little high school pep band you might see at a basketball game. They had matching blue overalls and different funny hats, such as a pirate hat, alien antenna, and sparkly top hat. They had a delightful whimsy about them. If I were Swedish and still played an instrument, I would join them.

Leaving there I still had some time to kill before a BBQ over at Gästrik-Hälsinge Nation (GH). I found the Upplands regional museum (Upplands being the province that Uppsala is in). They had a neat little section about Uppsala through different points in history. I must return to study further.

The BBQ was a little boring, and poorly named. There was in fact no Bar-b-que at all (much to the dismay of all Australians present). I guess they think it's just a term you can through around if there is meat present. That or they deliberately bated and switched to get people to come (there have been a lot of nation dinners, so you need something to stand out.) They planned poorly, making food for about 40 people and 90 showed up. While they were setting up more tables, I wandered around the nation. I found the library, which had a little section of comics. They had an English copy of Transmetropolitan (which I recommend to anybody), and I got through the whole thing before I left. Dinner was fair. We sang (or had sung to us) a Swedish drinking song that actually sounded very cool. Then pork and potatoes. I talked with a Finnish girl who actually lives in Ekeby, but I hadn't had a chance to talk with before. I asked her, among other probing questions, "Which nation in Africa would you say is most like Finland." After much laughing and thinking, she settled on South Africa (boring!).

Other random observations- The modified letters, å, ö, ä, etc. come at the end of the alphabet. So in an alphabetical listing of the nations, Stockholms nation comes before Östgota (the 'g' is a soft g. so it sounds like 'jota').

Time to start the week,

-The Wandering Norseman-