Here's a pic of a reindeer from Kiruna for no particular reason.

Swedish courses-

I started Swedish courses last week. I was almost late for my first class because when I asked the man at the front desk where the Swedish classes were he said "floor 2". However, at that time I was unaware that the Sweds count the ground floor as floor zero. Live and learn.

Swedish class has been going well, but a little slow. We spent most of the first day just on the alphabet, which admitted is tough with all those extra vowels- ä,ö, and å. Then we covered the numbers and some basic questions- where are you from, what's you name, how old are you, etc. Nothing too exciting.
What IS exciting is putting that Swedish into practice right away.

First cool thing- I was playing a game of indoor soccor, and one of my teammates asked "Var hetter du?" thinking I was Swedish and I answered "Sebastian". Total cool.

The second practical execution was last night when I worked as a bartender for the first time at Värmlands. People come up to you and speak in Swedish all the time, and its far to cumbersome to explain everytime "sorry, I don't speak swedish". So I had to pick up bar Swedish real quick. I now know "I'll have a big strong" in Swedish (meaning, a big strong beer). I also had to say the price and give back change in Swedish, great practice for my numbers. The only problem I had was 77. Seven sounds like you blow air, and then halfway through the blow say "who". It's the most diffucult of Swedish sounds (so I am told). I only get it right about half the time.

Thanks to all of you who emailed European location suggestions. Shame on all of you that did not.

-TWN-