The reasons for this were two fold:
1) She has been here numerous times, and before she joined me she had spent a couple days with her aunt running all over STHLM.
2) It was fucking cold out.
Yeah, the weekend was insanely cold, and there was insane amounts of snow coming down. All in all, the weather could be summed up as ... insane. So needless to say the weather didn't inspire a whole lot of exploration, which is why the weekend was unfortunately low on photos.
02/19:
After work on Friday I headed over to Katja's aunt's place to meet up with her and help her with her bags. We headed back towards my place meeting up with Pat on the way, and we ended up having a few glasses of wine and enjoyed some home-made Mexican.
02/20:
The next day we did ... well not that much. Henning, Katja and I broke out the Wii, and decided to stay in and stay warm. In fact, I was the only one to leave, when I made a brief trip to the grocery store to pick up some necessities for dinner. All my sucker friends however braved the elements to come pay us a visit.
We decided to prepare some sushi, and it was ultimately a big success. Here's Henning, part German and apparently part Japanese. He was so close to having all three axis powers represented!
Bjorn is apparently not convinced by Henning-Sensei's skills.
Henning: Extremely excited!
The ladies do their best Japanese tourist impression while I proudly represent UW, who would go on to thrash Henning's Bruins later that evening.
Now it's Ulrika's turn to give it a go!
The evening was a lot of fun. The plan had been to play some Wii, but instead we just hung out and watched the Olympics. We had a blast actually. We caught a cross country event, and we suddenly realized that there were 3 Swede's in the top 4. So we took bets on how they would do. I threw down 20 SEK that the Swedes would win Gold and Bronze. The remaining 20 minutes were surprisingly intense for a relatively slow sport. We joked a lot about how competitors were setting up stands with coffee and cinnamon buns to lure the Swede's away from their dominating performances. Apparently this strategy worked on one however as the Swede's took Gold and Bronze, just as I predicted. The whole experience made me 40 kronor richer (for a net loss of 260 kronor, considering I paid for the food)!02/21: Pancakes and Shopping!
The next morning was another lazy one. I whipped up some pretty tasty home-made pancakes, and the three of us enjoyed a leisurely all-American meal (though, sadly no bacon). We decided to venture out to go do some shopping, but really aside from that it made for yet another lazy afternoon.
That evening we watched some more Olympics, in particular the ice hockey. All of that got us geared up for the following day when Sweden and Finland were to square off in the group stages. This was the same matchup that I had tickets for before having to sell them off. :(02/22: Sweden vs. Finland Ice Hockey!
The Sweden/Finland rivalry is a serious matter. The two teams really don't like each other. This rivalry got another shot in the arm in the Turin olympics, as the Swede's beat the Finn's to claim the gold medal. So even though the game started at 6 am Sweden time, countless Nordic eyes were on their tv sets.
Several co-workers organized a watching party at our office. Katja, Henning and I decided to check it out. So we woke up at like 5ish, and ventured out. I checked the time for the metro the previous evening, so I knew we had no real need to take a look at the traffic information. Right? Wrong!
We stepped outside to find -25 C temperatures, and the cold in connection with the snow paralyzed the Stockholm transportation system. We moseyed over to a bus stop where there was a mob of people waiting. People had obviously been waiting for a bit, and after 15 minutes there was no bus in sight. We were on the verge of sacrificing the portliest anonymous Swede to use as insulation, however we instead opted to head back to the apartment. There we witnessed the final minutes of the U.S. stunning Canada.
We watched the 1st period while calling for a cab, though apparently we weren't the only person with that idea. Finally we got through and after a short time we were on the road bound for my office. We found a group of sleepy Swede's waiting for us, and free breakfast(!). The Swede's went on to win 3-0, in what was a fun victory for Sweden, and a depressing loss for Finland.
Ultimately Finland got the last laugh as Finland won the bronze medal while Sweden failed to medal. :(After the game I went to work and Katja went out and braved the cold. We met up for lunch before I saw her off.
All in all it was a fun weekend, even though we did very little. But meh, give me good food, mediocre wine, and good company and I'll be happy any day.
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