"It's called brown sauce because it is brown." 10/18-10/21

First I want to apologize for the lack of pictures in this post. I won't be offended if no one reads it! Even I didn't want to reread it. 

But, let me say, what a crazy end to an incredibly tame week! I spent most of it lounging around the house complaining about my sore throat and making myself soup. In my defense, it was a pretty bad sore throat! On Tuesday I had my second lesson with Connie, which went pretty well considering the amount of time I spent practicing fiddle, don't worry, Mom, my practicing has increased! That evening a bunch of girls and I went out because Ruby's sister was visiting all the way from Iowa! We went to the Old Oak, which is a pretty low key tame pub catering towards clientele aged 35 and above. The band playing that evening performed all of my favorite bad music. In the middle of one number I noticed a poster for a band called "Dead Cat Bounce" that was playing the next night. What a horrible band name, I thought to myself realizing that I had told a friend of mine that I would go see his cousin's band with him the next night at the Old Oak. Instantly the name grew on me and naturally I took the poster off the wall as a souvenir! 

Dead Cat Bounce is a comedy rock band that plays a fun mix of weird music they wrote about rugby being an invention for the closet homosexuals or how mustaches die when you shave and a sort of mash up a la Girl Talk (only with a life band). The concert proved to be quite fun and well worth the freezing walk down into town.  We stuck around to congratulate the band and that's when the first of two band members who would buy me a drink this week bought me a drink. Go me! After sipping on my Carlsberg we all headed over to the Brogue for some "Twist and Shout" and then to Tasty Kebab for the usual midnight snack, this time it was a chicken sandwich though I really prefer the doner kebab! 

Thursday proved to be the exciting day of celebration to start to my weekend! First, my 10:00 nutrition course had been cancelled, second it was my last immunology lecture! That means no more thinking I have every single possible disease on the face of the planet (commonly referred to as Medschoolitis) and no more stodgy old men talking down to me while simultaneously failing to properly execute a PowerPoint presentation. 

To begin the celebrations I turned on the heat in my room for the first time and took a nap in my sauna waking up just in time for Swedish dinner! Ruby and I had met two Swedish girls on our trip to the Ring of Kerry and we had made plans to have each other over to eat our native dishes!  Because they are Swedish they got on the ball and made it happen. At 8:00 (a very Swedish time to eat!) my neighbors Ian and Mikael (also Swedish) walked down through town to their apartment on the way I stopped at "Fine Wines" to buy a 6 euro bottle of Californian wine to give the hostesses! 

The Swedes' apartment is right in the middle of the city center and is cute as can be. When we got there ABBA was blasting and two giant pans of meatballs were frying-it was definitely going to be a good night. We all chatted about music, American culture vs. Swedish culture, and school while putting the finishing touches on dinner. Before the appetizers the Swedes convinced Ian and me to try some Swedish candy. It's so funny to walk around Stockholm because literally everywhere you go there's candy. Adults buy the daily paper at a stand in the subway along with a couple pieces of gummy candies. The candies they encouraged us to try were absolutely the worst candy I had ever eaten! The first was a chalky version of a Tootsie Roll and the second was a piece of black licorice covered in salt. It was hard to control my reaction, but the Swedes just laughed it off. "Different than American candy, hm?" They said as they popped another couple salt balls into their mouths. After the candy experiences, I was nervous for the actual meal, it all looked so good, but so did the candy!

To start we ate hard-boiled eggs with caviar from a tube (a common Swedish thing. It's funny such composed people LOVE caviar from what looks like a tube of L'Occitane lotion). Once I got past the caviar in a tube concept I really enjoyed the tasty combination of salt and warm egg. Now this was more what I had in mind! Once the eggs were polished off my friend Hanna raised her glass and said "Bifallsrop," Swedish for cheers! I picked up my wine glass and she looked at me and laughed. "No, no, no! You must cheers with the vodka!" I had been so engrossed in my hors d'oeuvres eating that I had failed to notice my own tumbler full of the nasty smelling clear liquid called vodka. 'Oy vey,' I thought to myself, 'I have to participate in all the cultural traditions!  No excuses, Jones.' 

Mikael pointed out that there's always one person who decides to cheers every five minutes. During this meal it was Hanna, she worked like clockwork. 

lingonberry sauce. Basically, Swedish meatballs are like their version of Thanksgiving complete with gravy (brown sauce made from the grease of the meatballs) and cranberry sauce (lingonberry sauce in this case).

 

The meal was absolutely delicious and in the presence of my hip European friends I actually took the time to enjoy it, instead of doing my usual Scooby Doo shove and swallow. When I was in Sweden I had noticed how Swedish people never really put down their fork and knife and that they use both utensils to delicately eat every bite, scraping the food onto the fork with their knife. Meanwhile the two Americans at the table are using their fork to cut and shovel and their fingers to ensure the bite makes it safely on the prongs. We're really gross eaters. 

After a hearty serving of seconds it was time for dessert. Unlike the salty candies that had preceded the meal, dessert was a familiar favorite--brownies. According to Hanna, it's more like cake than brownies, but regardless it was tasty! On top we put berries, vanilla ice cream, and whipped cream. After we ere too full to enjoy any more we sat around and talked about the Swedish royal family and some common Swedish phrases before doing the dishes. Luckily they have a dish washer, so getting very plate cleaned didn't take too long and before we knew it we were off to the Brogue to meet up with some friends, dance around, and get lots of beer spilled on me due to the abundance of drunk American and Irish boys. Seriously, why try to dance with a full beer? It's never a good idea, ever.