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August 23, 2004
Dinner
For the first time since I got here, the urge to write everything down has left me. I wonder if it's a result of being able to access the Internet at the library today—now that I am connected to the outside world, capturing all the detail in my own little world doesn't seem so crucial. But I know that I'll look back on this time in Sweden and want to have everything recorded when the memories were fresh. So…
After finishing up with email, I finally got around to doing what I should have done weeks ago: buying my school books. Unfortunately, most of the books I'll need can only be purchased through Amazon (rather than the local bookstore). So I spent a whopping $350 buying the 17-ish books on the list, and am now just hoping that they will arrive before too much time has elapsed. I've once again placed my hope in BTH's Shipping Office, even though it has so far disappointed me with regard to my bed linens.
I finished up around 3 p.m., then decided on the spur of the moment to go to Amiralen, another little nook of Karlskrona. And oh! I am so glad that I did! After wandering around for a bit, I found a little mini-mall and discovered two things:
* You have to pay to use the bathrooms—5 kronar ($0.60) gets you access to the toilet. Of course, I had waited until the last possible moment to go, so it was a race between my bladder and my wallet. Fortunately, the wallet won.
* You have to deposit money to get a shopping cart. This is an ingenious idea that ensures people return the carts to the stand after each use. It works like this (and I relate this story after spending a good 10 minutes trying to decipher the directions in Swedish): the carts fit together like regular American ones. But there is a little lock mechanism on the front handle, which attaches to the next cart, which attaches to the next cart, and so on (when they are all stacked up together). In order to free a cart, you have to deposit either 5 or 10 kronar. Once you slip the coin into the lock, it releases the mechanism and you are free to take the cart into the store. Upon finishing shopping, you take the cart back to the stand, slide it into place with all the other carts, and attach the chain from the previous cart into the lock of your cart—thus releasing the coin. Brilliant—Safeway and Giant should seriously consider implementing this system.
Anyway, the highlight of the mall was the Maxi ICA Stormarknad—kind of like a Wal-mart with groceries. It was like a Mecca of international student goodness. I got the following:
* Kitchen items (I just couldn't wait until the furniture came to see if they had decided to grace me with a starter kit), including a pot, baking pan w/ spatula, mug, bowl, knife, spoon, and fork.
* A basil plant (I plan to eat all the leaves before it dies of sun-deprivation)
* Food items, including a frozen pizza (prosciutto and broccoli—they have weird combinations here), olive oil, salt, two tomatoes (they are surprisingly inexpensive, only about $1.25/kilo for the really good Holland imports), a chunk of mozzarella (you should have seen me trying to differentiate between 25 kinds of cheese based solely on their appearance), a box of green tea with lemon, two kinds of pasta, a box of couscous, couple of mini-potatoes (also very inexpensive—only $0.30/kilo), and a set of 10 mini-Snickers bars (I've been craving chocolate)
I think that's it—I wanted to get a bunch of other things, but I could only buy as much as I could carry with me back to the apartment. I hopped the bus back to Marieberg, then transferred to the Kungsmarksvägen bus.
I have rarely been so excited as when I actually got to cook tonight! I made pasta with mozzarella, tomatoes, basil, and olive oil. And also an apple for good measure. Ok, and two mini-Snickers, too. It was fantastic.
As long as I'm discussing food, I forgot to mention that I had chocolate ice cream for lunch. I was in Centrum when I noticed I was ravenous. I remembered that one of the other international students had mentioned that a certain ice cream parlor sold really cheap cones, so I stopped in. For a mere 10 kronar (about $1.25) I got a "kids" cone—which was larger than a Baskin-Robbins single scoop. I will definitely be returning for more.
But back to this afternoon: I watched the final 2 episodes of Alias, Season Two from my DVD collection. Season Three comes out September 6th, and I'm debating the best way to acquire it while here in Karlskrona. It's not as easy as going to the store, since DVDs for Europe aren't compatible with U.S. DVD players. I may have to resort to Amazon.com again.
So now dinner is over and I was quite satisfied until it came time to wash the dishes. Of course, I had forgotten all about dish soap and dish rags. I'll have to make a specific trip to Willy:s tomorrow for cleaning supplies—if I do it all in one trip, the pain of spending more money may be deflected. For now, the pot, bowl, and silverware are soaking in the sink.
And I'm spending the rest of the night reading Into Africa, before going to bed early. All the activity over the past few days has wiped me out!
