Still waiting!!!

So I'm still here in Gothenberg waiting for my Sweet Heart. the rain is coming down pretty steady outside and it's cold. After that last post at McDonalds I basically walked straight to Nordstan and froze my balls off. It was a short walk, but man...not fun. So now I'm stuck in Nordstan which is the big mall in this city. It's not that big, compared to American standards, but, come one, not much is, eh eh? And it sucks here. I've walked around the stores with guy clothes and I'm done. It's loud everywhere and I'm still super tired. 

I've been talking with Sara a little bit. She got a 4 on the physical part of the training, which is high enough to get into the air force, which is where she wants to go. She hasn't gotten the results to the logical written test yet. But everything is still a go and looks really well.  I'm excited for her. After that she's gonna try and find me over here.

Oh, and Mats and Susanne are here somewhere. In Nordstan. I think they're gonna call and try to find me. I'm at the espresso house with a cup of coffee and a slightly sore knee. I wonder if they'll try to find me. 

Anyway, still can't wait to go home.

UPDATE:  Oh my word. Seriously. So I'm still here at Nordstan, the same place from the post above. But get this, there: there are two small tables that are next to each other that provides seating for four people. twice, that's right, twice have a couple come and sat next to me. Both were nice and asked if the other small table was "free" but isn't that very un-Swedish? I don't know. What happens is that a complete stranger listens to your coversation. I'm not really listening, but I have been. The first pair were old, with the most interesting thing happening was the wife nagging to the husband to hold the plate they were eating off of so that it doesn't move around when he cut a piece of the cake. They then  were talking about the lovely things that were happening at home that they were going to do. The other pair that sat next to me are "friends" about high school age. Not really listening, very dull things about school, but they are still here. I'm writing this now as something of an adventure knowing that if they were to look at what I was writing might be familiar, but one wouldn't agknoledge what they saw, for they would be admitting that they were looking at a strangers screen. That would be more rude than anything. They have almost left a few times but ended up staying exactly where they are. Jesus Christ. I didn't know that it would be so hard to have some quiet time by myself without a woman nagging

We did Thanksgiving!!!!!!!!!

YaY!!! I cooked Thanksgiving! All by my lonesome. It turned out really good, too. It was a lot of work but I got it done. We had turkey, mashed potatoes, green bean cassarole, stuffing, candied yams, gravy, and pecan pie. We found a turkey farm outside of town and got a nine pounder. It fit perfectly in the small Swedish oven. Oh, and I cooked it way out at Sara's Dad's house, about 20 kilometers outside of Lidkoping. I made sure that I had everything when I went out there the first time, cause there was no running to the store to get anything forgotten. I made the pies the day before and had a good game plan for game day. We celebrated the Saturday before the real Thanksgiving cause they don't get that day off like they do back home. Go fig. But I drove out to the house around noon and kept cooking non stop till it was time to eat. I had the kitchen all to myself, which is how I like it, and with no disasters I got everything done in time, with the turkey coming out absolutely perfect. 

Guests were Mats, Sussane, Jacob, Natalie, Linda (Berto had to watch sick kids at home so he got a doggy bag), Laila, Farmor, Sara, and myself. Most of them showed up at 6 in the evening and had a really nice dinner. Farmor even went back for a second plate, which is the equivelent of an A+. The pie turned out runnier than expected but still really good. We even played board games after the eating. It turned into a really fun evening.

What I miss, though, is how we do it at home. I know that is pretty much impossible, but I'll express my feelings. Back home family would be gathered, people helping in the kitchen with the rest of the people waiting or their holiday favorites. No football on TV here in Sweden. No excitement, not much anyway. It was a nice dinner party where I fed the family food they don't normally eat. That's about it. I'll do it again, but I'll try harder to bring the Thanksgiving holiday magic next time.

Here we go again

So once again we here in Sweden, this time in Gothenberg. Sara is off to do her tests to join the military. Over here joining the military is more of a job than a status symbol like it is in the states. I'm not sure if I mean "status symbol" but the view of it as more of a job is much more accurate. In the states I think of it more like how I would view a police officer, where both are separated from the general population in a sense. Joining here is also not quite the same as the states either. Right now Sara is taking the written and physical tests and depending on how well she does is where they will offer her a job. For example, if she does really shitty she will be offered a position as a soldier where all she has to do is learn to fight and be ready to do that, I guess. But if you're smarter you get offered more of the thinking positions. Sara really wants to be part of HR for the special forces. If not that, she wants to be a weapons technician or something cool like that. She needs to score pretty high for those types of positions so we're really wishing her luck right now.

But these tests couldn't have come at a worse time. Let me explain: today is the last day that one can take these tests to be in the running for these jobs. We found out about these deadlines  a few days ago. We also were blessed with some severe colds as well. Sara even tried to postpone the tests for a later date, but the only positions that she wants need to have the tests completed today. So that sucks. We had to get here early as well. It's 9:30 right now, in the a.m. and she had me drive. Jacob and Natalie were kind enough to offer their car. Yeah, it's a manual, but I'm getting better at it. I really hate driving in the dark though, and it's dark here in the mornings. I had a little bit of a melt down driving over here, but we made it. We're okay.  Another thing. because we're both unemployed we have sleeping patterns that don't coincide with a normal working schedule. But we tried to go to bed early last night with very little success. I must have slept only a couple hours last night with Sara doing about the same, maybe less. So right now Sara is starting the tests that will determine her career for the rest of her life with almost no sleep and a strong cold.  We're really wishing her all the luck we can muster.

So while she is doing that I'm here in Gothenberg to do whatever I can to pass the day. Of course I found a McDonalds for the free internet. It took me about 2 hours of walking to find it. Because we only have one smart phone in the family, Sara has it so she could navigate to the army base. I tried to follow the light rail tracks into the center of town. I made some wrong turns but eventually found it. Damn, I gotta get a real phone. So here I am. I have no idea how long I'm going to be but I'm damn tired and mostly want to go home and sleep. And of course it's a rainy day here. The rainiest city in Sweden, am I right? 

One thing that I really want to do is find a brewery place that sells stuff to brew. The problem is that I can find it on the net, but finding in real life is a whole other thing. Thinking about it, I could probably leave it on the screen here and do my best. We'll see. I really want to get some cider yeast so I can brew some hard cider. At some point I'd like to get a nice set to start brewing beer but that'll have to wait till we find a more perminent place to live. Sara thinks she'll be stationed in Halmstad which I think is a couple hours south of here. So she's started applying for apartments here. I think she's applied for five of them so far. I think they're in really good parts of the town. We got the lure in, let's see what bites.

And I'm still lookinf for work as well. There was a position for admin assistant to some yoga place that I applied for that might be fun. They're just starting out here from the UK. It's a small job, just a few hours a day, 5 days a week. But it sounds fun. I sent them an email and they asked for my CV and stuff, which is at least an answer. I don't get many of those from the emails that I send out. We'll see.

Anyway, you're just about up to date. Oh, the next post I'll let you know how Thanksgiving went here.