Who's a big boy? Thom is!

Kristy made me a list of trains and buses I'd need to take. But it was a big step. I went to a bandy game which my friend Jasper was playing in. Now, I knew which stop I needed to get off at, but once you get to the stop, finding the bandy field is the challenge. I started walking in the direction I thought it might be in, and it turned into a dead end. So I came back to where I started and tried a different direction. Before I got very far, I stopped in a shop and asked where the bandy field was. The gentlman I asked had no idea, but he knew there was a soccer field down the road a ways. Soccer fields are commonly used as bandy fields in the winter, so I thought I was heading in the right direction. After I walked about half a mile, I decided to ask a guy who had just pulled into his driveway if he knew where it was. He definitly knew that it was back in the exact opposite direction I had just walked. So I got directions from him and started walking quickly in that direction. About a mile later, I finally arrived at the bandy field, just as the players were walking out to the ice. I saw Jasper, and said hello. I had worked up a sweat on the walk, so of course I got the chills. It was a good game, and Jasper had a hand in pretty much all of his teams 7 goals. He had 4 assists officially, but he made the play on all of the goals. 

Then I was off to Kristy's game across town. I got to my stop, but went out the wrong end of the station. I had been to this station a half dozen times, but figured leaving one end of the station would be just as good as the other. WRONG! I surfaced, had no idea where I was, and it was dark. But there was a grocery store there, so since I had not eaten anything all day I grabbed a ciabatta bun, and a Coke light, and started walking. I was eventually able to find my way to the bandy field, just in time to watch her team anihilate the other team 9-0. It wasn't even that close though. Then the following day, her team won 16-0. They have outscored their opponent 45-0 in their last three games. They had a game today, but her coach held Kristy out of the lineup. Kristy was really bummed out that she wouldn't be playing. But she also has a lot of faith in her coach, and believes there is a good reason for her to sit on the sidelines and watch this game, so she will make the most of it. 

Kristy was gone for a couple of days this week to Brussels Belgium on business. She didn't want to go, but didn't have much choice. While she was gone, I ventured out on my own a little bit. Headed "downtown" to Sergels Torg, and ended up finding some stuff that I needed. A hooded sweatshirt, a scarf, a calculator, and some other stuff. The calculator is so I can convert Kronor to US dollars in a hurry, since I'm not good at math. I also just kind of wandered around. It's fun just to see the sights, and people watch. Then yesterday, Kristy and I took the Tube down to the Stadion and walked around. That was pretty cool, but do I dare say maybe a little underwhelming? Stadion is the stadium that was built for the 1912 Summer Olympic Games in Stockholm. It was interesting to see, and incredible to think that it's close to 100 years old, but it was not as big as I would have expected an Olympic Stadium to be. Could have been the times too, may have been big for those days. Anyway, fun to see. Don't tell anyone, but the stadium was locked up, except for one gate left open a crack near the back. There were some pallets of wood there, which looked like they had probably been dropped off that day, so I'm guessing the gate was left open so that the wood could be delivered. We snuck in, took a few pictures, and snuck back out. 

Then we walked towards downtown on our way to Sodermalm, and Ostermalm, so Kristy could shop for a birthday present for her friend and teammate Elin. Elin has been really good to Kristy since she's been here, and her boyfriend Robert has taken care of Reese on a few occasions when Kristy has a road game. So we walked down, and decided to pick up the bus, since it was cold, and since we were running kind of low on time before the shops closed. We went to the far end of the shopping district, and started to make our way back in the direction of home. Along the way we stopped in a few shops, and stopped into a place that had Semla's in the window. I had heard of Semla's, and wanted to try one. So Kristy and I went into this place, got a couple of Semla's and coffee's, and sat down. They are kind of like a donut with cream, and some kind of filling that we couldn't quite place. They were good, but I wouldn't go out of my way to get another. Then we were off for more shopping. The shops started closing up, so we ended up walking to Gamla Stan. As we walked up the street, we walked by a bar and Kristy says "we gotta check this place out, it's the medieval bar that one of my teammates told me about". So we went in, and this place was really cool. It's an old basement bar that is kind of dark and cold, and has the medieval theme, right down to the bartenders in their medieval garb. That was a cool experience. We drank our mead, and headed out. We decided that we were going to catch the bus back towards home, and I suggested we have dinner at the Texas Burger Co., which we had gone by many times and wanted to try. They have a deal on a pitcher of beer and two burgers, so we HAD to take advantage of that. It was pretty good. Definitely tasted more like a hamburger from home than any of the other burgers we have had. 

I think that's it for now. The U.S. Men's Bandy team arrives in Stockholm tomorrow, and they'll stay for a couple of days for some practice games before I head with them to Vasteras. It's funny, because I'm listed as an Assistant Coach & Reserve Player, but I'm also signed up as the American Press. Someone even forwarded me an 

Later.

Reese Can "Scream"??

Oops! Had some problems today when cleaning the apartment while Kristy was at morning practice. As part of that cleaning I mopped, so I opened our 6th floor balcony door a crack to try and let it air out a bit. When I say balcony, I mean this door basically opens to nothing but a free fall to the pavement in front of the building below.  The only thing to keep you from doing that are some bars that keep most things from falling out...most things except the bandy stick that Kristy had sitting by the door for when she wants to practice her stick handling. Yeah, it fell out, and as I grasped for it it slid completely out, and fell to the pavement below. Fortunately nobody was around, so nobody got hurt. But in a panic to run down and get the stick, I ran out the door, and locked myself out of the apartment. Reese was inside, but she still doesn't understand these complicated Swedish locks, so she was no good to me. I knew Kristy would be home soon, so I just wandered downstairs to wait for her in the lobby. Just as I was approaching the lobby, I saw her coming towards the front door. Crisis over.

And speaking of leaving Reese Bonkers alone, we got in trouble with the neighbor yesterday. We got up in the morning to go to the Stockholm Outlet, and ate at a Pizza Hut there too! Lunch buffet! Sooo good! And I don't really even like Pizza Hut. It was weird to see Pizza Hut, because really the only familiar American fast food type outlets you see anywhere are quite a few McDonald's, and a couple of Subway's here and there. There was a long line to get in, but it was so worth it in the end. Anyway, we headed home from there, and arrived to find a note had been dropped through our mail slot. It was from a neighbor telling us that Reese was "screaming" for a long time while we were gone, and it was hard for her to work, which she does from home. First thing Kristy did was figure out which neighbor it was, and then knock on their door. Turns out it was the neighbor right next door, who Kristy had met once before. 

 came out to talk to us, and was actually very nice about it. She loved Reese, and has a cat of her own. She even offered to come over and take care of Reese if we ever needed her to. We told her that we'd work on some solutions, and keep checking back with her to see how it worked. After trying a number of solutions, including putting our bed mattress in the doorway, we finally took the door off of the bedroom and put it on the kitchen, put her "house" (crate) in the kitchen, and closed the door. That seems to be our best alternative, and so far we have not heard back from the neighbor. Keeping our fingers crossed. Man, that Pizza Hut was good!

Fast forward a couple of days, and we're on a road trip to Sandviken for a pivotal game for A.I.K. It's a couple of hours by bus to get there, but not too bad. Sandviken has really nice facilities. There is a hockey rink attached to the outdoor Bandy field, and on the other side a soccer field. It should be mentioned that from what I'm able to tell, soccer is the big sport in Sweden. And most soccer (futbol) teams also have other sports teams associated them as a club. Men's and Women's Bandy is one of those associated sports. So A.I.K. is actually a professional soccer club in Solna that has a huge stadium, and then they also have the Bandy teams. There you go. And back to our blog. So, it's freezing, I don't think I mentioned that. It was around 17 degrees below zero at game time. I waited inside until the game was starting, like everyone else, and then went down and found a spot on the rail near the center of the stands. I tried to take pictures, but I was shaking so badly, and my hands were freezing when I took off my mittens. Other than freezing, it was a great game to watch, with A.I.K. winning handily 6-3. Great coaching, and great team play. Kristy scored another goal on a nice tip in front of the goal, and she also took a penalty, naughty Kristy! But A.I.K. played well against a very good Sandviken team. Their goalie, Linda Oden, was especially good, stopping two penalty shots. This is a VERY hard thing to do. Imagine someone teeing up a ball 10 or so feet in front of you, as you stand in a 12' wide by 8' high net. You're supposed to keep that ball out of the net as this person winds up and blasts a shot as hard as they possibly can. Anyway, a good win, and a happy bus trip back to Stockholm. We got back to find Reese had been given a LOT of treats by a friend who was kind enough to come let her out a couple of times while we were gone. We left the bag of treats, but no instructions on how many she was allowed to have. But half her bag was gone! I'm sure she didn't mind...until she started getting sick in the middle of the night. So sick in fact, that Kristy and I considered taking her to the Vet. She got sick at least 7 or 8 times, and was shooting soft serve out the stern. But, after she got rid of a lot, slept a little, and then had some rice, she seems to be doing much better. Poor little Bonkie!

OK, enough. Later.

New Years

Kristy treated me like a King all day today. Asking me what I wanted to do, where I wanted to go, and what I wanted to eat. We took the train out to the only hockey shop we've been able to find in the area so I could get parts for my goalie mask. This place was about the size of a standard bedroom, and you had to be careful how you maneuvered around in there, because if you have a big arss, you might knock something over and create a domino effect. Why are you looking at me like that? Do you think I have a big butt?? Anyway, the joint was jam packed from floor to ceiling with hockey stuff, and even some bandy stuff. It looked like this place had been there a very long time, and it had a lot of character. I met the owner, Johan, and we talked a bit. He had a Soviet hockey jersey from the late 60's hanging above the counter, with the old CCCP on it, which I would have killed for. He said he was a Packard (as in the car) enthusiast, and through that hobby he had met a lot of influential people in Russia, including some old hockey stars. One of those players had given him the jersey, which was worn in the Olympics. He also used an old American cash register from the 1920's, and indicated that it was because he didn't trust modern equipment. He just smiled at Kristy when she asked if he took Visa. Anyway, it was nice talking to Johan and listening to his stories. I'm sure we'll get back to his shop eventually. After a couple of other stops, we wandered up to a nearby pub called The Bishop's Arms, which we had passed on one of our walks, and thought looked interesting. We were starving, so we went there for a late lunch. Long story short, good beer, expensive, and if there's a next time, I'll just get a burger. I wanted to try something new, being in a foreign country, and that turned out to be a mistake in this case. Kristy had Deer, and it was good, but mine was horrible. But not knowing if my food was disgusting, or if that is how it was supposed to be served, was something we could not figure out, and the last thing I wanted to ask the Bartender/Waitress. "Excuse me, I'm an American, if you can't tell already by my backpack and loose fitting jeans, and I don't think my dog would even eat this....and she's been known to eat her own poop! Do you have anything edible here that doesn't have a white gelatin fat-like consistency to it? Maybe a Chalupa or something?".  You see, we're trying to be good Americans while we're here, so I just ate what I could, and then Kristy shared some of hers with me. She's giving like that. 

Afterwards we wandered back to the apartment to hang out with Reese, and map out where we wanted to go later. We had some Glögg to warm up after our long cold walk, and then a couple of drinks.  We turned off the lights and lit a couple of candles so we could watch all of the fireworks going off all over the city. They have been shooting off the heavy duty fireworks since about 4:00 here. Now we look out our window, and see fireworks going off everywhere we look. They are not those panzy fireworks you buy in Wisconsin, they are big time fireworks. Kinda cool, but poor Reese seems a little concerned. We finally ventured out around 10:30, and headed down to the Södermalm area of Stockholm on the tube to catch the fireworks. We got down there and there were thousands of people listening to a band, shooting off fireworks, taking pictures, and just having a good time. They had checkpoints coming into this area that everyone had to pass through, and they were checking people really carefully for booze, but it seemed as though everyone inside the barriers was wandering around with their own bottle of wine or champagne. I will not be able to do justice to how beautiful the setting was, but we were basically next to a large harbor, with big ships anchored in it. Ships from a huge cruise ship, to an old schooner. And they were all lit up. It was cold, but comfortable. We wandered around quite a bit taking pictures, and just enjoying being there, before we wandered up a sidewalk that went up the side of a hill. People had already begun to gather along the railings of this sidewalk that zig zagged up the side of the hill, but Kristy and I grabbed a good spot. We got there about a minute before midnight. We could here people counting down from about ten in Swedish, and at midnight, all of the ships in the harbor blew their horns, and the fireworks began. Well, the official fireworks started, and all of the amateur fireworks picked up. From the time it got dark we had seen a non-stop fireworks show around the city. It is hard to do justice to what we saw with words. Any night this would have been a gorgeous setting. Throw in fireworks going off in every direction as far as the eye can see, and it was spectacular. This went on for a good 15 minutes at least. Once they were done, a wave of people started for the tube to catch the train home. We knew we were never getting home in less than 2 hours if we went towards one of the tube stations, so we started walking home. Fortunately, Kristy knew where she was going, and we had a nice walk along the water over a few bridges, and found a bus stop. The bus came, and we were 2 of 6 people on this bus. We were home 15 minutes later.

Great day. One of the best New Years I can remember, and hard to outdo.

Later.

Christmas

First of all, I noticed after reading my last blog that I had a lot of misspellings, and misinformation. Actually, Kristy noticed most of it. Noble Prize is actually Nobel Prize, and the 26th is their big shopping day around here, not the 25th. Sometimes I look back at what I wrote, and wonder where my head was at. Probably the same reaction a lot of people have when reading my ramblings. I can't say that I'm used to the hours here yet, and maybe my mind is still spinning a bit.  

The days seem to go by so quickly here, and I DON'T LIKE THAT! I want this adventure to last forever, and the days just seem like they are flying by. It also feels like every day has been a mirror image of the previous day, with a couple of exceptions here and there. Seems like we get up, have a little breakfast and some tea, and then we're out the door chasing after the days to-do list. Our quest could involve anything from trying to find a Post Office to pick up a package, to getting to the bank to pay the rent, to finding a Tomtar shop, to taking Reese to the dog park, or any number of other little chores. No matter what the goal, it always seems to involve a lot of walking, bus rides, and/or tube (subway) rides. And by now I think Kristy expects me to be able to figure out how to get around town on my own, but I'm still a follower. I sort of recognize the bus numbers, and areas of town, but I just go where I'm told. Once Kristy gets back into a regular working schedule again, I'll probably start to venture out on my own more. But for now, I'm just trying to keep up when we go out. One thing I must say is that the buses and trains are pretty clean, and on time. 

On Christmas Day, we took the train out to Miska & Camilla's place for dinner and drinks. They have a beautiful place in Täby, a great little area outside of Stockholm. In Stockholm and Solna where we live, you don't really see any houses. It's apartment buildings everywhere you look. So it was kind of nice to actually walk through their neighborhood and see some houses with yards. At their house, we made introductions, and I met their children, Tuve & Röbin. Sweet kids, and very well behaved. We took a tour of the house, which was originally built in 1940, and saw all of the remodeling they had done. I even saw the sauna in the basement where Kristy spent a lot of her time while a guest there. We had some Glögg (Which I'm now hooked on), and then moved to the living room to have some wine. Camilla's sister and brother-in-law came over, and we had dinner. We started with an hors' devours consisting of a slice of toasted bread, something sour cream like, and caviar. I had tried caviar a couple of times before, but didn't care for it much. I still wouldn't go out of my way to have it, but it was pretty good when you put it on toast with the sour cream like substance. Something new to try anyway. For dinner we had chicken with blue cheese baked in the middle, and cous cous with pear mixed in. So good after eating pretty much crackers, meatballs, and "pirog"  since arriving. Miska is a great cook. After dinner, the kids were put away for the evening, and we sat in the living room and talked. In the course of our conversation, Miska mentioned that she had been given a USA Bandy jersey a long time ago, and thought she had heard that the player that gave it to her had died in a car accident. We had guesses as to who it might be, but she didn't think our guesses were correct. Curiosity got the best of her, and she ended up calling home to Finland to ask her Mother to retrieve the jersey. It was the jersey of Michael Blessing, whose name I recalled from my first couple of years in bandy. Long story short, Miska was helping out as at the Bandy World Championships in Finland when she was 13 years old back in 1985. It was something her school set up to put their English lessons to good use. She spent her week with the U.S. men's team, and at the end of that week, Michael Blessing gave her his jersey. I consulted a couple of the bandy "old timers", and they gave me the story behind Michael. He was a USA Bandy player back in the 80's, and a very good player. He was one of the pioneers in establishing USA Bandy. In 1989, shortly after returning from a World Championship in Russia, he was driving home from up north, lost control of his vehicle, rolled, and was killed instantly. Miska is asking her parents to send her the jersey, and we may end up doing some kind of write up on the USA Bandy website about Miska, the jersey, and what a small world it is. It was getting late, so we decided to jump on the train and head home. All in all, a great way to spend Christmas, if we have to be away from family.

Later.