Reese Bonkers Turns Two

So, my watch broke within 24 hours of buying it. Lost a pin out of it, so now it's flopping around on my wrist. And we think it needs a new battery. So, my $10 watch will probably cost me $15 to make right. 

Friday afternoon Kristy and I went to the famous Absolut Ice Bar in Stockholm, and what a tourist trap that place is. You pay $25 each to go inside for one drink. You go in there, and the place is the size of our Apartment living room. The drinking vessels they give you are made of ice, of course, and are square shaped with a hole cut in the center. This makes them awkward to drink out of, and the fact that they are made of ice also makes them hard to get a good grip on. They give you a jacket to wear, and there are supposed to be gloves attached. But I only had one glove attached, and it was too small. I squeezed my hand into the glove and the ice cup still nearly slipped out of my hand. We discovered afterwards that Stockholm is not the only city in the world where they have an Ice Bar, and looking at the Ice Hotel magazine I picked up, it appears the Stockholm is the lamest of them all. Oh well, had to check it out. Do yourself a favor if you're ever in Stockholm, stop in and just look at the place through the window. 

After the Ice Bar, we wandered around downtown Stockholm a little bit, and walked down to the large indoor market that I had seen earlier in the week. We walked through just to see it, and then headed to dinner at a place called The Soap Bar. Maybe the best dinner we've had in Stockholm. I had the traditional Meatballs, smashed potatoes, and lingonberries. KP had a bacon burger. Doesn't sound like anything special, but it was. Afterwards, we were going to go walk around Sodermalm, but both decided we were tired, and would do that another day.

Saturday night after Kristy's bandy game, we just kind of hung out and relaxed. I took Reese out for one of what seems like hourly poop & potty break, and as we're standing there, I see what looks like a big cat coming towards us out of the shadows. I realized quickly that it was not a cat, but in fact a fox. It was about 15 yards from us and stopped when it saw me. It changed directions and headed behind our building, and around the other side. I had gathered up Reese in my arms and started for our building when I saw it come out the other side. Reese and I went inside, because while I'm sure the fox is harmless to both Reese and me, I didn't want to find out otherwise. Then as we walked up the short flight of stairs in the entryway of the apartment building, I heard Reese fart.

Yesterday we went to the Sweden vs. Finland hockey game at the Globen. Initially upon entering, I thought this place was really cool. It seemed like a gorgeous sports venue. We were one of the first people in there, and found our seats on the third level after a climb up a lot of stairs. We decided that since we were way early, we were going to go find something to eat before the game started. So we headed back down the stairs. We wandered around, and finally found a food stand. We got a varm korv (hot dog) and a beer, and headed back to our seats. We climbed up the stairs to the top, and realized we were on the opposite side of the ice. We realized that there was no way to get to the other side unless you went all the way back down stairs, and around. So we went all the way back down, around, and back up the stairs. By this time we were sweating by the time we got back to our seats. we soon realized that the layout of the stadium, and the bars that they have up to keep people from falling out of the upper deck, made it hard to see a large portion of the corner of the rink closest to us. So, the stadium looked good initially, but we realized that it maybe was not so user friendly, as one of our Swedish friends had mentioned previously. By the end of the game we realized that there was a lot of really weird space in there, tight seating, poor sightlines, and a lot of stairs to climb. It's beautiful in appearance, but not very friendly to the spectators...or at least the spectators in the upper deck. Maybe it's great down below. But, that aside, the game was good, and the crowd was great. There were a lot of Finnish fans there, and the Swedes and Fins seem to get along really well. As someone told me at the Bandy World Championships, they (Swedes) feel like Finland and Norway are family to Sweden. They all cheer for each other, and they have a friendly rivalry in sports, from what i've seen anyway. But the crowd was very loud, did cheers together, and just about everyone there was wearing either Swedish or Finnish garb. And many of those people had face paint, flags, wigs, hats, and so on. They really go all out for their sports teams here. It was fun, and a great experience.

After the game, we came home and celebrated Reese's second birthday. Kristy made her a couple of Swedish meatballs, and mixed them in with her regular food. She picked out her dog food and set it on the floor next to her bowl, as she tried to get to the meatballs. The meatballs were served along with a bowl of ice cold water, complete with ice cubes, which Reese loves to chew on. After dinner, the finest rawhide bone for her to chew on. 

Later.