We headed off to church this morning. I learned how to buy coupons for fika today. By the entrance, there is a machine that looks a bit like an ATM. I’m not sure all it does, though I think it may include making contributions. I now know that I can also make a payment there, get a receipt, take it to the kitchen, and receive a pile of little coupons to use for fika. There is very little cash used in Sweden.
I am slowly meeting more people at church, though the conversations with any meaning are in English.
Anya invited a friend from school over for lunch after church. They ate while I worked on my next graded assignment for my Swedish course. This assignment is to be a newspaper article of 200-300 words.
Later Jim stopped buy to pick up the things that we had borrowed while we waited for our crate to come. Then we had to unpack, figure out what was still needed, get things purchased, and do the laundry in order to be ready to return clean towels, duvets, and duvet covers.
Anya and I also had some great fun playing ping pong in the afternoon. There was great laughter and some good shots. I see Anya improving already, but when I want to get the shot, I send it to her forehand. That’s her weak side.
Anya headed over to another school friend’s place for dinner. She hosts a Sunday evening dinner for several friends, and now, Anya is included. Anya was invited to stay the night there. I said that as long as she gets a good night sleep, she can stay there. It is “spirit week” at school, so Anya and her friends will be dressing up for the theme of the day. Anya loves this kind of stuff, so she may not to very well getting a good night’s sleep with all the excitement. Let’s see how it goes.
I biked off to a concert. My co-worker who teaches the music courses is in one of the best choirs in Uppsala, which has only 16 voices. The choirs is connected with the Uppsala cathedral, and the concert was there. It is an amazing place. The concert was even free. They publicized that they would take a collection, and so I was ready with some cash. They didn’t pass any baskets and I looked for a place where the collections would be taken, but I missed it. Perhaps they were at the door when exiting, but I went and talked with Maria for a few minutes. I missed the donation!
I studied botany at the University of Minnesota–Duluth, so I join the many who revere Linnaeus. He is the father of binomial nomenclature (if you didn’t remember your high school biology).
It is getting chilly. I need to use a different stocking cap under my bike helmet. The one I had on tonight is too thin and doesn’t block the wind well. I got home and picked out my stocking cap from Norway. When I was in Norway, I lost my stocking cap on the bus and wasn’t able to get it back with a call to lost and found. So, I bought a touristy stocking hat that was not too expensive and lined for more warmth, and the lining keeps the itchy wool away from my ears.
One of the important things I learned this week is that the lower entrance door actually is not locked during the day! The other doors need a key to unlock, such as the key to the bicycle storage room and the laundry room. Somehow I figured the ground floor door to our apartment block was the same. The latch does have a little tension, but with a strong enough pull, the door opens! However, for the past month and a half, I thought that it was locked all the time. I had be opening it with my key! And the Swedes who have observed me are either: 1) so nice that they didn’t want to embarrass me by telling me that I don’t need to use a key, or 2) they don’t talk to strangers. Crazy!
With blessings,
Beth