Curse you Mother Nature! Curse you to Hades! I just shaved my legs and you decided to dump snow and 19 degree weather on me again! It's friggin' April!
.:deep breath:.
And so I'm back in sweaters again. The utter, utter tragedy of it all.
So, my newly gay cousin is moving to Sweden. I shall now call him Bjorn. Bjorn the Gay.
He's moving to Sweden because his lover (my mom hates it when I use that word, she prefers 'partner')recently got his PhD in computer science and got a one year fellowship at a university somewhere in Sweden. I've decided it's Stockholm, even though I don't know that. It's the only place I can think of in Sweden. What's in Sweden, anyway?
My co-workers and I tried to think of things, but all the stuff we came up with actually belonged to other countries. Amsterdam? In Holland. The Alps? In Switzerland. Chocolate and Nazi gold? Switzerland again. Nokia? Finland. Fjords? I don't even know what a fjord is. I do know it's not a car, but that's about it.
Ooh! A student just overheard us and said that ABBA is from Sweden! Okay! So! In Sweden, there are aging popsters from a '70s supergroup. Can you sing 'Waterloo'? My, my! At Waterloo Napoleon did surrender! Oh yeah! (That's all I know besides the chorus)
And IKEA! IKEA is from Sweden! Okay, so far, we've discovered that ABBA and IKEA are from Sweden. Ooh! And the Swedish Chef from the Muppets! He's from Sweden! Unless he's been living a lie all this time. Ooh! Astrid Lindgren, the creator of Pipi Longstocking is from Sweden! Rock!
Hmm. Here are some facts on Sweden from Lonely Planet:
Area: 449,964 sq km
Population: 8.87 million
Capital City: Stockholm (pop 736,000)
People: 90% Swedes, 3% Finns, 0.15% Sami (indigenous Lapp inhabitants)
Language: Swedish, English
Religion: Lutheran 87%,
Government: Constitutional Monarchy
Head of State: King Carl XVI Gustaf
Head of Government: Prime Minister G�ran Persson
GDP: US$230.7 billion
GDP per capita: US$26,000
Annual Growth: 1%
Inflation: 2%
Major Industries: Forestry, mining, agriculture, engineering and high tech manufacturing, telecommunications, IKEA
Major Trading Partners: EU, US
Member of EU: Yes
Interesting. So, Bjorn the Gay and his boyfriend, Dr. Sven (that's not his name, but if I can call my cousin Bjorn, then he will be called Sven!)are moving to Sweden next month where they will easily assemble inexpensive and trendy furniture while listening to '70s pop music, eating pickled herring and reading about the outrageous adventures of a pigtailed girl.
I wish them well.
Incidentally, Dr. Sven getting the fellowship was the reason my cousin came out of the closet. He figured we'd all kind of think it was wierd that he'd move to a foreign country with his "roommate". So, out he came.
I can't think of anything else to say other than tomorrow is a Monday and I did my laundry so now I have pants! Yeah! Pants!
(Oh, I tried to find an online translator that would translate "comments so far" into Swedish, but the closest I found was an engine that would translate it into Swedish Chef. So, I chose Dutch. Close enough.)