I'll fly away old glory

Hello all!

I have done quite a lot in the last week since I posted. I now officially have a job and am working, I went to Stockholm Sweden, and I got yelled at by a border patrolmen in the UK!

1) My job is great! Really nice people and I'm starting to get an idea of how it all works and taking orders to put into the computer. I am learning more about being a bartender every time I work. This week I have to work 20 hours in two days. I am looking forward to it though because it will give me a lot of great experience. I also have officially by Scottish standards made an excellent martini and can poor the exact amount of shots that are required by law to poor from a single bottle...I'm not really sure why I am talking about pouring shots but I apologize for the time that was just wasted.
2) STOCKHOLM! I never in my years thought that I would visit Sweden of all places and think I would actually really enjoy it much. Needless to say Stockholm is absolutely fantastic. It is still absolutely frozen there so it is an excellent place to enjoy if you like cold weather. Me and some of my friends from Uni. couch surfed with a guy named Olaf. He was really cool and was extremely friendly, thus reassuring my feelings for couch surfing. Olaf introduced us to his friend Tobias, incredibly friendly and social guy who is really great to talk to. Amanda joined us on Friday via airplane and also couch surfed with us and was just as swiftly as I was enjoying Stockholm. We traveled all over the city via subway. The subway system is really nice! Extremely nice trains that are equipped with excellent seats and are incredibly easy to access.

I am kind of unsure because I feel like Stockholm could be a future home for me. It was so beautiful and everyone was so friendly and kind. I really could feel that people there welcome people with open arms and it is great. The islands that are all over are amazing as well. To get from Olaf's we had to cross onto one island for the city centre, hop one island more to get to Gamla stan (old town...where the castle is), then if you hop one more island you are on the trendy part of town that has the most amazing second hand shops (thrift stores) that anyone has ever seen. There are boats that go through the river that can take you to almost any place you would want to go in the city. They work just like buses but run on water.

The city is split in half between a large lake and a canal that runs to the sea. The one half running to the sea has a current and so there is not frozen water, how ever the lake is completely frozen! It was the first time that I have come across a body of water that is so cold and frozen. I dare say I ventured out onto the ice with my friend maren and it was such an unreal experience. Standing atop a large block of water and feeling the cold almost through your shoes was amazing! I felt bad because my flatmate Stephen who had couch surfed with us wanted to walk on some ice but everywhere he wanted to was a very unsafe area and we were more concerned for his safety. He left Maren and I to go shopping so we walked around and then came across this area where at least 25 people were just walking around on the ice...so we joined...oh well...sorry Stephen.

If you are interested to see what Stockholm looks like just check out my facebook page and you can see the pictures of everything we did...really really beautiful.

3) I was re-entering the UK border from my flight last night and there was a sign that said "UK BORDER" behind the customs officer. I though it was cool so I took a picture, not realizing that I was also taking a picture of the way their customs desks are set up and how they do their process. Needless to say I quickly encountered a customs gaurd who was staring me down with only anger in his eyes and he said "NO PHOTOGRAPHY! TURN THE CAMERA OFF AND PUT IT AWAY NOW!" I immediatly realized what I did and put up my camera...but I am excited to say that I am one of the few that have a picture of the British border in an airport!

*WARNING* (the next section involves profainaty not for the light hearted)

One last thing! Tobias explained to me how Swedish people have two forms of cuss words. One form is like ours incredibly vulgar and intended for only adults ears. While the other form is a more polite way of telling somone to "go screw themselves". It all derives from nature and has to do with waht Sweden is brough up on

1) Go into the forest = Go fuck off and die
2) Go to where the pepper grows = Go get lost and never comeback
3) Iron nails = God dammit!

I found those quite amusing and fun to say!

Sorry for the length of this post...enjoy...

cheers!