berlin laundry

edit: turns out my iphone isn't able to type into the blog post box. apparently not one of it's 19284726 functions.

so, here goes.

i spent my last day in berlin doing laundry. and i thought that my laundry woes remained in stockholm.

back safe, will post proper when i'm more awake!

solo trippin'

off to berlin for:

1. strawberry yoghurt ritter sport

2. authentic chinese food

3. sleeping like a starfish

not your typical berlin finds, but we'll see.

photos and stories when i'm back!

sneakers 'n stuff

like awesome milkshakes!

traipsed around the so-hip-it-hurts SoFo and N showed us this fantastic shop with a milkshake counter smack in the middle. what's more - there were 120 milkshake flavours to choose from, talk about spoilt for choice. after much deliberation, i settled on the isabel (daim, rasberries, milk and ice cream) and spent the next half hour in milkshake ecstasy. my favourite part of the cold is that my milkshake remains semi-solid for as long as i want it to! in singers, it'd have gone from milkshake to milk in two seconds flat.

but the best part of the milkshake experience was the nice man! nono, it's not what you think. don't you hate it when you order a drink at (insert generic coffee chain) and the barrista chucks the blender remnants after mixing your drink? like, helloooo if you can't estimate properly then gimme the extra! and the scrooge / greedy glut within me writhes in agony every time i see 1/3 of what's rightfully my drink being poured down the sink. so this time, i was proactive enough to hustle the remainder and lo and behold the milkshake man TOPPED UP MY CUP!!! and there was enough for A.Mc to score some too :) so yayy for generous, non-wasteful milkshake man. i told him i'd go back! reminded me of that time in the marrakech medina where one particularly enterprising OJ man gave me a half-refill after i gulped down my glass. now that's smart marketing for you!

and because i'm such a satisfied customer, if you're ever in stocks and want a good milkshake, go to sneakers 'n stuff at Åsögatan 124, SoFo.

the shelves and shelves of candy to choose from to mix into your milkshake

milkshake man!

i wouldn't mind

the perpetual rain so much if i lived here permanently

but i don't.

although just under a year ago we did enjoy an amazing time resort-hopping (kuda huraa, coco island and kandooma, all in a week's work!) in the maldives and i miss the two monkeys like crazy. and the clearest, cleanest water i've ever seen. it was everything i'd imagined an island paradise to be.

kuda huraa infinity pool

kuda huraa water bungalows

coco island

the coco island rooms open onto a pristine wooden deck that you can dive from into the ocean!

i've to keep telling myself that summer and sunshine aren't myths. they actually happen, just not in stockholm at the moment.

(photos from my facebook album sandy bottoms and other stories)

and facebook is terrible because when i miss my sibs i look at my (too many!) albums. then i stalk their profiles and spam their walls. maybe i don't blame them for being embarrassed of me.

breakfast

was 1 x overripe avocado with lime and salt.

sounds more like a tequila shot than a legit breakfast but that's the problem with buying too much, keeping it too long and subsequent imminent disappearance to berlin.

maxi ICA

is absolutely terrible for a pack rat like me. my tendency to borong (buy things in bulk for hoarding purposes) is no secret and being surrounded by shelves and shelves of bulk-priced items did nothing for my scant self-restraint.

so i ended up buying 1kg of lindt (yes, that's 10 x 100g bars) and 1 kg of apple biscuits, 3kg of mandarins, 1kg of onions, 1kg of frozen chicken, 20eggs, 5 avocado and 5 limes. oh and 3l of apple cider. looking at my recently acquired groceries, i foresee a few more weeks of poor home-cooking where i alternate between avocado with lime and salt, pasta pasta pasta and fried eggs. maybe chicken soup if i'm feeling self-indulgent.

and back to being a pack rat, i couldn't resist these cuties and bought two of each design when i know, rationally, that i've absolutely no use for more than one set. sigh.

reality bites

in response to the multiple complaints i've received from hungry readers who attribute their gluttony to my food posts (you know who you are!), here's something that should make you lose your appetite instead. while i enjoy good food (who doesn't?) and am grateful to have sampled some of the best stockholm has to offer, this is more like what i eat on a regular basis.

gross, huh?

if you must know, it's canned corn with an egg broken into it and stirred on the stove till the egg's cooked. probably looks like something a baby would eat / spit up, you can't really tell with babies.

p/s and yesterday i actually ate stale meat without realising it until about twenty minutes after lunch i started to feel so sick. apparently my senses aren't in tiptop shape, seeing that i can't smell bad meat from a metre away. lesson learnt - if you must buy almost-expired meat in bulk, eat it within five days of expiry date. six is pushing it.

the prettiest part

of my room is the ceiling. and it's best viewed from bed, unfortunately. which explains why i spend so many hours curled under the covers. doesn't help that i've thick woollen socks (thank you!) and the coolest hot fan (it's like a hairdryer, only better!) which make for blissful lie-ins.

i need to get out more :(

inverse weekend

when i was younger, i used to love the weekend and loathe the five-day week. now i'm a little less young, i still love the weekend but i've come to semi-like the very adult responsibilities of attending class etc.

BUT that doesn't mean i'm not deliriously happy when i get the occasional inverse weekend i.e. two day work week. so when the weekend officially began at 1139h today, you can imagine my ill-disguised glee as i busted out of E497 and into the glorious november weather. ok, so i'm exaggerating about the weather. but it's pretty darn amazing that i'm done with classes for the week and my next class is only on tuesday! lucked out there with the berlin trip, had foreseen myself accidentally not turning up for classes but looks like i'm not missing anything. how miraculous! note to self: always pray for fortuitous scheduling when booking euroescapades.

on the agenda today is taking out the trash (yes, it's a big deal) and making a daytrip to the maxi ICA with A in his ka because his little racing ball hasn't been out for a spin of late. celebrating the lovely miss M's birthday tonight and we'll see what happens after. i like my plans inchoate, thank you very much :)

so TGIW and much love to all!

le beaujolais nouveau 2009

(photo credits to our gracious hostess Caro, these photos were ripped off her facebook album)

and speaking of chance meetings with the locals, was Jeanne's +1 at her friend Caro's le beaujolais nouveau party. apparently it's an annual affair where everybody brings a bottle and you celebrate the new release. any excuse to party, it seems :) Caro was the perfect hostess, making sure we were all fed and watered. loved the cold cuts and cheese she served and the beaujolais went down very easy, too easy, even.

chatting with Caro's friends, i was reminded of something Mikael had observed over dinner at Claes'. he said that swedish people aren't as reserved as they're made out to be, but they do need a catalyst. so i guess that was the catalyst, Claes organising dinner and Jeanne bringing me as her date du jour. but it was nice to finally meet the Claes that i'd heard so much about, and Gustav, Jeane's landlord because every time we go to Jeanne's, there are remnants of Gustav (like his candles!) and it was great to be able to put faces to the names after so long.

also met Kaja, a swedish newlywed who, get this, lived in singers for five years! needless to say, we couldn't stop talking and swapping stories and she's spending some time in singers during her honeymoon in early january 2010. what are the chances! the world's too small.

record-breaking dinner

C, the very kind swedish gentleman that M put me in touch with, invited us to dinner in his lovely home last week. dinner had been in the pipelines for months, since soon after i arrived in stockholm, actually, and C generously organised dinner for us to meet his (much younger) swedish friends.

in true swedish fashion, we all arrived promptly at 6pm and had a few glasses of petroleum-scented riesling (apparently a good riesling's supposed to have notes of petrol o.O) as C ran through the menu. didn't take any photos, unfortunately, because i thought it might be rude. me and my prison of good manners :( but let's see if i can describe dinner the way it was.

C served an antipasti of fermented herring (i call it the antisocial herring because it smells so bad!), parma ham, bruschetta with chopped mushrooms and olives. i've probably left something out but in a nutshell, he served an italian dinner with swedish elements, like the herring and later, moose. after we polished off the antipasti, C served capellini with a sauce of crushed roasted pine nuts and truffle oil as the primo piatto. delicious! and for il secondo he did a beautiful entrecot of moose with steamed vegetables and a delectable sauce made from wild mushrooms. mmmm :) i'd never eaten moose before that and it was rare and gamey. i love my meats red! and it was truly exotic to be in the guest of a swedish host, eating moose in his cosy kitchen. C then served a selection of french and swedish cheese and while i can't remember the names, i really enjoyed his pickings. and the dolce was a delightful marsala sabayon that he whipped up on the spot and served in martini glasses with a berry on top. absolutely gorgeous! it feel so festive :) and i'm a big fan of pretentious foamy-thingums so the sabayon was up my alley all right. he made it look so easy as he whisked away and stirred the delicate creation in its bain-marie. more wine, coffee and sweets followed the marsala sabayon and riveting post-dinner conversation till 3am.

and because i really enjoyed getting to know C's two other guests, here's an excerpt from an email to my mother about dinner.

C had two Swedish gentlemen for dinner too. Guessing they were in their 20s and with fascinating backgrounds, one is a consultant with Accenture in Stockholm but spent his childhood all over the world (with his diplomat parents) and only just moved back to Sweden for good. The other's with Capital Management in Private Equity. Big words that unfortunately don't mean much to me right now. I'd to google 'private equity', embarrassingly enough. To cut a long story short, we'd a lovely 9h dinner (is that common???) from 6pm-3am. Learnt early on that the Swedes start their evening engagements early but I didn't realise we'd only be done at 3am and C was a gracious host.

Over the course of the evening, I realised that i knew SO MUCH about Sweden and Swedish law! Even though the other guests didn't have a legal background (one studied Economics at LSE and the other business at a Swedish business school) they knew a fair bit about Swedish law and we spent most of the night in lively discussion about the peculiarities and unique characteristics of Swedish law. I shared my fascination with their communitarian underpinnings, the public right of access, no duty to maintain wife after divorce, the absence of a trusts and the subsequent creation of foundations, their lack of testamentary freedom, tax evasion (their contribution, not mine!) while I'd enjoyed the Swedish law lectures and was intrigued by the material (what? no protection of negative right of association???) I didn't know how much I'd absorbed and subconsciously thought about until dinner when talking about it! Discussing the unique Nordic law model with true-blue Swedes reminded me how fortunate I am to have the opportunity to be immersed in system so different from the one I'm used to. Suddenly the otherwise dull lectures came to life and I was truly grateful for the background and foundation my introduction class gave me.

O and M, C's other guests were such gentlemen and i'm glad to have gotten to know young swedes in a social, civilised context (as opposed to being elbowed by drunk swedes in a throng outside f12). it'd be sad if i returned to singers not knowing a single 'local'. although neither O nor M are truly 'local' in a restrictive sense of the word. M's from the south and O's spent more time outside sweden than in. but happy to have met them all the same!

and, seriously, 9h dinner. no wonder C plied us with coffee after midnight :)

matsalen

langoustine and cheek of pig

(peas, fried cauliflower, crackling, lovage)

had one of my more memorable dining experiences just under a week ago. it's not been all that long but gosh, it feels like a lifetime away because dinner was so amazing it went straight to my memory bank and the food to my camera memory stick instead of into my stomach, as C quipped a few weeks ago.

dinner at matsalen was long-anticipated, ever since the parentals visited in fact. but they wanted to save it for when he visited so i obediently booked a two-top months in advance and eagerly awaited the feast. well, feast isn't the most accurate word, because the serving sizes were optimal - tasted everything we were meant to taste but without compromising on limited stomach space. who wants to roll out of a restaurant after 13 courses anyway? the whole buffet-bulge look? not classy. then again, we did manage to tuck 13 courses and a few extras somewhere. spare stomach, maybe. very bovine.

in fact, i'd been dreaming of matsalen since singers, when i first mentioned to my neighbour and 'employer' (i teach his kid chinese. haha.) that i was coming to stocks on exchange, the first thing he did was tell me eat at matsalen, in fact, i think he even offered me a bonus to fund dinner, then he retracted it and said to ask my parents to take me when they visit. bah. that said, aformentioned neighbour-boss is an illustrious journalist specialising in food&wine, and cars. so he knows his stuff. then again, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that matsalen's a great restaurant. i think the michelin men concur, but who gives a hoot about them pretentious frenchies anyway ;)

dinner was spectacular, to say the least. and the company even better. while the food quality and presentation was superior to operakallaren, i actually found the service lacking. matsalen's decidedly less stuffy than operakalaren. instead of plush carpeting and luxe finishing like chandeliers and heavy golden tassles, there was a muted parquet floor and the place was done up in equally muted shades of blue and gold (swedish colours!). the waitstaff wore aprons over their industrial chic uniform of faded denim shirt and pants, compared to the practically white-tie waitstaff dresscode at operakalaren. hmm and if i do have one grouse, i felt the matsalen waitstaff were overtly pushy when it came to beverages. like they tried to pressure us into ordering more drinks and without our asking, they'd open a new bottle before we were even done with the old. didn't appreciate the presumption and we ended up being charged for three bottles at the end of the meal. how can two diner possibly down three bottles in the course of dinner! brought it up to the hostess on our way out and she was apologetic, offering to take the last bottle off the bill but we'd have rounded up the bill to the same figure with the tip anyway. so in effect the waitress had the cost of the last bottle taken out of her gratuity. it did leave a semi-unpleasant aftertaste all the same, especially because it's the sort of cheap, cheat-money trick you'd sort of expect at less acclaimed establishments. but matsalen? low blow.

on the whole, beverage bitch aside, dinner was unforgettable and i do hope i one day reach a point where i can afford to eat that way at whim, yet at the same time never losing the wide-eyed wonder with each ecstatic bite and general appreciation and acknowledgement of just how blessed i am.

dinner has been meticulously photographed in its various stages and those photos are on facebook under 'matsalen'.

spontaneous feeding frenzy

i really like my corridor.

according to K, the corridor-dad because he's lived here three years and counting, we really lucked out this time. every single corridor dweller is nice. and while nice is never enough (if you're looking for a soul mate or something) it pretty much suffices for communal living. all the horrors of college dorms somehow don't exist in our little piece of stockholm. the kitchen's always impeccably tidy, the corridor elf (we take turns so it's only your turn every three months) does its duty with aplomb and our inter-personal relationships are cheery. everyone gets along, no politics, just a lot of good-natured ribbing. it's a circus every night at 8ish when we congregate and get in each other's way, in a good way. K tackles A-san, P restrains K, someone helps locate A-san's misplaced slipper, F rolls her eyes at our childish antics, i'm cowering somewhere trying not to watch the latest slasher flick on tv. good times :)

and like tonight, K very kindly cooked me tandoori! i didn't realise how obviously i'd been lusting over his dinner but he offered to make me chicken and i couldn't say no. and he made 1kg for me :D so i've plenty of leftovers for lunch tomorrow, maybe even dinner. mhmmm :) we cook in ways that reflect our individual cultural heritage - indian K cooks curry, japanese A-san does miso soup, swedish K does swedish caviar on hard bread with cucumbers, Y's brother cooks delicious smelling chinese stew, polish P eats something salty (tonight he helped me eat my zucchine e panna because i'd gone a bit heavy on the salt and couldn't stomach it myself) and i steam / fry / boil pork that's pushing expiry.

i wish i'd more time with them but i don't stay in as often as i should. that's one of the reasons why i cherish my sundays so. it's the one day i don't go out / talk to anyone / do anything. i nua at home, pig out on chocolate and chips, gulp tea by the gallon, read trashy magazines and while the day away. i love waking up in the morning and knowing that there's absolutely nothing i need to do. talk about the absence of responsibility! amazing stuff.

am going to miss my corridormates. just when we've warmed up and get along like a house on fire, it's almost time to go home. go home go home go home. i'm obsessed :(

friends with benefits

(over msn with a chindian friend who's dating my favourite korean girl)

me:

you're going to have multicultural babies!

D:

yeah

uber mixed

me:

humsum only

D:

unfortunate dilution of my indian blood

but oh well

me:

further dilution you mean, mr. 3/4

D:

it could also turn out

extremely wrong

haha

can you imagine

korean eyes

indian nose

me:

shack max

D:

i think one of my friends

will either be ortho or plastic

if baby come out like that i'll ask him to be a plastic

(pause)

D:

i was actually leaning towards transplant surgeon

for when my liver finally gives way

international palate

food's never far from my mind and i just realised how blessed i am to have sampled different cuisine from my generous friends. have been the grateful beneficiary of much (predominantly) european hospitality and my tastebuds have done almost as much travel in stockholm as the rest of me has around europe.

because home is where the heart is, here's what i've gorged my way through in no particular order.

Kj's kladkaka, a sticky chocolate cake

Kr's tandoori chicken

A-san's ramen

C's ratatoie

J's spaghetti carbonara with a french twist

M's penne con zucchine e panna

A's wursts with pickled cabbage and salted pork

S' pancakes (and pasta, on a separate occasion)

M's hainanese gai fan or chinese chicken as our friends christened it

J's zurek and other polish specialities

Z's torta

L's lemon meringue pie

and that's just off the top of my head. in fact, i'm positively shamed when i think about how the only dish i can muster up is prawn noodle soup and i have the bad habit of flogging the horse. every guest of mine gets prawn noodle soup! it doesn't help that when i attempted pad yum goong (and even that was with some packet help) for J, i accidentally served her raw chicken. add my litany of kitchen disasters to the equation and you can see why my friends are happy when i don't cook for them. gosh, the one time i felt most love coming my way was when my precious friends pretended to enjoy my pseudo-cheesecake that resembled brain, the type that drips out the nose of a potential mummy of the egyptian persuasion.

which's why i'm desperately looking for japanese mayonaise here so i can introduce them to the wonders of the orient. i need to find a way to redeem myself, any suggestions?

sausagefest

get your mind out of the gutter, it's not what you think :)

this was one sausagefest that i voluntarily attended! in fact, it was a long-awaited, highly anticipated event because A had been raving about these little babies since we first met. even when we were in portugal, he had us fantasising about the sausagefest we'd have once the first frost fell (alliterative, no?) although first frost in germany technically happens some time in early december, because we're so north and it's already snowed a few times, he took the liberty to bring forth this magical date that gives us licence to eat, drink and be merry. then again, when you're on exchange in the far-flung reaches of the earth, any excuse is a good excuse.

if we wanted to be puritanical about it, we'd have done it the old fashioned farm hick way and loaded a cart with bottles of beer to fuel a tipsy ramble through the woods, drunk a bottle at every corner, played drinking games and subjected the losing party to copious amounts of alcohol. however, because only A knew how to cook the wursts just right, we couldn't risk letting our star player get inebriated so no pre-gaming.

the wursts went beautifully with tender, melt-in-your-mouth pork. subtly salted and really fragrant. even though i probably ODed on piggy the past 2 days with my bak ku teh, i couldn't say no to this gorgeous platter.

A cooks the wursts and pork in the cabbage so it is infused with the taste

and Z's contribution, spanish torta so authentic i could hear flamenco in the background

Z and L hard at work on the sangria

awesome meal and riveting dinner conversation in line with the menu about romanian pig sacrifices. well whaddya know :)

short-lived sun

byebye.

ride 'em cowboy!

Cotton-eyed Joe, Cotton-eyed Joe,

He was de nig dat sarved me so, ?

Tuck my gal away fum me,

Carried her off to Tennessee.

I'd 'a' been married forty year ago

If it had n't a-been for Cotton-eyed Joe.

"i can show you the world..."

three different interpretations of wild wild west

west, kayne west

dr. winston o'boogie lives!

and it's not a party without a politically correct, socially-conscious addition from possibly the most literary-minded of the corridor.

awesome cowpoke over at R's. i love it when the party comes to kungshamra, although i did head to lappis for drinks at A.Mc's first. punch fridays at J's will resume next friday. but back to the haystack, R and C went to town with crazy awesome posters and all-out decorations. they even scattered hay (rumoured to have been acquired from a petshop but i wouldn't put it past them to have had leftovers from previous romps, if you get what i mean) on the floor for the rodeo feel. beautiful cowpeople and red indians everywhere and i loved their doorgift idea! my wanted poster proudly on my wall.

summer

or the rare autumn day.

(i love waking up to blue skies)

having not seen the sun in over a week, it's good to know that he's hanging around.

off to make the most of the beautiful weather!

the final five weeks

are going to whizz by.

i just know it.

:(

wallpaper

or not.

it's the reflection of my fairy lights and paper ball :)

breakfast in bed

yoghurt, juice, coffee, rose champagne (adopting sardinian-style alcohol in the morning!) caviar and condiments, bread from matsalen, organic jam and butter.

(the mandarins make it look like an altar offering, don't you think? :( )

and caviar done properly with chopped onions, hard boiled egg and sour cream. mhmm :) starting the day on the right note teehee!

le bar rouge

i swear A.Mc should compile a hitlist of his stockholm finds. the boy's got a knack for sussing out the gems just about to make-it-big, sort of like cameron in there's something about mary. le bar rouge was no exception and he apparently stumbled upon it while playing tour guide to a friend! quiet evening out, just the few of us all cosy in a plush red booth seeking refuge from the wintry cold.

and, they've got the coolest contraptions! see the old school telephones? you can dial the extensions at the other booths. perfect for eavesdropping or interrupting a friend's budding romance. not that we do that, of course, we just accost the almost-couple in the street and tailgate them to the tunnelbana. mature, i know.

it's been awhile

and the past two weeks have been an absolute dream.

moving on, it's back to reality and yet another kitchen disaster presented itself this morning.

being the pack rat i am, i'd somehow acquired 2+kg of pork. half expired on 18 november and the rest expired today.

problem: 2+kg of soon-to-be rancid pork

solution: a cauldron of bak ku teh

and now i'm beyond gleeful at my ingenious use of potentially rotten pig. which doesn't say much about my culinary expertise or standard of living, unfortunately.

but yay to being chinese! and knowing how to make bak ku teh! the pepper and spice did wonders :)

new problem: single-handedly finishing aforementioned cauldron of bak ku teh. it's not that i'm selfish but my corridormates have negligible spice tolerance and K, my lone spice-sharing sympathiser, doesn't eat pork.

slut.

confused cuisine

was feeling adventurous and against our better judgment, we decided to try a japanese restaurant in ostermalmstorg. i say 'against our better judgment' because some guai lo had raved about it and called it authentic, which means it probably wasn't. so as we tried not to turn up our stubby asian noses at the prospect of pseudo-authentic japanese food, there was also niggling doubt at the back of our minds but figured it was worth a shot all the same. the result: cuisine of the most confused kind.

problem #1: asian-looking lady boss who didn't speak a single oriental language. at the door, i'd asked for a table for 2 in japanese, only to be met with a blank stare. i tried again in chinese, same reaction. giving up, i resorted to sign language and held out two fingers, she got the picture. granted, i can't say she didn't speak a single oriental language because i only speak chinese and a smattering of jap, plus malay but she didn't look malay. so maybe she speaks korean or thai. maybe.

problem #2: it was not japanese short-grain rice and hence it was not sushi by any stretch of imagination. have you heard the one about how each piece of sushi should have exactly 99 grains of rice and how expert sushi chefs train for years to get it right with one graceful swoop and shape? yeah. well these little monsters had about 200+ grains each. fake sushi FAIL.

(not) problem: this was the only dish i liked. spring rolls are cheap asian food and they seemed to accept that they were cheap asian food. simple. no pretensions, not trying too hard to be japanese (cf pseudo-sushi above) and upfront about its humble origins. cool.

problem #3: mystery meat dish machiam united nations. there was the mystery meat, which the restaurant can be forgiven for. even closing one eye and letting the meat pass as japanese, what in the world was the kimchi doing on the plate? and my national flower???! it was probably unintentional but i don't go to a japanese restaurant expecting to have a tri-nation plate. good in theory, bad in practice.

but the mysterious origins of the lady boss were later revealed when i recognised the obscure chinese dialect she was speaking and spoke to her in mandarin (why didn't she understand my initial request for a two-top?) and then she became noticeably friendlier and even offered us tea! so we scored some free tea (hey, it was the good stuff! the type mixed with rice grains that you can only find in japan!) and she even refused our tip because she mistook us for poor students. which was sweet :) so hmm, chinese solidarity > my prejudice towards non-japanese run japanese restaurants? the food was passable if you're not too discerning, or if your idea of asian food is kung pow chicken and co. but sorry, my atas palate was none too pleased, the only thing i liked was the tea.

on hiatus

check back in two weeks :)

commonwealth games

went to sigtuna with the parentals but they're speedy gonzales and i was left breathless as we rushed in and out of the oldest town in sweden. made a mental note to return someday and today was the day! we braved the blizzard but spent most of the afternoon enjoying a leisurely lunch in a sweet little cafe. great food and better tea and cookies! the tea's whole leaf and home bagged! and we had more coffee and tea than we were entitled to. took advantage of the blustery, blizzardy weather and snapped some mood shots. eagerly awaiting S' artwork but my pedestrain photos are up on facebook. we posed, frozed and i stepped into a lot of duck poo. but we'd fun catching snowflakes, eating donuts and trolling each other.

here's to more adventures of the swedish kind!