From the forest floor

Here I am. I'm right here. My first blog abroad, nice. This past week has been packed with loads of travel, lovely people, performance and now, settling in. So can we get all caught up?

A week ago: an easy flight from Chicago to Stockholm. During the 8 1/2 hour flight I read not a single page of any book. Instead, I got hooked on Scandinavian Airlines' fabulous in-flight entertainment system. I regret that I didn't get a good picture of this thing but basically there's a monitor built into the seat in front of you. Between the touch-sensitive screen and the remote control/gaming controller, which is stored in the armrest, you can navigate through plenty of movies, situational comedies, documentaries and games. I kicked ass on Black Jack. Movies I watched: Fantastic Four, Som Man Baddar and Bewitched. My contacts were glued to my eyeballs by the time we touched down.

Obviously it was far beyond wonderful to see Nilla again after nearly 3 months of being apart. We scooted from Stockholm's Arlanda Airport to Uppsala via bus. By 9:00AM Tuesday I was sitting on what was now my new couch in what was now my new apartment. It's two bedrooms, one of which is working as a dining/computer room. There's plenty of room for us. And guess what? There's also room for when you come and visit. You said you were; ball is in your court people.

After a full day of rest I somehow cured a case of what could've been hardcore jetlag. Trick: I took it easy buy stayed awake (besides a quick nap) until it was finally bedtime here; sleeping all afternoon would've screwed me for the next three days. Wednesday morning I was ready to rock, sort of. I was traveling by train to my next three shows in Sweden. The trains are clean and usually on time. The more modern X2000 trains glide over the landscape smooth and fast. The older regional trains are a bit less comfortable but are only used for shorter distances. Compare this to driving from show to show and I was a spoiled kid.

We rolled into Göteborg Wednesday evening for my first show. It's a beautiful city and Sweden's second biggest. We met up with a few of Nilla's friends at the venue and even ran into a member of the band White Town, an English band that is?/was on Parasol records (Wolfie's old label). Small world! The show worked as sort of a warm-up for the next two nights.

I love Norrköping! It's a cute little city that knows how to have a great time. The local symphony was performing next to the venue I was playing and they were passing out free tickets. I would've totally checked it out but I had my own show to play. The kids there "get it" and made me feel super welcome. I'll be back for another show as soon as possible.


Excitement, Stockholm! Stockholm is one of the coolest cities I've ever been to and I love every chance I get to go visit. This time was extra special because Nilla and I'd be seeing even more of our friends. Before the show we met up with Mia at the art school she's attending where someone found reason for painting a Smurf on a wall. I had such a great time at Landet before, during and after my show. Rickard, Nicklas and Oskar from Svenskamusikklubben were all in attendance and it was great to finally spend some QT with them.

We somehow managed to catch the last bus back to Uppsala from Stockholm and landed back at home ready for sleep after 3 hectic but amazing days. Since then I've been getting registered at local government offices so I can do cool stuff like take swedish for immigrants class and hopefully con someone into giving me a legit job. We made the obligatory trip to IKEA, which was an experience in itself. Going to IKEA in Sweden is pretty similar to going to one in the States except this IKEA was only one floor instead of the mult-leveled monster that I was used to in Illinois. We trudged through the maze of consumables and bouncing kids and came out spending exactly 6 kronor less than we wanted to. That means we won! No IKEA will defeat this team. When did this become a contest? Ever been to IKEA on a Sunday afternoon? If you have, you know what I'm talking about.

I've basically just been getting aquainted with a new way of living. It feels great and I'm happy. Hopefully within a week I'll be in language class and possibly helping out at a local student-run club, we shall see. In the meantime I'll be getting to know more pizza with kebab sauce. Then I'll look out my window before I sit down and work on another song that'll ultimately make me feel amazing. We'll cook dinner; we'll read good books. This is life, a string of events making up an existence. I couldn't ask for much more than this.

Hej då!