We now have clean clothes and I am not undead

Warning: If you're within the first two seasons of Lost, and "the Hatch" doesn't sound familiar, then you might be subjected to mild spoilers.

After our fourth week of living in Sweden, Jason & I admitted that it was time to wash our two-weeks-worth of clothes. When you've worn all your underwear once-- and then once again, inside-out-- you know you're slacking on the whole "responsible adult" gimmick.

Seeing as Jason spends twelve hours a day in his Physics lab, it was my Sveedish housewifey doom to find a nearby washing machine and put our clothes in it. I soon came across a sketchy-looking door:

We're definitely looking at some long-lost Dharma Initiative Station here.

and tried my key on it. Nothing.

Relief washed over me, because this whole scenario was giving me some serious Lost flashbacks. Namely, the part when John Locke finally dynamited open the Hatch, and went inside despite the BIOHAZARD/ QUARANTINE sign. He totally deserved the surely impending zombie buffet on his brains.

Well, Karma loves a Judgy-McJudgersons like myself, because I suddenly had an idea to hold the blue, plastic thing that came with our keys up to the lock... and I heard a muffled click as the light flashed green. Sh*t.

I slowly cracked the door open, and this is what I saw:

It's impossible for me to look at this without imagining Resident Evil creatures scrambling across the ceiling.

I've put off writing about this little misadventure for over a month now, because I knew my writing skills will utterly fail at communicating the SHEER TERROR I felt at this moment.

I may or may not use an inexusable amount of artistic license when writing these posts... but it would be impossible to exaggerate my neurosis about zombies. Debilitating neurosis. I don't even like typing the word.

• The night after I saw "I Am Legend" in theater, I didn't sleep a wink. I trembled under my covers until the sun came up the next morning, and all those undead demons outside returned to their lairs.
• The one time some friends & I wandered into an abandoned Japanese theme park at night, I tearfully begged everyone to leave with me, lest we awaken the zombie infestation lurking in the shadows. ...That's an embarrassing memory.
• The night a stumbling drunk tried to break into my apartment when I was home alone, I DIDN'T SNEAK OUT THE BACK DOOR because I was completely convinced he was a zombie, and that he surely couldn't be the only one out there.

So. I believe the use of the word "debilitating" is justified.

And you'll be quite proud to hear that I actually entered this demonic-looking hallway, and let the door close behind me.

I shakily tried my key on various doors along the dark hallway until one finally opened, and I nearly... ahem... rendered yet another pair of pants ready for the wash.

That plastic bag made me scream a tiny bit.

Seriously, what IS this place?!

Finally, a windowed door revealed a dark room with silhouetted, whirring machines and red blinking lights. But the door wouldn't open.

Guys, at this point I was so terrified that it felt like an out-of-body experience. Although I could no longer feel my face, I could hear my teeth chattering. Every last survival alarm had gone off in my brain, and my adrenaline levels were such that I probably could have Edward-Cullen-ed a car.

To the side of the door, a metallic box displayed the same emblem the outside door had, so I waved my magic blue key at it.

"SVEEEEEEEDISH SVEEDISH, SVEEDY SVEED SVEEDISH."

I went Rambo on the buttons until it started to look like some sort of scheduling system. I guessed at making an appointment for the next afternoon and got the hell out of there. I didn't stop shaking for another twenty minutes.

* * *

The next afternoon, after a morning's worth of pep-talk and dread, I literally sprinted down the demonic hallway to the laundry room, our 40-lb laundry bag knocking me against the walls like a rubber pinball. This time, my key turned the lock light green and granted me access to the insidious-looking machinery inside.

Checking my back every three seconds, I began stuffing our clothes into a washer.

I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. This was the end. I knew it.


Body frozen in place, my head slowly turned to the side to behold two eyes glaring through the door window with black, bottomless RAGE. Like, 28-Days-Later RAGE.

For those of you with z-o-m-b-....etc. neurosis (seriously, I hate saying that word. I understand why wizards call Voldemort He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named)... anyway, those of you who suffer from my condition-- when you find yourself in this situation, you pray to God Almighty that that door opens. Because you know that if they ARE infected, they no longer have the mental capacity to open doors. Much less the advanced forethought to show up the day before and make an appointment with a magic 007-style key.

Well, it was not yet my time to succumb to viral cannibalism (ahhh, thank goodness for technical-sounding euphemisms), because the door swung open to reveal a disheveled, spandex-clad Sveede with a giant pregnant belly and a hamper full of socks. I could have hugged her.

She proceeded to rant at me in hormonal Sveedish as I smiled at her, semi-slumped against the washer in relief. I happily interjected to tell her that I didn't speak Swedish, and without missing a beat she switched to English and told me I was using HER washing machine that SHE had scheduled a week ago. Bless her fertile, still-human soul.

I gleefully moved my clothes to the next washer as she glowered behind me. If anyone could stop hordes of staggering undead, it was this ass-kicking, hormonal woman on a F***ING SOCK- WASHING MISSION.

I was safe. We now have clean clothes and I am not undead.

Sveedish Sveets!!

On Halloween night, we went to Veely's and stockpiled a bulk-candy smörgåsbord (yes, from now on I'm going to be a snob about spelling that word with all its vowel decorations).

First of all, we didn't find any Swedish Fish. HowEVER-- we did find Swedish Dolphins. They're as if a crunchy cereal marshmallow, a s'more marshmallow, and tutti frutti gum had porpoise babies.

Jason: How much time does that pizza have in the oven?
April: About 15 more minutes.
Jason: Okay. I'm gonna have a dolphin.

Other candies of note:

The black & red soda bottles : They're covered in fizzy stuff! Very exciting. (I tried to make them say "cheers!" but it looks like one had been drinking something other than soda...)

That long chocolate thing on the bottom right corner: turned out to be a fake-banana-flavored marshmallow dipped in chocolate. One of the grossest things I've ever tried to eat.

Top & center (light brown/gray): Strangely licorice-flavored hard candy. When you bite into it, there's salt in the middle. I like salt. This is pretty cool.

Bottom left owl-mask things: Also salty licorice. However, this is some sort of mineral salt that tastes like... how a match smells when it first ignites. Sulphur, maybe? It also makes your tongue tingle like cuuhRAZY. I freaked out after the first bite I took (jumped straight off the couch and made a-fish-biting-a-lemon face, then shook my head frantically like that one time my dog ate a bumblebee, then stifled a gag).*

...but now I'm strangely addicted to nibbling on them. (Suffices to say: I can't convince Jason to try them.)

Thanks a lot, Sweden. You've gotten me addicted to sulphur-salt licorice. Awkward.

Glory be to Veely's, I've since discovered a "Nicorette" for this ailment:

Now you can enjoy all the freakish flavor without getting sticky black stuff stuck in your teeth and scaring the Sveeds and turning your toothbrush gray!


(Sulphur breath still an issue.)





*This reaction may also be partially explained by the fact that I rarely eat sugar and was pretttty on-edge at the time.**
**Which may also explain why my dad hid my Halloween candy when I was little, and rationed out one piece per day until it was "all gone" two weeks later.

(Leave a comment if you're curious about any other candies in the picture. We might even send you some.)

So is this a travel blog or what?

Who knows? Who gave these two a blog, anyway?!

Regardless, Sweden has treated us really well so far, so we'll give it a tribute post. Here are some reasons why Sweden is AWESOME:

Do his friends get to call him Gus-Gus?

Sweden ranks as the #1 democracy in the world. I'm not sure what the exact qualifications are, but North Korea is on the rock bottom of the list. So Sweden's government is the opposite of North Korea's. Well done, Sweden; I approve.

(Here's the whole list for all you Poly-Sci geeks out there.)

Not only does everyone have a fair say here, they also have a king! And his name is Gustaf!!

Ohhh, the excitement this gives my little Disney-brainwashed mind.

You know what I would do if I were king? (...or whatever gender-appropriate equivalent, you technical sticklers out there?!) I would design THE COOLEST MONEY IN THE WORLD!!!

Oh, wait, the Swedes beat me to it.

I know it looks like I'm flashing some serious cash here, but alas... it's only a $15.07 dollar bill.

It's my favorite. It has rainbows, BEES, and Carl Linneaus.

("Guys... GUYS.
This is insanity.
We're discovering all these species right & left, and we need some sort of system to classify and name them all.
Can I get some binomial nomenclature up in HEEAHH?!!"

-Carl Linneaus, 1735.)
(Translated roughly from Swedish.)

Click HERE to drool upon the artwork in all its HD glory. (And then make sure to click again so it extra zoomy-zooms.) (I'm making the "Homer Simpson sees a doughnut" noise.)

Besides binomial nomenclature, and a near-perfect democracy compatible with monarchy, Swedes also invented the Nobel Prize. And even more importantly, they invented the word "SMÖRGÅSBORD." Now that's my kinda country.

Anyway, you know what else King April would do? She would give bikes and pedestrians their own street system! And make it really awesome, with tunnels and skylights and everything, an-- oh.

Way to steal my thunder, Gustaf. Your heiny-highness. 

¿Habla du you Sveenglés?

Honestly, I feel like a big jerk for going to another country without knowing the language. The fact that we were moving to Sweden didn't set in when we bought the tickets, or even when we packed our suitcases. The Atlantic Ocean sparkling beneath our plane finally panicked inspired me to not be an A-hole Ethnocentric American and figure out some Swedish. Luckily, the screen in front of me had a "game" you could play to learn one of 20 languages. Sveedish! I frantically flipped through the virtual flashcards (after all, I did graduate with a minor in Cramming).

Airplane Edutainment taught a few basic words for traveling, polite manners, and two sentences:
"I don't understand."
"I love you."

...thus rendering both useless because I was TERRIFIED of mixing the two up.

Swede:    "Hi, do you know when the next train leaves?"
Myself:     "I LOVE YOU."
Swede:    ...oh god. do I have time to run....?

Luckily, most Swedes (love that word) are fluent in English. At least that's what I reassured myself as I went on a quest to figure out what our freaking address is here. That's right, not only did we hardly know any Swedish, but no one from the university had sent us an address. (Our friend met us at the train station and told our taxi driver which apartment complex, and luckily we knew what apartment, but that was it. We had no idea how to write an address that would be decipherable to the Swedes.)

My quest depended on finding a neighbor who was responsible enough to know how to write an address around here. I picked a door to knock on, nervously practicing "Hej, talar du engelska?" (Hi, do you speak English?) under my breath, when lo and behold, THIS GUY opened the door.

Or at least a Swedish version of him; sorry to send all you LOTR/Lost fanatics into squirrelly, frothing frenzies.

Those were an awkward few seconds as I struggled to remember my line. His eyebrows twisted in confusion as I spit it out, then something clicked and he said, "Oh, yeah I speak English." Music to my A-hole Ethnocentric American ears, I tell ya.

He explained that I had some kind of weird accent that made it sound like I was speaking drunken Danish, but I can go with that for now.

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