[The Life of Shaun #58] Inte blå hunde, Rosebery Court and The Simpsons

I just spent a lovely weekend in the ancestral country of both Ikea and my mother, Sweden, in beautiful Stockholm. It is, of course, the capital of Sweden, very old and the largest city in Scandinavia. It's got lovely colourful buildings and is built over a series of 14 islands, so there are water and bridges everywhere; quite aesthetically pleasing. I was visiting my friend Stefan, whom I know from my Paris days - we were in the same French class (as well as my sister, Lisa) with Madame Cho at La Sorbonne.

The agenda was usual - discussion, food, drink, repeat. I've been to Stockholm once before, with Russ in 2000. I liked it well enough then, but enjoyed it a lot more this time. One, there were no expectations, and two, it was all on its own, rather than one of ten cities squished into four weeks. Also we chose better gay bars/clubs, which can make or break a visit to a city.

I noticed one thing though between my visits - there seemed to be a lot more ethnic people than I remembered. This is good; Sweden needs immigration and it realizes that, so they're opening their arms. It's great, as elsewhere it's adding colour (literally & metaphorically) to Swedish life and helping out their economy and very generous social system.

So it was a great weekend, I met nice people and am looking forward to going again. Oh, "Inte blå hunde" was all the Swedish I can piece together from the words I remember from my trip; it means "No blue dogs." Not very useful, but fortunately everyone in Sweden speaks English, so I was free to tell them a variety of blue things I didn't want, or even no dogs of any colour that didn't suit my fancy.

In other news:

We signed our lease for another year today! So we'll be here in Clerkenwell, where we're so happy, for at least one more year. Nice, since we just got the key! We also managed to secure a commitment for new carpet for Natasha, and there was no rent increase; we're very pleased, obviously.

And as a sign-off, they took a little dig on E4 tonight... they were introducing The Simpsons episode where they legalize gay marriage in Springfield and the tagline intro was "Next, Springfield comes out of the closet and enters the 21st century." Brilliant.

Proud to be half Swedish,
Shaun

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Shaun Coley
scoley@gmail.com
http://www.friendster.com/profiles/shaunism
London, UK

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