My 1st Swedish Birthday

I had a nice birthday. I had class, baked a cake (Swedish tradition is you bake a cake and bring it to the function and in this case the function was hockey practice), practice, and then I got home and my roommate deb and her boyfriend Bjorn were in the kitchen waiting with balloons, candles, cake, champagne, and decorations and we had a nice hangout. All around good birthday. 

These are the coolest glasses in the world.

There have been so many beautiful sunsets here. Yellow, orange, pink, red, turquoise, purple, dark blue.

Classes are going well. I like population ecology. It's not too hard and pretty interesting to test predictions about extinction and stuff using computer models. I may do something with population ecology for my masters thesis. Don't know though yet. We had 4 weeks of class and starting this week coming up we stop having class and have 4 weeks to work on a review paper on a subject. I chose the effects of habitat fragmentation on ecosystems. We find papers and write a paper about the current research going on in that field. Doesn't seem to bad. I am pumped to have a month off a school. Since I've been here I've basically had class everyday with exception to a few Fridays here and there.  Obviously I'm not going to start the paper until the week before its due. I am hoping to work a ton while I am free from school. I don't work when I have class everyday which has been the case lately. So I looking forward to bringing in the cash. Or should I say Kronor. Court and I are all ready for our Eurotrip. Everything is booked. I am so excited. 19 days. 5 places. Lots of beer drinking on this trip. It's pretty cold here now and it gets dark at like 3:45pm (15:45). It hasn't snowed yet which is rare for Sweden at this time of year. It might be a short, weak winter. But who knows. I'm having Thanksgiving at my house with a group of like 12 of us. Roommates and friends. I'm excited. Then two days later, Mandy and I are hosting Thanksgiving for a few teammates. So I'm getting two Thanksgivings. That's more than I get in America and it's not even a holiday in Sweden. I'm throwing the American theme party in a couple weekends. It should be great. Lots of drinking will be taking place. I got red solo cups sent from my mom to complete the party. Everyone is supposed to dress up as an American stereotype. Pictures will be taken. Random things: there is no turning right on red lights here. When biking/walking towards someone they think it is the end of the world and don't know what side to chose so it becomes a really awkward shift left and right a bunch of times and close calls for bike collisions. I almost crashed big time because some idiot wasn't looking ahead and I was coming down a slope so I was going fast (on the right side like a normal person) and the dude went to his left trying to go around me that way and we had to both slam our brakes and I skidded and almost ended up in a ditch. Not good times. Cilla one day asked Mandy and I what it meant when someone says "bust a move" because she sees it on tv/in movies. We basically said well, if someone says bust a move, you bust a move. So now we randomly tell her to bust a move and she will do a crazy dance. It's great. An annoying thing: Swedes don't tie their hair back in their hockey helmets. UGH. If you're a hockey player you will understand what I mean. Proof that I am retarded: my mom sent me a recipe of a yummy chocolate cake. So I went to the store and bought all the ingredients. The recipe called for a box of chocolate cake, a box of instant chocolate pudding, eggs, water, etc. So I come home and prepare the pudding. Cook the mix with milk and put it in the fridge to solidify. So it's my birthday and decided to skype with my mom while I'm baking so she can skype me on my birthday. I tell her I'm in the process of baking the cake. She asks what step I'm at and I say I'm waiting for the pudding to set its in the fridge. She goes why? I said because I made the pudding to put in the cake...the recipe calls for 1 box of instant chocolate pudding. She starts hysterically laughing. I wasn't supposed to make the pudding I was supposed to add the powder to the chocolate cake powder. FML. Never have been a baker. Never will be. Anyway, we won our last game 7-1. I'd say they were out hardest competition yet...and still sucked. Got 2 goals and an apple. Leading the stats baby! We travel close to Gothenburg for our away games. It's about 3 hours away. We have our first home game this Sunday which is exciting. I want to check out Galma Linkoping (Old Linkoping) tomorrow. It is supposed to be cute and have lots of shops selling local handmade things. Hoping to find some Christmas presents there. Its a bike ride away which is nice. My mom asked me what I wanted in my next care package: funfetti cake, rainbow chip frosting, and cooler ranch doritos. Booyaa.