How I was found...

Hey,

Almost since the day I created this blog, I've used a tracker to count how many visitors I have received on this page, you can see it on the right side beside "ShinyStat" box... and the total page hits is not the only information I get, I almost get wide range of information from you guys such as your operating systems, your browser types, or what country you are in when you're reading this blog.... the most interesting information I have found is the search keywords that people input in google, yahoo or msn search when they wanted to find my blog but didn't know or forgot my www address or those others who searched for some random things and apparently came across to my blog since it somehow fit into their search keywords. I'm gonna display the keywords here just for fun and make a top 10 list of the most strange keywords.

The top 10 list will be shown then rest of the keywords grouped into months.

Note: if you notice any mistakes with the spelling or odd grammar or missing dots above the letters such as jonkoping instead of correct spelling of jönköping, I just copied exactly what was used as the search keyword.

TOP 10 (in random order)

• how to annoy your teacher - September 2005 - unfortunately I don't think my blog had any good tips
• spud separatists - September 2005 - what is that anyway?
• good bye from work - August 2005 - people actually go online and search how to say good bye from work?
• pictures of forehead injuries - October 2005 - that dude has a strange photograph collection
• does matts sundin have a swedish girlfriend - January 2006 - unfortunately he's taken -- not that you would have a chance :)
• gay movie swede - January 2006 - uhm? no porn on my site
• asl shaved lady pictures - March 2006 - not even sure how to comment on that :)
• do you have a pictuer of frogs left and right side in the inside match - April 2006 - huh?!?!?
• black-pissing - June 2006 - sounds like a problem that I wouldn't want to have
• sweden law learn asl - March 2006 - get yourself educated, why would it be a law for Swedes to learn a foreign sign language?

Now, the entire search keywords on the record since July 2005.

July 2005
No Search Keywords - probably because I don't think I created any blog posts at that time.

August 2005

• bg0ur3
• bg0ur3.blogspot.com
• good bye from work

September 2005

• brandon & goure & blog & jonkoping
• brandon goure
• raslatt party
• 40 kronors lunch i jönköping
• bryden's bar+milton
• how to annoy your teacher
• http://bg0ur3.blogspot.com
• jönköping
• life at jönköping
• living in råslatt
• raslatt 05
• råslätt
• spud separatists
• stockholm party
• teckenspråk
• weight regulations for british airlines

October 2005

• "the daltons" "subtitles"
• amitysville house
• bg0ur3
• bg0ur3.blogspot.com
• brandon goure blog
• britta's 2nd birthday
• http://bg0ur3.blogspot.com
• innebandy blog
• innebandy pro touch focus
• pictures of forehead injuries
• semester + apartment + göteborg
• washer sweden kronors

November 2005

• "25 years old" + blog + cambridge + ontario
• airport regulations
• bg0ur3.blogspot.com
• brandon goure
• bredäng centrum photos
• bryden's milton
• life as a swede
• sentimental, say good bye, good luck
• swedes quiet bus
• teckensprak
• teckenspråk + "charlotte gustavsson"
• www winter coat large size in swede

December 2005

• sweden's mayfest
• brandon goure, ontario
• britta wiesner
• innebandy
• life as a swede
• liseberg gøteborg sverige
• odsp
• summer fun in sweden
• sweden life conversation
• webcam jönköping city weather

January 2006

• life as a swede
• bg[3] - windows ...
• brugge beligum
• does matts sundin have a swedish girlfriend
• gay movie swede
• hydro bg users
• mats sundin interesting facts
• mini-stick on calendars
• swede
• weather beligum
• world war postcards and letters

Feburary 2006

• brugge beligum
• cleaning swede shoes
• definite swede of cooking
• how to clean swede coat
• life as a swede
• map jönköping ikea
• max men bg
• sweden hockeygame 2005
• sweets food pictuer
• teckensprak stockholm universitet video
• translate swede
• waffle, how to make beligum waffle?

March 2006

• affect of globalisation on macroeconomics
• asl shaved lady pictures
• blog swedish my jönköping elisabet
• brugge beligum
• djugardens hockey
• how do you clean swede shoes
• ho' +swede+it+is+nhl
• jenny swede
• slovak swede blog mattias
• swede sec
• sweden law learn asl
• think near tram user near bus and jönköping
• ur.se

April 2006

• "have a good day" swedish phrases
• 100% dating .bg
• beligan waffle mix loblaws grocery ontario
• beligum waffles
• brussels midi station atm
• coachline bus company ny
• do you have a pictuer of frogs left and right side in the inside match
• fireworkd design shirt
• getting a swedish personnummer
• pictures swedes traditional clothing
• webcam swede

May 2006

• "estonia clothes"
• "something about estonia"
• brandon goure
• canadian nickname fat swede
• crime in bredäng
• deaf bg people
• estonia tallinn movie
• final exams jonkoping
• gallaudet zoltan tenure
• http://bg0ur3.blogspot.com
• jönköping champagne quality
• kat estonia webcam
• life of a swede
• midi in powerpoint dont work
• most beautiful languages estonian
• random fact estonia
• sacred jesus blood brugge
• skype founded tallin
• skype tallin mayo 2006
• swede day rochester 2006
• swede life
• swedish phrases you would you like to go to a restaurant
• tallinn estonia party
• why city life rocks and country life sucks
• wikipedia estonia
• wikipedia tallin estonia
• window estonia tallinn

June 2006 as of June 11, 2006

• bg0ur3 blog
• black-pissing
• brandon goure
• brandon mackan
• capital city of estonia
• crayfish festival jonkoping
• jonkoping sweden exchange sudent blog
• omnitor
• ryerson exchange student in jonkoping blog
• screwed in tallinn
• swede +car +stories +crazy

bg0ur3

Update:

Hey,

There is a post about my trip to paris just below this post if you guys want to read more. this post is just to summary what I have been up to lately...

Yeah, things have been busy as always, with school, work and baseball... I always look forward to those days where I just stay home and do nothing all day... but good news!... I'll be done with Jönköping this saturday! (one last final exam on that saturday) and then I'm gonna be in just stockholm for the entire time I'm in sweden until I go home.

Lately I've been out to baseball games and practices... our team is 3rd in our divison now, though with the talent I've seen on the team I'm sure we can finish atop of the standings however I won't be around to see that... the season continues until end of September and obviously I will be in Canada before mid-July.

Thank god for our paris trip, or I would have barely seen Elisabet in the last 2 months, she has been very busy with her work... she is one of the people who is responsible for the sign language day www.tsp25.se , its a big thing in sweden where sign language was officially recognized as deaf people's first language and few weeks ago was the 25th anniversary... there was a big gala and all that like toronto's deaf culture centre (the gala was even on the same day) I didn't go to the Gala because my baseball team had a weekend series (3 games) in Leksand, (3 hours north of Stockholm) .

Anyway, as you all know, my time here is coming to an end too quickly... I'm beginning to say my farewells to those who I don't meet too often and this weekend I will say my "goodbye" to Jönköping. Even though I hate the town, it's always been a home away from home to me... a place where I can be alone and just chill and do nothing,... in Stockholm it's almost impossible to do something like that... thats the city life for me.

anyway, i guess you're up to date about me now :) I guess I will write few more posts before I go home before ending my blog for good since as I said in the beginning of this blog last year, this blog is only about my year in sweden... I ain't gonna bore you with my everyday details in cambridge :)

see y'all later
bg0ur3

Weekend in Paris!

Hey, I wasn't going to even post anything about Paris and was this close to ignoring my blog for good but after some persuasion from some people, especially Laing! I decided to not disappoint my audience, So I'm gonna post a pictorial blog about Paris and try to keep my words to a minimum if that is even possible.

We got in Paris on thursday may 4, late night. We walked from the Gare du Nord (North Station) to the hotel, about 30 minutes walk and slept. Then on the next morning, the first thing we saw was the Bastille but unforunately there was nothing spectacular to see there if you didnt know the history about the storming of the bastille.

Then we went to the Notre Dame Catherdal...its an ancient church that was built in 1160 or something and can hold thousands of people, it has 6,800 organ pipes or something like that, i dont remember the exact facts since its been a month since i went to paris :) Here is Elisabet and I in front of the church's rear.
--

After the Notre Dame visit (we also went in the catherdal), we decided to go and find the Sign Language Cafe that Paris is known for, it was a huge disappointment... all of the staff there looked as if they were hearing and didnt know how to use ISL but we had lunch there... however before we found the cafe, Elisabet found a Starbucks!! she just had to have a Chai, (Sweden doesnt have starbucks) :)

After our lunch, we went to Catacombes de Paris, its a huge catacomb filled with 5-6 million bodies tha were exhumed from cemeteries of paris in late 18th century because Napoleon wanted to revamp the city design and deal with the increasing population and there wasn't any more room to build homes so the cemetery had to go and created a catacomb directly under the city of paris, Elisabet and I went down like 125 steps down on a narrow circular stairway and walked almost a kilometer before we finally saw the bones, then from there, it was almost another kilometer of nothing but bones bones bones, skulls, skeletons.-... it was an amazing sight, one of the must-sees if you're ever in paris.


More bones, neatly arranged, we could even touch them although it wasn't allowed to do so. There was someone at the end of the tunnel that will inspect your bags or pockets to see if you have stolen anything. The end of the tunnel had almost another 100 steps upwards :)


Me going upstairs, exiting the catacomb, i dunno what i was trying to say.... oh well..
Elisabet and I also went to the Louvre Museum... the world's largest art museum and i took this picture only because xff did it too :) if you don't know what i'm talking about... check this out
Elisabet and I saw so much there, Mona Lisa painting of course, and greek sculptures, renaissance paintings, picasso, da vinci, monet etc... and more other things, we had to skip most of the museum cuz it was too big and we had more things to see in paris other than ancient art :)
Here is Elisabet and I in front of the Louvre Museum from the outside after exploring the museum, we went into the museum directly from the subway station so we didnt know what it looked like on the outside until we got outside.

Elisabet and I eating ice cream on Avenue Des Champ Élysées... Europe's most expensive shopping street... I saw that somewhere on internet before going to Paris but i cant cite the source since I dont remember which site I saw it from :) Avenue Des Champ Élysées is a street that goes straight from the Louvre Museum to the Arc Dé Triumph along with lots of restaurants and clothing stores, automobile stores (like ferrari, renault, bmw... none of those cheap fords-- sorry bez :) )

Me in front of Arc Dé Triumph, its the world's largest meeting point of streets, 12 major street meet directly in the middle of Arc Dé Triumph, there is a large circle around the Arc Dé Triumph, the only sane way to get into the middle is to use the underground tunnel.

Elisabet looking down on the Avenue Des Champ Élysées, somewhere down there is the Louvre Museum, you can see how far we walked :)

Then we were hungry, so we went to an "Italian" restaurant on Avenue Des Champ Élysées, I thought I would order something new, and I saw a pizza with pepperoni, eggs, and some interesting spices... so I decided to go for it... big mistake :)... see the egg on the pizza?
and see my reaction? :)... I couldnt even finish it, the pepperoni, egg were undercooked but I'm assuming its a french delicacy... I also ordered a hamburger with eggs on the nightbefore and I ended up with just half cooked groundbeef with a slab of sunny up egg on the top of the ground beef... "that is a hamburger?" I thought.. oh well...

On the next day, we went to the Eiffel Tower.

That's the view of Paris from the top of Eiffel Tower... the city looks charming but its not really... and note the resemblation between this picture and Washington DC's Capitol Building to the Washington Monument? I guess now we know who the americans copied the design from :)


There is 4 entrances to the Eiffel tower, two of them had looooooong line, so Elisabet and I went for the shortest line and then we found out that it was a short line cuz the only way to get up were to use the staircase... we still went for it, and climbed 668 steps to halfway top of the Eiffel Tower before using the elevator to go all the way top (there wasnt any open staircases to the very top if you guys were wondering)

My favorite picture of the whole trip!! :)

Found Canada Dry Ginger Ale!! :) had not drank that since leaving for Sweden... delicious!! :)

Overall, Paris was a very interesting experience... their public transportation system were very AMAZING and DISGUSTING at the same time... they had 15 subway lines, 4 train lines, and countless bus lines and it seems like we never needed to wait for more than 3 minutes to hitch a ride to somewhere in the city... but 90% of the stations looks like they havent been taken care of since they were built (first subway station was built in 1900s or 1910s)... or maybe I'm just biased, but Stockholm has very CLEAN subways and stations....paris's subway stations is not even accesible to wheelchairs, theres stairs EVERYWHERE and no elevators at all... but oh well...

Paris defintely has lots of history there, I would have liked to stay a bit longer to explore more of the city but the weekend was supposed to be a romantic getaway for me and Elisabet and it was just exactly that, we had tons of fun together which was a nice change of pace from our hectic schedule in stockholm.


I've got more stories and pictures but I dont want to stay on blogger.com too long :) if you want to know something more just ask me.

bg0ur3

Tallinn, Estonia

Hey everybody...

I just got back from a weekend stay in Estonia, I thought I might as well post something now before I won't have time later on. myself and 11 other guys left Stockholm on friday afternoon from the frihamnenport on a huge cruise ship. It wasn't the usual people I hung out in the last 8-9 months I've been here but nevertheless it was a fun-filled weekend.... it had all of the makings of a great movie if the trip was longer than a week :)

Before I post some pictures, let me explain a little something about Estonia since most people don't know what it is. Estonia was a country occupied by CCCP for many years until early 1990s when Estonia finally became an independent country along with other countries like Lithuania and Latvia. In the early 1990s after Russia left, Estonia was one of the most poor country in east Europe... many Finnish and Swedish people usually go to Estonia to party hard because everything there is so cheap. Even though after reading about Estonia on the Wikipedia, it said that Estonia has became the "Silicon Valley" of europe... Skype was founded in Tallinn, Estonia, I was still expecting to see lots of badly beaten down buildings with dozens of beggars on the streets.

Wikipedia wasn't kidding,...Estonia has come a long way from early 1990s, the prices there are not that cheap... probably 10% discount from Sweden's living costs (perhaps more cheaper in other areas such as housing, booze etc... but not overall)... They have very beautiful "old town" section , coined as one of Europe's most beautiful old town preservation by wikipedia. The old town is right beside the newly built modernized section of Tallinn (Tallinn is the captial city of Estonia, with a population of only 400,000 and Estonia has only 1.3 million in all).

I have to say, I was impressed with Tallinn, you can actually see the progress being made for the future - economic wise and socially.

Anyway, here comes pictures and my first attempt to post a video on this blog...

The guys I went with on the boat.


The business district of Tallinn, like I said, you can see the progress being made.


The guys and I went to a nice restaurant, I ordered Garlic Bread and I got this??? :) it was toasted bread with minced garlic with mayo on the side. It actually tasted good :) (sans mayo)


Toffe, Me, and Hans barhopping in the old town district.


A fun cycle-taxi :)... they were everywhere when I was in Cuba but this one is more modernized.

Entering the old town district, you can see where the more modern part of the city ends on the right side of the picture.


Random picture with some guys pointing at me?...

A lady dressed up in medevial Estonia clothes selling fried peanuts. Tasted good only when they are warm... when they cool up, they're gross. :)

Main square in the old town district, restaurants on all sides of the square.

This is one of many windows of a fort, I thought those windows were interesting cuz if you look closer, you should be able to see another mini window on the middle-left square that opens up. I think it was used by the russians for snipers enabling them to shoot out of the window wihtout having to open the whole window during cold winters or something?...

Me in front of some fort that was probably used by the Russians during the occupation.


Another random picture of old Estonia.

Here is my first video posted... I hope this works... its a random clip while walking down on Tallinn streets.



This is Mackan (I hope I got his name right), an introduction of him is necessary to show you the videos below. He is a very eccentric but an interesting person, I think without him the whole weekend would not have been as entertaining.

Here is Mackan portraying Adolf Hitler after a conversation discussing Germany's plans to take over Estonia in the WWII.


And this, just one more of his many antics, portraying a scene from Godfather with Stefan.

Have a good day :)
Brandon

Jönköping at night

Hey,

i came across this picture while cleaning up my files in the computer. This picture was taken by Alister, my australian roommate from last semester. He took a panoramic photo of Jönköping at night from an outlook point.

I just thought you would enjoy this nice picture.


(click on the photo to enlarge it)

*boo*

hope I didn't scare you guys... yeah I'm alive and well. Nope, I haven't been hiding under the rock waiting for the winter to end although I wouldn't blame any groundhogs in Sweden doing that now (if theres groundhogs around here, I know for a fact that sweden doesnt have Raccoons) because know what?... the winter has not ended here yet. In fact, it was snowing today... jeez. It's april tomorrow, back home I would have been wearing shorts weeks ago. Oh well.

Lots has happened since I've last blogged, I've been really busy with my school, work and my own personal relaxation time whenever I can get it.

Andrew and dad visited me few weeks ago, it was fun showing them what Sweden was like I think I changed their perception on Sweden that it's not full of queers with mullets wearing pink shirts thats several sizes too small. I think they liked Jönköping more than Stockholm, they're just not cut out for the city life... a bunch of farmers they are :)

I just finished my final exams for my Economic Geography III and Marketing Management courses, I'm more than confident that I did well in those courses now I've got two last tough courses starting next week Database Administration III and Strategic Planning II courses... don't worry I'm not going to get into the details, I dont have that energy to blog everything these days.

One interesting bit of information, I just joined a baseball team that is part of the Swedish Elite League (the top level in Sweden), yeah finally after like 7 years of layoff I'm finally back in Baseball!! --- Softball does not count --- The team I am playing for is called Sundbyberg Heat ( www.sundbybergheat.se ), Sundbyberg is part of Stockholm. I hope I'll do well with them, I think they are interested in having me pitch after seeing some of my moves but let's see what happens.

In the end of April, I will be going to Tallinn, Estonia for a weekend... for those who doesnt know where Estonia is, its a country near Latvia, Lithuania and Russia. And then first weekend of May, Elisabet and I will be going for a romantic getaway weekend in Paris, France! :D.... should be tons of fun.

Yeah, I am still trying to find some time to go to Rome and Budapest... it looks like that I will stay few days in London, England before going home.

oh yeah, most likely it seems like I will be home about July 14th give or take a few days. The reason for that is, I want to be home by first week of August and Elisabet will be going to California for some camp program for swedish kids at some deaf school for 2 weeks after July 16th so I didnt really want to spend last few weeks in Sweden without Elisabet and there is ESAD softball tournament in Buffalo on July 15th weekend and I will be playing for the Rochester team so I'll be home by then.

hmm, I promise you that there is actually more for me to tell you but my interest in blogging has completely dwindled for some reason, I guess for me blogging is just another internet fad that has lost its shine... but I don't think I'm the only one though, I see many of you posting with less frequency as each week goes by :p...

so, if you want to see me say something more, email me, msn me, come in person and ask me or see me in July :)...

I might blog once in awhile now, but not as often as I did in the first few months... :) unless one of you want to pay for each of my posts :p

bg0ur3

what the -?

I thought of this interesting swedish phrase few days ago --

Jag har hår här nu.

come on, you all english-users admit it, this looks like a screwed up sentence,

you all probably read it as -- Jar har har har nu.

check out the dots above the 'a' in those har's... it does have difference, that swedish phrase roughly translated into english means "I have hair here now".

When I typed "Jag har hår här nu" to elisabet on msn, I told her that I thought it was a funny sentence, and she was confused, wondering what I meant by "funny"... I had to point out that "har" was repeated three consecutive times yet those words carried different meanings. Then she was like "oh my god, I didn't notice that!!"...

jeez,... it's interesting to see how the swedes' brain and their perspective on their own language works, they automatically see the 'ö' 'ä' 'å' in their words, they are able to tell the difference from the 'o' and 'a' without any effort and lacks the identifying process to understand that those words här hår and har looks at the first glance.

That is one classic example of my struggle identifying those tiny dots above the a's and o's... I hope this example illustrates my problem clearly.

Have a good day :)
Brandon

P.S. for those who doesnt believe me... check out the msn conversation between me and elisabet.

19:49:38 bg0ur3 - jag har hår här nu :)...
19:49:41 bg0ur3 - looks funny :)
19:50:24 e- ohhh?
19:50:32 e- hair there? where? :S
19:50:39 bg0ur3 - no i mean.. har har har..
19:50:40 bg0ur3 - looks funny
19:50:58 bg0ur3 - i guess to a true swede har, här and hår looks completely different
19:51:01 bg0ur3 - but to me its the same :)
19:51:09 e- HAHA
19:51:13 e- of course i didnt notice that
19:51:27 e- jag har hår här... i truly didnt notice..
19:51:32 bg0ur3 - hehe
19:51:34 e- its a big difference u know : )
19:51:45 bg0ur3 - i know its a big difference but it takes me an extra second to realize it :)

5 Months and 1 week since leaving Canada

Hey.

(Dont think I am counting the days everyday, there is a bar on the bottom of this blog that keeps the count of how long I have been away from Canada, I use it as a handy reference from time to time :p)

dang, yeah I have passed the halfway point of my year here and I am starting my second semester this week. I thought I would add a "reflection" of what has happened throughout the year here.

I have to admit, Tammy was right that I couldnt possibly become an "expert" in swedish sign language by January (now)... but I don't feel as nervous or lost when talking to the deaf swedes anymore because I understand them 99% of the time now and I guess I have gotten alot better with the sign language however there is still a big need for improvement in that area (especially with my lip movements) :p

The school here, don't get me wrong, I think this town -- Jönköping -- is one of the most beautiful town I have ever seen in my life, the school campus and design is amazing but I do not really like their system. There is no consistency with the assignments, deadline dates, teaching session/workshop/lecture/labs or whatever... I have different school schedule every week forcing me to juggle my times with Stockholm/Work and Jönköping/School even more. And, whenever I get my assignments, I always feel that the assignments requirements are so vague which makes it hard for me to get started when I don't know which direction I should take to complete the assignment. I don't know if it is Sweden's general system or just Jönköping Högskolan itself.

If you fail a test, or an assignment, you are allowed to re-take the exams or re-do the assignments, I am totally against that idea because to me, I feel like that my motivation for studying or working on the assignments has been greatly depelted because I always know that there will be another "go" at it if I fail the exam. And one of my courses had a paper, programming assignment that was due AFTER the final exam. It's those things that makes me confused with the normal pattern of how a semester's schedule flow should be like.

Despite those negative things, I am still learning alot just like I would be if I was in Ryerson right now. I think it's just that when I came here, I was fully expecting the culture, lifestyle and social change but I guess I did not fully grasp the possiblity that the educational system would also require some adapting.

I thought it would be fun for me to make a list of things that I would miss and would NOT miss from Sweden and Canada. Since it is something that everybody usually asks me so here goes...

What I miss from Canada...

• Cheap gasoline.
• Conventional transportation with my personal car.
• English captions on tv.
• NHL, MLB, NFL, and even NBA on the tv.
• My pets, (I do not think I have even touched a single animal since I came here eh)
• Abundance of access of ATM machines.
• The couch in my living room at home (the furniture here are too ikea-ish)
• Stores open until 9pm or 10pm.
• Nestea Iced Tea (the powder mix)
• Playing ball hockey, baseball, basketball or volleyball
• Pepperoni Pizza (here, they have just salami, it doesnt taste the same)
  

What I don't miss from Canada...

• Rush hour traffic.
• Driving at least 1-3 hours everyday
  
• Working and School 16 hours everyday
• Fast Food restaurants/Junk Food (I probably eat fast food just once in 1-2 months now and my junk food intake have been cut in half when compared to canada)
• ASL (yup just because I know I probably would be using it for rest of my life)

What I will miss from Sweden when I return in the summer

• Elisabet
• the vibrant deaf community
• the sense of closeness within the deaf culture (I dont see much of that at my home)
  
• 3G video mobile phones
• the constant learning of new words/signs
• tap water (no difference from spring water bottles)
• great public transportation especially the subway system (however there are times where a car would be useful)
• great bike/walking paths (not sidewalks)
  

What I won't miss from Sweden

• their "white" sauce
• early darkness during the winter season
• expensive gas
• lack of ATM machines or when they only have 500kr bills available (about 80 dollars)
• almost all sporting events on tv are NOT captioned
  
• Innebandy
• their tv/dvd/vcr system, I never have learned how to work with them, seems like that their tv has some kind of "Sleep mode", gonna have to teach myself soon :)

I am sure there is more to the list but nothing right off my mind now.

Also, another question I have been seeing lately.... "when will you be home?"... Myself, I am not even sure, but I know I will have to decide for sure by mid-april because that is when I have to pick the return date for the flight home.

So far, I have several options that would impact my decision on when to return;

Option 1) End of the May - I have been in contact with Toronto CIBC bank headquarters, it seems like that I have a good opportunity to work there however there is one problem. They require all summer students to start working for them on the first week of may which is impossible for me because the second semester here does not end until first week of June. I am able to take the final exam at Ryerson so the earliest I can be in Canada would be in third or fourth week of May that is if CIBC is willing to be more flexible for me (hopefully)

Option 2) Mid-August - The current job I have right now pays very well, I am planning to talk with my boss to see if he would like me to continue working until mid-August if my "option #1) doesn't work out. But one problem, my Student Visa expires at the end of June, so I would also have to apply for an extension to my student visa and then return to Canada in mid-august to get ready for my LAST year at ryerson :D

Option 3) Last Week of June or First week of July - If I dont work at CIBC and I cannot get my visa extension or cannot work at Omnitor in the summer then I guess I don't have much of choice but to return back home and hopefully I find some nice coop employment for few months otherwise I will be back to my old routine working with BRAD... I must be back with BRAD before mid-august before my 1-year Leave of Absence expires otherwise I would have to re-apply for the job all over again which is somehting I want to avoid doing.

so as you can see, my return date to Canada has a buffer zone of almost 4 months so I can't really give you a definite answer right now but you all will find out in a good time, I am sure most of you would be eager to see me in person to see if I look the same or if I have became too swedishized :p (right Megan? :p)

As for my immediate future, I am trying to find a time where I can go to Italy for a long weekend or something to visit Tara before my Dad, Andrew and Valerie visits me and Sweden. Yup, I said dad is visiting me, for those who don't understand how significant this is, my dad is a 50 year old man who has never flown in a plane before, I'm hoping that it will be a safe trip for him, not like those american lunatics that I see on news too often jumping off the plane screaming :) Anyway, they will visit me from March 10-19, I think i might have an exam that week but it was the only time they could come so.... If I fail the exam, theres always that re-exam (I still dont like that concept though).

I guess thats it for now, but, I know how much you guys dislike reading blogs without some kind of pictures so I was nice enough to find a picture :)

This picture is of me and my 4 other roommates from last semester, from left to right (Kingsley (Ghana), Peter (Slovakia), Alister (Australia), Kingsley (Ghana), Brandon (Canada) )


Yup, I said Kingsley twice, they both are cousins and have same name, the one on the left didnt have any apartment available so he lived with us until few weeks ago when he found another apartment and moved out. Peter and Alister went to school for just one semester and they have moved out.

I have two new roommates now, Frank... from Ghana also, Kingsley had him move in taking Peter's room... and second roommate Zoltan from Hungary.

anyway... thats all for now... more to come later

Have fun
bg0ur3

Gott Nytt År!!

Yeah, after christmas, seems like every second sentence I said was "Gott Nytt År!..."

"How are you doing?.."

"Gott Nytt År!..."

"yup, I saw that tv show yesterday"

"Gott Nytt År!..."

"I'm gonna read a book now"

"Gott Nytt År!"

"I need a drink"

"but first gotta go to the bathroom..."

*OOPS!*... almost forgot..."GOTT NYTT ÅR!"

heh... if you havent figured it out yet... Gott Nytt År = Happy New Year...

remember when I said that the swedes said "merry christmas" far too often?... I think they worship the celebration of a new year far more than "I-never-met-that-person's" birthday or maybe if you say it in swedish (spoken swedish) its fun to say the words... I dunno... or maybe they just feel the need to inform everybody that it is not 2005 anymore to prevent any misunderstanding when they make plans to meet or whatever... I'm just throwing in some made-up theories, feel free to add yours if you want :)

Some examples, on December 31st or morning of January first, I noticed that on my MSN buddy list... I had about 7 swedes online on my msn, EVERY SINGLE ONE of them had a nickname with "gott nytt år" or something related to "happy new year" on their msn nicknames.... and I had maybe 20 canadians online, NONE of them even made the effort to acknowledge that it's 2006 now... actually one did... but that person was an american... so that person doesnt count :p... If that's not enough for you, I compared my msn buddy list with Elisabet's. The evidence of eagerness to introduce 2006 was overwhelming... Elisabet probably had 20-something swedes online on her list, and only ONE person did not say happy new year... I know I am just making a pointless point... (by the way is there a such thing as a pointless point? heh)

Anyway, I after christmas, moving to Gullmarsplan, it started snowing here non-stop for like 2-3 days giving Stockholm a thick blanket of snow everywhere, it has not melted away yet (it is January 10 now...) Elisabet and I went shopping few times, I thought there would be something similar to Boxing Day Sale, I went shopping on 26th of December, I saw in newspapers that there would be some sale in some stores.... I went to the mall.. and went "huh? that's all?"... it looked like a normal saturday afternoon at the mall... oh well...

For the new year's eve, instead of going to a big party or something else that required alot of "Gott Nytt År!!" that I wasn't in the mood for, Elisabet and some other girls organized a small, more sophiscated and refined New Year's eve gathering. Consisting of only four couples, 8 people in all (I said 8 in case you couldnt do the math). Semi-formal dress, elegant three course dinner and so on. Yeah pictures are coming up at the end, but let me tell the story first :).

On the afternoon of the December 31st, I realized that I wanted a new shirt that I could wear to those type of parties, (an impulse encouraged by my FIRST paycheque since August heh)... So I decided to go to Åhlens City (a clothing and accessories store) with Elisabet and get a shirt.... Elisabet saw a tie that she wanted me to have, I didn't like it at first but I guess I got used to it... (I bet Elisabet is smiling while shes reading this now)... you know, I made a sacred commitment to myself that I would never wear anything pink.... and the tie was 1/3 purple... too close to pink for me but but but... oh well..

After buying a black shirt, I immediately put it on and went to the party I was actually wearing the shirt when buying it :)

8 of us at the NYE party, Elisabet, Jenny, Camilla, Carro, Jesper, Mikko, Magnus and Me. Interesting fact about this select group of people, all 4 sweden women had boyfriend of different nationalities... Magnus is a swede and his girlfriend is Jenny. Jesper moved to Sweden last year from Denmark because of his girlfriend Camilla, Mikko from Finland moved to Sweden also last year and also because of his girlfriend. and of course, me, a Canadian moving to Sweden because of my girl :)... Seems like that men are more likely to move for their girls or is it because Sweden is a better country?... you can argue that idea in my comments :)

We ate porkfillets with fancy dressings on it, played some games and so... am not in mood to go into details for that. Let's skip ahead to the fireworks part... Other difference I noticed is when it becomes 12.00am January 1st, in Canada everbody usually huddle around the tv and wait until the specific second and begin hollering and celebrating. In Sweden, they do it differently, they just wait until it's 10 minutes before midnight and go outside and light fireworks. They don't care about the precise second when it becomes midnight, strange, with all of the "Gott Nytt År!!"s you would be inclined to think they would be more enthusiastic when they know exactly when it is the new year? oh well..... I thought it was fun to go outside and light fireworks and I also thought that we would be the only ones lighting the fireworks... but actuall when we got outside, there was already dozens of people from their own parties gathering around a field lighting fireworks. I think all 8 of us had an opportunity to light a firework, but my firework was a screwed up firework!!...

allow me to explain further... when I received my firework thingy, it looked like a yellow/blue cubic box, about 15cm in length on each sides, and I noticed that the firework would blast off from two opposing sides of the box, I thought it was strange and how was I supposed to light it?. I certainly couldn't light it upright otherwise the other end would shoot right into the ground. I checked the pictorial instructions and it said to lay the box on the ground with the opposing "firework" sides on the side. I still thought it was strange, nevertheless I went ahead and placed the firework on the ground and attempted to light it, at my first attempt, Elisabet, while taking a pictuer of me, noticed that the firework was placed horizontally instead of vertically, she ran to me telling me to STOP!!.. she thought I was stupid enough to light it while it was positioned horizionally... I showed her the instructions... she stared at it with disbelief... we had no idea how the firework looks like but since I was following the instructions then I should be doing it right?.... I also placed it so that all of us were facing the "non blasting" sides just in case... and you won't believe how luckily we were that I did it...

My First Attempt

Second attempt at lighting it up, I still felt uneasy, I rushed back at a safe distance after lighting the fuse (15 meters or so)... then as the fuse disappeared, BOOM! the fireworks went off!!... to my amazement, it ACTUALLY BLASTED SIDEWAYS!!!... we were on a field with at least 40 people gathered around in a circle but LUCKILY on one side, there was nobody in the direction of the blast, and on the other side, the people like 100 meters from the firework so the firework blast did not reach them that far... Everybody in our group was looking at me as if I never had lighted a firework before, I was quick to defend myself and tell them that the instructions said to place it sideways and luckily I wasnt the only one to read the instructions, Elisabet agreed with me so... not my fault :)

My Second Attempt

It had to be the dumbest firework design I've ever seen, who would want to see fireworks flying sideways?... one of the blasts actually went through a tree... ah... dumb firework but it was certainly enteraining :)...

After the fireworks, we got back to Camilla/Jesper's apartment (thats where the party was)... and stayed there until like 4am, by then the Subway was closed (they close about 3am and reopen at 6am), Elisabet and I didn't want to wait until 6am, so we took the night bus, it ended up taking us an hour and half to reach our home!!... an average subway ride would have taken us 15 minutes max. But in all, the night was a fun experience.

The Appetizer, crayfish salad... Like I said in my blog about the crayfish festival, I was never eating it again, and I was true to my word that night. Mikko didnt like it either, so I wasn't the only loser eating Crayfish-less salad :)

Camilla, Brandon and Elisabet

Jesper, Jenny and Mikko

Me, sporting my new purple tie :)

Magnus, after finally opening a bottle of Champagne.. (it took him few minutes heh)

All of us outside lighting fireworks, and I think Jenny is saying "Gott Nytt År!"

Magnus and Mikko inspecting an firework that didn't go off.

Camilla, Jenny, Carro and Elisabet.

Mikko (Finland), Brandon (Canada), Jesper (Denmark)and Magnus (Sweden)

Brandon and Magnus

Gott Nytt År 2006!

Gullmarsplan and Djugården vs HV71

Hey :)

Shortly after Christmas, Mattias and Maria went to Venezuela (South America) for a three week vacation. And guess what?... They were nice enough to offer us (Elisabet and I) to live in their apartment in Gullmarsplan while they were vacationing. I realize that this might not seem like a big deal to you guys but allow me to explain further about the benefits of living here.

It's only 4-5 minutes ride on the subway to the downtown, less than 1 minute subway ride to where Elisabet and I work. Compared to the 17-19 minutes subway ride to the downtown and 25-30 minutes to where I work from Bredäng (Elisabet's parents place). Alas, I realize that we're not going to be here forever, but a good three weeks here is better than nothing! :)

It's small but a nice single bedroom apartment with all of the necessary amenities :) The walk to the subway station takes just a minute, in fact you can see the station when you get out of the apartment building and the view from the apartment, you can see the downtown area. Since living here, Elisabet has became envious of this great location and now the thoughts of purchasing an apartment in the city is coming up more often now :p

Yup, like Bezaire (the dude from "dude, the where's my frog??"), Elisabet and I went to see Sweden Elite League hockey match during the holidays (Dec 27, the day after we moved into Gullmarsplan). The teams; HV71 and Djugårdens. Djugårdens has been Elisabet's favorite team ever since she was little, Mats Sundin and many NHL greats have came from Djugårdens. Unfortunately this year the team sucks, near the bottom of the standing. Djugårdens were facing the visiting Jönköping/Huskvarna HV71s. I have no idea why they are called HV71 (I believed I also mentioned that in one of my blogs in September or about that time). The HV71 is the best team in the Elite League, they have either won the championship or been at least in the Finals several times in the past few years and this year they are in first place with only 3 losses afte 30 games. I assumed that it would be somewhat unbalanced game with HV71 destroying Djugårdens.

But it turned out that Djugårdens had the game of their year! They matched Hv71s on every move, the goaltenders on the both sides were AMAZING, first two goals were just fluke goals making it a 1-1 game... after 2 periods it was 2-2, then Djugårdens made a great slapshot from the board near the blueline through the traffic into the net, the Goaltender never knew where the puck were. The jubliant-filled crowd went crazy, with a minute to go, Djugårdens scored an empty netter to insure their win with the final score of 4-2 for Djugårdens. The announced attendance was almost 11,000 people, the record for this year :)

The game was played in the Globen, one of Stockholm's architectural masterpiece, while searching for information about the Globen, some of the information said that it was designed with the idea of creating a perfect acoustics environment. I had seen the outside of Globen so many times (its beside the Deaf House, near where I work, and near where I am currently living in now, theres also a mall beside it) but I never had seen the inside. Now I can cross off one more thing from my "things to-do" list.

Here is what Globen looks on the outside...


Yup here are pictures of the game inside the Globe :)...

Ok that's all for now, keep your eyes open for the NYE blog coming up in few days then I will be finally "caught" up on blogging :p

bg0ur3