Innebandy

Hey y'all

another update for you all blog freaks :) I'm in Stockholm now,... not much to report but I didn't want to keep my audience waiting for a new post... :p

Last Friday I tried playing innebandy for the first time ever... yeah... innebandy, I didn't misspell it heh... It's a big sport in Sweden... the rules are similar to ball hockey but at the same time it's nothing like hockey and not to offend anybody, I think it's a gay version of hockey for the wimps who can't stand the physical punishment of a good hockeygame.

Yeah, I might as well explain what innebandy is... they play with this "mini-stick"... the biggest one you can find on market is 101cm long.. and the blade is just composed of plastic frames, not solid plastic... the ball they play with is... *gulp*... whiffle ball :) yup, the exactly same ball we used to play t-ball with when we all were 4 years old or something heh...

• Helmets and hockey gloves are not used
• Physical part of the game are kept to the minimum, anything more than a nudge will send you to the penalty box for 2 minutes
• You cannot lay/slide down on the floor to prevent other teams' passes or shots or you'll be sent to the penalty box for 2 minutes
• Cannot touch the whiffle ball with your head, your arms, hands.
• Goalies wear very thin padding, and are the only player on the team that uses a helmet
• Goalies usually stay on their knees while protecting the net (the net is smaller than hockey regulation net but bigger than lacrosse net)
• There is a like 1.5 foot tall wall around the gym, if the ball gets over the wall there is no face off but the opposing team gets to pass in the ball just like soccer when the ball gets out of the bounds
• You cannot interfere with other player's stick, you cannot put your stick under other player's legs...

Yeah, for our Canadian standards, the game might seem very backwards when compared to our traditional hockey ideals... but at least there is one good thing I can say about this game, with shorter sticks, we are required to bend our knees more often and it's a fast game... everybody is always running all the time so it's a good exercise.

In innebandy, players are usually thin and quick contrasting with ball hockey where there is usually a fair balance of smaller and quicker player with bigger and physical players. I personally like ball hockey better because it's more easier to control the ball, the playing area is bigger, and its more physical! :)

There is usually deaf people playing Innebandy every fridays in Stockholm, I might try asking them to see if they want to try playing ball hockey one night and you never know, I might trigger some kind of new sports revolution in Sweden :p

For you Canadians, I've posted some pictures of Innebandy so you can get some idea of what it looks like...

For you Swedes, this is what ball hockey looks like (the better indoor hockey sport :p)

I got most of those images from the International Ball hockey Site I thought it was funny that they emphasized that the stick they use in Ball Hockey is "normal stick", I wonder what that makes an innebandy stick? :p

Anyway, I guess I'll continue playing innebandy when given the opporuntiy for the sole purpose to give my body some exercise... :p

Have fun,

bg0ur3

Göteborg

Göteborg was fun, on friday I took the Swebus Express (a coach bus) to Göteborg, I left about 12:30pm and arrived just before 3pm... Charlotte Gustavsson (one of Elisabet's friends) met me at the bus station and gave me a brief tour of "downtown" Göteborg. About an hour later, I met Elisabet (she drove from Stockholm with her mother)... we hadn't seen eachother for almost two weeks, the longest we have been apart since I've been in Sweden (or maybe since july of 2004? heh) Anyway, we had dinner with Maria and Mattias at some Thailand Restaurant. Then later that night, Elisabet and I went to a pub in Fölkshuset (if I spelled it correctly?) and there was sooooo many deaf people there. Getting a beer wasn't easy, I felt like one of those 12 new puppies trying to drink milk from their mother dog's nipples but there is only 8 nipples :) Marcia and Laura (my interpreters) went to Göteborg for the Dövas Dag too, I saw them that night, I'm sure it was an interesting experience for them to meet some new deaf people that didnt sign ASL heh... anyway the pub closed at midnight, go figure... Elisabet and I stayed at Britta (Charlotte's friend)'s apartment for the weekend, she was so nice, gave us her own bed and provided light breakfast and didn't really expect anything in return. Yeah, Charlotte's got a nice friend! :)

Saturday morning, Elisabet wanted to walk from Britta's apartment to the Centrum (downtown) Göteborg, ugh... but I decided to make her happy :p, yup it took almost 2 hours but we saw some interesting sights including the Liseberg along the way (supposedly, the biggest amusement park of all Scandinavia)... passed by the scandinavium, a Göteborg's hockey team plays there part of the Swedish Elite League. (Jönköping has a team by the way, they are called HV71) Arriving the downtown, we had lunch with Charlotte at some cafe then we met some people hanging outside the Fölkshuset where the Dövas Dag (Deaf Day) event were being held. We only checked out the booths area for like 45 minutes... it wasn't anything too spectacular but it was defintely much more clean and hi-tech than the Mayfest. There was information sessions about Interpreters in Pocket -- really it was about having access to interpreters via video conference on the mobile phones, you can just call an interpreter and have some hearing person speak into the mobile phone and you can watch the interpreter sign... that and along with several more stuff that would require sometime to explain, unfortunately I'm not in the mood :p
Then later on the night, there was a formal-attire party with limited tickets -only 900 tickets were sold- and the event was sold out! (luckily Elisabet got tickets for both of us few days before) but I saw some deaf people who couldnt get a ticket... oh well... Before the party, Mattias and I had dinner at some fancy Swedish restaurant along with Mattias' friend... the food was awesome, cabbage rolls and potaotes along with swedish lingonberries. There was this 2 for 1 deal that night because that restaurant was celebrating its 2nd birthday or something so mattias and I didnt really pay much for the fancy dinner. Then we all walked to the Fölkshuset again for the evening party, sure enough, the place was jammed with deaf people, some from Finland, Germany, England and other countries... Yeah, I was sooo tired by that time... signing nothing but teckenspråk (swedish sign language) takes alot of energy out of me... but yeah, I still had fun that night. It was interesting to see so many people around but the dance floor was almost empty most of the time heh... There were even two interpreters on the stage interpreting the music :)... I thought it was cool even though I think they didnt do a good job... oh well.

Sunday, didn't do much... just woke up at 11am or something and left at noon for Jönköping, I joined Elisabet's car this time and drove to Jönköping, the drive was only lil over 1 hour long.

This week didn't do much, just relaxed, Elisabet is staying with me until tomorrow, then on thursday I will go to Stockholm for the weekend.

Wanted to mention this... I just realized that Jönköping has some strange names... such as the mall Elisabet and I went to today is called "A6 Center"... and the Jönköping hockey team is called "HV71"... hmm?... I wonder why...

Anyway, I guess that's it for now. Sorry I didn't take any more interesting pictures... most of the weekend I either forgot that Elisabet had a camera with her or I forgot that I had a camera in my pocket :)... oh well... don't worry, you all have a whole year to see more pictures from me :)

have fun,
bg0ur3

that's sweden!

Hello again,

Yesterday morning, I woke up, I had a sudden craving for some orange juice... I checked the fridge... ahh.. i was all out. So, just few minutes after waking up, I decided to walk to the "plaza" where there is food stores and some various stores to buy some orange juice. Mind you, I just woke up, still had pillow crease on my face and my hair was standing up in an awkward manner, I was still wearing my "pajamas" (basketball shorts and t-shirt) with sandals.

As I walked to the food store for some apelsin (orange juice, dont let the name fool you thinking its apple juice, that happened to me heh) anyway... I felt something was out of the bounds around on way to the store... I couldn't exactly place it so I shrugged it off and went into the store. Yup, I got my orange juice along with some other stuff... then walked back to my apartment... I had this eerie feeling again...

WHAM!! it hit me, I realized it,... "what in the hell??"... there were like dozens of people walking around me... and they ALL were wearing a winter coat, even some had winter hat and mittens... Jeez, I thought -- is there something wrong with me? -- I was wearing nothing but a thin t-shirt, underwear and shorts and sandals, there weren't even any socks accompanying my sandals.

It must have been only uh 14 celisus or something at the time,... yeah yeah... I know some of you might be eager to point out that after Laing, I would be the last person to wear a winter coat or pants in the winter even in Canada but... it was only 14 celisus!!...

Maybe the swedes are just excited to show off their stylish winter wardrobe even though they might be few months too early. Yeah, it wasn't just this one time, ever since then I've noticed more and more people wearing winter coats now :S Making me feel like a black sheep :p

Then I thought, I might as well write some humorous facts about the Swedes from a story I read.

-The Government has spent years trying to convince Swedes that their money is not actually their own money :) (for some of you who might not understand this,... Sweden is a very Socialist country, so a fairly large amount of your income goes to the government)

- In other countries, if people see a dude driving a flashy sports car, they will say "cool guy!"... but in Sweden, they'll say "what a tax dodger"

- In sweden business world (and academic world as I am my own witness) everybody wants to be called by their first name, saying Mr. Andersson will just make you look strange.

-Sweden's summer is the hottest day of the year :)

- Swedes love to write everything into their dayplanner calendars, even things that they have already did few days ago and had forgotten to write it down before and everything from now and 6 months later is ridculously and meticulously written down...

- Swedish doesnt have a word for 'please'... they substinate that by saying thanks more than usual "tack tack" or "tusen tack"

Here's one from someone at JIBS who said... If today was monday, and you invite 20 americans to a party this saturday... 20 will show up... If you invited 20 Swedes, only 5 or 6 might show up (a week's notice is not enough time)... and If you invited 20 Italians, come saturday, 150 will show up :)

Here is another saying about how the world doesnt need to be too perfect...

If the world was perfect, all policemen will be from Great Britain, all organizers will be from Switzerland, all automechanics will be from Germany, all chefs will be from France and all Lovers will be from Italy... that would sound nice... but Imagine if we lived in a world where all policemen are from Germany, all chefs are from Great Britain, all lovers from Switzerland, all automechanics from France and all organizers from Italy (CHAOS!!)...

Its a nice point, the world could be much worse off but the world we live in ain't so bad :)

anyway.-.. I'm just blabbing now... my clothes are in the dryer now I'm just writing to kill sometime... yeah.. I think I have had more success with my laundry this time around :)

I'll write some more interesting anecdotes on Swedish people sometime later. :)

have fun, (heading to Göteborg tomorrow if you guys have forgot)
bg0ur3

sorry bambi...

It's been a quiet few days for me in Jönköping... last weekend was the first weekend that I stayed in town. There hasn't been much to say except for the fact that I'm glad to report that I havent gotten any more bad luck lately :)

Yesterday and today I met with Dale Carl, he works with the international exchange program at Ryerson University. He's a very interesting man who knows like 8 or 9 languages and has lived all over the world. He was swinging by Jönköping on way to a convention in Krakow, Poland.

Tonight, my interpreters Marcia and Laura and I had dinner with Dale at some restaurant called Master Gudmunds Kallare... they served some Swedish delicacy... most of us had the Reindeer meat as a main course... and I think it was the best red meat I've ever ate... better than any piece of steak I've ever had!... WAIT.. before you all start running with flaming sticks and pitchforks trying to kill me for eating Bambi... I probably should tell you that I ate Dolphin meat when I was down in Miami and Keywest (yeah twice heh..) few years ago... :p Anywa, yeah I had a great time tonight... although I dont think I will ever eat at that place again, too expensive for my wallet :(

mmm, yeah it'll be a quiet week for me, only 2 days worth of classes this week for me... I'll be going to Göteborg this weekend so I should have some pictures posted up on the next blog :)

anyway, sorry nothing more interesting to report on the blog, I'm just posting this so you all in North America knows I'm still alive and kicking in Sweden :)

later,
bg0ur3

48 Hours of rotten luck...

You know how some people say that everything happens in bunches of 3... once something happens, u can be sure something will happen 2 more times... like third time's a charm or whatever... I'm beginning to see the truth in that notion.

First Rotten Luck -- sometime on tuesday afternoon, my computer had contracted a virus... I didn't really care at first but then my ISP (for those not tech-savvy, ISP = internet service provider), contacted me via email threatening to disconnect my internet if I didn't fix the problem ASAP. So, yeah I spent next 6 hours trying to eliminate that stupid virus... after like 4 anti virus programs, 3 spyware programs nothing worked until I tried Zone Alarm Pro 6.0 (thanks Mike), it gave me a temporary solution but I still had to make a clean reinstallation of WindowsXP on my computer which I did last night then I immediately installed Zone Alarm Pro 6.0 and McAfee VirusScan (thanks Egerton). It wasn't really a huge bad luck but, a huge hassle... then...

Second Rotten Luck -- if you are considering washing your clothes in some foreign country's washing machine with the machine instructions in a language that's not english, I strongly urge you to either take a course in that foreign language or just handwash the clothes yourself. Here's what happened to me, there is a free laundry room in each aparments here and the washing machines was sooo small I had to do 4 separate loads. There were buttons for A, B, C, D, E, F and G... I tried my best reading the instructions in Swedish and I thought I had it right.. A meant cotton, B meant something else or whatever, since all of my clothes were mostly cotton based so I just washed them all with the "A" setting... but what I couldn't understand was... the first washing machine filled itself with water but wouldnt spin... the second machine said it would take 95 minutes, the third machine said it would take 45 minutes and the fourth machine said 30 minutes. I was scratching my head wondering how did this happen. To make a long story short, 3 hours later, 1 o'clock in the morning, I ended up with 3 blue shirts that used to be white and 1 load that presumely was washed but smelled worse than it did before... argh... and then on the next day...

The Grand Finale -- I had finance class at 12.30pm and I left my room like 12.00 to bike to the school... I had just showered and jazzed up my hair and everything... then as I got out of the aparment building on the bike, not even 5 strokes on the bike pedals later, the front wheel just did a 90 degree turn on me even though the handlebars didn't move at all, it send me crashing onto the hard pavement landing on my mouth first and my forehead second...my body were tangled along with the bicycle frame on the asphalt as soon as I regained the conscious of what had just happened, I just stood up and threw the bike on the ground again hoping that somehow it would get more damaged than I had, then I immediately checked if I had all of my teeth... whew, yeah I had them all solidly in place although my face was drenched in blood coming from inside of my lips and my forehead... I didn't realize the extent of my inflicted injuries until I went back to my apartment and saw in the bathroom mirror and my right arm is all banged up and scratched along with a huge bruise on the face of my right hand... my left hand has a big chunk of skin ripped off along with some more scraps.... ah, instead of explaining more, I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking...

After cleaning up in the bathroom, I immediately took the next bus to school, I was 30 minutes late but the teacher understood after he heard my story and saw my face obviously... But, here comes the funny part...Yesterday was the last day that I could get my Student ID card for free... so just like 3 hours after my ill-fated accident, I walked into the ID office and had my picture taken with my fat lip and the blood on my forehead still fresh :) At least, I had something to commemorate the moment :)

So far, when I go into a store or walk around in public places, mothers hide their children behind their backs and people look at me as if I'm some kind of bad boy with my scraps all over my face and arms as if I was walking home from a fight... *sigh* hopefully they will disappear sometime soon :)

So, yeah that's my three bad lucks in 48 hours... its been more than 24 hours since the bike accident and nothing bad has happened... maybe these stuff does happen in 3's :)

bg0ur3

Burger King in United Kingdom

Hey y'all

I'm washing my clothes now, the machines said I got 30 minutes to kill so I thought I might as well fulfill my promise of writing something about my Burger King experience that I mentioned few weeks ago.

You know how these days the fast-food industry are trying to become more health-conscious and are always trying to find ways to make people feel good about eating their greasy food through marketing or adveristments. I thought the Burger King in Heathrow Airport were taking this a bit too far.

When I ordered a Medium Sprite, Large Fries (Tara, notice that I don't eat meat at Burger King either... only Wendy's is good enough for me :) ) Anyway, yeah I ordered those stuff they were placed in a BK paper bag, as I sat down and ate those stuff I noticed something very interesting. There was this short "blasphemy" carefully written, intended to make people feel good about eating their food on each paper products I had, the paper bag, the small paper bag for my fries and the paper cup for my soda.

I'll let you read those blasphemy now...

On the paper cup of a Medium Sprite;

This cup makes a staement about you. It says "Hey, look at me, I'm an ambitious and decisive person." You could have gone larger, but you didn't. You could have gone smaller, but you decided against it. Yes, you know excatly what you want in life, and that you should always have it your way.

On the paper bag of the Large Fries;

Some fries are mavericks. Free spirits that slip over the paper wall and make it straight for the bottom of the bag, where they can plan their next move. We wcall these spud separatists "Bagglers", and they're especially delicious. Maybe it's because they're a little ouyt of bounds. Life is weird like that.

On the paper bag that holds all of the food;

The great thing about a take-away bag is finishing your meal. Firstly, because you're left with that gloating look of satisifcation and secondly you usually find a couple of loose renegade fries. It's like when you put on a pair of trousers and find a fiver in the pocket. It's the simple things...

Wooo!... who agrees with me that the Burger King are taking this marketing campaign a little too seriously? :) I can imagine people feeling good after reading these stuff but if they realize why the burger king are writing this stuff, they should feel stupid and fat :)

I practically laughed while reading those stuff, who ever has thought of fries being mavericks and finding a fries in the bottom of a take-away bag does NOT give me the same satisifaction of finding a 5 dollar bill in my pockets :)

oh well...
bg0ur3

Third week...

Hey y'all...

This is my third week in Sweden, yeah like I said in my previous blog, I'm beginning to get settled in here. I'm getting used to all of the walking, biking and using the public transportation (it's not as horrible as it might sound heh). I know everybody who's been reading my blog is getting somewhat bored with all of my blasphemy and no visual aids... :) not to worry, for the first ever time, there is pictures today!! :)

Before getting to the pictures, let me reflect back on my last few days since my last post. hmm, yeah last wednesday, I had my first macroeconomics class... it looks boring so far, then after the class I biked to the city to the "bookstore"... the school campus doesn't have one so the students usually get their books from the local bookstore. The grand total for my textbooks for just 2 courses was 1,410 Kronors!!.. ehh. yeah about 225 CDN dollars... ugh, I never will look forward to buying new textbooks. Oh well, all part of being a student (especially in Sweden where everything else is expensive!). After getting the books, of course I made another 8km trek back to my apartment on my ol' bike. Elisabet and I went back to stockholm later that night.

Thursday, I just spent the day resting. I talked with Elisabet's father and I was curious when was the last time he changed his car motor oil and he said it was about one year ago!!... I strongly urged him to change the motor oil ASAP and told him that it should be changed every 5,000km or 3 months, he was not aware of that fact... not surprisingly though with everybody using the public transportation, nobody understands how an automobíle works around here, it's like rocket science :) So on friday, I changed the motor oil for Sandor (Elisabet's father).

Last night, didn't do much, just visited Mattias and watched a DVD... "Daltons" it's a French movie with swedish subtitles... From what Mattias said, the Daltons is a famous comic book series made into a movie. The movie had some funny moments, but woulda have been better with english subtitles :) Then, today, Elisabet and I went to the city (Elisabet's home is something like Etobicoke part of Toronto) Anyway, went to the city, checked out some stores and then met Elisabet's old American friend that Elisabet knew from when she was at Gallaudet few years ago. Chatted for awhile, then some more walking (of course, what else? :p)...

Yup, now, I have some pictures for you :) These was taken from Crayfish party that Lisa Åström hosted, it was on my first weekend in Sweden. I didn't really enjoy ripping those crayfish apart like savages... just felt so unrefined and barbaric... yeah one of my personal quirks is that I don't really enjoying eating food that still has animal bones in it... some of you know that I don't really eat chicken wings :) anyway... pictures now...

Kräftskiva (Crayfish party)

Here is Elisabet coercing me to eat the Crayfish

Me, exhibiting my dismay of eating Crayfishes

Yeah, enough about the crayfish party, let's see what my apartment in Jönköping looks like eh?...

This is the hallway of the apartment, that is what you see when you open the front door of the apartment. The first door on the right is the guy from Australia's room, the second door on the right is the kitchen, third door on the right is the Slovakian guy's room... the door straight ahead is the bathroom, and on the left handed side you can see the closets, thats where coats or some cleaning supplies are stored, my room is on left handed just beyond the closet, and further down left handed is the guy from Ghana's room.

Onto my bedroom... (this was taken just shortly after I moved in so excuse the mess :p) This is my bed... There's a curitain that I can use to "separate" the bedroom from rest of the apartment for visitors etc..

My "desk" for the next year :)

There's a good sized balcony out of the door... I keep my bike in there.

This is the view I have outside of my balcony, if you look at the other apartment buildings, it's pretty much identical to my apartment building.

Alright, that's it for now... I gotta get some sleep now, tomorrow I'm gonna start cracking my books and finally do some homework... I've been lazy for few days now. Tomorrow night, there will be some deafies getting together to watch a movie at the theatres.. yeah more glorious svenska subtitles for me!! :p... We'll be watching the Amitysville or something.. u know the remake of the old 1970s horror movie. Hopefully it's better than that 70s movie.

See ya later,

bg0ur3

P.S.

I wanted to add some pictures of the kitchen and the bathroom, but i had some problems with the formatting of this blog, so I will add it sometime later when I have time... (its 1.30am now :s)