Small clarification...

Because I can see where this is going to go if this is not stated upfront, I just wanted to clarify that "fem" and "sex" are the swedish words for five and six. You dirty minded people!

PS After almost a year of knowing each other, I'm for the first time listening to his band...absolutely incredible...talk about hidden talent/Mr. Modest boy!

voice of the "real swede"

Feels very good to have my dear canadian little big sister here... and to just have beaten her in monopoly... I don't know really what I shall write here but I feel like sayin something! Ett, två, tre - Imorgon skall det ske? Fyr, fem sex - Imorgon blir det spex? Sju, åtta, nio tio - Kanske gå på bio?

Hm? I say Goodnight!

Better than eating a swede...

Is being a Swede!

I have no idea if the swedes that you buy in stores are at all Swedish, but there you have it.

I love Sweden. It's just like Canada, except people speak slightly different, and there are funny keys like ä and å and ö on the keyboard. People hand in lost passports at the airport, and Swedish Monopol is just as fun as Monopoly...or maybe more so because you get to count out your spots in Swedish as you go by...

My vocab has expanded too. I've learned how to count to twelve, go to go and collect 4000:-, ask how much things - in particular umbrellas - are, how to alert people to the fact that somebody's not breathing or moving in the event of a bad accident, how to say the number 37, 450 and how to make plans for March 8th. Yes, I picked up a phrase book at the airport on my way out. As you can see it taught me many useful things!

Some of the sightseeing hightlights of the day were PATRIK!!!!, an authentic IKEA and a store that sells lots of Moose paraphenalia. We're going to go back there tomorrow (aren't we Pats?) It was pouring tonight, so we just stayed in and played Monopol (if you haven't picked up on that already). Such a lovely evening....the sort of unwind I needed!

Blog Change?

Over the last few weeks I've been feeling very nesty. You know, that feeling of settling in and starting to get comforable and wanting to spread out your stuff a bit, unpack, hang up some pictures and get a coat rack. I've been feeling nesty to the point of pausing in estate agents windows and thinking it's probably a good thing I've been spending my savings on travelling because if I had enough I might do something crazy like invest in property here, and that's quite a rash and permanent thing to do. I've eliminated all the usual suspects that might be causing this: No PMS, No breakups, haven't won the lottery, nobody's died, I haven't given birth to anything, I haven't eaten anything particularly unusual. I suppose I might just be getting to like it here.


I guess another sign is that while things are still new and exciting sometimes, I'm starting to find myself noticing less and less the big differences that come with moving to a new culture, and starting to notice more and more the smaller less obvious quirky things that provide amusement on a daily basis (like funny street signs, or watching the man who couldn't figure out how to access the public loos while I was stopped at a traffic light - the poor soul)

Anyways, all this to say, I think I might change the name of my blog from something that's less about discovering London (besides, I haven't seen a rat in ages) and more about me. I have a thought...that I think is worth a think at any rate...

Ahhh...young love!

I was just having a moment of staring out the windowness and I saw a teenage boy, accompanied by a teenage girl holding hands, walking his dog in the rain...

Awwwwwwwww...to be young again.

Soon I'll be at the age whereby romantic dog walks in the rain with someone I love will be complicated by rheumatism. That's OK though. In the next room there's a Mr Bird who loves me and that Rich isn't getting back.

One of my favourite things...

...is when, upon arriving at an airport terminal in a foreign country, I get a text on my mobile that says "Welcome to (insert name of foreign country here)"

In just for more sleeps my phone will be saying "Välkomnande till Sverige (Welcome to Sweden)!", and I will say to everyone I meet "Jag heter Joanna (my name is Joanna)! Jag ar Kanadeniska (I am Canadian)! Var ar kraftskiva (where is the crayfish party)"? As you can see Patrik taught me the essentials. Actually, to be honest, I'm not entirely sure if that's how you ask if that's where the crayfish party is. I've combined asking where the toilets are and the words for crayfish party to hopefully make sense. As long as I don't get confused and get crayfish in a toilet. Oh, and I had to look up "Welcome to Sweden" online. I've never had to welome anyone to Sweden in Swedish before and therefore it hasn't made it into my vocab yet!

I'm so excited! Svenka (and all my svenkar friends there), here I come (well, in four days...)

Oh, I wonder if I'll see an IKEA!

Revolutionizing the care industry?

Not that I think yahoo.com should be taken as the most reliable news source out there, but as this could possibly impact my career should I ever get into the care package management side of what I do...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050721/lf_nm/tech_japan_robots_dc

The thing is...the people I support complain about trying to figure out mobile phones...how will the feel about these funny suits? And what about getting out of them if someone has to pee quickly?

Right of Passage to Being a Londoner

I got my first parking ticket today. The most annoying thing is that I got it at the post office trying to ship some giant packages to my friend in Germany who had too much stuff to take back with her on the plane (and as it turns out, I didn't have the address, so it wasn't even worth parking there!).

What a bloody waste of £40.00

Ah well...I suppose one parking ticket in 11 years isn't so bad. Oh, actually, this is my second...but Toronto's not an evil city like London is, and their parking tickets are only $20. What can I do but pay it like a good law-abiding citizen and not go out much over the next couple of weekends! Danni suggested I add a "contingency" section to my budget for occasions such as these...

Argh, argh and triple argh!

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

Add me to the list of people who have cried at the end of an episode:

Hobbes
Sass
Fraggle

It was just so beautiful! Oh, I love happy endings!

Battle of the Bird

Mr. Bird and I reached a new understanding today. You see, he's lovely, but in a grumpy Cockatiel sort of way, and on my previous two visits, he has been anything but welcoming towards me. So, today I came to Rich's and let him out of his cage as per usual. I got sucked into an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (which I will blog on in turn) and for the first 45 minutes that Mr. Bird was out of his cage he just sat and looked at me and did his grumpy bird-hissy thing at me whenever I tried to engage him in polite conversation. Well, not being one to lower myself to pleading with a bird to be my friend, and drawing on my social work training and how to draw boundaries with people (and I assumed it extended to stroppy Cockatiels) with naricissitic personality disorder, anti-social personality disorder and the likes, I decided to ignore him. Near the end of the show though, he started chirping and eventually came waddling over to my feet, and evetually started biting at my toes (which Rich has assured me is quite normal for him). "A-ha!" I thought - "'I've won! He caved first!" Then the show was over and it was time for me to go to the next room to work on my social work application. Not wanting to leave him out of the cage unattended however, I decided that I should put him back in (quite logical, yes?) However, he wouldn't have any of it, and was really quite rude to me - biting at me and flapping at me and just being a general tit about it. However, I didn't back down, kept sticking my finger under his feet and after a few tries, like a kid wearing down after a tantrum, he climbed on, biting and sqauking and flapping the whole time. It really reminded me of those kids who you see crying and screaming, but following their mother down the street because they know that they don't really have another option if they ever want to eat again. Anyways, then I gave his cheeks a little rub (he likes that) and put him back in his cage. Oops...I mean house...I put him back in his "house" But I won! He now knows who's in charge, and that I am one who must be obeyed. We're going to be good friends, Mr Bird and I. He was happily chirping away in his house when I was working in the next room (at least I hope that means he's happy) and I can see how birds can be endearing. I've never much cared for them myself (except wild ones. I love them to the point of waking up at unearthly hours of the morning and venturing out to hide in bushes with a pair of binoculars). Anyways, this particular one seems to be growing on me, to the point where I'm convinced that my fish at home were feeling a bit jealous when I said I was off to see him. I think I might even miss Mr Bird when this is all over...

Oh, I've also discovered that Mr Bird and I have similar musical tastes...smart lad!

Bye Rich!

Well my friend Rich is off to Peru for two weeks today (lucky boy) and I'll be responsible for maintaining the lives of his fish and Mr. Bird while he's gone. He'd better send me a postcard! :)

Please contact me if you know anything about emergency Cockateel resuscitation...I may need you...

Anna's gone back to Oz for 5 weeks too (although she doesn't read my blog to get a whole title). Hmmmm...I'll miss them both so much!

Danni's selective memory...

So the other night (well, maybe a few weeks ago now) I was at home making dinner and I got a phone call from Danni who said:

"I thought of you this evening" and I said "Oh, that's nice! Why?" and she went on to tell me that she was watching news coverage of an armed siege in North England (hmmm...seems like we've been having bad luck here as of late). She told me that she had known someone who was part of an armed siege and then, as she put it "I remembered it was actually me who was part of an armed siege when I lived in Toronto".

Apart from thinking it a very odd thing to forget, I thought it was odd altogether...especially to happen in Canada!

Basically when she was living in Toronto, she was waiting for a bus (or taxi - whichever came first) when suddenly a police man with a large....

...machine gun came to her (and the other few people waiting) and told them to come with him immediately. So, they went and hid behind a wall or a large bush or something and watched while he spoke into his radio thing and, when a girl tried to ask an innocent question (probably to the effects of "what is happening?" or "Will we die"?) he said "please be quiet. I need to concentrate". At least he said please!

Anyways, after a while he told them they could leave, but they should not stay in the area any longer than they had to be.

Long story made short: I thought it was very amusing that she had forgotten about this until now...

Move Over Coronation Street

I came across this on a BBC site. It has really made me laugh...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/spanish/soap/

I did it!

Well, I started and finished the London 10K on Sunday - it was truly an incredible experience (beyond words, really), and I think I'm hooked now. There's something amazing about the thumping of 19 000 pairs of feet on the road, and somehow running with 19 000 others is so much more fun! Anita and I made it a challenge to to pass all of the funny animals and characters along the way. We beat a polar bear, an ostrich, an emu, a dragon, Batman, Robin, some bare bottoms, some women with large breasts and lederhosen. Somehow we missed the giraffe though! Shoot! I did a better time than in training. Normally 8K has been taking me 1:03:00, but on Saturday I looked at my watch at the 8K mark and it had only been 53 minutes! I think that all of those hills I live near have paid off. Anita and I finished it together in 1:06:45 - not too shabby for a first time out, I think! Next time I do one though, I'll be finishing in an hour! I feel like a changed woman! I've only had one biscuit today...I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship!

Oscar Peterson

I saw Oscar Peterson in concert at Royal Albert Hall yesterday. One of the most amazing experiences of my life I think, and I don't think I'll ever get the chance to see him again.
Even playing with mainly his right hand, (as far as I can tell he uses his left mainly for chords since his stroke) he was incredible. It's the first time I've seen someone get a standing ovation just for walking on stage. Absoutely phenomenal and worth every penny I paid. What a man! He played a couple tributes to some of the greats who have passed away in the past few years, including a piece by his former bassist who died a few months ago - very touching! Ohhhhhh...I'd love to see it all again!

For those of you in Toronto, enjoy Live 8 there...I'd be there if I could!

For Uncle Bob

U Bob, if you still read this blog, this one's for you...it was sent to me by my (apparently very funny) friend Rich...


A history professor and a psychology professor are sitting outside at a nudist colony
History professor - "Have you read Marx?"
Psychology professor - "Yes, I think it's from the wicker chairs."

Oh - perhaps I should explain for those of you who are now questioning the folk I share genes with. U Bob is quite notorious in our family for emailing very funny jokes. He's neither a professor, nor a nudist...well, not that I know of anyway! ;)

Oh, and HAPPY CANADA DAY!!!! I think I'm going to the Canadian Pub in Central London today.

I'm all prepared for my run I think...apparently there's a brutal incline at Tower Bridge, but because I live in the land of inclines I hope I'll be all ready! Before Rich snitches on me, I have to confess I've maybe eaten more biscuits than I should have. But McVitie's chocolate digestives with caramel are to die for!