03 livet är hårt nog, så varför regnar det på mig...

tjäna! I suppose I should explain my blog titles at some stage... though you could always try translating them for yourself! Yeh I guess that's too much to ask, so here are the translations to date: min första veckan i stockholm, sverige = My first week in Stockholm, Sweden (yeh ok I reckon you worked that one out). jag bor i trerumslägenhet i Tumba = I live in a 3 room apartment in Tumba. And today's post is: Life's hard enough, why rain on me! This of course relates to the fact there's been alot of cold rainy weather here the past few weeks.

You may have noticed that I've made a few cosmetic changes to my blog. I've also added the ability for you to enter your email address and subscribe to receive an email update whenever I get around to posting a new entry.

A couple of weeks ago I was invited to go see the Electric Banana Band. These guys have been around for years and are really popular here. I guess maybe they are like a slightly more adult version of the Wiggles??? Anyway they are CRAZY and I had a great time. If you're interested you can check out a video of one of their songs, Min piraya Maja here. Make sure you do the actions too! Just so you know they are singing about a piranha called Maja. ok so now you think I've completely lost it... well maybe... guess you had to be there!

I've had the itch to climb 'something' so I found this piece of rock nearby to do some bouldering on. It's actually alot higher than it looks, approx. 8-10 metres high. It's also just great to sit on top of and ponder the mysteries of life...

I bet you're all dying to know (yeh right) so, no I still haven't had to pay for a trip to the bathroom yet, and am steadily setting up a network of 'free' restrooms around Stockholm city. Thanks also to the Vete-Katten Kafferum for their continuing kind provision. Haircuts here are bloody expensive - SEK200 for a standard male trim! That's like almost 40 aussie bucks! So I've got hold of some clippers and am cutting my own hair... yeh you can probably guess how that's working out... really, it's not too bad actually...!!! - if I do say so myself =)

Something very cool about this country is that you don't have to wear a helmet when riding a bike (the manual kind) - that's bloody awesome! I've always hated the fact that back home in oz it's compulsory or they can fine you - it should be a personal choice. But then I've never been that fond of rules in general anyway...

I'm currently looking for a job so wish me luck! It's becoming clear to me that not speaking fluent Swedish is probably going to limit my options rather a bit, but we'll just have to wait and see. I'm learning new Swedish words and phrases every day and so hopefully, oneday, I'll eventually get there. I went for a long walk around Djurgården (a large national park in the city) last week and took a few pics, but my bloody camera battery was running out and I didn't have the spare with me so this is all I have to show for it:

Remember those ridiculously massive escalators I told you about last time? Well now you can see for yourself! This was taken at the top of the escalators at Kungsträdgården T-Bana (subway):

Mållgan did it! I thought this was pretty funny and so decided to share it with you. This is a picture of the Östermalmstorg T-Bana sign (at an underground subway station) and as you can see one of the stations (actually Bergshamra) has been replaced with some sort of cryptic writing and a monster face. I've been reliably informed that this is the work of the hemlige (secret) Mållgan (spelt in English - Molgan). Mållgan is actually the pretend friend of Alfons Åberg who is a famous children's book character here in Sweden. I haven't read any of the books but gather that Mållgan cops the blame for alot of the trouble Alfons gets into...

Here's some graffiti from the rolla door at the Pressbyrån shop at Tumba Pendeltågstation:

This is a cool staircase called Malmskillnadstrappan located on Kungsgatan which is one of the main streets in Stockholm. Yeh I've run up and down this quite a few times.

Something pretty different that happens here at this time of year is when school students graduate, they go bezerk and all get into the back of trucks (even tip trucks!) that have massive speakers on them blaring out techno music and drive around town like this. I came out of the Karlaplan T-Bana one day to see this in action for myself and have witnessed it several times since:

Well that's all for now but I've been doing rather alot lately so I have another few postings to upload shortly, over the next week or so. So keep a look out! Or better still, subscribe for email updates!

hejdå!