SCREW Normal - These Are Good Times!

For the first time since I arrived in Sweden, I finally feel normal.  Well, that's a relative term...normal.  I mean, a normal person wouldn't throw a 1950's cocktail party for his 21st birthday [see image above].

But, anyway, I feel like I'm adjusting to the culture now.  I went to two music classes today - clap.clap.clap.  My composition professor, Anders, liked what I turned in for my assignment this week (a short piece for piano and cello, à la Messiaen).  Chamber choir is going well, too, though I sincerely miss the rigorous, "cut-throat" daily rehearsals with the ETSU Chorale - there is no comparison.

I received my official absentee ballot for the November election, though I confess that's one of the last things on my mind right now.  I need to reserve a time to sit down and fulfill this one American duty, even if it means checking boxes between rounds of Schnapps.  Kidding.  I do take political matters seriously, but when one is experiencing life in another country, one has a slightly different set of priorities.

I also got MY CAMERA today.  Memory card will be purchased tomorrow, but after that, she's ready to roll.

Random Dialogue with my roomate, Jonathan...

[walking behind our dorm building at Studentgatan, the back of which faces another set of oddly shaped student apartments]

Jonathan:...and I don't even know what those dorms are called...

Sam:  Oh, I think one of my fadders, Emma, lives there...they have a weird name...something like...shr...hrrrcchh....skruv? 'skruvhus?'

Jonathan:  'Skruvhus?'

Sam:  [with doubt]...yeah?

Jonathan:  That means 'Screw-house.'  Are you saying we live next to a brothel?!

Sam:  Oh.  No.  I guess that wasn't it.

An even MORE random dialogue with my roomate, Magnus...

[I enter the kitchen today to make some lunch.  My lanky roomate Magnus is already there, much to my disgruntlement, as I know this only means an awkward, meaningless exchange of words]

Magnus:  [said in a quintessential Swedish accent] Ja-HA.  You are taking a break from your studies?

Sam:  [thinking to himself, 'really? studies?']  Oh...umm...yes.  I actually have a class today, in about an hour.

Magnus:  Ja-HA.  So you are taking one class only here?

Sam:  No.  *Sigh.  No, Magnus.  I'm taking 5 total.

Magnus:  Ja-HA...

[Magnus' bony frame whips around the kitchen like a whirling dervish as he prepares his hotdogs in a frying pan]

...A word about Magnus:  He is my next-door neighbor.  I'm room 108.  He's 109.  Get the picture?  This kid gave me weird vibes from Day 1.  I met him and his girlfriend within the first couple of days of moving in, but this is the first week I've really seen him for more than a few seconds at a time.  Picture a hybrid between Lurch from The Addams Family and Shaggy from Scooby-Doo, and you've nailed his appearance.  Magnus' girlfriend, unfortunately, makes him look like Adonis.  Her voice is like helium being released from a balloon...very slooowwwly.  And her face reminds me of ground beef.  Ground beef with hair.  I know.  That sounds horrible.  Trust me...it is.

Anyway, they manage to stay out of my way, but my main complaints are that a) Magnus is completely negligent in cleaning up after himself in the kitchen.  He leaves God-knows-what plastered to the plates and utencils from his meals on a daily basis.  This is bad enough, but b)  He and his ogress have intense sex between the hours of 9:00 and 11:30 AM, usually on Saturdays, but there's no set schedule from what I can tell.  The first time it happened, I thought I was dreaming, the second time, I thought it was happening a floor above me - the sounds of wailing orgasms seemed to be pulsing all around me.  By the third time, I knew what it was and where it was coming from, but anyone outside would have mistaken it for an ambulance siren.  I get cold chills just thinking about it.

So, they're not normal.  By any means.  But that, my friends, that I can handle.

Well, I'm off to a wine/cheese party with some of the French kids.  I might just take off my pants and bust out a verse of "La Vie en Rose."  

[...and the readers take a collective gasp in horror]

Three cheers for abnormality!