Cause All My Jewels Be Rocky Like Sylvester Stallone

This and that:

+WE WON A GAME! As the saying goes, 16th time's the charm.

+Sweden continues to surprise me. DJ GymMat was holding it down at our away game the weekend before last. Ya betta believe regular warmup music will never be the same after this:

+Saw a guy driving a convertible through town last week. Top down, wind blowing through his... tightly woven knit hat...? Screw it, tuque. Or beanie. Sorry but I write for the Canadian in me. Nothing calls for a hypothermia-inducing drive like the crisp February air.
Speaking of tuques, one of my favourite stories of all time concerns them. Back when she was in high school, my older sister Luisa and her friend Matt are doing a good deed shoveling my Granny's (aka our next-door-neighbor) walk. Halfway through, GranDog, as she's affectionately known in some circles, pokes her head out the front door and yells, "you kids want a toque?" To which Matt looks at my sister, wide eyed, and half-whispers, "your Granny deals!?!"
Knowledge dropped: Yes you can spell it tuque or toque, no you cannot say it both ways. Sorry Gran.

+Speaking of high school (how's that for another successful segway?) we go to the local high school for lunch every day. It's free so don't judge. I expected it to be more of the same gnarly mystery meat type situation taking place in N. American schools. Not so. I feel like I'm eating in some posh Scandinavian cafe on the daily. A cafe filled with 17 year olds but that's beside the point. I get this vibe because of the wall of windows, candelabra with real candles over the salad bar, and oh I don't know, a piano in the middle of the room. The day I see any of that in any high school caf back home is the day pigs fly.

+Another weird sighting about town: my team Canada teammate was here a couple weeks ago for a game with her Swedish team and told me that as they rolled up to the gym she saw a lamb, be-sweatered and on a leash out for a lazy afternoon ramble through Svedala. Any and every time I've been outside since then I've kept my eyes PEELED but still no sign of the woolly beast. I'm pretty disappointed.
On a side note, who is putting knitwear on a lamb? It has its own sweater. It IS its own sweater! Its like dressing the lamb in one of its cousins' haircuts. Disgusting and pathetic.

Maybe I'm Not Big Cause I Don't Blog or Twitter... Dog, I'm Bitter

I know I'm supposed to bemoan the fact that the world is becoming Americanized at an alarming rate and on a typical Friday night over wings and sushi, I do.
But I also got a confession to make: there are times when I embrace it. I'm not even American so I don't really know what that says. But sometimes it's nice. Real nice.

Sweden is a prime example. I've only been here a little over a month but there's no question it's the most Americanized of anywhere I've been to/lived in Europe so far (with the exception of the UK which doesn't really count anyway). And sometimes I love it.
By the way, before anyone gets their panties in a twist - I'm allowed to say this without being the first to blow their cover; apparently Sweden's America-envy is already recognized as kind of a sore spot in some circles. Anyways. A couple examples:

+ NFL regular season games are on live TV. And the highlights on regular sports shows, sandwiched between handball and hockey news. It's bizarre. Yes, games may be on at like 11 PM but it's still truly mind blowing. Worlds collide on regular everyman's cable TV on a weekly basis. The best part is the half-time talking heads are Swedish cats who, according to my sources, actually sort of maybe know what they're talkin about:

All I know is it will be a cold day in hell before you see an NFL commentator on NBC wearing a cardigan...

+ 2Pac on Swedish radio. I vividly remember chilling in my teammate's car, getting my skull blown off its shoulders by the earthquaking impact of classic 90s hiphop being broadcast through channels normally reserved solely for dance/trance/house/techno/eurodance/Katy Perry. 


+ MLB caps aplenty. Worn on Swedish heads. I've never seen anybody in Europe wearing a Sox/Cardinals/Tigers/whoever hat unless they are a) foreign or b) wait, nope. Just a).
For whatever reason I find this Swedish hat observation vaguely comforting... I don't know why. Maybe it's the fact that it proves it's not just an American phenomenon - there are idiots worldwide willing to wear 59Fifty hats with the sticker still on the brim.

+ A good 75% of TV is American and Swedes claim the reason their English is so good is because it's all only subtitled in Swedish instead of dubbed like elsewhere in Europe. Whatever the reason, it means I can watch anything from CSI to Inside the Actor's Studio from the comfort of my living room couch. The fact that I've never actually I've never seen either of those on here but that's beside the point.

+ This is a stretch but since they were originally popularized by an American MC, I say it counts. Plus it's hilarious. Excuse the crap picture quality but I had to capture these incognito on my phone at the gym... it does them no justice but HAMMER PANTS LIVE!

Raspberry Danish

 Flag's backward, I know

My American teammate and I headed over to the jewel in Scandinavia's crown, Denmark (that might not be true, but I liked the sound of it). Much to our surprise and greeeeat delight, it turned out we happened to roll into Copenhagen on the celebration of Queen Margrethe II's 40th jubilee. Yeah I don't really know what it means either but after chillin for a while outside city hall, we saw her in all her royal grandeur.

And sang the Danish national anthem like 8 times in a row while waiting for her to come wave on her balcony. She's the Queen, she can do what she wants I guess.Apparently the Danes really love her since her approval rating is like 80%. Keep doin your thing Margrethe.
So despite my impatience/mildly frozen toes, I wasn't about to go rogue and be the only person to boo her for taking her sweet time. The lady is 70. Plus with another 6+ footer rollin in our crew, we wouldn't really have been all that incognito.
Lesson for the kids - height has its downfalls. Heckle with care.

For all my irritation, all was forgiven when she finally came outside. Some people might grow tired of the undemocratic, excessively pompous obsolescence of a non-functioning monarchy.
I am not some people.
Having finally seen the queen (THE queen is probably somewhat heretical, sorry Elizabeth) in the flesh, I feel like I can now die happy. I've seen it all!

The rest of the day consisted of coming down from that high and trying not to freeze/trying to see stuff before the sun set shortly after 4 PM. By the time we got into the city, that left us like 3 hours... Luckily, the city's only an hour train ride from our digs and I visited København aka Merchant's Harbor for the first time back in the two zero zero seven. Feel free to drop that little bit of trivia about the city's name in your next dinner conversation.

I'll let the pictures do the talking.

En route

Rubbin' shoulders with the who's-who of Danish society on

Strøget aka Europe's longest pedestrian shopping street

View from the Rundetaarn aka Round Tower 

 Good eats

Lost in translation

Valhalla I'm Coming

It's been a while.

Not gonna lie, not a lot's happened in the last 9 months. Or I just don't remember. I meant to write about a little trip to Amsterdam and Pan Am games in Mexico in the meantime but I wasn't feelin the whole blog scene (read: I'm lazy) and so, rather than start yet another post off with yet another apology, let's just get at it.

Cue up some Immigrant Song or watch Mamma Mia if that's your thing, 'cause this kid is in Sweden.

!

After half a season of relative unemployment/keepin on keepin on with the Team Canada grind, I'm back overseas with Ian, livin the good life. Bladow. As good as the good life gets when you're a female playing a mid-major sport. I'm the Murray State of the pro sports world.
Bring on the 15K annual pay check and high school gym-sized arenas!

As I said, we're in Sweden. I refuse to say something along the lines of 'Land of Ikea and ABBA' but that's the only cliche descriptor that ever comes up... and I don't know enough to say anything grand of my own, so there it is.
We're on the very southern tip in a little town called Svedala, outside of Malmö (shoutout SARAH MEEK BEASLEY) and across the sound from Copenhagen. Not a bad deal on the geography front. Good thing Swedish weather is tip top and it's never windy or rainy or overcast everyday or anything so I can explore between practice. To be fair, there's no snow anywhere so I'm kinda loving that. On the flipside, in case anyone missed that, it IS windy/rainy/grey or all of the above at some point most everyday so basically I live in foreign Seattle.

My team is not doing so hot, having gone ahem.. 0-9 in the first half of the season. Raletalk.
So for now I won't say much more about that except we're about to be the dark horse, dressed in wolf's clothing, to tear the playoffs to pieces come April. Stay tuned for that.

Cats be tremblin' in their boots

Sweden is already a serious contender for best country in Europe so far due to a couple factors.
Namely:

DRYERS. These people believe in and possess dryers, of the laundry appliance type! This is unprecedented in my Euro experience, anywhere. I'm all for environmentally-friendly drying racks and whatnot, but the existence of the dryer takes away a major Euro life con, which is - the crunchy towel. Anyone who's ever lived without a dryer for an extended period of time is all-too familiar with the sensation of drying off with a colored piece of sandpaper.

Second, our apartment has a dishwasher. I would throw a couple exclamation marks after that but people might start to wonder what my enthusiasm for home appliances is all about. But literally, I almost threw a small party when I walked into the kitchen and saw the beaut. Whoever invented dishwashers deserves a Nobel prize or at least more notoriety in Europe because although I knew they existed over here, much like the dryer, they have always been a rare breed in any apartment I've ever inhabited. What a beautiful thing.

Third, this just cause I think it's hilarious:

Apparently I'm easily impressed.

Also, 2012 will be a better year in this blog's life! Next week, same bat time, same bat channel, I promise.