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.