77 Days

Look at the title of this post.  That’s the number of days I spent in Sweden.  77 days.  About two and a half months.  In the grand scheme of things, it’s not a very long time.  Seasons kind of change, but I don’t think anyone forgot about me.  Maybe they started missing me.

But 77 days.  It was the last thing I expected when this year started.  And, for the most part, it was a pretty good 77 days.  Some memories, in list form:

-    Copenhagen, Stockholm and Oslo.
-    Working sixteen hours a day and being warned about it.
-    Remembering what it was like to actually want to go to work.
-    Hearing Rolf the German say on the phone, ‘Fucking boy!  Come down here!’
-    The Crazy Lady in Varberg.
-    The hair salon girls in Varberg.
-    Crayfish party and Dudefest 2009
-    The last name ‘Gzym’  (no, it’s not pronounced ‘jism’).
-    Joe disappearing and passing out in the car.
-    Duncan getting drunk after coming off night shift.
-    SEL hockey.
-    Some of the friendliest people I’ve ever worked with.
-    Swedish girls at bars.
-    Swedish girls at work.
-    Hostels.
-    Red Room, Harry’s, Cheers & Beers (the last one is racist).
-    Hating Phil Malanchuk.
-    Seeing how much some people, including me, changed.

The Final Weekend in Sweden

This was my final weekend in Sweden. In theory, the project should wrap up before I am prepared to return, so it’s definitely a time for goodbyes with the friends I made during the project.

On Friday night a few of us went into Varberg to have dinner and some drinks. It was a fun time, with one of the girls we met last week joining us for a few beers. There was laughter, shots, pictures of me with small statues and one of us disappearing. He left the bar without his jacket or Blackberry, which had us concerned, but we figured that he was a big boy and could take care of himself. At worst, we assumed he had fallen asleep in a watercloset or on the street somewhere.

About two hours later, a couple of people wanted to go home, Unfortunately, the guy who disappeared had keys to one of the cars, so somebody else offered to drive them home. He returned about ten minutes later and said, ‘Yeah, we found Joe asleep in the car. He’s been there the entire time. And the car was running.’

There was also a lovely puddle of puke next to the passenger side door courtesy of Joe. And I, with my impeccable timing, called shutdown for the first time in Sweden. And when I opened the door? Puke on the door frame.

I was also cockblocked on the night, but we will speak no more of that here.

I decided to take Sunday off, so I went into Gothenburg with one of the guys for a relaxing night. We ended up hanging out with one of our Swedish co-workers and his friends. Good people all and a nice change of pace after the drunken fun the night before.

In five days I finish up with work, and six days from now I’ll be on a plane back to the other side of the Atlantic. 77 days in Sweden.

Wow.

 

It’s Winding Down

It’s a co-worker’s birthday this week, so we decided to gather a bunch of people from work to go out and have a few drinks.  It was a great night.

The thing is, this co-worker and I have made it habit to insult the living hell out of each other every time we’re in the same room.  It’s funny and entertaining to people who know what the heck is going on, but to others, like some of the Swedes there that night, it’s confusing.  It’s so confusing they ask, ‘Why do you guys hate each other so much?’  And it doesn’t help when your friend answers, ‘Well, Ben is kind of a dick,’ and I answer, ‘Phil is the world’s biggest douchebag.’

We partied with some locals, too, which was fun.

Most of us took the next day off, and it was nice to just do nothing.  I’ve travelled on all my other days off, which usually meant  I was getting up pretty early, so it was great to sleep in and just lounge around for a couple of hours.

My time here is winding down, too.  I got mixed feelings about that.  It’s been cool to work at a nuclear power plant, and it’d be great to be around when the reactor is online and producing, but at the same time it’s been a pretty hard haul.  Throwing in India, I haven’t really been home since July (my time at home in August was zombie like) and it’s starting to wear on me.  I’m looking forward to seeing family and friends, sleeping in my own bed, playing my guitar.  But I’ll also miss things here, as well.

Ah, fuck it.  I’m not gone yet.