My nanny was an escort girl

We went to a little get together this Saturday. It was held at the apartment of Nils, who also works at the company. As I mentioned earlier on, people have a tendency to drink something at home and then go out later on. We met a lot of people, and after a while, we started talking about my thesis (since a lot of people seem to like its subject). This subject led to a discussion about prostitution, which apparently, is legal in Sweden. To be correct: it is legal to be a prostitute, but it is illegal to pay for one… Talking about schizophrenic laws!
So the conversation went on… suddenly, when we started talking about escort girls and that they make a lot of money, Nils uttered that he used to have a nanny and that she was an escort girl herself!
Later on we went to the local discotheque, which was rather fun. It’s been ages since I went to such a place and it’s funny to see all the people desperately seeking somebody (we had to almost tie ourselves to a pole not to be picked up. Some guy even grabbed my ass! And no, this wasn’t a pleasant moment, seeing he was ugly and old!
When I went to the bathroom some girl started seducing me (when I told the guys later on they found that particularly enjoyable!). I didn’t see if the toilets where free, and she started talking to me in Swedish. I told her I spoke English and she asked me where I was from. “Belgium”, I said. She shook the water off her hands and took my hand. “Wonderful”, she said, all the while keeping my hand in hers. “And you seem quite wonderful to me, too.” She still wouldn’t let go of my hand and looked me in the eyes with a big smile on her face. I pulled my hand back and said I really had to pee.
Belgium seems to be rather exotic in Swedish eyes. They know very little about it. For example they don’t know what languages we speak, or that there even is ‘another Dutch’.
Somewhat later I started talking to guy on the dance floor, who was a friend of Nils. When the slows started, he grabbed me and started dancing with me, ‘til one of his friends came by and told him something. He stopped in the middle of a movement and looked at me quite startled. “Are you married?” He asked me. I said: “Yes, off course”, showing him my ring and all. “But to whom?” he wondered. I pointed at David. He looked at me quite shocked and started sputtering out words I couldn’t understand, so I said to him that if he wanted to dance with somebody else, he could go. He didn’t hesitate and ran of like a scarred rabbit.
So I went back to David (who was dancing with Olivier) and told the story to them. We did some weird and uncomfortable three-way slow in the meantime, and we had a great laugh.
We had to drink the local beer that evening. It costs 5 euros for one that doesn’t even hold 3% alcohol and still it gives headaches in the morning.
All night long, we tried to find a girl for Olivier. He didn’t like the way they were dressed up, too slutty, he said (ça fait pute – to use his exact words). Anyway, seems like he’s quite the serious guy and he’s looking for a real relationship (hurray for him – quite the last of the Mohicans!). So if there are any candidates, I think he’s a good catch, but you’ll have to be willing to go to Africa… You can send your resume to me.

Guide to Swedish supermarkets

After two weeks we got used to the different food customs here in Sweden, but to say the least, we were quite shocked in the beginning. There are some very, very weird examples of packaging here. They’ve got all kinds of cream cheeses in tubes (like toothpaste, but metallic tubes). TV-dinners are packed in plastic sausages. So is jelly. Bread here is soft and mushy and stays good for over a week. Asian, Indian and Mexican food are very hip over here, and you can get that about everywhere.
Furthermore Sweden’s very Americanized, especially where food’s concerned. There’s a MacDonald’s at about every street corner. The key words for Swedish for seem to be fat, sour and salty… I even wonder if people cook here at all, since there’s hardly any fish or meat for sale (except for burgers or steak). You also see the American influence in the custom of grouping shops together in big shopping malls.
Tuff as we are, we set out to at least try some of it. We’ve tried the astronaut-like cheese (in the metal tubes) and it turned out to be not too bad, rather salty though (but I think that of a lot of the food here). They’ve got a lot of sausage in one piece to go on bread. We’ve tried that too, but it wasn’t good at all. It’s sour! They eat a lot of sour things here, especially fish (at breakfast even!). Now we don’t really want to try any more.
A lot of Swedish people still chew tobacco. It’s called Snuss and you stick a ball of it under your upper lip. It’s filthy and it stings and it tastes disgusting. (And then they say that’s normal…)