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1. First and formost what the heck are meters, kilometers and celcius? What ever happened to a mile or the fabulous world
of farenheit? At this point we don't even bother to ask how far something is. . .instead we just say "how long will it take
us to get there?"
3. THE PANTS. THE SNEAKERS. I wish I had a picture, but I have yet to figure out how to unobtrusively take someone's
picture without them being offended.
Anyway, they tuck their jeans into their socks and wear these hightop Pumas, Converse or Nikes. At first I thought it
was so the jeans didn't snag on the bicycles, but no. They tuck them in on purpose (that is if the jeans don't already have
elastic at the bottom of them). And it's either hightops or elf shoes. Give me a couple of days, I'll get a picture. Maybe
I'll trick one of my teammates into posing. . .
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2. This obsession with condements. I have never seen so many different spreads, sauces or pastes in all my life. And
what's really funny are the ones that say "Amerikan" on them, cause I certainly (in all my 23 years here in America) have
never seen some of this stuff. I think one of them is thousand island dressing in a tube. yum! And yes they have plenty of
ketchup (which I loath). And when we went to the one fast food joint here, the girls had dipping sauce for their fries. .
. Mayonaisse and Jalepeno sauce! Wow. No thank you I said politely.
| Yes I am that enthralled that I took a picture. |
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| This is what we suppossedly have in the states. hmmm? |
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4. This concept that everyone speaks English but nobody speaks English.
It's starting to get embarassing when people start rambling in Swedish and halfway through I have to cut them off and
beg for an English translation. Fanta now claims that she speaks the language. I'm starting to learn it, but I'm tellin' you
it's rediculously complicated.
Side Note: I find that I no longer speak English. Instead it's something I like to call Euro-English; it's this combination
of one syllable words and some kind of English/Swedish/American accent. It sounds just awful. And the truely horrible thing
is that I can't stop.
I read over my first entry and realized that I'm slipping into this world where I sound like a foreigner trying to speak
English. Who knows what I'll sound like 3 months from now. Pray for me people. Pray.
6. Where's the Ice?
In the states you will be hardpressed to find an athletic training room without an ice machine. There are ice tubs, Ice
bags and ice compression machines everywhere.
Here, they don't embrace such a concept. Here, they like the idea of mass compression. I was told that if you have swelling
they like to tape the area so tight that the swelling is drained from the pressure. OUCH!
That's just plain tourture in my opinion.
And they freaked when I told them (the athletic trainers) that we sit in tubs of ice and ice water after long practices
in the states.
"you do what?"
They were truly fascinated about this idea. Mats (the head trainer) is trying to look up an ice tub online to see what
it actually looks like. Thus the learning process begins for both of us.
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5. The toilet and the shower are in different rooms. It's killing me. I don't know why but that extra amount of energy
to transverse between two separate rooms is a serious mental challenge. This is not the case for every house though
(Fanta's isn't like this as she repeatedly likes to remind me).
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