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On Wednesday morning Jessie had an appointment with her chiropractor so I just pottered around the apartment & had a lovely skype date with Mum & then Nigel. Then I took the bus into town to meet her & along the way I got a very loud & humiliating telling off from a crazy lady sitting opposite me, who yelled at me in Swedish for several minutes (after having sat opposite me for about 10 minutes before then) before I could finally get a word in edgewise to let her know I couldn't understand what the hell she was saying. I was like "I'm so sorry, I don't understand, I only speak English" & she indignantly replied "Yes, well I know how to speak English too you know!" & then proceeded to tell me off very loudly for "sitting inappropriately on the bus" i.e., quietly & not bothering anyone with my legs crossed & my feet tucked under my chair…It was awful & I was so humiliated & was thinking perhaps I'd broken some unspoken, highly regarded Swedish rule about bus sitting until another man came along & sat next to her & she yelled at him too because his jacket brushed against her arm when he sat down. Ah…it's not just me. Sympathetic looks from passengers all around confirmed that reassurance! I was relieved when I finally got to the right stop & saw Jessie waving from the sidewalk - she assures me that not all Swedish people are crazy & mean & yell at people on buses :P
Fortunately the unpleasantness of the morning's bus ride was quickly forgotten over a lovely lunch at Café Saturnus, followed by a typical Swedish cinnamon bun (A.K.A Kanelbulle). Well…the composition of the bun was typical, however the size was giant!! About the size of my head! Jessie & I shared the bun but still couldn't quite manage to get through it all. I also had another delicious soy latte & rejoiced in the foamy, foamy goodness :D Hurrah for people who know how to make good coffee! In Swedish they call it Fika, which is when you catch up with a friend to drink coffee, eat something yummy like a cinnamon bun, & sit and talk for hours. I like it! :)
After lunch Jessie took me to an amazing department store to indulge my love of stationary. It was a bit like a David Jones where the whole store is open plan, but the stores are actually separate so you can only pay at the counter that's specific to each individual store. The stationary store was amazing! There were shelves full of brightly coloured files all colour coordinated in rainbow sequence. Heaven! :D I told Jessie how much I loved the Swedish brand Kikki-K that we have in Australia, but she'd never heard of it. A bit of googling told us that it is indeed an authentic Swedish brand, but perhaps the abundance of amazing stationary stores in Sweden meant that the market was already so saturated that Kikki-K had to go elsewhere. I'm very glad they did :) We also stopped by one of the stores where Jessie's friend Caroline was working to say hi, & went into a Body Shop store where I discovered all kinds of wonderful things that we don't have in Australia (blueberry body butter, brazil nut body scrub, almond shower gel etc.).
In the afternoon we went home to drop Jessie's bags off at her apartment, then we went back to the park where we'd been for lunch the day before to meet Caroline & a couple of her friends at a bar with a huge outdoor lounge area, called Josefina. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon & because the sun doesn't go down until 10:00PM here, people gather to sit for hours after work in the sunshine, drinking & catching up their friends. One of Caroline's friends is about 25 years old & has a beautiful little boy (who is going to be a real heart breaker when he gets older!), and she was just the most amazingly stylish, chic mother I have ever seen in my life. Yes, she did even have a Louis Vuitton "diaper bag"…I guess Swedish aesthetics prevail even during the hectic time of early motherhood!
It was clearly a place to see & be seen because there was some kind of promotional event going on & people were emerging from a function room carrying fancy goody bags & making their way to a roped off area for super stylish people. Jessie & the other Swedish girls even pointed out a few famous Swedes, although they were people I'd never heard of before! I didn't even notice that it was getting late until I looked at my phone & saw that the time was 8:00PM! Jessie & I were both pretty exhausted so we headed home, grabbed some quick dinner, & collapsed into bed while it was still light outside at 10:00PM!
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