This weekend, we got above freezing every day. Sunday was even 3c! I haven't seen those temps here since December easily. Things got foggy, mushy, melty, gray, and snirty (snow + dirt = snirt.) Then Xynthia came to Sweden. She had already killed about 50 people over the weekend in Portugal, Spain and France with her deadly winds and flooding rains. But for Stockholm, she only had snow and snow and snow in mind.
Today sucked, weather-wise.
I think she's done now. But crappy timing, since our friend Alex came this weekend from Paris, and it was her first time visiting the "Venice of the North." She even got diverted from Skavsta to Arlanda when she arrived Friday because of the weather (why doesn't that ever happen to us?!?)
But we managed to have a great time. Alex and I grew up in the same town (she comes from a family of librarians, too) worked together at the National Gallery in DC for a while, and she is now living in Paris while getting an extremely affordable MA in Museum Studies from the Louvre, also working as a nanny. So it was nice to catch up, share ex-pat experiences, commiserate over being a student again, culture shock, European oddities or things we woefully miss from home.
In particular, we slept late, window-shopped, made muffins that made Martha Stewart look like a Costco Sample Lady and watched a shload of American TV (neither easily found in Paris) and indulged in lovely French cheeses, chocolates and wines she brought with her (potentially found, but not easily or cheaply, in Stockholm.)
Stu and I both start new subjects this week, and with new classes comes more work. But it was nice to take the weekend off to show Alex around, and she will just have to come back when Xynthia isn't causing roofs to collapse and tricky iced-over lagoons to form on Odengatan (and really, "Xynthia," what kind of name is that even?!?)
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