It's that time of the year!!

That time when buying pens and paper pads is like an itch you wanna scratch even though you're not in school and work has its own supply of writing pads (but they're so boring!). Personally I can't wait to wear my boots again and not sweat at work. But then I've splurged my way to more sunshine than was yielded to those who went with the trendy 'staycation' option this summer. I've promised myself to be more frugal this autumn. Hmm. Anyone want to wish me good luck?

It's also the time when chanting, singing, partying and general screaming erupts from all corners of Lund - it's fresher's week! In Sweden like in the UK this means getting drunk - but Swedish university life is highly organized with fractions, clubs, organizations for this that and whatever, and so the drinking usually takes place alongside (or at least after) more original activities that are surprisingly often also educational in some way.
Anyway, town is littered with people in pink overalls and funny hats singing songs and getting drunk. Quite jolly, though I stay far away. I don't think the generals are supposed to order their minions (ie freshmen) to interact with the public in depraved or unpleasant or just embarrassing ways but you never know.

No cow on the ice

Today's aha: the Danish version of 'no danger on the roof' is 'no cow on the ice'. Fabulous. I'm going to casually throw it into a conversation in Sweden in the next week or so.

Soooo.... I'm back, I'm bored, well OK yesterday I was climbing the walls at work but today I've managed to find fun stuff to do (which led me to today's 2nd aha of the much more geeky variety: finding out how the sorting function works in our database which only has another 4 months to live... darn! and yey! simultanously).

Right, so... things I've learnt in the last months or so:

¤You can apparently fry almost any cheese under the sun, not just halloumi. Experiments will commence shortly.

¤I wouldn't pull any 'for everything else, there's Mastercard' references in the Netherlands. They appear to abhor credit cards so I doubt they've ever heard of it.

¤Just because something is a park in Italy it doesn't neccessarily mean you're allowed to enter. Also, if something is listed as a 'place to visit' it doesn't neccessarily mean you can actually visit it. Still not sure if 'observing from afar' is the Italian version of 'visit'.

¤The Italians either have some sort of toilet fetisch or are freakishly polite. In any case, locks on toilet doors are superfluous things, apparently.

¤Though the French do appear to have some sort of humour, it is vastly different from at least Nordic, Italian and Dutch humour.

¤Amsterdam is not a big city. It's tiny. And walking here is almost as exotic as it is in the US. Why would you walk when you can bike?