Cause All My Jewels Be Rocky Like Sylvester Stallone

This and that:

+WE WON A GAME! As the saying goes, 16th time's the charm.

+Sweden continues to surprise me. DJ GymMat was holding it down at our away game the weekend before last. Ya betta believe regular warmup music will never be the same after this:

+Saw a guy driving a convertible through town last week. Top down, wind blowing through his... tightly woven knit hat...? Screw it, tuque. Or beanie. Sorry but I write for the Canadian in me. Nothing calls for a hypothermia-inducing drive like the crisp February air.
Speaking of tuques, one of my favourite stories of all time concerns them. Back when she was in high school, my older sister Luisa and her friend Matt are doing a good deed shoveling my Granny's (aka our next-door-neighbor) walk. Halfway through, GranDog, as she's affectionately known in some circles, pokes her head out the front door and yells, "you kids want a toque?" To which Matt looks at my sister, wide eyed, and half-whispers, "your Granny deals!?!"
Knowledge dropped: Yes you can spell it tuque or toque, no you cannot say it both ways. Sorry Gran.

+Speaking of high school (how's that for another successful segway?) we go to the local high school for lunch every day. It's free so don't judge. I expected it to be more of the same gnarly mystery meat type situation taking place in N. American schools. Not so. I feel like I'm eating in some posh Scandinavian cafe on the daily. A cafe filled with 17 year olds but that's beside the point. I get this vibe because of the wall of windows, candelabra with real candles over the salad bar, and oh I don't know, a piano in the middle of the room. The day I see any of that in any high school caf back home is the day pigs fly.

+Another weird sighting about town: my team Canada teammate was here a couple weeks ago for a game with her Swedish team and told me that as they rolled up to the gym she saw a lamb, be-sweatered and on a leash out for a lazy afternoon ramble through Svedala. Any and every time I've been outside since then I've kept my eyes PEELED but still no sign of the woolly beast. I'm pretty disappointed.
On a side note, who is putting knitwear on a lamb? It has its own sweater. It IS its own sweater! Its like dressing the lamb in one of its cousins' haircuts. Disgusting and pathetic.

Maybe I'm Not Big Cause I Don't Blog or Twitter... Dog, I'm Bitter

I know I'm supposed to bemoan the fact that the world is becoming Americanized at an alarming rate and on a typical Friday night over wings and sushi, I do.
But I also got a confession to make: there are times when I embrace it. I'm not even American so I don't really know what that says. But sometimes it's nice. Real nice.

Sweden is a prime example. I've only been here a little over a month but there's no question it's the most Americanized of anywhere I've been to/lived in Europe so far (with the exception of the UK which doesn't really count anyway). And sometimes I love it.
By the way, before anyone gets their panties in a twist - I'm allowed to say this without being the first to blow their cover; apparently Sweden's America-envy is already recognized as kind of a sore spot in some circles. Anyways. A couple examples:

+ NFL regular season games are on live TV. And the highlights on regular sports shows, sandwiched between handball and hockey news. It's bizarre. Yes, games may be on at like 11 PM but it's still truly mind blowing. Worlds collide on regular everyman's cable TV on a weekly basis. The best part is the half-time talking heads are Swedish cats who, according to my sources, actually sort of maybe know what they're talkin about:

All I know is it will be a cold day in hell before you see an NFL commentator on NBC wearing a cardigan...

+ 2Pac on Swedish radio. I vividly remember chilling in my teammate's car, getting my skull blown off its shoulders by the earthquaking impact of classic 90s hiphop being broadcast through channels normally reserved solely for dance/trance/house/techno/eurodance/Katy Perry. 


+ MLB caps aplenty. Worn on Swedish heads. I've never seen anybody in Europe wearing a Sox/Cardinals/Tigers/whoever hat unless they are a) foreign or b) wait, nope. Just a).
For whatever reason I find this Swedish hat observation vaguely comforting... I don't know why. Maybe it's the fact that it proves it's not just an American phenomenon - there are idiots worldwide willing to wear 59Fifty hats with the sticker still on the brim.

+ A good 75% of TV is American and Swedes claim the reason their English is so good is because it's all only subtitled in Swedish instead of dubbed like elsewhere in Europe. Whatever the reason, it means I can watch anything from CSI to Inside the Actor's Studio from the comfort of my living room couch. The fact that I've never actually I've never seen either of those on here but that's beside the point.

+ This is a stretch but since they were originally popularized by an American MC, I say it counts. Plus it's hilarious. Excuse the crap picture quality but I had to capture these incognito on my phone at the gym... it does them no justice but HAMMER PANTS LIVE!

Raspberry Danish

 Flag's backward, I know

My American teammate and I headed over to the jewel in Scandinavia's crown, Denmark (that might not be true, but I liked the sound of it). Much to our surprise and greeeeat delight, it turned out we happened to roll into Copenhagen on the celebration of Queen Margrethe II's 40th jubilee. Yeah I don't really know what it means either but after chillin for a while outside city hall, we saw her in all her royal grandeur.

And sang the Danish national anthem like 8 times in a row while waiting for her to come wave on her balcony. She's the Queen, she can do what she wants I guess.Apparently the Danes really love her since her approval rating is like 80%. Keep doin your thing Margrethe.
So despite my impatience/mildly frozen toes, I wasn't about to go rogue and be the only person to boo her for taking her sweet time. The lady is 70. Plus with another 6+ footer rollin in our crew, we wouldn't really have been all that incognito.
Lesson for the kids - height has its downfalls. Heckle with care.

For all my irritation, all was forgiven when she finally came outside. Some people might grow tired of the undemocratic, excessively pompous obsolescence of a non-functioning monarchy.
I am not some people.
Having finally seen the queen (THE queen is probably somewhat heretical, sorry Elizabeth) in the flesh, I feel like I can now die happy. I've seen it all!

The rest of the day consisted of coming down from that high and trying not to freeze/trying to see stuff before the sun set shortly after 4 PM. By the time we got into the city, that left us like 3 hours... Luckily, the city's only an hour train ride from our digs and I visited København aka Merchant's Harbor for the first time back in the two zero zero seven. Feel free to drop that little bit of trivia about the city's name in your next dinner conversation.

I'll let the pictures do the talking.

En route

Rubbin' shoulders with the who's-who of Danish society on

Strøget aka Europe's longest pedestrian shopping street

View from the Rundetaarn aka Round Tower 

 Good eats

Lost in translation

Valhalla I'm Coming

It's been a while.

Not gonna lie, not a lot's happened in the last 9 months. Or I just don't remember. I meant to write about a little trip to Amsterdam and Pan Am games in Mexico in the meantime but I wasn't feelin the whole blog scene (read: I'm lazy) and so, rather than start yet another post off with yet another apology, let's just get at it.

Cue up some Immigrant Song or watch Mamma Mia if that's your thing, 'cause this kid is in Sweden.

!

After half a season of relative unemployment/keepin on keepin on with the Team Canada grind, I'm back overseas with Ian, livin the good life. Bladow. As good as the good life gets when you're a female playing a mid-major sport. I'm the Murray State of the pro sports world.
Bring on the 15K annual pay check and high school gym-sized arenas!

As I said, we're in Sweden. I refuse to say something along the lines of 'Land of Ikea and ABBA' but that's the only cliche descriptor that ever comes up... and I don't know enough to say anything grand of my own, so there it is.
We're on the very southern tip in a little town called Svedala, outside of Malmö (shoutout SARAH MEEK BEASLEY) and across the sound from Copenhagen. Not a bad deal on the geography front. Good thing Swedish weather is tip top and it's never windy or rainy or overcast everyday or anything so I can explore between practice. To be fair, there's no snow anywhere so I'm kinda loving that. On the flipside, in case anyone missed that, it IS windy/rainy/grey or all of the above at some point most everyday so basically I live in foreign Seattle.

My team is not doing so hot, having gone ahem.. 0-9 in the first half of the season. Raletalk.
So for now I won't say much more about that except we're about to be the dark horse, dressed in wolf's clothing, to tear the playoffs to pieces come April. Stay tuned for that.

Cats be tremblin' in their boots

Sweden is already a serious contender for best country in Europe so far due to a couple factors.
Namely:

DRYERS. These people believe in and possess dryers, of the laundry appliance type! This is unprecedented in my Euro experience, anywhere. I'm all for environmentally-friendly drying racks and whatnot, but the existence of the dryer takes away a major Euro life con, which is - the crunchy towel. Anyone who's ever lived without a dryer for an extended period of time is all-too familiar with the sensation of drying off with a colored piece of sandpaper.

Second, our apartment has a dishwasher. I would throw a couple exclamation marks after that but people might start to wonder what my enthusiasm for home appliances is all about. But literally, I almost threw a small party when I walked into the kitchen and saw the beaut. Whoever invented dishwashers deserves a Nobel prize or at least more notoriety in Europe because although I knew they existed over here, much like the dryer, they have always been a rare breed in any apartment I've ever inhabited. What a beautiful thing.

Third, this just cause I think it's hilarious:

Apparently I'm easily impressed.

Also, 2012 will be a better year in this blog's life! Next week, same bat time, same bat channel, I promise.

Thoughts on Style or I Wear Sweats to Work

At some point in all of us non-glasses- wearers' lives, we wished we needed glasses. Just cause it'd be cool to get to wear them like, once a week for fun. However, something about the social stigma of showing up at school with glasses that everyone knew we didn't reeeeeally need kept us sane. Unfortunately, at some point in the last 3 years, we collectively gave up on this as a society and now not only do people wear glasses they don't need, but the bigger more hideous looking the better.

Nobody looks back at high school yearbook pictures of cats in the 80's and thinks, "Damn those glasses looked good... My dad's old pair are around here somewhere, now if only I could just pop a set of fake plastic lenses in, I'm set!"
They are a scandal waiting to happen AGAIN. Except this time we can't even blame it on an era, or more importantly fallback on necessity, it's just mass lameness.

The confusion here has been percolating for about 3 years on this one but when I don't have anything else to talk about, these things come out. Maybe the usual influx of hours upon hours of free time in Europe brought it on - I have insane amounts of time to peruse style blogs and feel intermittently inspired, but also about 99% more inclined to want to buy things, and at least 50% uglier.

Style blogs are the new black. I mean, they're the new fashion magazines. Except now regular people have no excuse that these are just models whose job it is to look good. Instead, style bloggers are regular people who just look that good everyday. Or don't look that good... or are just really vain but we won't talk about that. (Although, I guess to post pictures of what you look like everyday for people to comment on - aka tell you how good you look - has to involve vanity on some level. Kinda like the whole "If a tree falls in a forest and there's nobody there to hear it..." thing, does a style blog really exist if there's nobody there to comment on the outfit to tell you how good you look?)

Regardless, at the end of the day these people aren't wearing mismatched socks, an ASU volleyball alumni t-shirt and basketball shorts so I can't really hate. Even though I sound like I am.
For a second there I contemplated starting a 2nd blog called "I Wear Sweats To Work" inspired by that lifestyle. It would contain features along the lines of "Today I wasn't feeling very inspired about my outfit for practice but then I realized nobody gives a crap. I threw on a headband, changed my shoelace and I'm loving the unexpected pops of color".
Ultimately, I decided even I wouldn't want to waste minutes of my life looking at that, so it's been killed.

Also, having read that I'm contemplating killing this blog... thoughts?

I Got the Game Spittin "At Last" Like Etta James

You might be surprised to know Mike Tyson cares about animals. You also might be surprised to know Mike Tyson cares about nuclear war.

While flipping through Sports Illi the other day, I came upon an ad for Mike Tyson's new show on Animal Planet... I guess the ad's purpose was to inform me of the "human" side of Mike Tyson that I might be surprised by.
First off, Mike Tyson has a show on Animal Planet. About pigeon racing. If this isn't a sign of the apocalypse I don't know what is. Second, I should probably watch the show at least once before spittin more hate.
But actually, all I could think while reading about all the other things I might be surprised Mike Tyson cares about is that I wasn't surprised at all. Doesn't everyone care about nuclear war on some level? Don't most people at least sort of pretend to care about animals? I really wish I could remember what the other 3 things he cared about are.

I might've been surprised if it said Mike Tyson cares about the feel of crushed velvet against his right bicep, or Mike Tyson cares about groundwater pollution or Mike Tyson cares about keeping his toenails trimmed. Something. But not nuclear war. Or puppies. I wasted 30 seconds of my life thinking about it, and the last 30 seconds of yours by your having read that... So I'm not too sure where I was going with that but I just felt like somebody needed to know. We all lose.

Speaking of nuclear issues though, the whole tsunami fiasco in Japan has been crazy scary both because 1) You might be surprised to know I care about natural disasters, and 2) You might be surprised to know I live in the same town as Hungary's only nuclear power plant. Real talk.
Now obviously no rogue waves are hitting this place anytime soon/ever but the other day I was sitting chillin in my living room when this crazy WWII-era air raid siren starts going off outside (seriously, YouTube air raid siren and prepare to have the crap scared out of you).
After narrowly avoiding peeing my pants I managed to pull myself together to look outside and seriously expected to see people frantically running through the streets tryin to get the eff outta Dodge (all of these people would be on foot because this is like in the movies where everyone runs out of gas 200m into the exodus).
 
Instead, the streets were empty and the siren just kept going off all high and eerie for like, 5 minutes before stopping like nothing happened. No announcement in unintelligible Hungarian that I wouldn't have been able to understand anyway. Nothing. Like they were just dusting off the ol' siren for old times' sake. I may or may not have been absolutely effing terrified.
So that's where that story ends unless I notice a 3rd arm sprouting any day now.

What does this have to do with anything and where is this going...? Maybe these are questions you might be surprised to find yourself thinking right now.

I know. Reading any of these rambling incoherent responses to the world around me never evokes that response...
But the people have spoken. They tell me they want more posts.
Unfortunately, seeing as how I can only pretend my life is somewhat exciting approx. 2 times per month, we're now forced to buckle down to look at the nitty gritty of my day-to-day. This isn't gonna be good for anyone, but in an effort to avoid turning this site into some kind of emo blog nonsense, Mike Tyson Sports Illustrated ad analyses it is.  I'm sorry & you're welcome.

Styles Manifest From Key West to Budapest

After a long and seemingly arbitrary 3 week break between the regular season and the playoffs, my team finally began quarter final play this week. After a disastrous showing against the 2nd (3rd?) place team on Tuesday, we redeemed ourselves tonight to win in 4 and send the series to a decisive 3rd game on Saturday.

As I mentioned, Tuesday's game was an abomination so midway through our getting smashed like an Idaho potato, I decided to just go for style points and take myself back to a happier time and place. Forget volleyball. My mom will bear witness- my first love was hoops. More specifically, Jordan. It may not be a way to earn friends/decent blocking stats/a fruitful career in this sport but forget all that. Sometimes you just wanna be like Mike. Somebody photoshop some ill early 90s attire on me  and we're practically the same person. 

 

Anyways.

Word on the street is my club hasn't upset this team since 1985– aka the year before I was even born. Also, apparently if we don't finish at least top 4 in the league we have no sponsor for next year... so no pressure there either. Fortunately, as mentioned, I managed to stay in character as a supposed player of this sport for more than 15 minutes today and we pulled off the dub. So throw some prayers up for us to take care of bidnass in 48 hours.


And seriously, where can I get me some of those pants?