Hooray for friends

I am having a ball in Europe!

My flight out from Montreal was delayed for 3 hours due to it being super cold (minus 30 or so) which played up with some electronics on the plane, and then there was a dodgy Russian!!! We were finally allowed to board the plane, and then they started asking over the PA for a certain passenger to identify themselves. This message was then repeated in Russian as apparently the passenger only spoke Russian, and then we were told that a passenger (the mystery Russian man) had checked in but failed to board the flight. This meant we had to wait for his luggage to be removed from the plane, which took ages as the cold weather was holding the ground crew up elsewhere in the airport. During this time the nice man next to me decided that we should pass the time talking to each other, despite the fact that I did not speak Farsi and his grasp of English was minimal.

My first few days in the UK were spent catching up with family, and of course enjoying some excellent curries and a lovely lamb roast. When I left my uncle's place he had come down with some sort of terrible cold (or laryngitis or something...not sure as he couldn't remember what it was called when I phoned a few days later!) and I had visions of a repeat of my last trip to London when I caught a nasty cold (after just having recovered from pharyngitis) and had to fly home to Perth with a head full of snot. I think my ears finally popped a week after arriving home. Anyway luck was on my side this time and I remained illness-free, hurrah!

The next few days were spent with the lovely Kate and her lad Simon, whom I had not met before but happily I can say I am happy with her choice of future-husband! Spent my days shopping around olde London towne (though not buying much as converting from pounds to dollars is terrifying) and my nights eating and drinking and playing games with them. Good times which were over far too quickly!

Last Thursday left the UK and am now in Sweden, having not been back since my exchange period 3 years ago. Nothing seems to have changed and meeting my friends here seems like we were only saying goodbye to each other a few days ago. It's so good to catch up with everyone and I am sad that I will be leaving tomorrow. Saturday involved heading to Stockholm IKEA with Stella and Tomas, as they needed to buy a desk and some shelves for the guest room (my room!) and so we spent the rest of the day driving around doing more chores with Stella driving, Tomas squeezed in the front passenger seat with his knees around his ears, and me in the back pressed up against the window as the rest of the space was filled with boxes.

Anyway I have to think about packing for tomorrow (when I am off to Munchen) and a roast chicken to prepare for dinner so until next time..

Madness

Sorry, too busy to write. New York was awesome, Ottawa was another lesson in how nice the Chateau Fairmont hotels can be, and suddenly I find myself with one day left before leaving Canada. Eek!