C said “This is a monster that me and Gustav and mama are going to drive in. It shoots green suns and has crushy feet. If it jumps and lands again the ground gets exploded.”

Katy(posted on Nov 17, 2010 at 5:30 pm)

Found in Linköping, Sweden.

Chris(posted on Dec 14, 2008 at 8:24 pm)

I had a business trip in Sweden, took the train back to Oslo.

Chris(posted on Jan 4, 2009 at 11:11 am)

This is not a good example of the ubiquitous Christmas Menorah, but they are extremely common. (In related news, there’s a total of maybe four Jews in all of Norway.)

Much like Jewish menorahs, the Scandinavian ones range from the very traditional menorah-shaped, to the more modern (like these).

Chris(posted on Dec 25, 2008 at 11:27 am)

I could have written about this 3 years ago, but somehow am just getting around to it.

Norwegians (and in this case, Swedes) have the weirdest Christmas Decorations!

Take this one: inverted star. You see them all over. To my eyes, this is not a Christmas star. It’s Satanic.

Chris(posted on Dec 25, 2008 at 11:21 am)

At the train station in Katrineholm, I think.

Chris(posted on Dec 14, 2008 at 8:27 pm)

Yesterday morning. Rolled out of bed. Stumbled across the street to the train station. Found a banana along the way. Wanted to catch the early train, get home, spend what was left of the weekend with my family.

I was a bit early, so I sat down. Icy outside; foggy inside (my head).

I didn’t even realize I was looking at her, sitting across the station, until I noticed that she was looking at me.

It took me a few seconds more to register how odd it was that she didn’t look away, like most people would have. A few seconds… in which I didn’t look away, either.

And by the time I noticed that she was just beginning to smile, I realized that so was I.

Absentmindedly, I moved to take a bite of the remaining third of my banana. It was only then that I saw that she was also two-thirds of the way through a banana, and taking a bite.

At that point it had been maybe 20 or 30 sleepy seconds, grinning strangers staring at each other, holding mostly-eaten bananas to our faces.

I guess in that situation my default response is to give kind of a banana-cheers. Hers, too.

We laughed. Then I finished my banana, climbed on the train, and slept halfway to Oslo.

Chris(posted on Dec 14, 2008 at 7:37 am)