SWEDEN!!!!

After an eight hour flight across the Atlantic sitting next to Harvey, a retired school teacher from Maryland who gave me the rundown of how everything in the world is "shitty," as he put it, I landed with a healthy dose of cynicism and a belly full of curry chicken. Seth made the mistake of ordering a vegetarian entree out of fear of airplane meats. Strangely, they decided that one who receives a veggie meal does not deserve dessert (just fruit), needs wheat bread instead of white and margarine instead of butter. Oh and protein. Apparently protein is not necessary either. Just need asparagus and rice. Thanks. Anyway...

One of the few plans that Seth and I made was to meet each other up at the baggage claim at the airport in Sweden, which went fine, and off we were to find my cousin Tina, which also went fine.

Seth and I landed in Sweden with about two hours of sleep over a 30 hour period, so we were fairly useless, but we still made the effort to combat the jet lag by having Tina take us for a drive through downtown Stockholm. Seth consistently nodded off, but luckily he had me, the good friend that I am, to pinch his nipples to revive him.

Eventually we popped into my other cousin's house for a Swedish dinner and some unbelievably horrible tasting Swedish candy. We were fortunate enough to have a rather large bush nearby because as soon as I put the candy in my mouth I had to spit it out. Who puts salt on candy? I would say that is un-American, but, well... (Here are some pics of our reactions)

Anyway, we are here and our European adventure is now officially underway. We will be sharing a bed for the time that we are in Sweden, which is ok, because we can use the "it's the European thing to do" excuse, plus we are both secure in our masculinity. I hate to mention it here, but Seth needs a warm body next to him when he sleeps, so I, taking the role of good friend once again, am helping out the team on this one. Well, time to recuperate and re-energize for tomorrow.