culture shock
I'm sat in the library, as usual, and I just spotted a guy outside walk up to the edge of the kerb, pick up a handful of snow, put it in his mouth, then pick up another handful of snow and use it to wash his hands...

Well yesterday was LL Cool J, Common and Funkadelic. Today is At The Drive In and John Coltrane. We've ordered our broadband connection, so a week from now will mark the last day of this wonderful library as my office. If only I had such a good CD collection at home.

Tonight our housegroup has some visitors from Toronto, which should be fun.

I've been listening to a lot of music from the Stadsbibliotek (city library) and have noticed that they have a surprising amount of Welsh music. In the past few days I've found CDs from the likes of Dub War and Gorky's Zygotic Mynci...

No matter what colour, Vans slip-ons really aren't the attire for tackling 5 inch deep snow. Apparently neither are Clarks Wallabies. It's strange moving somewhere with a notably harsher climate and discovering that clothes you once thought warm are seriously inadequate.

The Snow it falls
The streets of Malmö are now covered with a thick blanket of fresh white snow. On the right are some photos I took on my way to the library. I was snow biking, so please forgive the poor compositions.

Strangely enough I'm listening to Bruce Springsteen - Matt would be proud!

It's funny how British art seems more interesting when enjoyed from other lands. I laugh harder at Ali G and Little Britain here than I ever would at home and even enjoy listening to Radiohead and Coldplay more.

There's this one sketch on The Ali G Show where he interviews something like the US Chief of Security and asks him "couldn't you arrange it so that those machines at airports for finding belts and watches and stuff could detect weapons?" (my paraphrase).

Anyhow I saw that episode, laughed, and thought nothing of it. Until Tim arrived. Somehow he made it past security at 3 airports, on his way to Malmö, without anyone noticing that he had a fishing knife in his coat pocket. He didn't realise himself until he arrived in Sweden!

It seems like every day some progress is made towards me being able to remain in Sweden. On Friday afternoon I was told that I am now eligable to receive a temporary residence permit.

Advice for anyone moving to Sweden: start at the tax office and avoid the migration board until they give you a personal number (unless you happen to be moving to Sweden because of a significant other who happens to be Swedish, in which case the door is wide open!)

In Sweden, opening a bank and joining a library are both equally as straight forward. You go in, you present your passport, you tell them your address. Voila, you have opened a bank account. Why is it so hard to open an account in the UK?

Okay, this announcement may be slightly premature, but I'm starting a web design company called Looks Can Kill. My new website can be found at lookscankill.org. If you have any work for me please leave a comment and I will email you.

Ugly black snow.
I think the worst thing about the weather being this cold is that the snow lingers for ever. The last time it snowed in Malmö was sometime around New Years' Day, so this is old snow, and it lost its shiny whiteness many days ago.

For those of you who were wondering, I haven't dropped off the face of the Earth. I've been away from broadband for a while and am re-emerging thanks to some new web design exploits. I'll post some more on this when I get the chance.

New Year was spent 'Snow Biking' with Mark in Malmö harbour, pulling skids and watching the fireworks (amateur and professional). It turns out that Swedes (at least those living here) have a strange fascination with all things fire (candles, firewords, whatever) and for one night the city was transformed into something resembling a war zone.