May 2008 Archives

The day after I arrived in San Francisco was Bay to Breakers, so I immediately had an opportunity to take a lot of photos. Here are some of them. I avoided photographing the many naked people there were wandering around, so those should all be safe for work. I also took a few other photos while walking and biking around the city. San Francisco is a pretty nice looking place.

Then, today was the finals for the Eurovision song contest. I wish I could have been in Sweden watching it with Emma and some friends, but I could at least get a live stream of it over the Internet. It was pretty entertaining. Dima Bilan from Russia won, but I liked other songs better, like the one from Iceland's Euroband. Sweden's entry from Charlotte Perelli sadly did not do very well in the voting. My favorite though was Baila el Chiki Chiki from Rodolfo Chikilicuatre in Spain:

Very amusing song. None of these videos are from the actual final contest performances because I couldn't find those on youtube yet. The whole contest can be streamed though, like the finals here.

Today I made the long journey from Stockholm to San Francisco. I was a day later than intended, because yesterday I overslept massively and missed my flight--something that I have been doing far too often lately. I am now extremely tired because I got up about twenty-five hours ago and have spent much of that time in transit.

I bought some duty free akvavit in Stockholm and they tried to take it away from me in London. The airport security guy at Heathrow told me that Sweden is not part of the EU, and thus booze I bought there was not eligible to be duty free. I argued with him that in fact Sweden absolutely is part of the EU. He ultimately talked to his manager and they decided to let me through with my tasty akvavit anyway. Very weird.

My new flat is quite nice. It is somewhat furnished, but I need to make an Ikea trip to get the stuff it doesn't have yet. That will also give me an opportunity to buy some Swedish food that I will no longer be able to find readily at supermarkets. I'm living in the inner Richmond, which is not a neighborhood I've lived in before, so I'm going to need to explore to figure out where stuff is. Also, I'd really like to find a bike to ride. It would be great to be able to ride to work rather than take the bus.

I already miss Emma and feel homesick for Sweden. Riding BART into the city I felt like I've seen everything before, but it's become kind of foreign. It is strange to return to one's own country and not feel like it is home anymore. But I expect that I'll be keeping myself very busy in the coming weeks so the homesickness shouldn't be too bad.