Murphey's Law at Work For You

So...I had a bit of an adventure today. Upon reaching the subway station to make my way to jujitsu (it's not judo, like I thought it was -- but it's not a big difference. If you really care, read about it here and here) I found that there was some problem with the subways going on. Since I don't speak Swedish, and anything said on an intercom in Sweden is in Swedish (they never translate it, because of course foreigners don't exist...), it took some doing to figure out even when I'd be able to get a subway, let alone what was going on -- that I have yet to piece together; all I know is that it seemed to be cendered around Rådmansgatan, which is one of the stops. Eventually, I managed to get one, and got to Jujitsu, albeit rather late.

After Jujitsu, it had been my intent to go see a free concert that my mom had told me about, near yet another subway station, T-Centralen (no points for guessing what that means). What really happened was this: I boarded a train, after waiting some ten minutes for its arrival, and took it forward one station. At this point, it stopped, and something was said over the PA, again, only in Swedish. A great many people got off the train, but Swedes being an anti-social people, none of them bothered to explain the situation to the poor american kid who, like most of the world, doesn't speak their language. After this, the doors closed, and the train showed signs of being about to move again, which it did -- only the wrong way. I was thus carried one station back to where I had started (elased time at this point, approximately 15 minutes). I then waited another ten minutes for another train, upon which I was able to finally reach T-Centralen. This done, I walked around for a couple minutes looking for the place the concert was supposed to be (I couldn't spell it if you put a gun to my head, but it's pronounced like "lava"). Finding it, I walked in just as the musicians were putting their equipment away.

The rest of the story continues in more or less the same fasion, but is rather anti-climactic -- I had to switch trains on the way home, but met a Swede who was willing to explain it to me, and then managed to catch the bus from the subway station home; nothing more exciting went wrong. Shame...

In other news, I had vacation last week, and did...well, not much actually. The one thing that I had intended to write an entry for was going up to Upsala (pronounced "oop-SAH-la" -- my dad cannot say the word...). In short, we took the train up in the morning, saw the cathedral, took pictures of the latin inscriptions, of which there were quite a lot, for Mr. Buck (which I will post sometime in the near future, along with an attempt on my part to translate them -- just sit tight, Magister), and managed to get on the wrong train coming home. This was sorted out, but mildly inconvenient, as it resulted in us sitting on the platform for twenty minutes in the cold. Other than that, it was a good time.

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Song of the week: House of the Rising Sun, by whoever you feel plays it best.
Chords:
Am - there is a - C - house in - D - New Or - F - leans,
They - Am - call the - C - rising - E - sun,
Am - It's been the - C - ruin of - D - many a poor - F - boy;
Am - God, I - E - know I'm - Am - one...

You can either strum the chords, more or less on the beat of the melody, or you can arpegiate them, which is harder to do while singing, but makes it closer to the Animals' version of the song, which seems to be a popular one. I prefer the strumming, myself, both becuase it gives it a heaver feel, and because I have it stuck in my head that way, but each to his (her) own. Look up more lyrics for yourself (or here)

And now, I really must be going to bed.
PLaATJ,
--Gazebo