I went to Oslo for the food.: Sup, Stockhomie?

Mr. Gnome, please don't say anything.

Well, it finally happened. My addiction fed, my pride reinstated, my taste buds back to normalcy. Last night, I made popcorn kernels successfully on the stove. It involved about 6-8 minutes of shaking the pot over the med-high heat and periodically taking the pan off of the heated burner and moving it to a non-heated burner as to not burn the delicate love-kernels. I'll admit, I did use a lid that didn't fit, and so some popped out of the pan and onto the stove-top/sink/floor/mouth on accident. But I did succeed in making delicious popcorn that reminded me of the fact that the only reason I have friends at school is because I make them popcorn. Who da man??

Also, I just got back from Stockholm, Sweden on Sunday. It was a fantastic four days of traveling, sight seeing, eating (much more affordable food), and wandering the streets of a new city. We stayed in The Number 1-Rated hostel in the world, complete with free pasta, free internet, hot check-in ladies, and rude Spanish fools who decided to get up at 6am and be incredibly loud as they got ready for 2 and a half hours. Though weirdly, Pablo's girlfriend is in her second year at Temple studying Spanish Theatre...

But anyways, Stockholm is a beautiful city. Clean, old, bustling, and full of energetic, fun people. I was talking to a friend the other day, and we decided that Norway is like the good, no fun older brother - high-esteemed, self-complimenting, reads the paper, drinks the coffee, likes to be better than the rest. Sweden is like the hot little sister of Norway who wants to have a good time and that everybody loves. And then Denmark is like the youngest brother who nobody paid any attention to. And he's pissed about it.

So now that that's been put into perspective, here's what I did in Stockholm. I ate kebabs the first night, then pizza from a different kebab place later that night. For breakfast the next day, we made it a brunch since it was noon when we woke up. I had a seafood soup that was yellow. It also tasted pretty solid. For lunch, I had a cheap day-old sandwich from a cart, and then for dinner we went to Taco Bar - a sort of much much-worse Chipotle, before we went to a casino (the same one that wouldn't let us in the night before at 4AM since we appeared intoxicated). Later that night, I had two hot dogs from Swedish street vendors (one before, one after going to a 3-story club that made me feel awkward. They also played a rap version of Shenandoah going into Cotton Eye Joe...). The next morning, I started off with a ham and black olive quiche and coffee, along with a delightful little lemon meringue tart. I didn't have lunch, but enjoyed a huge cup of coffee in a fantastic old part of Stockholm by the main palace. We met a fantastic gay couple from Toronto/NY who wanted to talk about Obama and his health care reform. Hooray for American politics in Sweden! For dinner, we went to an awesome Swedish meal (complete with losing half of our group along the way forcing me and Grant to run up and down the surrounding streets trying to find them before our table was ready). I got a stir-fry type thing of potatoes, meat (unspecified as to what kind), onions, and some other stuff topped with a fried egg. That night, I went back to the hostel to get some sleep when the rest of the crew (9 of us total) went clubbing again. I then woke up the next morning and got a bagel-esque roll with smoked salmon. The shmear was sub-par, but it was a really tasty sandwich. For lunch, I felt like I had to get some Asian food since it was abundant and affordable in Stockholm. So I hopped on the bus back to the Stockholm airport with a to-go order of pad thai and a set of chop sticks. And now back to not eating out ever. But now that I have popcorn, I guess that's okay!

Some pictures from Stockholm: