Day 31

Good day today - my back’s better, my cold’s better and I made it through my first month without turning into an ice block.  Although I’ve missed everyone at home (my lovely wife especially), being away by myself hasn’t been as tough as I thought it would be. 

Cooking for one has been okay although finding ingredients has sometimes been a challenge, as has the lack of an oven.  Dishes I’m used to doing, and it’s much easier to wash one person’s dishes than two’s.  Clothes washing has been done by my landlady, so that’s been a piece of cake.  It’s weird to think that I’m thirty years old and this will be the longest that I’ve ever lived by myself…

Only one thing worth talking about happened at work today.  At exactly three in the afternoon a siren started sounding over and over again – kind of like a ship’s horn.  This lasted for almost 5 minutes.  When I asked Jens about it he explained that it was just a test of the ‘emergency alarm’.  I pressed him for more information and what he told me was amazing!

Apparently there are about 5000 of these sirens all over Sweden and they are all tested at exactly the same time – on the first Monday of March, June, September and December at three o’clock on the dot.  It’s supposed to be used to inform the public of some kind of life-threatening danger such as a big fire, or explosion (or war I guess).  If people hear it and it’s not at 3pm on one of those days they’re supposed to get inside, lock the doors, shut-down the ventilation system and turn on the radio or TV.  Crazy stuff right?

He said it’s happened once that he can remember, when they had some kind of chemical spill/accident somewhere near Helsingborg.  In the office today no one even seemed to notice it, so if you’re thinking about invading Sweden – do it during one of these tests.

Had what I thought was going to be beef stroganhoff at work today.  I got the stroganhoff part right, just not the beef.  I had to ask someone what the meat was – it was strips, roughly 5cm by 1cm, of sausage.  The pieces were kind of floppy but if you ate it quickly enough it was bareable, just.

Tonight I tried my first ‘microwave meal’ - a mexican pizza.  A bit of a cop out, especially after talking about cooking and cleaning for myself, but I really couldn’t come up with anything while I was at the supermarket after work.  Turned out surprisingly tasty.