A Week in Västerås

2 posts coming your way: this one for the week spent in Vasteras, and the next to capture Belgium. I suppose I could have combined them since I'm behind and composing them at the same time, but that would be inconsistent with the other posts. I'm not sure I could live with such inconsistency. The mind of a borderline obsessive-compulsive...

The week in Vasteras began with a wait in the school library for a group project meeting. I also wrote some postcards to send home.

The next day was equally boring. I spent entirely too long taking pictures of some chocolates from Italy.

The trouble begins! After nearly accepting boredom for the evening, Tyler and I scoundrel-ed our way into a dinner party.

Attempting to wrangle a mass of drunken humanity for a group photo...

No one expected the picture to be taken from THIS direction!!

There's something on your head...let me get that for you.

The Americans.

Two Americans and three Finns. Lucky Americans...

Later at the club, still kickin' it with the Finns.

SCENE MISSING...

Good ol' camera buddy got away from me and missed some pivotal events. There was a mask party, some clubbing, and I blew out my ankle like never before. The aftermath is recounted below.

Looks pretty blowed out, right? I'm pretty sure that's exactly how your ankle should look after spraining it to the max right before limping across town three times with visits to a mask party, a club and Mc Donald's in between. The sensible thing to do would be to take it easy for a couple of days.

But instead, it's time for a shot party! Tyler and I contribute a New Mexican specialty: Red Chile vodka!

In full swing, the shot party from above.

Mmmm...ketchup shots..

The count. (Don't get too worried, each one is barely a half shot...) Afterwards, we went to a club to dance it off.

The ankle was looking much more colorful after the second night of not taking it easy. It still didn't feel any worse, though...

...so let's go to another club! This one is called simply ‘å’ and is open only once a month. I basically had no choice but to go check it out.

Subway after. Because, what night of resting a sprained ankle is complete without needlessly trekking clear across town?

More snow.

Party time's over. On Monday we gave presentations of our final group projects for "Sustainable Energy Systems." They went quite well.

Finally, it's time to start resting that ankle. I spent most of Tuesday sitting around. The Belgium trip was approaching fast and I had to be ready for a lot of walking around. You can even see that ankle in the bottom of this picture all wrapped up and healing--no dancing or anything.

And those other feet in the previous picture? That's Taija. We were working on her Couch Surfing profile for most of the morning and the sun broke through the clouds. The sun was full of treats for us that day...check out the next pic.

The sunset on Tuesday. A serene scene to end a restful day.

I hung my pants on the light fixture in my room. They were wet and the dryer was broken. The paparazzi rushed in.

Ok, I admit it..pants hanging from a light fixture is a bit of an odd scene. Here's a better view of the pants hanging in my room, and the last picture before embarking on a Belgian adventure.

A week spent in Sweden is a good week. But I'm beginning to think that it is actually better for my health to not stick around too long. Let's see Belgium, then.