Shoes thrown at Bush day or exploring in Linköping

Another good night sleep. Saw BBC International on TV that an Iraqi journalist took off his shoes during a press conference and threw his shoes at Bush! Wow! It is on every channel too. There are commercials on BBC where they have a well known person on saying "Bush is the worst president the U.S. has ever had." It is on all the time advertising this one news program. I am really enjoying watching about news of other countries. Great programs.

Arvid decides to go out and try to find the tennis place that Peter told him about. He wants to play tennis. I stay back and write Christmas post cards to people back home. I didn't do any of that before we left. I did take the addresses I had with me though. We are going to pick up Karli at 2:30 and go shopping at a mall outside of the city where IKEA is part of the mall. We are also trying to find a black wool coat for Karli that has a hood. She needs a warm wool coat.

Arvid comes back and is successful. He is learning how to get places, the general directions of the area and how to negotiate the many round abouts! (Rondellen) Sweden has so many of these circles in lieu of stop lights. It is great. You come up to intersections and instead of having a traffic light, you get into the circle and exit in your desired direction. People are very good and negociating them and you quickly learn who has the right of way, etc. Some round-abouts are very large, some are barely recognizable as a traffic directive. But they are plentiful throughout all Swedish cities.

Arvid talked to a receptionist at the tennis center and she was an au pair in the states a few years ago. When she found out that he wanted to play tennis, she immediately called her father who plays. Her father is a police officer. They make a date for Monday at 10 AM!

The 3 of us head to the "IKEA" mall. It is really big, jam-packed with people and boy is it cold. We eat lunch at a mall cafe. They have a daily special at most places which I try. I have fish, potatoes and salad. Arvid has meatballs and Karli has a chicken curry. We shop until closing at 5 PM. No coat yet but we try on many. Either they don't have hoods or are too short or something. Most are on sale, which is good. 8 crowns to the dollar which is pretty good.

We seem to notice that Arvid is setting off the security alarms when he exits stores. Puzzling. Sometimes they ignore him and other times they come up and he shows that we haven't purchased anything and they let him go. It doesn't happen all the time so it's hard to determine what the problem is. Most stores have these entrances where you walk between 2 obvious security systems. One store clerk actually took the time to check out the problem. When we told her what had been happening, she tested it with putting his waist pack through alone. Sure enough, it was something in his waist pack. I had purchased a new waist pack for Arvid (old one had no strap functioning) before we left at Fred Meyer. I also bought a wallet since this new waist pack did not have the built-in type wallet. We had chosen to "lean out" our purses and wallets, etc. for the trip. He had not used the wallet yet so it actually still had the tags on it. Evidently the tag was the problem. She removed the tags for him and from then on we were fine. Tack!

We go to the IKA super store. It has absolutely everything. I find myself wanting to buy all these Christmas decorations but hold myself back. The typical Swedish decorations; straw goats ranging from 6 inches to 2 feet tall, candle advent fixtures, the wooden tomtes, wooden trays, etc. are all so so so so inexpensive and would be super expensive at home are everywhere. I do buy some more postcards for Christmas and some package stickers for next year.

We look at the rest of the store which is home improvement, groceries, kitchen stuff, DVD's, etc. and I mean etc. We see the greatest thing; boot dryers! The drier part attaches on your wall and these hoses hang down. You put the hoses into your boots and turn on the drier. Cool! Arvid wouldn't have to put his boots in our wood burning kitchen range any more! (The smell of cooked work boots isn't a pleasant one...) Obviously it is too big to pack so we move on.

If you are a member, you can get a scanner at the front of the store. Then you attach the scanner to the grocery cart. As you shop, you scan and bag up the items you want to buy. Amazing. A lot of families seem to have these. You can also buy using the old fashioned way; going to the check stand and spending your money!

Brenden calls and we talk to Richard to with Karli's skype number.

Okay, now we are hungry again. We go to Linköping and decide on pizza. It is a cute place. They serve this pizza salad at every pizza place. It is shredded cabbage in sort of a vinegar with spices. All places seem to have their own version or recipe of it. We order personal pizzas for each of us. The place is very popular with take out and dine in. Every pizza has some kind of sauce with it... taziki, Bearnaise or ? It looks so different and we all agree it was the worst pizza ever. None of us could eat much. sorry....

We get back to the room by 8PM. Karli needs to study for her exams so we want to give her as much time as possible.

G'night