Ich bin ein Berliner

+I'm going to Berlin from Sunday-Thursday, for some Fulbright conference that I don't entirely understand the point of. I've never been to Germany, except randomly to the Frankfurt airport multiple times, so I'm not complaining. I think it may be tremendously shallow of me that one of the things I'm most excited about is getting to go to the Berlin location of Galeries Lafeyette, the incredible Paris department store.

+I don't know what the current dollar/euro conversion rate is right now, but I will probably not be able to afford anything at Galeries Lafeyette, not even some of the French cheese I've been dreaming about. The Swedish krona is now at 6 to the dollar - 5.99 the last I checked, actually! - which is just dismal. When I got here it was still closer to 7, and people here tell me about the times when it was 12 kroner to the dollar.

+My foot has made a miraculous recovery, and it looks like me, Jake, and my lingonberry-stained shoes are going to be able to run the marathon after all. I had been feeling so crushed, and the pain was horrible and constant for almost a week, and then yesterday morning, all of a sudden, it was like 80% better. I'm not running on it this week but I've been doing as much cross-training I can. This is a huge relief. At the peak of the injury I was having horrible visions of hobbling down the aisle at the wedding in one white Marc Jacobs shoe and one white cast.

+Last week, on March 25, it was Våffeldagen (waffle day) in Sweden. For me, this meant that I got to eat the heart-shaped waffles they made at work for fika, with cloudberry and lingonberry jam, and whipped cream.

I just looked it up and apparently the day has its origins in Jesus/a pun. March 25th is precisely 9 months before Christmas - hence it is Vårfrudagen, or Our Lady's Day. However, when you mumble this, it sounds just like Våffeldagen.

+On Sunday, P. told me about something called "Mördarsnigel," or "murder snail." The name cracked me up, it's so incredibly dramatic. In English it's known as the Spanish slug, and because of rising temperatures it's become a big problem in Sweden because it invades and destroys gardens. I can't get over the fact that instead of calling it "Spansksnigel" or something, which I guess would be totally unacceptable because it might possibly affect people's attitudes towards Spain or the Spanish, which would be unfair, the Swedes choose to call it a murder snail. Regardless, it sounds nasty.

+I saw a flyer for some program at the University of the Arctic at work today. Now that would be an interesting place to study. There's a program called "circumpolar studies." I love that.