This afternoon, through another circuitous friend/family connection, I had lunch with someone named Erik who is a few years older than me and who is awesome. We ate at this restaurant looking out on the water with a huge brunch buffet where I avoided the herring but had lots of salmon, and which I have determined on the map was on an island called Hammarby Sjöstad, just south of Södermalm. Erik repeated the name for me twice but the "sjö" sound is totally bizarre. Erik had his dad's car so after lunch he drove me around Stockholm a bit. It was nice to see it from the car - I take the bus a lot but I'm still at a point where I'm constantly stressed out about figuring out where I am and not missing my stop, so it's not particularly relaxing.

It was a beautiful, sunny, perfect fall day, barely chilly at all, and the best part was driving around Djurgården, which is another island right in central Stockholm but it's mostly all a park. Apparently starting in 1580 parts of it were a royal animal preserve with reindeer and elk and such, but now it's mostly museums and lots of open park space. The leaves are starting to change colors, and driving around it felt like we were in an old movie set in autumn in Vermont, where the day's activity was to take a scenic drive in a sleek light blue Audi.

Erik also offered to help me move my stuff to my apartment in Kungsholmen on Friday, which is incredible because I was dreading having to do it by myself. I've now moved three separate times, soon to be five - California to hotel in Stockholm, hotel to the temporary place in Fruängen an hour away, back another hour from Fruängen to where I am now at the Wenner-Gren Center in the city, tomorrow morning moving to a different room in this building, and finally, on Friday, to Kungsholmen. I tried to be frugal with what I brought, but it is still incredible how much stuff I manage to accumulate, including a blanket and pillow and bulky things like that. Also, Erik's family has a house on an island in the archipelago (actually, based on multiple repetitions of the phrase "my family's island" and other information, I think it's their island, but I'm not one hundred percent positive) - but the point is that he said they go ice skating there in the winter and that he'd bring me sometime, so I have my first exciting Swedish winter plans. I can barely describe how grateful I am for people like this who are willing to just jump in and be kind and funny and helpful.

Also we drove past the American embassy, and it was hands down the ugliest building I've ever seen in Stockholm. It's this horrendous gray concrete bunker. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. We're having the Fulbright "orientation," aka a day of museums and receptions and things, on Friday, which culminates in a reception with someone high-ranking at the embassy, so I imagine it will be nicer on the inside...