Visitor in Visby 2: Sweaters fly and tears dry

I have lost my favorite sweater. Not only does it look cool and artsy, it has also grown really important to me. This was the sweater I bought with Nathalie, a dear friend of mine, when I saw it hanging in a “left-over” pile that they were gonna throw out. It was the sweater I was wearing on my first JNM camp, when I kissed a guy at 4 AM completely drunk. Sleeves of utter comfortness and a hoody of warmth that helped me through some of the colder nights on my second and third camps. Doubling as a pillow in times of relaxation and as a stuffed animal when I needed an embrace. The one night where I loaned it to Polina because she was cold and it was way too big for her. We shared a lot of memories in a short amount of time; memories of friendship, of joy, of sadness and sorrow… when I put it on, I would feel more confident and loving because of them.

 

Luckily I found it the next day.

Julius and I met up at my apartment so we could buy, well… everything. We needed pots, pans, cleaning products, cables, but most of all: food. We had empty fridges and if we didn’t solve it, soon we would have empty stomachs. 5 minutes away from my house was a supermarket though… in which we spent 1 and a half hours.

Let’s go over what’s ‘different’ from Dutch supermarkets. In Holland it is very normal to eat bread for breakfast and lunch, every single day. And we do have the best supermarket bread. It has more slices, tastes better, and it sells for 10 crowns! I swear if we start pricing our bread like the Swedes do we’d enter a second golden age by the end of the week. Coming from such a bread-laden culture, Juul and I had trouble thinking on our feet and bought a giant what can only be described as a “cracker wheel”. Seriously: it is a wheel of a cracker… look!

“There’s like 8 of these in there too. You can literally build a wheat-truck out of these.”

To my reassurance they do have a nice assortment of meat substitutions. It’s hard to beat Holland here as well, but it’s no competition: I’m just happy the have veggie bacon I can take with my eggs.

After our 2000 crowns investment in life supplies, we figured that, for that money, they could miss a shopping cart for 3 hours. NOT stealing it was an impossibility: it had 4 shopping baskets inside and under it plus whatever crap we could fit still placed on top. And after dropping off half the booty at my place and half the dough at his, at 1:30 PM we finally had our first meal of the day: crackers with spreads.

With all that shopping behind us… we went to shop some more. Full disclosure, just expect your first day to be a whole lot of shopping if you want to live like a normal person on day 2. We got our shower curtains, our gel douches, pots and pans, I can’t make this sound interesting. When we were done shopping it was past 5. Now since it was a Saturday, the shops close at 5. And the one thing we forgot to buy… were bedsheets. Again. So that was another day sleeping in the cold.

Let’s speed this up and get to the fun stuff. I couldn’t sleep. I organized my room. I made pictures. Here!

3800 crowns per month seems like a lot, but it would easily go for double back where I’m from. Spacious, with its own kitchen and bathroom and truly a first: soundproof. I mean not actually soundproof, but I can blast Daft Punk on my phone without it turning into a noise-off with my neighbors. We have a pretty big housing problem in the Netherlands right now. My nana told me the other day that students in Groningen are now sleeping in bus stops. This one isn’t a joke for once… although it is hisadenious.

Then I stole a bike. Probably. Not. Remember Adam-who-is-wrong-about-pizzas? His buddy Petter “knew of” a bike of which the cable lock was “0851” (not the actual cable lock, I’m not stoopid). He told me I could “take it” and that it had “just been left there”. So… it is entirely possible I have been an unknown accomplish in a revenge-plot against Petters ex. Either way I’ve got a bike!

“The gear is stuck and it doesn’t have rack straps, but I luv dis litwle snoowtiepetoewtie <3”

Next thing on the agenda was buying covers and lays with Julius. He listens to a lot of classical and jazz, while I’m more of a funk or house guy myself. That has nothing to do with buying sheets and pillows though. I ‘did’ buy this jellyfish in a jar since it’s my friend Vanessa’s spirit animal and looking at it reminds me of her.

Don’t worry we’re almost done. This story is turning into a real “and then, and then” format isn’t it? Next time I’ll have to introduce zany characters that go on sub-plot adventures to save the queen from the evil Zeonorf by collecting all of the crystals. Or I can share with you the adventures of Lucy Lawless.

Lucy Lawless is a New Zealand actress and singer who is best known for her role as Xena the Warrior Princess. But it’s also the name of my character in Dark Souls III. The thing you need to know about Dark Souls is that it has a very… robust character creator. I’ll say you can make some darn handsome dudes in Dark Souls if you put the effort in! Lucy, on the other hand,

Now besides Lucy Lawless being an awesome name in-and-of itself, the inspiration for the first name came from the word Illusion. Because, and I have put too much time in this to let it go to waste: the face of this character is literally an optical illusion. Check it:

“From street jester to sad urchin in 0.6 seconds”

It was after playing that I noticed I was missing my sweater. All I wanted to do then was cry. I had to make peace with weeping though. The day had been a tangle of stores, visits, walks and rides; the most frustrating thing was not knowing what had happened to it. But, lo and behold, the next day I traced my steps and after some fruitless store visits, I found it on a park bench not 1 minute away from my house! God bless the good Samaritan that placed it there.

Oh yeah I almost forgot: we pet cats.

“I call this one blackbeard”

“And this is stripes”

Next time on Visitor in Visby: Student Survival Guide and also I get killed.