Surprises in the Mansion

So it's been a few days so far in our new place and we're now at the point where we can sit on couches, rather than the floor, in our living room (quite a step up). During the past few days however, we have discovered a few secrets about our new establishment.

Upon cleaning the other day (or more accurately, just opening and looking inside the very bare cabinets) I came across an old cardboard box (well actually, I have no idea how old it was) and a pile of 'cloth' underneath it. Intrigued, and feeling like I was actually cleaning something, I removed the objects from the shelf and came across the following two items.

Item #1:
-Inside the cardboard box I found quite a few goodies that pleasently surprised me. What I discovered was that at some point before I lived here (which has really only been the past few days) there must have been a DJ who lived at this place. I believe his name was DJ Quality (and he has a pretty sweet website). And when he moved, he must have forgot to check all the cabinets and ended up leaving most of his promotional materials behind. Convenient for us, as we now have thousands of business cards and quite a few flyers and posters for various parties, events, and clubs throughout Sweden. Most of the business cards are for a place called "Club Zebra," which we have now decided to call our mansion.

Item #2:
-Beneath the cardboard box, I found what at first I thought to be a pile of fabric - which I was excited for because I needed to get some anyway to make a wall for my bedroom. However, what I found was even better. It turns out that the fabric I found was in fact a traditional Irish kilt (complete with a furry skunk-tail-like right-hand-warmer pocket on the front, at least that's my guess at what it might be used for).

So now, when we decide to advertise for our parties at Club Zebra (at least our version of it here in the mansion) with our business cards, we can come prepared in our party outfit/kilt. I'm pretty pumped and no longer bummed that I didn't bring all my halloween costumes with me to Sweden. I'm finding replacements already!

In other news, this morning Matt and I traveled to Karlshamn (about an hour train ride from Karlskrona) to try and find some used bikes and had quite the funny morning. Matt had arranged for a lady to meet him at the train station with a bike he wanted to buy and I was planning on wandering the streets and calling some lady to find another bike for sale.

Well Matt's lady was there when we got off the train, however the bike she had with her was slightly smaller than what either of us expected. It's more of a bike for a middle schooler than a masters student. But Matt had already told the lady that he wanted to buy it so we found ourselves in a funny few minutes. The lady repeatedly asked both Matt and I if the bike was actually for us or if we knew of a small child back in Karlskrona who wanted it. She seemed confused when we kept telling her it was for us. To make the moment less awkward, Matt asked if he could take it for a test ride (which consisted of him getting on the bike and riding around in a tiny circle in front of us for about 5 seconds). I guess he was sold after that and proceeded to finalize the sale. However, neither of us had any small bills on us so he ran into the convenience store and bought an ice cream cone (which wasn't the best idea because it was pretty cold outside) to break his bill.

Then we continued on (part of the time with me riding on the back because there's a little rack on top of the back wheel - pretty much imagine two clowns at a circus on a trick bike and that's what we looked like, cruzing down the street) trying to find my lady. After an hour-long search and a few phone calls, I still couldn't understand where she lived and just gave up and got back on the train.

So I arrived back to our apartment empty-handed and Matt returned with a slightly smaller bike than expected (which should work once the seat is raised, but currently it is as low as it can go and we have no tools to raise it - bummer).

So those are the latest discoveries, if anything else pops up or happens we'll be sure to let you know. Tomorrow is the start of class for both of us, which should be when the real fun begins.

-Spud