It's quite a busy time here at the Nordström household, with lots of work being done on the boat. She is now uncovered, the flag is hoisted, dinghy inflated and she's looking ready for the summer ahead.



There is a great sense of satisfaction actually uncovering her and feeling that it may be possible to take her out soon. And there is even time to sit in the shelter sunning yourself and dreaming of those long, summer days ahead.



While she still remains the lone boat on the pier, that will all change soon as the boats are due to begin being relaunched in two weeks time. However, the fishermen are out in force - still rugged up against the weather, but enjoying that first foray out in search of the elusive salmon and pike.



I went into Stockholm on Friday to meet up with some friends for a girls' night out. We went to Pizza Hut in Högtorget (not my choice!) and I was somewhat shocked to pay over 100SEK for a lunchtime pizza and regular pepsi max. That is around $20 for what I consider a $5.95 deal back in Australia!

The food however was not the object of the exercise, but it was more to meet up with a few girls here and chat about life. This is a photo of the girls - Kitty, Beverly, Hélène, Heather and Leslie.



One of the best things was that I was able to eat dinner without having to share it with Lambi! It's great to catch up with people occasionally. It's nice to meet different people and ones that you can connect with on different issues and circumstances. What I particulaly like about this group of people is that they are positive and upbeat. I'm really, really tired of the whingeing that goes on in some expat groups here. I honestly get exhausted dealing with negative people - I want to be supportive to people that are hurting or struggling, but to some extent my psyche is also fragile in a new country/people/system and I can't really hold others up right now. Having said that, nothing beats a huge gripe session, but that seems to have become almost the theme for my interaction with certain others - some get togethers can consist of whining from start to end no matter how I try to swing the conversation. I almost get defensive about Sweden, which is also something I don't want to do. I want to take it for what it is and deal as well as I can with it under the circumstances and simply get on with making a life instead of living with one foot in Australia. I almost feel more homesick after a session like that, less isolated maybe but not comforted.

People have asked me about how I come up with the weird websites that I post about on the forum. Things like the Farting Nun Organ or Circus of Disemboweled Plush Toys. Do I use Google and enter something weird into the search field? Nope. Or not always at any rate. I do want to point to a couple of others that I like to use.

One is Queryster. I quite like it as you can easily switch between different search engine results. It also has the same kind of features for finding news and images and blogs too. Play around with it and watch it take you on a great meandering tour of the web. And you can find great "must see" things like this video clip.

The other one I like is Stumbleupon. Hey, I even love the name as it perfectly describes how I approach a websearch. You need to sign up for it and you get a toolbar to add to your browser. This allows you to give a "thumbs up" sign when you get to a website that you like. It will save it as a bookmark for you as well. You also have the option to add a comment and also view what others have said about the site. You can also click on a button to be taken to a random site recommended by people who also liked the sites you. There is also a deeper social network that I haven't had time to explore yet. A lot of the sites I Stumbleupon are just the sort of sites I like.

And there are surprises as well. I stumbled upon a blog by an AA member in Norway - Jill Walker. I found her through the stumbleupon profile and saw that she had given a thumbs up to this. Small world, isn't it?

And I wanted to give another plug to an enterprising member of Australians Abroad - Randolph Kasprzyck, or Kasper as he prefers to be called. Kasper is a Sydney boy based in Östersund, Sweden. And , he is currently undertaking a solo, unsupported, expedition to the North Pole. Why? Because in the great Aussie tradition, he just decided to!

Kasper will be the 1st Australian and only the 3rd person ever to have walked solo to the North Pole. So I wanted to wish him good luck and urge everyone to cheer him on and take a look at his journal at Xpedition Capital.