i had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee

"Like my profile picture? I googled fat lemur."
-Lexis

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Yesterday night, the 4 year-old girl I was babysitting wouldn't go to sleep, so I unscrewed her lightbulbs and locked her into her room.

This was in accordance with her mother's instructions. Yes, apparently Anna won't sleep unless locked in a dark room (and she can turn the light on when the bulbs are in).

"I know it sounds cruel, but it's the only thing that works," her mother said and explained that there was a baby monitor that I could listen to in another room. Fun times.

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Anna's older brothers were really awesome. They are both fluent in English and Greek, and can speak some Italian, Swedish, and another million languages. This meant that I got a free Greek lesson – my name looks fabulous in Greek. " A bit like Elvish but more like Greek." (Yes, I wish I hadn't said that). Unfortunately Greek, like many other languages, hasn't managed to create letters for all the sounds in my name. They missed out on the "sh" and "v" sound, but made up for it with like three "O's."

The boys (10 and 11) told me about how they used to get bullied at a school they attended in Italy. Pavlo said he and his friends would hide from the bully in some old tires near the playground.

"What about you? Have you ever had problems with a bully?" he asked me.
"No. I was the bully."
They both stared at me.
"Just kidding. I'm a girl...we don't really do that."

They disputed this and I agreed and admitted that I was the kid in the corner with a book when I was in elementary school. I have no idea if bullying went on at my childhood schools.

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I watched The Social Network last night and really enjoyed it. Movie ticket prices in Stockholm vary both by theatre and film. At the cinema in Hotorget, The Social Network cost 100 SEK ($15), Inception cost 110 SEK ($16.50) and other films went down to 90 or 95 SEK.

When I lived in L.A., I got used to La Mirada's dollar theatre prices – most days $2.00, Tuesdays $1.00) – and the Stockholm prices initially seemed really high. But that's just Stockholm; it's a European capital, and everything is a bit more expensive here. Also, big cities in the States hit comparable cinema prices, especially with 3D glasses.

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Simply Sweden

Grocery shopping is definitely more expensive here. The US embassy puts out a biannual order to the commissary in Frankfurt, and staff are allowed to bulk order all the American goods that they miss (or are too expensive here).

Our family has been with the State Department for a million years, and we're used to not having American goods; in Yemen we didn't have pork, cereal, candy bars, McDonalds, etc. The order we placed was fairly small; a turkey and a pig for Thanksgiving/Christmas, a box of HeadNShoulders dandruff shampoos (you can only buy in bulk), etc.

Other families were clearly feeling a lack of America in their shopping. I was housesitting for a family, and they received a giant order (30 boxes?) which included a box of chewy bars, a box of bisquik pancake mixes, and a box filled with Ramen Noodles. They missed Ramen Noodles so much that they ordered them from Germany (and by extension, the States) in bulk. I still can't get over this.

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