Running the gauntlet...

I'm not sure which was more stressful...travelling home from my office during rush hour last Friday sans wingman, or navigating the crowds of Christmas shoppers in the city this afternoon with Dr. Darling.

Both seemed equal to the task of producing anxiety, and that is not in any way a reflection of my Sweetie's skill as a "seeing-eye Swede".  It's really more of an indication of just how much I HATE shopping in this country.  Consumer goods are really expensive (primarily because of the 25% sales tax that's built into the purchase price) and customer service is notoriously non-existent.

Having said that, we did have a pretty suiccessful outing, scoring gifts for virtually everyone on the Swedish side of the family. This is a far greater challenge than shopping for the American side, because my relatives will swoon upon being presented with the usual holiday trifecta of Zoegas coffee, Marabou chocolate and All Sorts licorice (which is actually British, but readily available here).

Being in my office on for a couple hours on Friday felt great, but the trip up to Landskrona and back was pretty tiring, and I wasn't nearly as productive as I'd hoped to be owing to an awful lot of folks wanting to just hug and squeeze and talk to me about the surgery and how I was doing.  It's great to be loved, but I can get alot more work done telecommuting from home!

tags: sweden  customer service  monocular  

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