Joining the Library

That was my excitment for yesterday - joining the library. Lindesberg has a very nice public library with a reasonable English section and a nice collection of CDs/DVDs. I have been missing music so I think I might treat myself to an ipod in Hong Kong on the way home. After all I have been a good girl (more or less). I was interested to see that a visitor can join the library for free but that DVDs attract a charge. It made me laugh to see that they have the same kind of star printers as Brisbane City Council Libaries to tell you when your books are due back. Small world.

It is a small town and backs onto a lake - the first photo is of the cute tourist information office with the lake behind it. Lindesberg has four supermarkets but only one bottle shop. I have got used to buying alcohol in supermarkets in Europe so it is a bit of a shock having to go to the special bottle shop which has restricted hours and is quite expensive. They are all owned by the government with the aim of trying to reduce alcoholism I believe. It is a bit inconvenient so it probably works. I should look up the statistics.

The other funny thing about Sweden is that although not many people smoke, there is this thing called snuss which is tobacco that you place under your lip which is very popluar. It caused a bit of a problem for Sweden joining the European Union for some reason but they got an exemption and you can only buy it here or perhaps also in Finland. I am told it is not as bad as smoking tobacco as it doesn't affect your lungs or circulation but apparently it does lead to increased levels of mouth cancers.

We are not finding it so expensive to live here as when we visited five years ago - luckily the Swedish kronor has got weaker due to the financial crisis. Admittedly we are not dining out in restaurants as much. Tonight we are going to have a pizza party with Peter and a French academic who works here. I am wishing we had a few of our games here as it would be fun to play some cluedo or civilization - no nasty distractions such as phones or work.

The other photo is of a new flower which has appeared - there are more yellow and white flowers than purple now. We had a brief walk yesterday when it stopped raining for a while and tried to identify some of the trees in the forest. The dominant tree seems to be birch but there are also a lot of spruce, pine, aspen and a few alder apparently. I saw my first great spotted woodpecker actually pecking at wood. Most exciting.