A frigid salty Archipeligo breezes blows up from the sea and I soak it up, as well as the sunlight of an early Swedish morning, on my face. I am walking by the water on my way to a boat tour of the city. In Stockholm the people are eagerly and impatiently awaiting spring and the sunlight that has been gone for so long. Days like today make people rush into the streets. It is a great time to be in Stockholm. The cafe's are starting to move things outdoors and everyone is wearing a smile. I am loving it, all of it. The water, the sun, the people and that nervous stirring in my stomach that come with new surroundings. I am in awe of every building. From the Cathedrals and the Palace to the old apartment buildings. It all has so much history. I enter the boat and head to the top look out deck to find a seat. It is a pack house and as the lady on the microphone said, it is like the Tower of Bable with so many different languages represented. We start out and pass the Royal Palace where I saw the changing of the guard. We also pass the Vasa museum, which is an old viking warship that sank on its maiden voyage in the harbor. It seems like an odd thing to immortalize but it does look just astoundingly beautiful and is tied to a huge cover up of the time. I will be exploring the museum and the ship this Sunday. We continue on and see many villas and royal residences along the coast. The tour is ok, the sights are great and I am also treated to a piece of Swedish culture. Every Thursday or Lorsdog in Sweden everyone has pea soup. It is a tasty yellow pea soup in honor of a fallen king. Many years ago King Eric XIV who was poisoned with pea soup. It is a neat tradition and everyone does it, it is also followed by pancakes for no apparent reason. These are the little pieces of culture that make me love traveling. Stockholm is a magnificent city and I can't wait to explore it further.

Anticipation grows as the time draws near. In my confusion of the importance of the Melodifestivalen I assumed it would be just a neat cultural experience. I was highly underestimating how big this is. The evening starts at a small French cafe near the city center where the food was fast but very delicious. I indulge in the fish and pomme frites. A side-note, fries are pomme frites and chips are chips here. The fish is fresh and crispy on the edges, with the little bit of fresh lemon squeezed on top it is nearly perfect. After dinner we share a coffee and we each have a small but rich chocolate mousse topped with creme. Now we are headed to the event of the year and I still have no real idea how big it is.

The vehicle crosses the bridge and the city is a shining diamond and the sea glows in the moonlight. I am lost in the beauty of Stockholm at night. The snow still shimmers but the ice is melting to reveal the water below. The lights of the city glow brightly as I stare awestruck by just the passing by of the buildings but the kids seem not to notice. The excitement for whats to come is too great. We draw nearer and then, at once, GLOBEN!!! The cheers come from everyone in the car as we come into view of the Stockholm Globe arena. It is a massive stadium sphere resting just near the water as though it might roll right it. The lights are shinning bright all around the arena and the huge Melodifestivalen logo is projected on the side of the Globen. As we park and I see the massive crowds I start to realize that this is not just some concert. This is a massive and once in a lifetime event. I am very lucky to have tickets, and to get to share in this part of the Swedish culture. I am told that the Melodifestivalen is an annual singing and song competition that takes place in all of Sweden. The winner goes on to enter into the European finals, taking place this year in Munich, and to be very famous. We enter the stadium and make our way to our seats. Large arenas always fill me with an excited anticipation and with the added cultural aspects of the event this walk to my seat is fueled by this. I look around in all directions and take in the magnitude. The Globen is packed, nearly every seat is full. We find our seats in the floor section. I am lucky enough to be here and now I am even luckier to have such great seats. Everything from the car ride to walking to my seats seems magical, a surreal feeling as though I am living in a dream.

The contest begins. There are ten artists and then voting. It is the American Idol finale but only in a language I can't understand. Lucky enough some of the songs are in English, though it is not music I would ever listen to. though there was one great song by an artist called The Moniker. The song is called"oh my god". It was by far my favorite song of the evening and the third best song in overall voting. The crowd favorite seems to be the Justin Bieber of Sweden with a song called "Popular". It is a terrible song but the kid can sing and dance. Everyone is loving the event, singing and dancing and spending a lot of time explaining things to me.

With the Melodifestivalen behind me now I look back and know that I was lucky to partake in that night. It truly is a staple in Swedish culture and a really good time. I now have a ton of crappy pop songs stuck in my head but it is worth it to have experienced it. I look forward to many more experiences like that and many more magical moments. I am living in a dream.

I am a southern man. Give me some tight Levis, a fine pair of boots and now, thanks to my girlfriend, a form fitting long sleeve Henley and I am alright. I like my tea sweet, believe in southern charm and kindness and even a little southern draw. There are many things about the south that are negative but I find that to be the case most every place I have been. No matter how far I go and what I may be doing the south is always on my mind, and most recently my belly. After having spent 6 month working in the mountains I managed to shed 40lbs but after having spent 1 month back in the south I managed to acquire about 10 extra pounds of baggage for my trip. I have had many an acting professor and director try to get the country out of my accent. Many times I feel they and I have succeeded but I know it is still there and it doesn't really bother me. I mention this because I found myself in a discussion about the south here with the family I am visiting. It is a peculiar thing to not have your accent recognized as other than American. I was asked to describe how a southern accent is different than just an American. I. There is where I start, the I. I show how somehow the I becomes its own word with a word. I try to describe a scenario where you can envision a long and slow moving, stagnantly hot and humid, July night from the front porch of a house somewhere on some farm in nowhere Kentucky. The sound of the summers echo loud above the sound of footsteps on the old wooden floor. Here, in this world, it takes just a bit longer to say our vowels because we have no where to be and a world that is moving slowly around us, why not our words as well. They seem to find this amusing and I'm sure hard to understand as it only ever reaches 77 degrees in the summer and the winters are as long as a baptist preachers Sunday. Here, amidst all this snowy white, I think of the green of Kentucky and Tennessee. I think of cavity inducing McAllister's sweet tea over a conversation with Shannon in New Orleans and I think of how,, regardless of the negative, I am proud to be a southerner. I strive to be a souther gentleman. The Swedish lifestyle, aside from the mass quantities if heart-clogging good food, is much akin to the southern lifestyle. The people are very welcoming and inviting and that same southern kindness can be found from nearly everyone. There will be no long and sweat filled summer by the creek, there will be no Dreamland ribs or collard greens but I am finding that the food and the people are all very nice. I am glad to be starting my journey here.

The mind is a powerful and quite a tortuous beast. In the face of extremes the mind can be a great tool used to empower and protect. Or, when faced with stress, an all knowing beast used to tear you apart from the deepest parts of yourself. Your mind holds the secret desires and fears as well as hopes and dreams and knowledge of strengths. This traveling alone is very rewarding but it gives way to time spent dwelling in the bright and also dank parts of my own mind. I would be remiss if not to share how hard dealing with myself, my fears and lack of communication with home is effecting me. I have had encounters with people from many different cultures and they have started to teach me so much about a world once unknown. These moments are why I travel and why I want to tell about the world to all who want to hear. Standing in front of structures by the sea that hold such rich history I have felt the power travel and the warming sensation that comes with once in a lifetime experiences. Dancing in the kitchen with a beautiful young person so full of life and desire to learn and to help teach is a memory like no other. A moment in time that will dance with me forever. Seeing smiling faces and the first goodnight hug before bedtime is indescribable. These are the bright places of my mind that make the dank a lot more manageable. Still though when left ones self the mind will begin to play. I will begin to think about the times when I laughed so hard that I would cry with a little woman that I love very much. Simple things like sharing a meal, or a grandma bar seem like all that matters. The deep longing to speak to the voice that will ease me seems sometimes late as almost too much to stand. Still, though, the mind is powerful and sometimes even able to weigh things before even we realize. The experiences that I have lying out before me and the experiences I have thus far had help assure me that this is a golden opportunity that will lead somewhere spectacular. The public support and well wishes and personal comments I have received give me strength and passion to make this experience something special for myself and now all involved. So while dwelling in those places in your own mind know that if you give way to your dreams, though sometimes hard, it will lead to moments unforgettable and rewarding.

You remember the show "Perfect Strangers"? Well here I am Balcy Bartokomous. The foreign stranger trying to make the best of a debacle. I'm staring down the barrel of a page of cooking directions, in what could be Egyptian hyroglyphs, and looking into the faces of three little hungry people who I am pretty sure know this is not going well and I assume that dinner is going to take a while. It looks pretty straight forward, potatoes and fish with sauce. Sure, given those ingredients I could make something of my own, but that is not the plan. Here they have a delivery system that delivers the ingredients and instructions for a meal for everyday of the week. It is a great system that makes it easy to prepare healthy and quick meals for an expectant family. Easy...well not so much for me. At least on the first night. Luckily I have a little help and I cut the fish toss it into the oven and start the potatoes. Now I learn something that really stings. Potatoes here are very small and we do not receive fresh potatoes until close to may. If you know me you know that I love potatoes with all that I am. So this news really hit hard. Anyway I cook the potatoes and mash them down. Without butter and salt, which I was not used to. Being from the south mashed potatoes are only legit with butter and milk and salt. We sit down to the dinner table and everyone seems suffeciently satisfied with the taste and I enjoy everything as well. I watch as the youngest one puts more food away than anything of that size should. "Mer fisk, Mer fisk" she asks again and again. The next night is curry chicken and rice. This goes a bit easier with the help of google translator and the fact I somewhat know how to cook. I am loving these trying times at dinner. It is really forcing me to learn the language and find a way to communicate.

Bedtime for any is no picnic. I wouldn't say it is terrible or even that bad but it is sometimes a challenge. Aside from the regular not wanting to sleep and wanting to watch a little more t.v. we now have the added difficulty of me trying to read them a story in Swedish. Or better yet me tell a story in English. I am trying but I cannot read the children's books yet. I tried to console the eldest the other day reaching out and letting her know that I needed her help. That she is my big help with the others. This seemed to work and so I tried to tell her a bedtime story. This seemed not to work. I tried speaking slowly, as if that would help. It of course did not. My feeble attempts at hand language was laughable at best. Still, she seemed to enjoy the story and the responsibility of being my helper. It is rewarding to see the development that is happening so far with their language and mine. This experience could be something really fantastic.

So far I am three nights in the bag with my new experience. Three nights of pick ups after school and meeting many new teachers and after school program leaders. I have learned a lot about the children and what my role in their day to day life is going to be. This will be focused on this and being comfortable taking care of them on my own. It is a terrifying thing to be responsible for another life. I have three in my hands. Three that speak a different language and will begin to find that dreadfully frustrating. I do not take this lightly and will put all my power into making it a great and rewarding time for us all.

I will be having many more discussions this week about Swedish politics. I will be learning about European unemployment and poverty and will try to compare and contrast to ours back home. I will also be venturing out into the town and back into the city in search of a job and person unique to Sweden and I will interview and try to get hands on with their jobs. This hopefully will be a knowledge filled and very fun week.

Fear is a powerful motivator. It can make a person do nearly anything. I sit here tonight and contemplate my fears. I have been afraid to do many things. Afraid that failure was going to be inevitable or that significance would be so trivial. These fears kept me from doing things I should have, and going places I should have. I think of fear and how when faced it is never as bad as we create in our minds. I face fear on a daily basis and put up my best fight. More often than not I feel as though I lose that battle. I still strive to at least put up a fight. They say that the devil you know is better than the devil you don't. I take this to mean that whatever "misery" or hard times we have in our life, it is easier to deal with those to maintain the familiar then to escape to an unknown devil and the leave the problems or fear but be faced with the unfamiliar. I see this in America with unemployment and poverty and I have learned that it is the same here in Europe. People are choosing to stay in the "devil they know" or unemployment rather than pack up and follow the jobs. There may be work to be had but people find themselves too afraid to face the devil. Facing the devil is an agonizing battle that eats away at me daily. I sit here alone and agonize nearly in pain with my longing and desires for the familiar, with my want to feel safe. I chose this, the unknown devil, because I hope that I can make it pay off and be far more rewarding than the simple familiar could have. In learning that it is a worldly problem and not just one that I have had and have been witness to nearly all my life I do not find a solution or a way to make it easier but I am trusting that the facing of my devils lead to a new familiar and a new found strength.