Mikaela and I enjoyed a nice Sunday morning and left the house at appx. 15:00, to go chat with Frederic at his local café. We went, and had a really nice time, chatting away. We spoke about the party we all attended at Muma's parents' place, about working out (as Mikaela still hasn't found a decent gym nearby our home), while Frederic snapped some shots of us using his new digital system camera. I don't know anything about real photography, but the thing produces some astonishing shots. I want a new digital camera! Talk about being a prat. Here I am, earning a hundred thousand times more than poor mine workers in, say, Argentina, and I'm sad about not having a modern enough camera, digital at that. Prat. Frederic mentioned the Sony DSC-V1 which produces really nice images.
On the way from the subway we saw a hideous cat-basket, i.e. a sort of bed for cats, in a shop in Fruängen. On the way to Mikaela's parents, we met a kitty.
We then went to Mikaela's mom's birthday bash. There were enough cars littered on and around their drive-way to make on-lookers believe an auction was about to happen. A lot of people were busy eating from the buffet, and a creepy kid occupied the family's gigantic wide-screen TV and PS2. A couple of Mikaela's cousins from Spain were there, visiting Sweden for the second time. They were really nice, even though they barely knew any English and I didn't know any Spanish (despite having read the blasted lingo for circa three years); Mikaela did, however, know Spanish! She understands more Spanish than she speaks, as she doesn't speak it all the time. Mikaela's parents are more fluent, though, and they helped out. The Spaniards were happy about being in Sweden, one reason being that the temperature in Madrid (where they live) is appx. 45 degrees Celsius, while ours is more modest (today circa 16).
People had a good time, with one general exception: Micke had to go away for a moment, during the party, to see a bunch of friends, to talk about one of their mutual friends. This friend travelled down to Portugal to partake in the soccer festivities. One night, he dove into a pool head-first, without realising it was very shallow. He now faces the risk of becoming paralysed from the waist downward, yet if he is extremely unlucky he might become paralysed from the neck downward. Apparently, his friends seemed to take the thing fairly well, considering the circumstances, except for the poor lad's best friend, who was basically in shreds. I wish them the best of fortunes.
Mikaela's parents had prepared a real buffet, consisting of a salmon salad, a potatoe salad, grilled ribs, genuine Spanish chorizos (i.e. not the crap you may pick up at the supermarket), Russian pasties, among other dishes, and the drinks were very nice as well; there were assorted middle-European red and white wines together with a punch, made up of mineral water, elderberry juice and white wine. Splendid food! After that, they served a variety of desserts, including coconut-sprinkled chocolate-dipped strawberries, rhubarb pie and chocolate cake with whipped cream. Yum!
Mariette, Mikaela's mom, opened her presents and looked over-joyed with receiving a pack of Elvis DVD's from us together with an indian lamp.
After the ceremonies, everybody was invited to the lawn outside the lower floor of their house, to partake in a dancing course, in salsa. I didn't actually dance, even though Mikaela and I took some basic steps, but even though the instructor seemed competent, the Spaniards quickly took the lead and danced away in real style. Very nice! These things always happen when Mikaela's parents throw a party; a variety of delicious food, drinks and desserts, even though it would be as nice to just sit down and chat with people. It's truly really nice, and I hope to have the opportunity to throw similar parties with my friends in the future, when Mikaela and I own a house.