Swedish Parker!

a.k.a. The Weekend That Never Wanted To End.

Thursday. I’m thinking to myself: in a couple of days I’ve got the big Grand Final rematch against the Vikings. I’ve been training solidly in the gym all week, feeling great, and really looking forward to a couple of early nights so I can come out firing on the weekend.

The next 48 hours were meant to be so simple: maybe catch up with a friend for a bit on Thursday night, relax at home Friday, and be well rested for the game come Saturday morning. Definitely no alcohol, and certainly no late nights.

Where did it all go so wrong?

It started with a call from Leo on Thursday afternoon. A bloody good bloke - you’ll never meet a more generous Swede. He’d just gotten back from jetsetting across the world for a month and wanted to share some of his adventures over dinner.

“Great,” I thought. Catch up with a couple of friends for a quiet night - won’t even have to worry about dinner.

Next thing I know it’s 2:15am and I’m running across town to catch the last night bus home for the next hour (the ever-reliable tunnelbana stopped running a long time ago).

I’m not sure if it was my obsession with Kristian’s iPhone or the potent Japanese liquor that Leo unveiled, but somewhere during the night I’d completely forgotten about my preparation for the Big Game.

So by the time I climb into bed, somewhere close to 3:30am, the sun is rising and I’m wondering how early I’ll have to be in bed Friday night to make up for this.

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Friday.

“No drinks. Early night.”

I enjoyed a good sleep-in and was looking forward to taking it easy that evening.

Then Leo called again (like I said, bloody good bloke, but I have to admit my body gets a little nervous every time his name flashes up on my phone nowadays).

There was a PhD Student party at the Karolinska Institute. Nothing over-the-top, he assured me.

I ummed and ahhed and then decided I could go out for ONE drink. No more, and definitely on the t-bana home before midnight.

Fast forward to 1am and I’m dancing to really, really bad Swedish music in a Schlager Hall (I’ve given up on getting this song out of my head).

Home by 4am.

————
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(You’ve gotta remember the guy standing next to me is about 8 feet
tall. Why on earth did I choose to stand next to HIM?)

Saturday. I wake up after six hours sleep. Two hours too few on any given day, let alone the day of the big game.

Despite falling off the wagon in the preceeding 48 hours, I felt good. I was PUMPED for the big Anzac Day Clash against the Bromma Aussies Vikings.

The game had plenty of spirit. We’d lined up to hear the Last Post on the bugle before the bounce, and both teams had a point to prove. With each team having six or seven players on the interchange the game was played at a frenetic pace (as frenetic as AFL in Sweden can get, anyway).

But with the Vikings’ gun full forward Trevor in fine form, the Axemen went into the break four goals down.

We weren’t about to roll over and concede, however. And after the break came out firing with two quick replies.

The Vikings started arguing with the umpire (surprise surprise), Trevor ran down to full-back to plug their defence, and we felt the tide was turning in our favour.

Alas, a couple of cheap kicks later and the game was all over.

Bromma Vikings 10-16-76 def. Solna Axemen 7-10-52

It was a disappointing loss, and my body was aching.

I was in no mood to go out.

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Saturday Afternoon. I make it home by 5pm. I’m exhausted. I’m considering crawling into bed right now and wondering if I’ll wake up again before Sunday. Probably not…

But no, Leila calls. “Join is in Södermalm for a couple of drinks and something to eat.”

Hmm, why not. It was a glorious day, no better way to forget about our loss than with a couple of drinks in the sun.

After a couple of hours I was ready to call it quits and head home for the night.

7pm. Leo calls. “Hey mate we’re going to a dance party tonight, pre-party at mine from 8pm, come over.”

I should have known right then and there that I wasn’t getting to bed for a long, looong time.

Leila and I head over to the pre-party at Leo’s.

I steadfastly refused any notion whatsoever of going to the dance party (I don’t dance, I have no idea what the difference between “House” and “Trance” music is, and I was already running on fumes), but was suddenly warming to the idea of a few more drinks.

I think this was my downfall:

I was being served vodka red bulls in giant glasses, which basically required a can and a half of red bull with three shots of vodka.

Before I knew it, I was high as a kite and making plans to get a permanent residency permit off a lovely young girl in exchange for me going out to the dance club.

(Red Bull starting to well and truly kick in)

The Anderssons!

“Yeah, nah let’s go dance for four and a half hours straight, definitely!”

(Tove was literally dancing this fast)

I have no idea who this DJ was… but the videos (that I’m deliberately withholding to save some form of credibility) suggest I was thoroughly enjoying his music.

The club ran til 4am. The tunnelbana (Metro) stops running at 3.45am. Well bloody timed!!

We tried in vain to get a taxi before giving up and walking allllll the way back to Leo’s as the sun came up.

Why not?

An hour later we were there.

The “korv” (hotdogs) tasted like heaven at 5.30 in the morning.

Andreas inventing the world’s most uncomfortable sleeping position.

“Yeah, nah feeling great guys.”

We all tried (and most failed) to sleep for a couple of hours before I made my way home after 8am.

I walk in the door of The Mansion at 9.30am. I’ve been going virtually non-stop for the past 60 hours. My body is aching from a brutal game of football, four hours on the dancefloor, an overdose of alcohol and Red Bull, and way, waaaaaaaay too little sleep.

But as I turned the key to our house, I stopped and thought for a moment just how beautiful the weather in Sweden had become. How it was green and colourful, how the sun was shining and the birds were chirping. It felt like the perfect way to end a fantastic weekend, and slip into an endless slumber.

Then I opened the door, and a big sign on the house noticeboard read “Outside Cleaning Day, Sunday 27/4, 10:30am, everyone be there”.

I think right at that moment I may have shed a tear.

I had just enough time for a shower and breakfast, then spent the next three hours scrubbing garden furniture.

By 1pm I crawled into my bed and never, ever got out of it again.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 at 11:59 pm and is filed under Sweden, AFL in Sweden. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.