Saturday April 26 2008

Finally, we had found a host who woke up as late as we did. I used this to my advantage by remaining in bed some way into the afternoon, eating up vital space in the living room with my dormant form. Meanwhile, life plodded around me, secretly wishing I’d stop getting in the way but far too polite to kick me until I moved.

Our first stop in Sweden had seen our hosts keep us entertained with a sequence of enjoyable, well planned activities. We toured beauty spots, climbed churches, rowed round lakes and took a picnic in the woods, accompanied all the while by the benelovent presence of our highly organised hosts. We wondered what delights Aakarp had in store for us.

She emerged from her room brandishing a book. “I need to take this back to the library,” she said.

For any normal people, this might have been something of an anticlimax. For Brodos and me, it was a crystal clear sign that, despite living in a different country, Aakarp was essentially one of us. If we had felt at home during both of our previous stops - Iscaria’s family looking after us with overwhelming hospitality, Morani and Maddok stuffing our visit with fun events to keep us from getting bored - Aakarp’s stop was the first place where I felt so at home, I could have actually been in my own house. The plan, basically, was just to sort of mooch about. It was a master stroke. After so much holiday, we were in dire need of a rest.

Of course, that’s not the whole story. Taking a trip into town to return a library book gave us our first real introduction to Lund. It was a beautiful place, littered with well kept old buildings like a good university town should be. It reminded me a little of York, a city in the north of England which functioned as the country’s capital before London stuck its big sweaty head in. There is, apparently, an ancient law which permits York citizens to shoot Scottish people with a bow and arrow, provided they do so while standing on the city walls. I’m not sure whether this has been tested for a few hundred years, but given that my father is Scottish, it would have been a handy law to know about during my teens.

We delivered the book, which meant our task for the day had been accomplished. At a loose end, we ambled into town to look at things. We bimbled around an exceptionally pretty part of town, including a church - complete with tombs - before giving up on the outside world and heading back to the flat.

Next week: Our MMO fans discover Bejewled and tumble headlong into a fresh gaming addiction.

Read from the start:
A Geek Adventure

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