King Rat! (More Pictures)

I have been sitting still far too much recently. Studying, working and whatnot. When the sun finally deigned to show itself, I rushed out for a walk.

There is not much winter left, thanks to the above-normal temperatures the last few weeks. The ice flows freely in the Stockholm stream these days, and the birds seem pretty happy.

Swedish youths, however, were not, due to the controversy about the youth house in Copenhagen. To be honest, I have not been following the issue very thoroughly, but it seems like it warranted a demonstration outside NK.

And in the Old Town, close to the Parliament, there was an anti-Guantanamo demonstration. The effect was somewhat marred by the fact that three "prisoners" stood a few metres away, chatting and sipping hot cocoa, their black hoods pulled back.

It is not rare to spot animals in Stockholm, but sometimes they surprise me. I found this one running around the streets of Södermalm in broad daylight, trying to eat a cigarette butt and almost getting hit by cars. The consensus was that it was either a runaway pet or mentally deranged. Either way, I managed to catch it.

It had to live in a paper bag for an hour or so, until we came up with a good solution to our new rat problem.

The solution included me travelling south with the underground train, the tiny animal safe within a box labeled "Spenat 5/3" which we got from a café.

In a suburb of Stockholm, the newly named Spenat (which is Swedish for spinach) seemed rather happy in his/her giant cage, which happened to be lying around. There was eating, drinking, chewing and, after a while, sleeping. Spenat will be taken to a vet sometime next week so that we can assess whether it is some kind of mouse or a baby rat, and whether it carries the bubonic plague or not.

There was partying last night, and the interior of this club (just this corner, though) really looks like it is straight out of a low-budget vampire movie. The get-together for evil people named Vlad, Grocko and Razputinija. It is not, however. It is called Teatron, and it is quite nice at times.