Strange Men and Time Changes

I swear, I have a sign that hovers over my head that indicates to old men that they should talk to me. I went to the bank to cash my food subsidy check. Now, here in Sweden it's fairly common when you go into a bank (or any place where you normally have to wait in a line in America) for there to be a little ticket-issuing machine that gives you a ticket, and then you wait for your ticket to be called. So, like any good Swede, I hit the button, take my ticket, read it, take not of where they are in the numbers (ten people ahead of me) and go sit down. There's one seat available. It is by an old man.

I sit down, open up my book, start reading.

The old man shifts.

I hold my book closer to my face, ignore him, and pray to god that he won't talk to me.

No luck.

He says something in Swedish, I reply back that I don't speak Swedish.

He then proceeds to use lots of pantomime, and wears a big smile as he talks to me. For emphasis, he touches my arm.

After struggling to be polite for five to eight minutes (during which the line only moves about three) I finally tell him that I need to read the book for my class. Then I turn my back on him and BURY my face in the book.

WHY ME? I DO NOTHING TO ENCOURAGE THEM. WHY?

The world may never know. This brings the strange man incident count up to four. The Italian guy, the bug guy, the crochet guy, and now the bank guy. *Fumes*

AND THEN, so make things oh so much better (can you sense the sarcasm here?) the bank won't let me cash the check, even though I had ID up the wazoo and I went to a bank that was the same type as where the check was issued. Apparently I have to have a Swedish person with a Swedish ID to verify that I'm who I say I am. ARRAGH! So I don't have my food subsidy money, which is a bother, but not a hugely big deal. But still, frustrating.


In other news, the European equivalent of Daylight Savings time started today, and we rolled our clocks back an hour, which meant that around 3:30/4 pm-ish, it started getting dark. By 4:45 pm, it was pitch black. See the stars black. This is greatly un-nerving. It's getting to be hardball time.