Corridor Dinner Party

Saturday, January 22nd -

The past couple nights I've stayed in and eaten here, rather than going out to one of the Nations.  It's inevitable that this would occur eventually, or else my bank account may have forced it to happen.  But it's been good, as I've started to get to know my corridormates better.

Tonight we had a corridor dinner party.  The main course was lasagna - but it was Swedish lasagna.  Googling for "Swedish lasanga" doesn't really bring up what this Swedish lasagna was.  Basically, instead of a tomato sauce, there was a milk/butter/cream sauce, and the sauce also had some flour in it so it would expand a bit (there was no ricotta cheese).  There was a meat-and-tomato sauce as well, but the milk/butter/cream sauce was the more prominent one.  The entire lasagna was covered with cheese on top.  It was quite good, well worth a try.  There also was a spinach salad (so much better than lettuce salads), and Spanish wine.  For dessert, we had pineapple pie.  Which, I should mention, is not a traditional Swedish food, although it is quite tasty.  One of the girls in our hall had pineapple pie a week or so ago with a friend, and was looking for an occasion to have it again.  Considering how often we eat pineapple and pie separately in America, I'm surprised no one ever thought to combine them - the result is very good.

The dinner was enjoyable, lasting about three and a half hours.  We talked for most of the time, on many different subjects.  There were many good stories, such as that of Markus the one-time philosophy student, who, along with his other flatmates at his old residence, bought a Bonsai tree for 1000 kronor (about $150) because they thought it was awesome, looking like a big tree but being small.  Little did they realize it required much care to survive, and despite their best efforts, by the time they moved out it had three leaves.

Turnout was good, too - nine out of the twelve residents showed up.  I'm going to have to keep a list to remember the other three, but I'm getting to know those who showed up tonight - also the ones I'd seen the most before - decently well.  It's certainly proving to be a good corridor to be in.