How to learn Swedish in 1000 difficult lessons

She sent me an e-mail saying that we should meet for a drink. It took weeks for me to answer, but when I said yes, it turned out that she knows the South African publicist, who she said could vouch for her good character.

So I sat in WC Bar (the toilet, she called it) and waited, smoking a bit nervously.

I had no reason to be nervous.

"I feel as if I know you," she said the moment she arrived. "I don't usually meet people from the Internet. Uh, I mean, I never have before."

She laughed. She made me laugh. We told how we ended up in love and in Sweden, which were connected of course. The drink turned into dinner at one of my favorite spots, Little Persia, where the service is abysmally slow but the food worth the wait. The husband joined us midway through the meal.

"I am Filipino-Hungarian," she told us. She said she is, in fact, a rare animal. "I think there's another one in the Northwest Territories in Canada somewhere."

It's fun meeting people from the Internet.

The Swedish word for the day is vänskap. It means friendship.

- by Francis S.