A Swedish Shopping Experience

Yesterday was the first rainy day in a long time, so naturally I went shopping.  There's an indoor mall about a 5 minute walk from the apartment, with three stories and a city block worth of shopping! It is on the main street, Storgatan, which is lined with stone, European -esque buildings. You can enter the mall through any storefront that has a giant, green IN sign, and then get distracted for hours with shoes and clothes! 

The stickers always seem more outrageous than they actually are.  I have yet to find the equivalent of a Walmart or Target here.  The average price of shirts are 200 -300 SEK, which is approx 30 - 45 CAD - which is why I ended up only buying sale items. 2 of them were from H&M (of course), and 1 from Cubus, which reminded me a bit if an American Apparel.  I've already picked out where my first paycheck is going too.  There's a knit cardigan in MQ that I desperately want to buy, but can't justify spending 799 SEK on a sweater right now. It's so pretty though - see ... I told you so:

I also need to start a list of things to get shipped from home.  Shampoo and conditioner come in teeny tiny bottles and cost a lot of freaking money. Makeup is insanely priced.  A tube of Maybeline mascara is 120 SEK ... that's 18 dollars!  My theory is, if you take the price you expect to be and times it by 3 - you get the actual price! I've also been buying Lattes from the coolest cafe I've ever stepped foot in, called Barista, and only yesterday did I sit down and actually calculate how much CAD money I was spending.  A large vanilla latte is 42 SEK - that's 6 dollars - yikes!  As soon as work starts, I will stop going there!  And the count down is on ... 3 more days until vacation is over!