I had my first girl’s night out in Malmö last Friday at Occo. Rasika is the girlfriend of Daniel’s childhood friend, David. We met a few weeks prior when we had a group dinner at Plocke Pinn. She’s a little burst of energy and we got along right away. She invited me out to dinner with some of her friends. I jumped on the chance for a real night out with some girls in hopes of making some new friends, little did I know the group was very international. Rasika’s childhood friends from Sweden were there, along with a friend from England and a friend from Holland. I guess it’s normal here, just like how Americans are from different states. It just feels different when everyone is from a different country. The girls were lovely and we had such a fun time. We went to a Lebanese restaurant called OCCO and the food was quite tasty. Not sure it compares to the real Lebanese food you can get in the valley, but the flavors were good. You can pick 1 of the 3 options on the menu: a vegetarian option, one with some meat, and one with every meat. Of course, I picked the one with the most meat and most expensive. Daniel always said I’d eat my way to the poor house.

Following dinner we went to grab a drink at BouleBar. It’s a bar where you can also play boules or what I know as bocce ball. Boules is a collective name for a wide range of games in which the objective is to throw or roll heavy balls (called boules in France, and “bocce” in Italy) as close as possible to a small target ball. Boules-type games are traditional and popular in France, Italy, Malta and Croatia, and are also popular in some former French colonies. In those countries, boules games are often played in open spaces (town squares and parks) in villages and towns. Dedicated playing areas for boules-type games are typically large, level, rectangular courts made of flattened earth, gravel, or crushed stone, enclosed in wooden rails or back boards.