Sapeurs

On my way home from the book fair I read a few of the magazines I'd been given and a came across one that really caught my eye. The article was called "Gentlemen from Bacongo" and what really made me stop and look were the awesome photos, here are a few of them and a few more I've found. :)

This was the first page photo,
can you do anything but love it?

Here are all the photos included in the article.

And a few more based on pure awesomeness.

Now at first I was caught by the photos but as I read the article I started to admire these peoples whole nature and lifestyle.
They call themselves Saepur from the French wordSape which is slang for “dressing with class”. It takes a lot to be accepted into the circle, most of them live in the slum but spend all their money on beautiful clothing, going by "A sapeur is a happy man even if he doesn't eat, because being well-dressed gives nourishment to the soul and pleasure to the body".
They also have ten commandments (although two of them haven't been written yet) which go:

• Believe in God
• Honour Sape
• Be hygienic
• Don't be a racist
  
• Don't believe in clans
• Don't discriminate
• Be a pacifist and a gentleman

This restores my faith in man and I respect them so much. If everyone abided by these rules the world would be a better place. (OK, I'm not to fond of the believe in God rule but to each his own right) I do believe that food is more important than clothes but apart from that I totally support their lifestyle and absolutely adore their fashion!
Apparently they have rules so as not to become to showy such as never combining more than three colours. :)

Well, anyway, I had to become their instant fan and share their existence, it you want to read more this page has a short article, a few more photos and links to some other places.

Gothenburg Book Fair! :D

Yesterday I went to the annual book fair in Gothenburg and it is awesome!
The faculty arranges a bus to and from the book fair every year and even though I'm totally swamped with school I love going so I didn't care and went anyway. XD School will work itself out somehow. The school's offer is great, all you have to do is tell them you want to come, no charges or anything, they just give you a free ride to and from Gothenburg. And I managed to get my hands on a free entrance ticket ans well so I was happy. :)

The fair is held at this huuuuge venue, it takes a full day to explore the first floor and that is if you walk past most of the booths. Then there's a second floor as well! I didn't even go there this year. They hold lots of interesting seminars but they cost freakishly much, 500 SEK per seminar! I can't afford that ;___; so I didn't even look at the program so as not to be disappointed in not being able to attend.
For you to get a slight idea of how big it is, here is the map of the first floor:

This is also your survival guide since
you'll never find anything without it!

I always get totally hyped at fairs, and become a total shopaholic (even more than usual) and therefore I was carrying around a ton of stuff towards the end. I returned home with this (and my normal bag which is not in the photo).

The black and the yellow bags were free (yay for free stuff, another reason to love fairs :D)
and the green one you got if you bought a book from them,
so I bought a book because I wanted the bag. XD

And since this is a book fair you can't return home without books right. :) Oh, and there's a dish rag there too, it came with the purchase of the Cookies for Rookies book. :D

Cookies for Rookies I bought for Kristina since I know she loves to bake,
the two on the bottom came in a gift bag from BTJ,
the one in the middle is the one I bought to get the green bag
(and I've been interested in it for a while),
the green one I got for free upon entering a contest,
the fairy tale book is a present for my niece and
the one on the top will get its very own review because it is so awesome!

And some magazines:

There was a booth where they handed out free magazines so I took a few,
some of these were handed out in other places as well.
I will make a post about a thing I found in one of them because it made me an instant fan.

And other stuff:

I also bought three calendars, got myself a library lovers pin
and got a free note book for my mom.
I'm really happy about the calendars, the small one is great and only cost 30 SEK, a find!

These are the pictures inside the calendars. They had so many great I could have bought all of them but I have no use for 10 calendars... I got two though and thought I'd give one to my parents. :)

I also shamelessly took free candy from here and there XD

I got one more thing as well, maybe I just fell for their marketing trick but we'll see. A man stopped me and asked if he could clean my glasses, I though that it can't hurt, its free and all (yes I'm a sucker for free stuff ^^''''). It turns out the thing he uses is anti static and it makes your glasses not fog up! I found it awesome and bought it straight away. It actually works really well, and if there's one thing I'll always have to do it's clean my glasses so at least I'll use it.

I also attended a few "events". I listened to a woman talking about how to market your library and watched a demonstration on how to make interesting gift wrappings. I also saw Mark Levengood in SR's monter talking about how his mother can't cook and I walked past Björn Hellberg giving autographs to a few teenage girls, which was a bit odd to say the least. XDD

All in all it was a great day, I met a few people I know as well which is always fun. :)
I wish I could have attended the other days as well though and have seen more authors and listen to interviews and such. I hope I can go next year too. :)