a triple date with england

Finally, after weeks of hoping and worrying that it might not happen, thanks to my wonderful ambassador's inability to plan ahead, I got my tickets to London and off I went last Saturday. With a slight hangover after a girls' night out the day before, I boarded the ryanair flight (and I who swore never to fly with them again...) in Västerås and arrived in London a couple of hours later. For such a short flight it's ok, but never again will I fly with ryanair if I don't really have to. This time I blame the ambassador, had I been able to book my tickets sooner I would have been confortable on a BA flight, that not only would have served me food (well, not the plane itself as we all understand) but also would have taken me to Heathrow's terminal 5, within much closer reach from Fulham, where I stayed with Michelle and Nina.

The week started off with an unexpectedly expensive Thai restaurant by the river in Putney Bridge, just a short walk from my friends' apartment. The food was lovely, but I accidentally ate a chili and consequently almost died as a result. But as I'm apparently alive to tell the tale, I guess it's safe to say that my tendency to exaggerate is making an appearance.

Sunday had a lovely trip to Brighton in store. Brighton was hot and sunny, and I did my best to soak up the sun as I had just arrived from a sun-deprived Stockholm and was in desperate need of some vitamin D. I probably should have gone easy on the sun, though, because despite not actually attempting to sun bathe, I, along with the two others, managed to burn majorly. My forehead, my arms and my neck were all bright red, although perhaps not quite as red as the others. Painful enough, though, but luckily the pain didn't set in until I'd safely returned to London.

Brighton is indeed a lovely city. Just by the beach, which unfortunately is pebbled, but nonetheless a lovely, busy beach with an abundance of bars, restaurants and touristy shops, and an even greater abundance of people. And of course, not to forget, the lovely pier where you can easily spend (or waste, rather..) a few dimes on rides and other attractions.

The cute and quirky lanes, the bohemian yet stylish people, shops and bars all make for a great city with a relaxed, friendly atmosphere. Brighton is definitely a city where I could see myself live some day. Quieter than London, yet only an hour away by train when the shopping addiction needs feeding and the spending pants come on.

London, too, of course, is indeed lovely. Busy as always, insane crowds that I sometimes had to escape for some coffee and a book in one of the parks, yet difficult not to love, and miss. Because I do miss it. But do I want to move back? That I don't know.

What I do know is that I had an amazing time with some of my greatly missed friends. Marina came in from Slovenia, Marina my favorite Marina. Audrey came for a few days. I stayed in Michelle's room on a floor on which I could not lie straight but collapsed into bed late every night anyway so didn't mind too much. Went to visit Manuela in Kingston, we went bowling and good old Annie from AZ came along too, as did Manuela's boyfriend and I kicked all of their asses. Who knew I was that good, I haven't played in 5 years.

Manuela also drove us down to Bournemouth one day, we relaxed at the beach, strolled through te gardens and the city, and most importantly, had beer at O'neill's, the one place I most associate with Bournemouth. No place has given me so many memories, and nowhere else have I had so many encounters with weirdos that still make us all laugh, years afterwards.

I ate fish and chips on the beach in Brighton, pizza slices at Leicester square, a triangle sandwich from M&S and Krispy Kreme donuts for breakfast and I drank enough beer to last me a lifetime.

I walked more than I had thought possible, I spent more money than I knew I had, I collected pebbles (that turned out to be shells..) on the beach which caused me some overweight on the plane, and I managed to pack all my new purchases without any major difficulties.

I did the Beatles walk at Abbey road and felt ridiculous and along with some other tourists I was the source of great annoyance for the many cars trying to pass by.

I am quite happy to be back home though. Sad as it was to leave, and as much as I'm going to miss all my friends again, and London too, of course, it feels quite nice to have a proper bed to sleep in, to not live in a suitcase, and to have my own apartment to move around it (closet-like as it may be).

But I will be back, this time hopefully without letting more than a year pass by. London will always be my home, and I will always feel like I'm returning home whenever I go there. Maybe one day it will be my home again, maybe it won't, but it won't really matter because it's true as they say, home is where your heart is. And my heart is definitely in London. But it's also in Sweden, and it's also true as Travis says, home is where the heart is, but my heart had to go. Right now a bigger part of my heart is in Sweden.

At least I think. But I'm known to be torn, and indecisive to add to that. Which is why I've decided not to make any decisions anymore, but to just take things as they come.

The end.

Therapy blogging?

It seems as though I only blog when I’m depressed, or at least feeling a bit down. When I’m dreaming of better days, a different life, more excitement, more things to be proud of. When I’m content with the way my life is going, when I’m busy being fabulous, blogging is definitely not on my top ten list.

I’m finding this rather odd, though. Surely one would be more eager to share the good aspect of one’s life, rather than the dull parts that you really want to escape from? But then blogging for me isn’t about bragging about my über cool and awesome life, about the trendy bars that I go to and how culturally enlightened I’m trying to be. It’s more a form of therapy, of untangling the messy thoughts in my head and trying to make some kind of sense of them.

Right now life is pretty good, though, and I feel no need to analyze and question everything. I’ve sort of landed in some kind of live-in-the-moment feeling, what ever happens happens, life doesn’t always turn out the way you expect, make the best of what you have and yadaya.

I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know where I’m going to be in October, let alone in a year. It could be here, it could be in London, in Brussels, anywhere. And I don’t care. I’ll be wherever it’s meant for me to be. I’m just enjoying today, trying not to think too much about the future. Just waiting to see what life is going to throw my way.

All I know is that right now I adore Stockholm and its amazing beauty. Summer (or I guess it’s still spring, although today seems to think otherwise) has definitely done wonders to this city.

I feel more and more at home here. Now all I need is a better place to live. Living in a closet kind of gets to you sometimes. Luckily I’m not home that much. But when I am home, I seem to have a strange tendency to always have guests staying over. My apartment definitely is not made for two people. It’s not even big enough for half of me. And it’s definitely not big enough for my clothes. It would make for the perfect walk-in closet though. One can always dream.

The secret life of Sundbyberg

You never really see a lot of people on the streets in the Stockholm suburb where I live, Sundbyberg. What you do see, though, is a million restaurants that most of the time look completely deserted, and I've often wondered on on earth so many restaurants can survive in such a small town. Today I found the answer. I'm sick and home from work, and for the first time since I moved here I have today experienced Sundbyberg by day. Or should I say, by weekday. Expecting it to be even emptier than normal, I obviously made no effort to look good. After all I have a fever, a headache and a sore throat, and was just going to the supermarket for some food, a movie and some ice cream, and I really did not look good.

But unexpectedly the town was full of people. Where they came from I will never know. It wasn't even noon, and yet all these people were heading out for lunch, filling up the otherwise so empty restaurants and all looking very businesslike. And here I was thinking that Sundbyberg is a place where people live, not a place where they work. Apparently it's the opposite. Where are all these people when I get home after work?

I liked seeing all these people, it made this little shithole seem somewhat more alive, but I just wish they'd chosen to show their faces on a day when I looked a bit more like my usual self.

blogging hiatus..

So, it's been a while. Not that it matters, no one really reads this, except perhaps for my mom and maybe a handful of friends. Nonetheless, I like writing here, it keeps me entertained for a moment or two and if nothing else I get to practice my already pretty perfected touch-typing.

I've been in Malmö since Tuesday night, and tomorrow I have to go back to Stockholm and I'm really not ready for it. I like Stockholm and for a long time I've been saying that I certainly don't want to leave Stockholm until I've at least experienced one summer there. But I've had such a good time these past days, I had been longing for this for a really long time. My work really doesn't demand a lot from me, but being stuck in an office with nothing to do can make you feel just as trapped as being swamped.

The weather since I came home has been perfect. Sweden has gone from being a place almost uninhabitable only a few weeks ago, to something closely resembling paradise. It's not summer yet, but most definitely spring. Around 15 degrees every day, and since I got home the sun has been shining more or less the whole time. Today I've spent the whole day in the backyard, and burned my nose along with pretty much the rest of my face. I don't care, though, because I don't know when I'll next get to spend a day in a backyard.

Soon I'll be back in my closet of an apartment with windows that are admittedly facing the sun around the time when I get home from work, but which definitely lacks a balcony and a nice view to go with it.

But going back to work on Tuesday will be a lot easier after these wonderful days. I've met everyone I wanted to meet, including my friend's newborn baby, I've gone shopping, I've kicked back with some wine and a good book in the garden, I've had a lovely dinner at a Caribbean restaurant with possibly the best Mojitos I've ever had, and I've somehow managed to accumulate 10 pairs of shoes that one way or another have to make it back to Stockholm with me. Some new, some old and some that I brought with me here and which consequently have to travel back with me too.

That is one thing that I won't complain about, though, because shoes I have been needing for a long time. Boots are now a distant memory, or so I dearly hope. If I have to one more time stick my feet into a pair of warm leather boots I might just have to go jump off a bridge!

One week from now

give or take a couple of minutes, my train will be pulling into Malmö central station, and I'm so excited I might vomit. (classic Chandler quote if you didn't know. If you didn't, you probably need to watch more Friends)

I'm looking forward to drinking beer in Copenhagen, to seeing my friend's little baby, to living in a proper house for a while, to having someone cook for me (hint hint mommy..), to taking a long walk in the woods and to just doing nothing. I think some shopping in Malmö can be expected too, doing it in Copenhagen would be madness right now, what with the weak Swedish krona and all.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Fuck what the people want, what to they know? Why did we even have a referendum in the first place? We wouldn't be where we are now if we hadn't. Now we have to have another one, because we are a democracy and anything else would be disrespecting the voice of the people. Still, it really can't be said enough; introduce the euro in Sweden!

Maybe I'll stay

So I was thinking. I've been working at my current job for pretty much exactly six months. Six months that have passed by rather swiftly, despite it being the most depressing time of year and despite my being bored half to death most of the time.

I have a one year contract, which will end on October 1st, I believe. I want to spend the summer in Stockholm anyway, because I've always wanted to try it, Stockholm really is amazingly beautiful in the summer. And since I haven't yet decided whether I want to stay in Stockholm, or whether I want to move somewhere else (Malmö, London), I'm thinking that perhaps I should just endure these coming six months and then go from there.

I could take my two weeks off in August to go to Boston and New York just like I planned, and I'd get to experience what it's like working at an embassy in Sweden when Sweden has the EU presidency. 1st October really is just when things start getting worse again, weatherwise I mean. Until then Stockholm will be a pretty neat place to live. And I will have my new, higher salary and will be able to enjoy Stockholm life better. More money, more sunshine, I think I really can't say no to that.

I have a lot to look forward to, for once. In a week, I'm going home to Malmö for easter, something that I'm VERY excited about. Then a few weeks later, Michelle is coming to visit, and after that perhaps Annie. And then I'm going to Düsseldorf to visit my Spanish friend Mercedes, who I met in Arizona when I studied there, and perhaps some of the other people will come too. Then it's the Bruce Springsteen concert in June, and hopefully I'll also go on a little trip to London in June, together with Marina and perhaps Audrey, to visit the people who still live there. And then, in August, I will visit Misha in Boston and together we will travel down to New York, where she has a friend.

With all these plans, I don't think I should be leaving neither Stockholm nor my job. I'll just stay here for a year, which was the original plan after all, and then I'll just have to wait and see what live throws my way. All things considered, my life feels pretty damn good right now.

So much for being healthy

Today I paid the English Shop in Söderhallarna another visit. I picked up a small easter egg, a creme egg, mini eggs and some McCoy's flame grilled steak chips. And I'm working my way through it all at quite a fast pace. I adore easter in general, and English easter eggs in particular. Thick, creamy, hollow chocolate eggs, preferably Cadbury beat a normal chocolate bar any day.

My first easter in England was spent over-indulging in these easter eggs. I probably put on a couple of kilos only because of this. I was completely obsessed with these eggs, and one day I even had an entire egg for breakfast. Luckily I think I'm over that initial obsession and can now have a somewhat healthy relationship with the chocolate eggs. But that doesn't mean that I don't once in a while treat myself to a couple, after all easter only comes once a year.