The last weekend

The last weekend before my little Japanese guy Tomoya is coming here has passed. Or well, today it's Sunday, but who cares about Sundays anyway. This weekend has been quite nice, since two of my siblings and their partners came to visit us here in good old Källebacken. And whenever guests are coming, I have to bake something. My cousin Per came at Friday just to hang out, and we decided to bake a relatively complicated toffee and chocolate cake. As expected, it tasted quite nice. Besides from my siblings, some other relatives came to visit. My other cousins, some aunts and uncles. In the end we were quite a lot of people, which was nice. To be honest, I missed the big family gatherings when I was in Tokyo. In the Japanese houses that I've been to, it would be impossible to fit more than 6 people in to one dining hall, but here we can take around 20 without any problem. So, what do you do when all your siblings are at home? To my big surprise we didn't play any mario kart on the DS, which is what we usually do on the together spent holidays. No, instead we played an amusing card game called Racko. It's a little complicated to explain the rules, so I guess you just have to come here and try it out. An other peice of action was when my sister's cat Sparris escaped out of the house. She is one of those indoor cats since she usually lives in an apartment, but she loves being outside, and when my father accidentally let her out everybody ran around looking for her for hours. Luckiliy she returned after a little while, exhausted and happy. Today my oldest sister Sofia and I took a walk in the neighbourhood. We visited Mona and Tell-Eric who are living on the other side of the field behind our house. We got coffee and ice cream, and I also took the opportunity to play a little with their cat Tusse. He's cute and actually the cousin of our big fluffy cat Simpleton. They are quite similar. He looks dead on this picture though. Anyhow, on the pictures above you can see my cousin with Sparris, and also my brother and his girlfriend. So, now it's only one week until the next visitor from Japan is coming, and until then I'll try to find something amusing to do. I have to study a lot though. It seems like I forget grammar sooner than I learn new.

Kotomi, Sparris and some other guests

This Monday I went to pick up Kotomi at the train station. She is a friend from Japan that's currently visiting me and some of her other friends in Sweden. After spending some days in the small and very rural town of Mora she came to the even smaller town Töreboda to stay at our house. In other words, the last days have been sightseeing and sightseeing only. It's very difficult to find things to do in this country that might be interesting for Japanese people. Especially when it's raining all the time. At Tuesday morning it was grey and rainy so we didn't want to go to the summer house or do some other outdoor activity. Instead we went to Mariestad with my cousin Per and my friend Lisa to eat the best hovers in the world. We also tried to look around a little in the city centre of Mariestad. Thinking about that town, everything but interesting sightseeing places for tourists comes to mind so it was really difficult to find a good place to go to. But we started out with the old church and the older parts of town, which are really neat if you just look at them with a different perspective. Something that's nice about Mariestad is also that it's situated just by the shore of the lake Vänern. A town always looks nicer when there's ocean or a lake in the hood. This day though, it was rainy and you couldn't really see the horizon because of all the fog. At Tuesday evening the weather got much better and we went to Storön (again). We managed to watch the sunset and also have traditional Swedish dinner with smoked salmon, potatoes and nice sauce. It was windy and the waves were quite fierce, but I bathed anyway. It was extremely cold and I almost died. But it was refreshing. I didn't know what Kotomi was going to think about our half finished summer house in the middle of nowhere, but she totally liked it. She was almost as fascinated by the night sky with all the stars that you can see at home. In Tokyo I could sometimes see one or two stars. But maybe they were just airplanes.

Today we went to Gothenburg. Despite heavy rain we managed to have a nice time with good coffee and lunch. We also spent some hours in H&M and Kotomi went crazy buying loads of stuff to bring home to Tokyo. I bought a white top. That's how interesting I am. When we got back to Töreboda, somewhat soaked and tired, two little guests had come to our house; my oldest sister's boyfriend Jacob and their cat Sparris. Sparris is a little cute cat lady with big round eyes. She's shy and maybe a bit uncomfortable here since our cat, Putti Putti tries to start fights with her all the time. Well, at least she can, like Kotomi, enjoy some country side life and have some vacation from the busy big city.

Reunion party and The Big Island

Thursday night I spent some hours with my mother's sewing machine. She bought a new one this year and of course I've been longing to use it. I made a little top or whatever it's called out of the cherry fabric that I bought in Kichijouji in Tokyo. I didn't use any pattern but it actually turned out quiet well. I was wearing that top yesterday when I went to the neighbouring town Skövde to a party at my old friend Tove's place. She has a new really fancy apartment that she has decorated by herself in Indian style. It was so nice. High five. Many of my friends from my junior high school times were there (Tove and Sara at the picture) and it was nice to see how everyone was doing and what they have been up to over the years. It was also nice when Adam fooled me in to calling all of his anime nerd friends to talk to them in Japanese. Confusing but very entertaining.
Today, my sister and her boyfriend Uncle Scrooge (or Joakim as he's sometimes called) came by train to spend the weekend at our place. The plan for today was to go to Storön, translated the big island, where we have our summer house. Me, those two, and my father took the car for about 40 minutes to a little tiny village called Otterbäcken. I think that this little village had its economical peak at the 70's or so when half of the town's people worked at the same successful factory. The people working there got little summer houses at the island of Storön in the lake Vänern, on which shore the village is situated, and when the factory was shut down some years later they sold the houses to the public. My father and uncle bought one of those together and since then they spend their holidays and weekends renovating it. Anyhow. From Otterbäcken it takes about 20 minutes with our little wooden boat (about 5 if you have a normal one) and once you reach the shore of the island you have to walk for maybe 15 minutes. At this island there are not too many things to do actually, at least not if you don't like hanging in the nature. If you do though, there are mushrooms and berries to pick and a very big lake to swim in. We hunted mushrooms for hours today, but managed only to find inedible suspicious ones. We found some berries though and this season is perfect for blackberries. They don't taste very well raw, but if you make yam from them and eat it with a buttered toast, you're in heaven. We also found smultron, forest strawberries. But only a few.
At walking distance from our little cottage there are nice cliffs that you can sunbathe on. If it's not too cold you can also swim a little. My sister tried to swim but looked quite terrified when she stuck her foot into the water that might have reached a temperature of maximum 17 degrees. I was at peace with just sitting at the cliffs listening to nothing but the waves (and occasional cry-outs from Stina.) Today was actually the first day since my return to Sweden that I could enjoy the landscapes and the silence of the countryside. It might have been because of the blue sky or because of the fact that Tomoya is coming in only 2 weeks. I survived one, and I hope it will be no problem to wait the rest of the time aswell.

Baking cookies and pizza

Yesterday I finally started baking again. Baking is an activity that I've been missing a lot in Japan. In Tomoya's apartment there was no proper oven, neither in the dorm. Even if there had been an agreeable oven, there wouldn't have been all the necessary ingredients anyway. Baking is not as popular in Japan as over here I reckon. It's nice to go to the Swedish shops and actually be able to find most of the ingredients having an organic version. Sometimes I manage to bake an entire cake with 100% organic ingredients. That feels better than it sounds. Anyhow. Yesterday I started out baking something similar to cinnamon rolls. The dough is the same, but instead of cinnamon you fill it with marzipan, butter and some vanilla, and instead of making little rolls you make an entire braid. The result turned out well.
While the dough was resting I took the opportunity to borrow my mums bike to take a little ride and pick some flowers. There's a 3 kilometres sling in the neighbourhood that I usually take when I want to run or pick flowers. The Swedish countryside is a little depressing in a sense, but very calm and quiet. I manage to find some flowers as well and make a little bud to put on the kitchen table. In the evening I countinued my baking by making pizza. My cousins came over for dinner and I had the responsibility for the food yesterday. Pizza is fun to make since it includes so many ingredients. Especially ingredients that I've been using for the first time in about a year. Mozzarella, fresh organic tomatoes, olives, asparagus, red pepper, red spring onions etc. The pizzas turned out quite oishii and all the cousins were happy. The dinner were followed by plain blueberries that my mother picked and milk and of course some of the bread I made earlier. Oh, and some coffee of course.

At night, I tried to sit down and study some Japanese. But the jetlag is still with me somehow and I'm so tired all the time. It doesn't matter that I sleep 11 hours per night, I just want to go to bed at 10 anyway. I hope it passes. I got some good news yesterday. The Germans have finally decided to invade this country. I was a little worried about how I was going to get all 4 of them into this house, but when my aunt heard that Masayasu is the son of a wine farmer, she offered to host some of them, so it should be no problem. My parents and my aunt and her husband were all discussing how much more convenient it would be if the Germans came here with a truck, so that they could bring a lot of beer. No pressure, mates. Kotomi is coming next week as well, although she's not bringing any beer I think. She will be here from Monday to Wednesday, and it's going to be fun to talk some Japanese again.

Rain and more rain in Gothenburg

The last two days have been rainy, dark and like a dull limbo (my mother's description). When Sweden is like this I wonder if I really belong here. I just hope that I will get a little more cheery as soon as the weather gets better. If it gets better. Anyhow. Yesterday me and my mother went to the neighbour city of Mariestad. It's a small town with nothing interesting but the best cafe in the world. You might be familiar with the hovers? Well, you can buy them here. The name of the cafe is Lundsteds Konditori and their hovers and noisette rolls beat everything. On the way home from Mariestad we also passed a small town called Moholm. Moholm might be the most depressing town in the world. There is absolutely nothing but ugly houses and a garden centre. The garden centre though, is really nice and they have a special geranium house where my mother walked around for some 15 minutes smelling and watching the flowers.

Today I went with my mum and my cousin Per to Gothenburg by train. It takes about 2 hours to get there and the train ride felt extremely long. It's hard to imagine that I actually went there everyday for 1 year during my japanese studies. Anyhow. Every time you go to Gothenburg with my mum you start out at the cafe where we buy our coffee beans; Mauritz. They have excellent coffee in big bowls and just a small selection of very nice cakes and cookies. Today we had cappuccino and shared a rhubarb roll and a hazel nut cookie. After fika we strolled around in some shops looking for shoes. It was extremely fun since I for the first time in a year actually can find shoes in my size. I had just too much to choose from this time, so I couldn't buy anything. Otherwise the Swedish shopping was a little annoying. The shop clerks were very rude (compared to the Japanese ones) and the service wasn't good at all. I'm annoyed by the regular Swedish people as well. I feel very short and everyone wear ugly clothes and are ugly in general. And they all look the same. I miss fashionable, cute and short Japanese people. Speaking of that, Tomoya is coming in 18 days. Not long...

After some shopping we had lunch at Le pain francais which is also an excellent cafe. I had a croque madame with salad. The next stop was the old part of Gothenburg, Haga. One thing that sucks about Japan and is nice about Europe is the old houses and streets. A walk in Haga is always cosy and the old houses are so beautiful. Not far from Haga there is also a very big candy shop. As you might now, when you buy candy in Sweden you choose the kinds you want, put them in a paper bag, weigh it and pay for how many grams you picked. I like it, but foreigners tend to think that it's dirty and not very hygienic. After some candy shopping we went to see my sister who just got off work. Once again we had some fika with cappuccino and chocolate. That was the last fika in Gothenburg today because we had to catch the 6 o'clock train home to Töreboda again. Now I'm back, and my mother is already preparing the coffee.

New country, new blog

So, here's the deal. I returned 2 days ago from my one year of exchange studies in Japan (my blog about that country is to be found here: http://tko.blogg.se). I left my boyfriend, my Germans and everything else that I was used to have around me. Now, I'm back in cloudy, rainy Sweden with a temperature of 15 degrees. It feels weird. The plane ride was, as expected, horrible. I started to cry a little every now and then when I thought about Japan, and sometimes I laughed out loud to the jokes in Lilo and Stich or Kung Fu Panda that I managed to watch at the plane. I also watched Jackpot and Prince Kaspian. Jackpot sucked (quite obvious but still) and Prince Kaspian wasn't too good either. I'd just better stick to cartoons. Anyhow. Now, I'm home in Sweden, and that's the confusing part. Nothing has changed home here and after just a couple of hours in my home I started to get used to the smell and climate. It feels like Japan is a book that I just read and that Sweden is the only reality that I know. But, in 19 days Tomoya will come here, and until then I just have to put up with this weird country.

One of the good things about being home is to have a garden. I must say though, that my parents didn't take care of it too good. I'm usually the one who's in charge of the gardening, but since I've been hanging around in Tokyo the last year the garden is just a big green labyrinth of uncut rose bushes, forgotten apple trees and uneaten potatoes. And to my big disappointment, it's already autumn here. Most of the flowers are gone and only leaves remain. But, the good part about autumn is fruits. The plums are about to ripen any minute (right now they're just 半熟) and there are tons of apples. There are also some roses remaining, and I must admit that I've missed the smell of roses.

Another good part about being home is the cherished and wonderful activity of Fika. This is a word that as far as I'm concerned doesn't exist in any other language than Swedish, and everytime I've been wanting to propose to take a fika to my foreign mates, I always get confused and end up using words as "a coffee", "teatime" or "going to Starbucks". But none of these expressions are as wide and useful as Fika, which is why I want to explain it a little further. Fika is like a combination between having a snack and taking a coffee. But it doesn't necessarily include coffee, but the beverage can vary between for example tea, lemonade or just milk if one prefers that. Sometimes you eat cakes, cookies or a sandwich with your fika and sometimes it's just the beverage that's consumed. I think a swede hasis doing fika about 2 times a day. If you work in a factory or something like that you'll definitely have a couple of fika breaks during the day when you have your coffee or whatever you like. You can also have fika at a cafe and it's not uncommon at all to call your friend and ask if they feel like taking a fika downtown. Yesterday I had fika 3 times. At noon my dear friend Linn came to chat and have a fika. At that time the fika consisted of cardamom cake and lady gray tea. In the afternoon I had my second fika, consisting of coffee, roasted and grinded that very day, and hot sandwiches made from bread with tomatoes, cheese and herbs from the garden. The very last fika I had yesterday was after dinner at my cousins' place. This time coffee again with cinnamon rolls. Fika rocks, and I can't understand why people don't use it in other countries.

Anyhow. Another good part about being home is that there are cats. We have 2 cats, my cousins have 4 and my neighbour has 2, they are everywhere. Our two cats are Putti-Putti and Simpleton. The former is a fat small lady cat that drools when she's happy and the latter is a big longhaired anti social boy cat who prefers to sleep alone in a corner somewhere. It's nice to be back with them.

Now I'm free for about 3 weeks and I have no clue what to do. I should and I will study some more Japanese. Otherwise, I'll just sit inside hiding from the cold having some fika and taking it easy. Here's a view from our garden. Depressing...