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...