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.