Interview and Gingerbreads

It's been an eventful weekend. Besides Tomoya's interesting golfing trip, we have been baking loads of gingerbread and lussekatter. First, Tomoya's golf trip. Well, since he was golfing for the first time in his life, he didn't expect it to go too well, when he was called by his company to join his co-workers for golf this Saturday. But besides from participating, the company wanted something more, which was not announced in the invitation. He was actually tricked into arranging the entire competition next year, just because his score wasn't too good. Of the 40 company members who came to play, only 5 of them were first year people. And none of them knew that when they came to the obligatory golf competition, depending on the score you would get, you might be forced to arrange next year's event. Tomoya is more tired than ever of that stupid company. Well, with some luck he's not there next year.
Over to nicer things. This weekend we had a baking event at the Taniai mansion. We made gingerbread, lussekatter and drank glögg (hot red wine with christmasy spices). But besides from doing a lot of Swedish things, I got some nice Japanese experiences as well. For example, picking mandarins and persimmons in aunt Taniai's garden. I think it's hard to realise for the Japanese, but really, it's extremely exotic to go out and pick your own mandarins for a Swede. Yum yum. All of the Taniais were extremely impressed and delighted with the cookies. I was praised a lot by the 95 year old grandmother who is so happy every time I come to visit them. She often asks me;
- "Is Spain cold?"
- "I don't really know, because I am from Sweden, but yes, now it's even snowing in Sweden".
- "Ah, not Spain, Sweden you say." "Do they have mandarins in Spain?"
- "Yes they have, but in Sweden, where I come from, we can not grow them, only buy them."
Well, I really can't blame her. "Spain" is much easier to say than "Sweden" and besides, I'm used to being taken for a Swiss girl all the time anyway. It's quite cute.Today I had a interview at a small IT venture company. I was expecting something like a small cosy office with sofas and nerds in clothes that were fashionable 10 years ago, since I knew that there only work about 10 people. But when I entered the office I was placed in a hot, sterile conference room without windows. I was to wait, and soon two Japanese salary men entered the room and the interview started. It went much better than I had expected, and they seem really interested and considered my Japanese "paafekuto". I hope that I'm not expecting too much, but maybe I can stay another half a year in Japan, working and learning more. Suddenly, the future came to look a little brighter...

At the subway in Tokyo: Please do your drunken behaviour at home!