Dark and Light

One of the first things that struck me as strange when I first landed in the US was the darkness. I landed at 8pm and it was dark. Completely dark, not just dusk. That was in LA which is quite far south, but still. After not having seen the darkness in the last month or two, it was a bit strange.

I spent the first hour or two out of the airport mentally jumping everytime I heard people using English too. Luckily, that wore off pretty quickly.

It feels a bit odd to be home really. After having been gone for 10 months... it doesn't really feel like I've been gone. My dad drove me around to see all the new things in town, but it doesn't really feel like I've been gone more than a month or something.

The one thing that helped me understand a bit about how long it has been since I've been back here is visiting my younger cousins. The oldest of the three is going to start highschool in the fall. Thankfully even the youngest still recognizes me! ;) I still haven't seen my brother, but maybe he'll come by sometime. This afternoon we're driving out to my grandfather's place and we're going to visit and spend the night there.

Last 2 weeks

In the past two weeks an amazing amount of stuff has been happening. We moved to the FAR north of Sweden. We carefully moved everything out of the trailers and into the garage. We started looking for apartments. We looked at one apartment. We bought said apartment. We have been trying to fix the apartment up. And then I flew to the US for a month of visiting with my family. During lots of the time while living at David's parents' place I had no internet. So that will partly explain the lack of updates.

The apartment we just bought is in Skellefteå and is supposed to be a 3 rooms and a kitchen. HA! I think it should say 4 rooms. By the way, if you aren't in Sweden, it's a 2 bedroom apartment, with a balcony, dining room, kitchen, bathroom, garage, storage room, living room, AND 2 bedrooms. Problem is, while cheap, the apartment requires quite a bit of work to make it not look like something the cat dragged in. David is happily(?) working on that while I visit sunny California.

The flight over to California was mostly uneventful. I had 2 delayed flights, but neither really changed much except I was half an hour late landing in Reno. And for the 10 hour flight from London to LA, there was like a school group of 60 like 13-15 year olds AND there was no in flight entertainment. Always fun. I also didn't sleep much for some reason. So I was quite glad to finally reach Reno and find my mom had booked a hotel room instead of starting the 2 hour drive home immediately.

First thing we did once we got back to town was to dump me at the dentist. I hadn't been in like a year! That's the longest I've ever been without getting my teeth cleaned. And, as I thought, one of my fillings was loose, so this morning I'll be going back again so they can remove it and refill it. Needless to say, I'm not looking forward to this.

Anyways, might be going to be my grandfather's place this weekend to say HI for a day or two. And then will be back again for the 4th of July.

I'll try to update again later with more interesting topics, such as the weird fact that it gets dark here and other observations of someone who has been gone from home for too long.

Moved!

Moving was exciting. David's parents were godsent. His mother cleaned and scrubbed like that apartment has never seen before. And his dad helped lots with packing and getting another trailer. David is now officially a teacher. We just need to find him a teacher job.

Events while moving involve the fact that we lost the exhaust system on the ford sierra about halfway through the trip. It dropped and started hitting the ground, so we chopped the rest off with an ax. The same car also kept overheating. We made the trip in one day though. Took about 10ish hours to drive the whole way including rest stops and the like.

We've now moved so YEA! Just really need to find jobs soon so that we can get our own apartment. In like 10 days I will be on my way to California too. That's quite good. Once I get back I need to put myself on the unemployed list. I think things will start to go rather well soon though. David has work for the next 2.5 months and that is some income. And we do have a little bit of savings. And right now we aren't paying rent. It will be interesting to see what life brings us at the end of summer!

But for now! I want to go buy food for dinner!

Moving Wednesday!

Well, the bathroom is packed and mostly cleaned. A big thanks to David there. We've packed up all the books and taken apart all the bookcases we could. Today we're going to try and pack up most of the kitchen, the closet, the computer room, and some of the clothes from the bedroom.

The bbq with our friends last night was fun. It was a really small group since a bunch of people didn't show up. David's promised that we can go outside and try playing kubb this evening again. But that really depends on how we are doing with packing. It's noon and we haven't done anything yet today. But that's because we stayed up REALLY late last night talking to friends and saying our last goodbyes. We have one more gathering Tuesday night, then we leave Wednesday morning.

Thursday, if I haven't heard from the job I applied to, I'm going to go by their office. I really liked the job description and stuff, so I have to try and follow up on it.

Despite everything, I'm really looking forward to moving. And I'm SO glad to be done with my thesis!

The Stolen Bike and the Emperor

Well. When David last went to Skellefteå he left my bike in the center of town at the train station. It took us about a week to move it partway home to the University house. Then we have been very busy and did not make it back to the bike for something like 3 weeks. The last 3 weeks have been very busy with finishing up the last bits on our final papers. So yesterday, after I turned my thesis in, we had lunch, then went bike hunting.

My bike was not where we left it. So we went and found the guard/maintenance guy for the University house and he said that a few weeks back the police came and moved all the bikes. So that they wouldn't disturb the Japanese Emperor. Except my bike was locked to the bike rack instead of just to itself. The guard said that in that case the police had cut the lock and my bike was surely gone by now. So if we couldn't find it where they moved the bikes to (another bike rack a bit away) then we should call the police, who would call him, and they would buy me a new bike.

So we went off searching for the bike, not expecting to find it. But we did find it! They had cut the lock, but then they tied the lock into a knot to make it look like it was whole. And it sat there for like 3 weeks not really locked. We were quite surprised. Now I don't have a working bike lock though.

So in summery, my bike was stolen by the Uppsala Police, who broke the bike lock in order to move my bike so that its presence near the University building wouldn't disturb the Japanese Emperor. How is that for a story?