The trip back home

After spending around ten months in the Land of the Rising Sun, except for two short spells in Sweden, it was time to get back for a longer break and to enjoy the Swedish summer.

You all might wonder why this post is written in English. Since I suppose most of the blogg readers whose mothertongue is Swedish are pretty familiar with Sweden, I didn't quite see the point of writing this blogg in Swedish.

Since the stay in Sweden was planned to be short, my first move after arriving in the most beautiful capital in the world, was to visit the Japanese embassy for a visa application. The trip continued with a trip to good ol' Linköping for a re-examination. The examination didn't go quite as planned but if the Gods of Examination happen to smile on me, it might save me another trip to Linköping. The trip wasn't completely in vain as I had the opportunity to see some of my friends during my stay.

After a quick lunch with the man commonly known as "Calle Kula" in Katrineholm where he's currently holding the positions at the local Handelsbanken office, I went to Arlanda to pick up my Todai friend Mariko for a weekend of sightseeing in the (yes, you guessed right) most beautiful capital in the world, Stockholm. I try to act as the best guide I possibly could but I soon realized that guiding in Japanese is not the optimal career path for me. At least I had a very nice time with lots of practicing in Japanese and I believe that my pronounciation of　国立競技場 has reached something that probably would make my Japanese teachers at Todai weep. We also took a trip to Uppsala north of Stockholm, whose university was founded in 1477, to visit my best junior high-school friend, Falk and his fiancée Nina in the newly bought house. Of course I had to show how a normal Swedish DINK couple live these days. Very nicely of you ask for my opinion. Their widely spaced house made my wonder what the h*ll I'm doing, going back for another six months to my new, but still cramped Tokyo apartment. I guess the answer is that Tokyo is Tokyo is Tokyo is... not the most beautiful capital in the world, no person in their full senses would claim that.

The week called for another visit to Uppsala for a dinner with the greatest fear of Mårdstigen. We are talking about the Bjerkesjö twins whom I have known as long as I remember.

During the second and final weekend of my journey, it was me who was acting like a toruist. A trip to Copenhagen to visit Karolina who works there and I again felt the same way as during my first month in Tokyo. I understood about 20% of what people actually were telling me. They have a strange way of counting in Denmark, instead of saying fifty they're saying half sixty which in my world is thirty but no-one is claiming the Danish are logical at all times. At least I had a really good time there and I got a photo of the royal Danish guards.Some small observations in Sweden:

• The commuter trains are awfully dirty
• The long-distance trains are never on time. We were thirty minutes late when I got back from Copenhagen
• Swedish potatoes are amazingly tasty this time of year. I think I have had potatoes at least ten times during my two week stay, out which at least five have been in combination with salmon.
• I had to show my ID when I bought snus. The legal age for buying snus is 18. I'm flattered, or something, that someone actually thinks I'm 17. I'd have been insulted if someone thought I was 37...