lundi 25 juin 2007

I can see him! I´m gonna faint!


So suddenly, you´re back on track. You´re living Gothenburg again. You take a driving lesson. The instructor says you´re better than the last time. You try to smile confident but look really geeky instead and then you think "Oh, why can I never be cool?"
You wake up and hear your father yelling at someone in the telephone. It´s the people who are supposed to empty our crap from the toilets in the countryhouse. Unfortunately, they can´t get in because the road has grown, they say. My father tells them to use a tracor. My father is a little annoyed.
My beloved brother is an hour late for the first day at his summer-job (janitor for a block of flats). Of course he is late. That doesn´t surprise me. What would surprise me, would be if there was anything left of the bulding when he finished it.
And when I walk past Hotel Plaza in the centre I see a crowd surrounding a big black bus. They´re all screaming and there´s photographers and people from tv. One girl is almost crying. She is holding up her mobilecamera while screaming: "I see him! I see him! OH MY GOD!" Justin Timberlake is already in the black bus with the non-see through windows. But the excited crowd won´t move. As I walk away from them I can hear the girl screaming, now to her phone. "Yeah I was gonna work out at the gym you know, but I don´t think I can do it now, because I´m to excited!!!"
And then you smile to yourself and think it could be worse.

jeudi 21 juin 2007

The time I accidentaly smiled


As I said, Gothenburg is full of normal people. And it´s starting to FREAK me out. I go and buy groceries and people are normal. I step out on the street and people are normal. I call my bank and people are normal. I go to work and people are normal.
I observe the normal people from a distance. I see them and I think: If you only knew... MOAHAHA. I´m not normal. I go to peoples houses and leave creepy messages and do weird things with their christmas goat decorations. I decorate an entire room in order to make my roomies belive that someone new moved in. I make up stories, that this new person is a crazy sientologist who wants us to pray with her, three times a day. I talk to myself.
And today, I did the weirdest thing so far. I smiled to a stranger. Ok. First let me explain. I was standing in a crossing, minding my own business, when I saw this girl in the corner of my eye, who I rekognized. So I turned around and smiled, only to discover that the girl, in fact is not someone I know.
Oh, horror! What to do? What would she think? I, God help me, smiled to a stranger.
I turn around and hope the girl will go away. But she doesn´t. She is waiting for the lights to switch, just like me. Oh, no! We have to stand there together! And wait! And I just smiled, even thought I didn´t know her! In the back of my head I can hear the girl explaining for the police. "No, I´ve never seen this girl before. Yeah, I´m telling you, she smiled! Even though I´ve never seen her before! It makes you scared to even cross a street".
But suddenly, the lights turn green. I cross the street and, as if sent by heaven, I see Him. Him. The freak! He is a little man with long grey hair. He´s dressed in a little black dress and tiny heels. I see The normal people smiling, laughing pointing. But not me. I´m thinking: We should grab a coffe some day.

dimanche 17 juin 2007

Back in Gotham city


Ok, does this feel weird or what? This, dear friends, is actually the first blog I write in the privacy of my own house.
So how was the returning to casa Berggrensgatan? Pretty good, actually. The last week in France I couldn´t wait for Friday.
So the day of returning came and after having crap coffe in Brussels I sat down on the gate waiting to board and as more and more swedes joined me, it started to feel like I was already in Sweden. I saw all the typical swedish caracters: The bratty, blond buisssniess-men. The students, the family with three blond kids who are all slightly sunburned and the middle-aged woman in her practical clothes and Fjällräven rucksack.
When I was sitting on the plane back to Gothenburg, looking down on the coastline and the forests I could have jumped off there and then. I wanted to go down, so badly and meet my parents who I had no idea I loved so much.
And down I came, eventually. And there was a family with a father who baked kanelbullar for my arrival and a mother who had tears in her eyes when she saw me and a brother who´d grown so tall I barely rekognized him and who said: "Yeah, you´ve definetly gained some fat".
Back home I was treated with meatballs, fresh potatoes and salad and flowers on the table and a cat who ran away when she saw me. Nothing much had changed, except for the boiler-room in the basement which my weird brother had decorated in his own special way (disgusting sofa apparently bought for 5 euros by him and his bizarre friends, plus equally disgusting waterpipe in the middle of the room, surrounded by a fine collection of empty, one litre beer-glasses. It´s meant to be a sort of lounge area, my brother explained).
Yesterday, I took the first walk on town and was surprised to see that there were no freaks, nothing different, just a bunch of very normal and "lagom" people.
And suddenly, it started raining. I was back in Sweden.

jeudi 7 juin 2007

The late night fairytale


The little one is begging me. "Haina, je peux te maquiller?" I try to escape, as politely as possible. A little later perhaps... But she won't give in. She is seven years old and very determined. And she really can't understand why someone wouldn't want to walk around with sparkling glitter and pink lipstick all over her face at one o'clock in the afternoon.
Yesterday it was 35 degrees outside. Family and moi went away by car in the afternoon to a nearby village. We arrived back pretty late.
The little one starts in the car."Haina, tu peux me raconter une histoire?" I promise her to do it later, in the house. When not the whole family is listening. She holds on to my promise, even when everyone else is sleeping at 24.30 in the night. So I sit down on the floor next to her bed using the big teddybear as a cushion and start telling her the story about La petite fille que ne pouvait pas dormir. "Pourquoi", she whispers. "Parce-que... elle avait peur de l'obscurité". I continue with telling her about the little troll who visits the girl who can't sleep and who promises to give her La plus belle rève if she falls asleep.
And la petite fille next to me closes her eyes and in 15 minutes she is asleep.
End of story

mercredi 6 juin 2007

The new town and the new family


Toulouse is different. There are more cool people and less freaks. More pretty boys, less Günthers with hairstyles from the 80's. Less friends than in Annecy.
And there is a new family, with a mère and a père and two small vietnamese girls. The girls are pretty and speak fast in french and love computer-games and cereals. The mother is normal and the dad is quite strange. He refuses to talk in french with his girls because he thinks it's the language of occupation power. Instead, he talks in occitan (languge spoken by a minority of french people in certain parts of France). He's also learnt catalan (langugage spoken by a minority in Spain, mostly in Barcelona) but not spanish. He's got long hair and listens to Alice Cooper. He is a cross between a nutty professor and a middle-aged hippie. Everytime you ask him something, you get a one-hour speech as answer.
But I settled in ok although my routines have changed a bit. Instead of sleeping/going to early morning class I get up at 8.00, brush the girls hairs, give them breakfast and remind them a hundred times to brush their teeth (great for practising the subjunctive, I probably use the phrase: "Il faut que tu..." more than anything). Instead of going to Finn Kelly's/ staying in and hang with Minke, I read them a story and sing (!) until they are asleep. Instead of talking and reading in english, I talk and read in french.
And in one week, I go back to Sweden. That is so weird.

samedi 2 juin 2007

The goodbye Annecy and arriving in Toulouse

The last week in Annecy was pure joy. Birthday with pancakes, croissants, presents (wonderful dress/partytop from Louise and co.), chocolate in the mailbox (thanks again Tricia), bizarre presents from my parents and tartiflette in the evening followed by celebration at Finn's.
Wednesday night was oficially the last night for most people wich we celebrated with apero in Katreens wonderful garden juste à cote du lac and Finn's a little later, where the bartenders served the whole gang free beer and it suddenly felt like a really cheesy american high school movie.

And Friday I departed to Toulouse. I lost my jacket on the train (why? after all, I have reputation to live up to), listened to Anna Ternheim and started crying when I thought about the town I left.