Tastes like summer.
(It’s way too hot here in Sweden, but at least they’re saying it’s gonna get colder again soon. My family is disappointed. I’m not. I think living in Florida for a bit has given me enough summer heat to last a lifetime.)
I feel like I’ve almost posted a trilogy about Germany, but I’ve now travelled through three cities there so I guess that makes sense.
After Nürnberg and Augsburg I went to Berlin.
Actually I met up with my dad and brother there. Walked into an airconditioned hotel lobby and saw my dad get out of the elevator to greet me, and it was weird. It’s weird when you’re not travelling with your family, and suddenly they show up in some random country. I knew they were gonna be there of course, and thank God for that since otherwise I have no idea how I would have actually gotten home, but it’s still out of place somehow, like family is isolated to specific family vacations and home.
Anyway, it was nice. We rented little electric scooters for a bit and drove through Berlin.
And we found like the most amazing cafés. Here’s the first one, a really fancy one called The Barn, with the kind of actual good coffee that I can’t really appreciate because I want it cold, with chocolate and caramel and two thirds milk. Did appreciate the view though.
But this one was my actual favourite. In the centre of Berlin, you turn around a corner and end up on this big, industrial looking side street. Some of the buildings around still have bullet holes in them. And then there’s this, little green hipster oasis, right there in the midst of it. I had some sort of “rose coffee cocktail” which honestly wasn’t that good, but I felt like it said a lot about the place. So a little bit pretentious maybe, but I still absolutely loved it. Sat there for like a couple of hours, writing letters and feeling cool. Hihgly recommend.
So that ended up being mostly about cafés. But honestly, I don’t mind and hope you don’t either.
Hugs♥️
Like always. I keep thinking that I won’t make it home for Christmas, but this year – again – it just happened to work with my travel plans. Nice, but at some point I also want to be dramatically missed. Sweetly told somewhere that ‘is it not difficult being without your family?’ but also surrounded by good enough people that it isn’t, not really. Maybe next year.
(But to clarify, it is amazing being home. I have an amazingly amazing family. Here we are on a frozen lake my grandma later told us not to walk on.)
And now, writing this, it’s the dark evening leading up to the new year. My head is pounding and I want to sleep sort of, but I think I’ll read some poetry and stay awake the way you’re supposed to. I’ll wait a bit longer. That’s been the theme of my whole year.
(Does it sound like I’m not happy? I’m happy. Just on my period, ya know girls. I’m good.)
2015.09.16 16.19 Lord, give me patience. I’m getting bad again. My head. My patience. My ability to deal with myself when it comes to control of creativity and the irritation of people that irritate me, I’m torn between believing the fault is not in them and not caring because I’m still annoyed.
16.53 I’ve written about this on this blog before, but a few years ago I realised that moving away from home probably wouldn’t make me sad. It escalated to the point where I thought not moving away from home would make me sad. Now it’s easier, travelling is better because obviously I’m not as focused on my family. But then comes the normality of it. Or not really normality I suppose, but when the amazing strangeness of travelling becomes everyday life. My mind falls back into my body, and I’m conflicted again. I spend more time being annoyed, or doubting myself. But I don’t think I’m the type of person that by force of restlessness never will be able to settle down. Maybe it’s just that I need the passionate friendships of youth, and to be more with people who grow with me, are the same size, look at me and see me.
21.30 I finished ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’ by Maya Angelou. It was amazing. It’s the first part of her autobiography, and I find it difficult to believe that a woman can have experienced all that in her early years, while I also understand that obviously that woman can become nothing less than extraordinary.
21.45 Sometimes I wonder what things humans would be if we didn’t die every night. I helped my brother with his english homework a few hours ago and while explaining the Swedish translation of ‘subconsciously’ the word suddenly lost all it’s meaning to me. You know the way words do sometimes, but I realised it only happens in night time. In the morning language is fresh. New. It grows old, like we do, both over spans of decades and periods of hours. It’s such an amazing thing, such a well thought out plan, to give us this rest so that during the day we can actually be awake and ride our roller coasters of up and down, because we forget anyway so why does it matter. (But some nights I walk above my mind, thread the thread binding awareness and hours, and sometimes I know, sometimes I almost know, before it slips away from me, forever, again and again.) (We’re not kids anymore and we don’t have the hope of a million more nights.)
22.14 Lusaka is such a quiet city. You hear the dogs bark. Birds sing in the morning and cicadas after sunset, but the sound of cars only passes by every few minutes and voices are rare, music and laughter not often close by. It sings a quiet song. (goodnight)
22.27 You have a nice garden, right Father? Take me anywhere on this earth, but I know you have a nice garden. (The music I listen to sounds like water drops falling off leaves).
Do you know who Casey Neistat is? Shame on you if you don’t, he’s awesome. And many years ago he made this video:
The Devil’s pool is this natural swimming pool just at the edge of the Victoria falls. When I found out we were going to to Zambia, I never even thought of actually going there. But we did.
I don’t even know what to say about it. Adrenaline rush turned into laughter, I smiled until the wind turned my open mouth dry. We got to lean over the edge as well. The guide held my feet and I lay on my stomach, arms stretched out and face pointing down. I saw the fall, but also just so much water. The rainbows. Like I got thrown into a happy hurricane, I wish I could be there always.
I’m happy now, which is nice. I’m at my grandmas summerhouse next to a lake and I got to sleep in the big glass room with all the plants. They only have candles out here. Candles and the strong scent of flowers I didn’t quite notice during the day. My body is itching with this, the need to get away, get out of places, maybe that’s why I’m happy to just fall asleep under a different roof, regardless of where I am. My wanderlust is so unpredictable, sometimes barely there and sometimes so strong that I get happy-sad just from talking about islands far away. Anyway, I’ve also been so fascinated with conversations lately. I’ve always been allergic to small talk, meaningless conversation, but I’ve realised I’ve got no clue what constitutes meaningless. A few days ago I went to pick up a friend at the airport, and on the way there I spoke for ages with another friend, conversations that might not always have been about the deepest stuff, but still were exactly the social interaction I needed. Today I spoke to someone else and I suppose the topics were sort of serious but I was just very bored. And this is no expected ’teenager bored of her family’ stuff, I just didn’t get anything out of it. Maybe it’s because the conversation was just different people speaking. It didn’t have any life in itself. Sometimes conversations soar and fly and run away to places you could never expect, and you get excited, because you want to catch up. And sometimes it’s just one person talking about something, and then someone else talking about something different. Don’t you want to spin on, dig deeper into the subject, speak fast or slow but have the sort of conversation that’s a journey instead of a silent destination? I love the run.
Sweet dreams (or happy mornings)
eirians 