I guess this is some sort of epilogue to my posts about Germany, because I just wanted to share:
1. This cool photo of me by the Swedish west coast, where we stopped while driving home.
2. And these random screenshots from my phone, because we drove home and everything was beautiful and I needed to make quick sketches of the sky so I can make actual paintings of it later.
So, this is what’s happening:
I went to Nürnberg to check it out and see if I might want to move there. I think I will, it was pretty nice.
Then I went to Augsburg to meet up with some friends. (And Augsburg was like really cool, just a lot of fun to be honest, and good conversations and good people. Here’s photos of that.)
Breakfast in bed
From a field, where you could put money in a box and pick flowers.
It was raining softly. A girl with a lip piercing and two rolled up sleeping mats sticking out of her backpack stepped out from under the cover of the station and into the grey sky. A young man rolled a suitcase next to her and an elderly couple stood waiting on the other side of the road, decked out in umbrellas and plastic ponchos over their functional jackets. A bus whizzed by. Birds flew high. And for a second the rain took a breather – letting only mist cover us – as we stepped out from the overhang we had covered under. The sky was open. Grey but bright and warm with dots of birds covering it, rainwater dripping down the spires of old church towers. Slow and eternal as the traffic lights turned green.
(Back home)
Here is us bird watching.
Here is our back yard.
A picture can’t communicate how competitive this game of uno was. I won. (actually I don’t remember if I won or not, probably not.)
On the 14th of December I flew to New York. And to get there, I needed to get to the Orlando airport, which is like: 3 buses away from Sarasota. On the first one a guy was smoking weed right next to me. Greyhound. America is very weird when you come from a country that knows what public transport is. Then I needed to walk from the Orlando greyhound station to the next bus stop, and I ended up in quite an unsafe area.
The whole vibe was weird. Someone shouted something at me but I just kept going. I was wearing my favourite jacket with a big hood, because it makes me look scary rather than like a victim. Also when people can’t see your face the don’t really know how to approach you. Though then I actually did get stopped like twice, but just good people asking if I was fine. I was moving very slowly with my three suitcases that I kicked at every now and then, so I guess that makes sense. Someone told me they were working at the scrapyard right there, so if something happened I could just scream. Great.
So, anyway, I made it to my next bus stop and met this guy who was also waiting for the bus. He passed my “not-creepy” test which means he didn’t try to fill all the silences. If you can both go back to looking at your phones a few times without the other person asking stupid questions it makes me feel better, because it makes me feel like I can leave the conversation if I want to.
This guy was also leaving the area to get somewhere safer. He was young, pretty put together. He said he was a drifter, but that he didn’t quite know what he was doing anymore. After one of the silences he hesitated and shook his head at himself, but finally said that he sometimes just wanted to give up. The kind of person who used to want so much, and knows there is so much, but doesn’t know exactly what that is or means. And all of a sudden it’s slipped through your fingers.
We took the bus together. Met a random man from England who was very chatty and I just nodded, pretending to understand the heavy accent. We started talking to the random girl next to us as well. We talked about what a random meeting it was, just four strangers in a bus. Then we made it to the main station and went our separate ways.
I took the final bus to the airport where I slept overnight and flew to New York the next day.
This story doesn’t really have a point. Or maybe this: How can you save people? I just want to be better at helping, I wanted to say exactly what that guy at the bus stop needed to hear, but I felt like I just got too chatty with my advice. I should have let him talk more. If nothing else because I’m curious now. And also this: I like the people you meet while moving, but I love in some sad way the people who are also moving. And it’s nice meeting them on multicoloured streets under black nights. I wish I could do something for them and us. What if you had a place where the travellers could just come and stay for a bit, for free somehow or to really connect and put their stuff down for a while. Something.
And lastly this: I just hope he finds the right people, good people, to surround himself with. I think he’s looking for streets to sleep on and it could end so badly or it could end well. I wish home upon all of us. In all of us: safety.
I’ve been absent from this blog because my German friends were visiting for 10 days, and I wanted to be entertaining. Here are some photos of my attempts at introducing them to the swedish culture.
We went to cozy cafés and my friend took photos of all the cakes and tried to figure out the ingredients.
My girls helped picking flowers for my dads 50th birthday, and all my relatives thought they were lovely.
I tried to do most of my studying while they were busy or (almost) sleeping.
And on the last day we went out with the boat. Here is when we parked/crashed into a tree, to have some hot chocolate.
It’s a bit empty now, but I’m still happy happy and grateful, because it’s been so good. And now spring is coming and time is moving softly, slowly, but securely.
Joy to you (don’t be alone) ★
The thing is, 2016 was a good year. Great year, 9/10 (always leave space for things to get better).
Because one of my biggest fears is that – because of fear – I’ll never get to do any of the things I want to do. But this year I moved away from home for the first time, lived abroad. Had several different lifestyles and different jobs. I was challenged and matured and met a whole new family of friends. Got to go to the US, Kenya, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Austria, and then Germany again. That’s actually crazy?? I’ve lived in 2016 for a lifetime. And those are the kind of years I want. Let’s dare to believe that things get even better.
Golden paper on the table so that we could make party hats. We look fabulous.
The end! Summary of what books I read during the trip, and about that time I fell into the ocean with my bag.
We spent approximately 30 hours in Vienna. And during that time we very spontaneously visited the Albertina museum, which kind of exceeded expectations.
First: this hipster picture I’m very proud of.
Next: some of the art. This one is called black on black. I’m not kidding.
And here we have some water lilies by Monet. When I was a kid I read a book about this. About a little girl with the same name as me, who travelled with her grandfather to Paris to see Monets water lilies. I was thinking about that story as we looked at this and it was a tiny bit surreal.
And here are some of Degas ballet dancers (I’m trying to make it sound like I know what I’m talking about), a painting by Matisse, and then a few others I don’t really know anything about but they look nice.
Oh, and this one’s by Picasso:
Wow. And to finish it off, some van Gogh. (I like the sketch, it feels a bit more personal than a well thought out painting).
Even though that’s nice too.
eirians 