I Went Home

I’ve been back from Sweden for a week or so now. Sigh. I’m feeling better now, but the first few days home were awful… I was in such a depressed mood having had to leave Sweden, made all the worse by a not so pleasant trip back… Namely being cramped in a full flight for the longest leg, after having fallen down some stairs in the Reykjavik airport.

So, my depression was all the more irritated by bruises and sore muscles. But I’ve settled back in, the aches have gone away – though I still have some bruises.

My sister’s wedding is in 1 week, and I start my new job tomorrow, so I’m starting to feel more hopeful. I’ll be starting a new savings budget with the intent to build up my “trip to Sweden” account again. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get back again within a couple years again – at most. Especially now that I’ve gotten my phone to work there, and have a comviq sim card to use.

While I was there, Maja and I had a talk about how my husband was acting as though I just wanted a vacation for myself when I originally wanted to set up this past trip. Like, I didn’t have a specific reason to go like last year when I went to be in Maja’s wedding. …I’m still bummed I couldn’t afford to go when Ulice had her wedding.

Maja worded it well when she said that it’s not me going on vacation when I go back to Sweden. It’s me going home. It’s much like when my husband wants to go home to North Carolina to visit his family, and just hang out and be… home. I don’t really have that otherwise. I grew up in all sorts of places, my parents are divorced and I’m no contact with my mom. So, while I like visiting my dad and my sisters – I don’t feel like I’m “going home” when I visit.

Maja pointed out, that for the 8 days I was in Stockholm, I wasn’t “vacationing.” I was hanging out around town. Doing what I would have done on any day off I had if I were still living there.

I’ll do more in depth posts about certain things later, but this is how my week looked:

I arrived on Friday afternoon, taking the Arlanda express to Centralen and hoping the T-Bana then Buss to Maja’s house. Took a nap while I waited for them to get home from work. That evening we stayed in and had cake and pizza/kebabs for Jerry’s birthday.

The next day – Saturday – we hung around the house until it was time to go to Ulice’s house to help get ready for her birthday party. We ended up staying with some teen girls in Centralen for awhile while they waited for an Ambulance – one of them had taken a fall and dislocated her knee. Poor thing. After that, we hung out at Ulice’s, drinking wine and chilling waiting for the party that evening – that ended up being very much a lot of much-needed fun. I got to meet some people I’ve heard a lot about over the years, and got to catch up with Amanda and Anna – two friends from Gymnasium I hadn’t seen in real life in over 20 years!

Maja, Anna, and I crashed there for the night afterwards – since our travels home were much further than most. And though Maja’s efforts to get me very, very drunk were… uh… admirable – I didn’t have more than a slight headache when I woke up, while she was reaaallly hungover the next day. So Sunday, I hung around most of the day with Ulice, Maja was too anxious and sick that she insisted on leaving earlier and heading home. I just chilled with Ulice, and eventually took a walk with her to go get her son from his farmor’s. When I finally headed home, I stopped in town to go to the IQOS store to get some items I had planned on getting a hold of while I was there.

Monday, after Jerry and Maja went to work, I went into the centrum near where they live and did some shopping and ate at a Chinese buffet.

Tuesday, I went into town – to Gamla Stan – to do the Christmas shopping I had planned to do for my kids, etc.

Wednesday, I stayed home most of the day – did my laundry, and went out to Centrum briefly to get some wienerbröd I’d been craving and a few other things from ICA I needed for making Pumpkin Pie.

Thursday, I went out to Ulice’s. I met her first thing at her house. We walked her son to Dagis, got some pastry for breakfast from her local Greek bakery… Later went out shopping in Sundbyberg area at her fave shops and had Ethiopian Buffet for lunch. We had planned to go to a brewery in an old church that a school mate from Ethiopia had opened – but we had to settle with walking past, as it was closed while some work was being done on it. We then went into town to look at the NK Christmas displays, went shopping for books… and ended with an afternoon coffee.

Friday, Ulice was sick – she was supposed to come with me – but I ended up taking the train to Upplands Väsby to meet up with my “great uncle” Calle and his wife, Ingrid. I call him Great Uncle Calle, but he’s actually my 4th cousin, I believe he is… He is my great great grandmother’s cousin I believe he said? Either way, he is my grandfather’s age and they would play together as children in Cleveland. Calle was first generation American to two Swedish parents, while my grandfather was second generation – his dad was the first generation in that line.

Anyway, Calle and Ingrid – whom I hadn’t seen since 2001 – picked me up at the train station and we drove another 30 mins or so north to Steninge Castle to have lunch and look at the shops in the big old barn that has the restaurant in it as well.

That night, my last night in Sweden, Maja, Jerry, and I ate pumpkin pie and charcuterie… and pizza and played Cards Against Humanity with some wine. It was – supposed to be a girls sleepover night for Ulice’s actual birthday night – but we had to re-invent the plans since Ulice was sick.

The next morning it was time to go… sigh. The snow really ramped up this day, we swung by Ulice’s for a last good bye and to drop off the sleep-over gift I had had for her.