Finally in Sweden, and God am I happy to be here this time! It's not that I'm not enjoying London, not at all! It's just that I've really needed a break and to get home for a bit lately. I got here on tuesday, and the first two days flew by. I didn't even admit to anyone that I was here. My friend Jonas has asked me about 18 times a day wether I'm in Malmö or not, trying to make me slip up and admit it. But I've been very mysterious so far.


I've just wrapped myself up in some sort of cocoon enjoying the peace and quiet. And silence can be incredibly beautiful at times. London is never quiet. There's always some idiot screaming, arguing with someone after leaving a party at three o' clock in the morning, a car alarm that is being set off by some cuddlish fox or a row of police cars racing down the street.
But now being in my parents house in Sweden, sitting by the computer in the middle of the night, I realize that you end up getting used to it, in some way and to some extent, but then when you go away you suddenly notice what you're missing - peace.

I can only speak for myself though. People need different things in life. I love living in one of the biggest cities in the world, but at the same time I need to escape it now and then. That's equally important to me. And then it's also nice to come home and speak your own language for a bit, watch swedish tv, read swedish news papers...stuff like that.

I was a bit dissappointed with my parents for not having got around to getting a christmas tree by the time I got here, but think we'll get one on sunday or so. They had valid reasons though, since they had both been to Oslo in Norway for a bit just up until the same morning as I arrived. And a tree, they meant, needs to be watered every day. (And it was only the 11th of december...) Fair enough. But they sure had made an effort with all the other decorations.

My absolute favourite part, is the garden. I feel like I'm automatically meditating just by watching it from inside. It's so incredibly beautiful and soothing that all I want to do is to wrap myself up in a blanket and drink hot cocoa for hours. (There's where the cocoon comes into the picture!) There are loads of tiny little amber lamps and lights covering the trees and bushes. And if you sit inside watching them in the dark through the curtains loosely weaved in cream with thin golden threads, the gentle wind makes the lights fall and move from the windows over the floor as a glittering stream of golden water in a magic forest (just that tree missing...) Makes it very easy to relax. :)

I think christmas lights in general are very important to scandinavians because another tradition is to have candles in all of your windows. Wherever you go and wherever you look, you see candles in every window in every house! I think it might be a bit hard to imagine if you haven’t seen it for yourself. That’s one of the things I’ve always missed about Sweden in winter during my years abroad.


Speaking of magic... Yesterday (well, actually it's way past midnight so I guess saying "two days ago" would be more appropriate) it was Lucia here in Sweden. This is when we celebrate the longest night of the year by putting candles in our hair, singing songs, eating saffron cakes and gingerbread, drinking glögg at six in the morning. To make a long story short.



But this year I saw something I've never seen before. When I went past the canal I saw severel wooden canoes passing silently with candles and full Lucia gear in the water. It looked a bit like a dream. Like something out of a fairytale. :)

But later I heard that last year they even had Lucia divers with white dresses and lights underneath the water! Even better. Brilliant! :D