Weekend in Vetlanda

I haven't blogged much in the past week... sorry about that. Not much have happened here. But I spent a long weekend (Thursday - Sunday) with my parents in Vetlanda and had a nice time with them and with my cats. My mother had her birthday Friday so we had a party which lasted for the entire day...with a very yummy sandwich cake! Then on Saturday we made a trip to Falköping where we spent the afternoon visiting my grandmothers brother Harald. That was really nice. I showed him some pictures from our trip and told him about the relatives we visited in Turlock (they are his relatives also). We all enjoyed it very much. Just wish the weather would have been better, it was raining most of the day.

Today I've cleaned my apartment. I cleaned my windows, vacuumed, dusted all my little things, and finally hung up clean curtains. It was actually quite fun to clean, and it looks good now. But I'm not quite finished so I'll continue tomorrow.

Tomorrow evening we are going to Mosebacke. Wille Crafoord has a releaseparty for his new CD and I've been looking forward to that for a long time.

IKEA again!

Today was kind of a boring day... haven't done much at all. Well, I did some cleaning and tried to throw away a lot of old magazines and papers, but that's about it. And then in the evening we went to IKEA again!! Yes, for the third time in four days or so. But this time to the one very close to where I live. I wanted to get some storage boxes, which they didn't have in Uppsala yesterday.

Uppsala

Today we made a trip to Uppsala. The main reason was that Janne wanted to buy a mirror at IKEA, and it was sold out both in Kungens kurva and in Barkarby, so then we decided to drive to Uppsala and buy it there.

After our visit to IKEA we drove into town and went to the huge cathedral and looked there. Then we spent a lot of time at the churchyard close to the cathedral. I wanted to find Fadimes grave (for those who don't know who Fadime was - she was a young girl who was killed by her father a couple of years ago, a "honour killing", and that upset me a lot) but there were so many graves to it was impossible to find it since we didn't know where to look for it.

We also found a very nice Italian restaurant where he had dinner before we drove back home. It was actually a very nice day (even though the weather could have been better) and it was nice to make a little trip.

A cute test

I turned out to be the Friend Bear - who are you?

	Friend Bear You are everyone's ideal friend because you are sincere and genuinely kind. Sometimes you worry about your friends' problems so much, you forget about your own responsibilities, which can get you into trouble. For you, it's the little things that really count. You also happen to be the main driver of the Cloud Car. No speeding!
Take the Which Care Bear Are You? Quiz!

Sunshine!

Today was a very sunny and nice day. We went into town and planned to go to Gröna Lund (the tivoli) because this is the last weekend they are open this season. We have annual passes, but today for some stupid reason they wouldn't let us use them. They told us we had to pay an additional fee to get in, which made us really upset since the reason why we bought our passes was to be able to get in there for free whenever we want to. So we went into town instead, had coffee at my favourite cafe, Skänken, and then walked to Stadshuset to see all the flowers they have brought there, the flowers that people has given in memory of our foreign minister Anna Lindh. We also wrote our names in a condolence book there.

When we came home we made tacos, yummy as always. And now Janne is sleeping while I try to fix the archive thing here on my blog, which is kind of confusing... Hopefully I'll get it right soon.

Oh, and today my friend Steffanie celebrates her 30th birthday! Happy Birthday Steffanie!

Raining...

I haven't written here in a couple of days. I couldn't really find any words to write down when Anna Lindh was murdered, even though I wanted to write about it. It's just too awful. There was a beautiful memorial service for her today, TV sent it, and it was very touching to hear her friends and colleagues talk about her and what she had meant to them and to Sweden.

I'm also tired. Still haven't got used to the time here in Sweden, especially since I worked until 2 am a couple of nights earlier this week. I seem to be working best at nighttime and sleep best during the day. I can't say that I have done much useful in the past week:( Guess I have to change that during next week! But first there's a nice weekend coming up and I think we might be going to IKEA in Barkaby tomorrow. Maybe also to Gröna Lund since we have an annual pass and this weekend is the last weekend they are open so we might go there to use our pass one last time. Hope the weather will be better than today when it was raining and raining and raining....

Earlier today I mostly thought about World Trade Center and 9/11 and about what I was doing that afternoon two years and one day ago when the news reached us here in Sweden. Well, unfortunately later this afternoon we got a reminder that bad things really do happen in Sweden too. Our foreign minister Anna Lindh was stabbed while shopping at one of our biggest and most wellknown department stores here in Stockholm. TV-channels have sent news updates every hour for the rest of the evening and the latest news is that she is in very serious condition and have been in surgery for the last seven hours. Our prime minister almost cried when he talked on the press conference in TV.
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/09/10/sweden.stabbing/index.html

We have both been suffering really bad from jet-lag during the past days... It's just impossible to be tired when we are supposed to sleep and we have been awake during the nights and sleeping during the days. Still on California time! It's starting to get a little bit annoying now... It's 2 am and I should have been sleeping for hours but feel like I could stay awake for many more hours.
It's cold here in Stockholm... well, actually it's quite warm for being September but it's very cold for us. Have been freezing ever since we came back. It's about 20 degrees Celcius here at daytime, compared to 42 degrees in Phoenix 1½ week ago. Guess what I prefer? Yes - I love warm weather! And I miss having a pool around most of the time... guess we got really spoilt over there.

Oh, and it would be very interesting to know if anyone actually reads this blog in English since I haven't received any comments at all during our trip. Please, write something, it's more fun to write when I know that someone is reading...

Will try to sleep now...

Det har varit lite stressigt senaste dagarna, och vi kunde inte heller koppla upp Jannes dator de två sista dygnen i USA, så därför kommer dagboken lite i efterhand:

Tisdag, 2 sept & Onsdag, 3 sept: Dags att packa allt.... otroligt nog så gick det att stänga våra resväskor även om det inte var helt enkelt. Bonnie bjöd oss på frukost på en trevlig restaurang i närheten av där de bor, och sedan körde hon oss till flygplatsen. Det var tråkigt att säga hej då, speciellt som det nu var dags att lämna USA och åka hem till kalla Sverige.
Flygresan till Frankfurt gick jättebra, den var 1 ½ timma kortare än resan dit och tog alltså bara 10 timmar. Men det kändes som den var ännu kortare och det var skönt! Även resan från Frankfurt till Stockholm gick bra, och när vi kom till Stockholms central tog vi en taxi hem eftersom vi hade för mycket bagage för att kunna åka pendeltåg. Nu ska jag försöka packa upp och gå igenom all post som kommit, och försöka ta reda på vad som gäller med skola osv framöver.

Måndag, 1 sept: Idag var vi uppe tidigt och lämnade San Diego redan kl 6.30 för att åka norrut till Los Angeles där vi lämnade tillbaka vår bil på flygplatsen. Bonnie, min brylling, kom och hämtade oss och tog med oss till sin lägenhet i Long Beach. Vi vilade lite och sedan tog hon med oss på sightseeing runt i Long Beach och även till Huntington Beach och stränderna däremellan. Det var jättefint, och kul att se en annan sida av Los Angeles än den vi har sett tidigare. När Bonnie's sambo Jeremy slutade jobbet vid 14-tiden gick vi ut och åt lunch på en trevlig restaurang och sedan åkte vi till Disneyland där vi vandrade runt i Downtown Disney i några timmar och gjorde några sista-minuten-inköp :)



Söndag, 31 aug: Idag försökte vi se så mycket som möjligt av San Diego. Vi började med att köra upp till La Jolla där vi hoppades på att få se sälar på stranden, men de hade tydligen inte vaknat lika tidigt som vi.
Sedan åkte vi till Seaport Village och tillbringade några timmar där, och åt även en sen frukost. Vi promenerade också igenom gaslampskvarteren fram till Horton Plaza där vi tittade i en massa affärer. Där åt vi också lunch, jag åt en god clam chowder i en brödskål.
Efter det åkte vi till Fashion Valley där det finns ett stort shoppingcenter. Vi handlade lite där och sedan åkte vi in till stan igen, till Old Town, där vi åt middag på en mexikansk restaurang och sedan tittade lite i alla affärer där.



Lördag, 30 aug: Vi var uppe tidigt, och det var härligt att vakna till doften av nybakta blåbärsmuffins som Joan gick upp vid halv fem och bakade till oss! Dem åt vi till frukost och sedan gav vi oss av mot Palm Desert där vi letade oss fram till Russ och Julia's andelslägenhet. Det var kul att äntligen få träffa dom, och få tillbringa resten av eftermiddagen och kvällen med dem. Vi simmade lite i deras pool och sedan åkte vi iväg för att äta middag. Efteråt körde de oss genom Palm Desert och Palm Springs så vi fick se hur det ser ut. Det var jättefint, speciellt med alla palmer. Framåt nio-tiden åkte vi därifrån och kom till vårt hotell i San Diego vid 23-tiden. Jämfört med de hotell vi har vant oss vid under resan (när vi själva sluppit betala) så var det inte så fint, men det var billigt och rent i alla fall.



Fredag, 29 aug: Idag var vi ute med Joan och åt frukost och sedan var vi ute och åkte i ungefär fem timmar för att leta kaktusar att ta kort på. Vi hittade massor av magnifika kaktusar, många var ofattbart höga. Vi var också i Scottsdale och tittade, och såg en massa fina dyra hus. När vi kom hem tillbringade vi en timma i polen. Det var skönt, eftersom det var 42 grader varmt! Lite senare på eftermiddagen åkte vi till Target och till posten för att köpa frimärken, innan vi åkte hem till Gene och Charlie. De tog med oss ut på middag på en trevlig mexikansk restaurant med god mat.

I haven't had much time in the past days to write here... we have been busy all the time. But I'll try now to update you about what's been going on for the past week.

Tuesday, Sept 2 and Wednesday, Sept 3: Time to pack all our things.... And we could actually close our suitcases even if it wasn't easy! Bonnie took us out for breakfast, to a really nice place where they had good French toasts. Then she drove us to the airport and it was time to say goodbye. We had plenty of time before our flight, which was good since it took some time with all the x-rays etc. We really didn't want to go home so it was quite sad to be there at the airport.
The flight was really good though, took only 10 hours to go back to Frankfurt, compared to 11 ½ hour when we came to the U.S. one month ago. I slept most of the time, which was surprising since I never sleep on airplanes! The flight from Frankfurt to Stockholm went well too, and for some reason it felt like the flight home went a lot faster than the flight out to San Francisco. We had too many bags, so we took a taxi from the central station to my place, and now I'm trying to unpack everything and go through my mail. Will probably fall asleep soon, because I'm really tired! The last week was so busy so we never really had enough time to sleep. We are very happy with our vacation though, and it couldn't have been better! We have met so many wonderful people and done so many fun and interesting things!

Monday, Sept 1: We had to get up early to drive up to Los Angeles to return our car. We arrived to the airport at 9.30 and returned our car, which was sad since we really liked it. Then Bonnie came and picked us up and we went home to her and Jeremy's place. They have a very funny bird that talks a lot and entertained us! :) After relaxing for a couple of hours Bonnie took us out for some sightseeing and we went to Huntington Beach, and also looked around in Long Beach where they live. It was really nice to see this side of L.A. compared to downtown and Hollywood.
When Jeremy got off work we all went to a nice restaurant for lunch, and I had some good pasta. After that we drove to Disneyland and spent a couple of hours at Downtown Disney where we did some shopping (Pooh of course) and just enjoyed looking around. On our way home we stopped at Diary Queen and got one huge ice-cream each!



Sunday, Aug 31: Today we tried to see as much as possible of San Diego. First we drove to La Jolla and looked at the beach and hoped to see some sealions but they were not where they usually are. Then we spent a couple of hours walking around in Seaport village where we also had lunch. Then we walked through Gaslamp Quarter to Horton Plaza where we did some more shopping. After that we drove to Fashion Valley to make one last visit to Old Navy. It was a good decision because they had a Labour day sale so we did some good bargains. After all the shopping we were quite hungry so we went to Old Town and Bazaar del Mundo where we had a very nice dinner at a Mexican restaurant.

Saturday, Aug 30: Today we had to leave Phoenix, which was sad since we liked both the city and Joan. We drove towards Palm Desert and arrived there at 1 pm and found our way to Russ and Julia's condo. We spent the afternoon and evening with them and it was very nice to finally get to meet Russ. They had a nice pool where we swimmed for an hour or so, and then we went to Hometown Buffet for dinner, and after that they drove us through Palm Desert and Palm Springs so we got to see what it looks like. It was really beautiful. After that we had to say good-bye and head for San Diego where we arrived to our hotel, Travelodge, in Hotel Circle at 11 pm.



Friday, Aug 29: Today we went to Eggseptional for breakfast and after that on a sightseeing tour with Joan to find some cactus to take pictures of. We were out for about five hours and saw many cactus and also got to see Scottsdale. When we came home we spent one hour in the pool, which felt nice since it was 107 degrees! Later we went to Target and to the Post office and then home to Gene and Charlie to see their place before they took us out to dinner at a nice Mexican restaurant.

Thursday, Aug 28: We slept longer than usual, and when we finally woke up Joan gave us breakfast before we went out in the car with her as ou tourguide. First of all we drove to Fiesta mall and went to Disney Store. We also looked in downtown Phoenix and then went to Cracker Barell for lunch. After lunch we went to Chandler Mall, a really big shopping mall.
In the evening we had dinner at Red Lobster, together with Gene and Charlie, two of Joan's friends. It was really nice!

Wednesday, Aug 27: We woke up already at 6 am since we had a long drive ahead of us again. We left the hotel at 7 (but would have liked to stay longer) and drove towards Grand Canyon. First we passed by Hoover Dam which was interesting to see and take some pictures of. We passed by many other beautiful places on our way to Grand Canyon, before we finally reached this fantastic place. We really loved Grand Canyon and stopped at so many places there to take photos and just admire the view.

Next, we started driving towards Phoenix and our destination Mesa. We arrived at Joan's house at 9 pm and went straight to the pool where we swimmed for a while before we had dinner.



Tuesday, Aug 26: Vi began the day with breakfast in one of the restaurants in the hotel. Then we went out on "The Strip" and tried to see as many hotels and casinos as possible in one day. We went to Excalibur, Luxor, Mandalay Bay, MGM Grand, Paris, Caesars, Treasure Island, The Venetian, Hard Rock Casino and some other ones that I don't' remember now. In the evening we had dinner at Rainforest Cafe, at MGM Grand and I had a really good crab sandwich. After dinner we spent a couple more hours in the casino in our hotel before we went to bed late at night again.

Monday, Aug 25: The day started with George's pancakes, and then he took me and Janne to Modesto, where we picked up our rental car. We got a Pontiac Grand Am, just the one we wanted to have. We immidiately began our trip towards Las Vegas, which took about nine hours with some short stops. For example we stopped in Primm and looked in some outlet-stores.

We arrived to Las Vegas about 7 pm and checked in to our hotel, New York New York which was very nice and very big. We got a room at the 16th floor with a nice view. The casino looked like many different parts of New York and was really beautiful and the nicest of the hotels and casinos that we visited.

Later in the evening we went to Caesars where we had dinner at Planet Hollywood. After that we looked around in all the different stores they had there and walked back to our hotel. On the way back we went in to Bellagio which is also a very nice and luxurious hotel. When we came back to our hotel we gambled a little and went to sleep around 4 in the morning!