We have a home

And again I say unto you, we have a home, at long last. I'm thrilled and a little bit nervous.

*bounces*

It was a speedy business to say the least. We saw the place on Wednesday 18 April, bidding race was full on the morning after and we signed papers on the evening Thursday 19 April. Then we had a home loan meeting at the bank on Monday 23 April. Since then we've also been approved as members of the tenant-owner's association so now there is nothing standing in the way for us getting the flat.

We've been over there again to chat with the current owners and to take some measurements, look at the storage room and things like that. There are a few things that we want to do to the place, such as putting up new wallpaper in one of the rooms, repainting the walls in another, stuff like that. We won't rush it though, it'll be ours and we get to do things at our own pace.

Midsummer, usually quite a busy party weekend for all Swedes, will this year be spent preparing for the move. We'll move in the weekend before but all our things get there on the 25th of June. I will fly up north and help organise and load the truck. Then my parents will drive down and I'll ride with them, hopefully making it here before the guy driving the truck. It will be like getting hundreds of presents for Christmas, most of our stuff has been in boxes for three years!

This makes me feel a tad materialistic, I like my things and I have missed having them around. Quite a few items that we got as wedding presents we never got the opportunity to use before packing them away. We have a lovely wine rack that I hope we can find a good spot for, a beautiful table cloth that D's grandmother made us, and lots of nifty kitchen-related things and appliances that I've longed to be able to use again. It makes me happy just thinking about it all. Materialism is quite real, and beauty and happiness in objects has a lot more to it than I have previously thought. At this point I'm not worrying about it though, I'm just looking forward to moving in to our new place.

Home sweet home.

keah

Overdosing on nice, and how to make new friends

Recently we had a full weekend of social gatherings. I got to meet my husband's maternal uncle with family for the first time, quite fascinating seeing as we've been together for almost ten years now, but better late than never I suppose. I was a tad nervous as to what kind of people they would be, but not really worried that they wouldn't like me or anything like that. It developed into quite a pleasant afternoon, but it still took a bit of work to be my most polite and nicest self and be chatty and open, it always does, at least for me.

Directly after that we went on to dinner at D's paternal aunt's place where, apart from the aunt's son and his family, one of D's uncles and his wife were visiting. Without making any judgement on classes or social segments of society I will admit that the unwritten rules on behaviour are a lot more apparent here than I am used to. So the "nice and polite" continued for the rest of the evening. I was quite tired once we got home, and not just because it got rather late. I think I may have exhausted my shallow well of openness at the first visit and then having to keep up the work for another five hours was maybe a little much. I wouldn't be surprised if they noticed...

I don't know if all this is brought on by age difference or if it has something to do with expectations about looking good for family. Feel free to philosophize with me on this.

The evening before visiting all these relatives we were invited to a housewarming party that some friends were having. All partygoers there were around our own age, but apart from the hosting couple had I only met one guy before. Even though I normally would have felt the urge to hide behind D and not reach out to perfect strangers one bit, I ended up having a marvellous time and to top it all off pulled a stunt that I hope will pay off.
At the end of the evening when this certain couple was about to leave I literally jumped them asking for their phone number. A bit flustered I hurried to say that we had really enjoyed talking to them during the course of the evening and would like to stay in touch, and "how on earth do people make new friends these days anyway!?". They looked a bit surprised but then handed over a mobile phone for me to insert my own number for them to save. Later when D and I were on our way home I looked at my phone to see a message from this couple, giving us their number along with a thanks for the evening's company. It felt really good that I had asked them, it's not like I have anything to lose.

*is a tad smug*

Take care all!

keah

Too exciting big city life

One aspect of big city living is something I didn't really expect I had to get used to. Maybe I don't, but I will no doubt come across it again.

Saturday (or actually already Sunday) when we were on our way home from a housewarming party there were a bunch of youngsters on the bus. At least one of them had a swastika on the sleeve of his jacket, so we'll label them nazis for the sake of clarity. They were hollering along to some white supremacy-like music and drinking beer. We were sitting just two seats behind them and so were a couple of middleaged couples, who sighed and muttered about the behaviour of the nazis, and I could tell something was going to happen sooner or later.

As one of the nazis had finished his beer he threw the can toward the back of the bus, where a girl of foreign heritage happened to be sitting, causing a cascade of beer drops to hit a number of people on the way. That proved to be the last straw for one of the middleaged men in the bus and enraged he went up to the nazi guy. I'm not entirely sure what he hoped to achieve by that, other than express his disgust over that sort of behaviour, but of course the nazi only took it as an excuse to start a fight. He got out of his seat ready to take a swing at the older guy, but he didn't get far before a number of people got between them, myself included.

I'll pause here to explain how I came to the decision to go between. I realise that I'm putting myself at risk by doing so, you never know if a knife suddenly presents itself. However, the main point for me here is that I believe I as female have an advantage in situations like these. If a guy should go between he would only add more of what's already there when it comes to body mass, gender, and tone of voice. A girl is smaller, can come from below, and can talk with a significantly different tone of voice and that creates a distraction that helps with calming the situation. Also there is a boundary that even brutes like this guy won't cross and that is hitting a girl in public.

I went up to the nazi to fully concentrate on him, to calm him down and to make him realise that nothing good would come from him fighting the older guy. I could tell that he got rather puzzled as to why there was this girl standing next to him, touching him and talking to him, and most of all standing in the way of him getting to the man, all he wanted to do was to take a punch at the old geezer. As I was seeking eyecontact with the nazi I didn't pay any attention to what was happening behind me, but I suppose someone dragged the older guy away from the heat as well. It took a while, but finally the nazi started to actually hear what I was saying to him and calmed down. In the mean time the bus driver had called security, but since there was no fighting going on they just followed the bus in case something more would happen. Some of the other nazis got a bit jumpy and worried that they would get in trouble and got off the bus, but a couple of them were still riding when D and I got off at our stop.

I was never really worried for myself during all this, but I sure got my adrenaline kick afterwards. I'm fairly sure I would make the same decision again if I had to, but I also know that it might not be as smooth as this time.


keah

Bread

I baked today. It smells lovely.



And I'm having a hard time letting it sit there. I plan on waiting until my darling husband gets home and we're having supper, but it's tempting to have a bite right now.

*drool*

keah