Goodbye Cecilia, hello alien

I booked a train ticket to visit my dear friend while I'm here - Halmstad, baby!!!! The guy in the ticket office told me that I need to be able to present ID with the ticket on the train.
- Will this do? I ask and hand over my California drivers license.
- Eh. No. He says, as if I am trying to take the p***. You have to use your passport.

OK. So my status an international alien is fundamentally confirmed - if you need a passport to travel around your own country, than all hope is lost...

We laughed, we cried, we drank coffee

Yesterday we had an impromptu school reunion in the park. Four girls, who all used to be in the same class from the age of 15-18 (our College level), 18 years and 8 children later sat down on the grass in the shade from the trees and talked while the kids OD'd on biscuits, cracker and too much sun.
The subjects had swapped from Cure, skipping class, getting drunk and heartbreaking love to children, raising children, getting mad at your children and husbands with potential weight and cholesterol problems (no, honey, not you:)). Apart from the obvious, not much had changed. We all pretty much looked the same, give or take a couple of tattoo's and the odd child bearing body retouch. But humor, personalities and spirit was still alive and well and I really hope it won't take another 18 years before the next meet up!

My part of Sweden is very quiet in the summer. The students have fled town for lack of things to do and the rest of the people have left - well probably for the same reason. Left is me, the kids, and a few stray zombies, walking up and down the high-street pretending they have somewhere to go.
I have to really pinch myself to remember what the town looks in it's glory days, between September and June, when the cobbled streets are buzzing with activity and the cafes are heaving with energy.
Today we are going for an ice-cream.
Oh, the good days.

thank you

I got a comment on one of my blog posts the other day, and it moved me so much I need to share it with the rest of you.
It was from an 18 year old woman who' wrote to ask for my advice on things for her to do whilst visiting SF. She had done a google search and come across my blog and had then commenced to read the whole blog. From humble beginning to the very different end.

When you start a blog which is primarily aimed to friends and family as a general catch up you think it amazing if someone outside of one 's closest realm of company even mistakenly pulls it up from the 50,000 or so searches they have to scan, but to then have someone actually read it....

I want to say thank you, thank you and more thank you for taking time out of your life to read what I write.

We move on

Flying from London to Copenhagen takes two hours, a fraction of the time it takes to fly from SF to London, and still, dignified is not an adjective I would use to describe the day long journey from Heathrow to Lund via Copenhagen airport where the wait for luggage is 25 minutes, and the wait for your (regarded) over-sized buggy is another 35 minutes, the train across the bridge is always delayed and nowhere, absolutely nowhere, will they accept a credit-card without a chip and pin (which will alienate a large part of the non-European visiting population, if not all of them).

Having said that, Sweden is beautiful and the holiday continues. And maybe, just maybe, will we get some sunshine tomorrow.

at home with the normal's

For the last four years, a large chunk of my blog has focused on being a European alien trying to fit in to the San Francisco lifestyle. I have laughed, cried and scratched my head and a lot of times wondered, is it all really worth it? The short answer would be: of course it is, (new experiences etc, etc). It's never been San Francisco's fault, that I sometimes feel like the odd one out. No one has every deliberately set out to alienate me. Whenever you move to a new place, you will need time to adapt. And today, I also realized that if you stay away from your former home long enough - you will end up feeling alienated when you come back there too. Case in point: trying to pay for odds and sods in my old local Sainsbury's with my American Mastercard.
- I don't have pin-number, I say straight away.
She swipes it and turns it over.
- I'll need to see another proof of signature, she says.
I knew this would happen. My card has been swiped so many times that the signature is virtually undecipherable. I immediately hand over my Californian drivers license.
She looks at it, confused. Turns it around in her hands for a while. Flips it over, flips it back again.
- I don't know what to do with this.
I feel strangely calm and patient.
- This, I say and point at the photo picture, this is a picture of me. And this, I point at my signature, is my signature. And that - I point again - that is my name, which is, I point at the name on the Mastercard - the same name as this one.
She shrugs and gives me the slip to sign. All the while she is studying my hand closely, and when I am finished she asks for the card again, holds it up to the light together with the slip and cross checks carefully. I have to hand it to her. She does takes her job very seriously, a virtue you can't always take for granted these days.
- If I wanted to forge a credit card signature, I wouldn't choose Sainsbury's as my first point of shopping, I half mutter, turning to the man behind me in the queue.
- I'd guess you would shop for a lot more than twenty-two quid too, he says and gives me a smile.

A little later, Richard pops out to the same shop to pick up the stuff I inevitably forgot on my first trip.
- Some cashier was giving me grief over my credit card signature, he says when he comes back. I had to show her three signature's before she was satisfied. Pissed me right off.
- Was she small, with glasses and brown hair? I ask.
- Yeah.
- Oh, don't worry. She was just doing her job.
I'm back home.

IaminLondon, baby

My trip has taken me to London, and more specifically to my old neighbourhood in the north parts of this ginormous city. Although I have been to visit on a number of occasions since I left four years ago, this is the first time I have come back to "live" here, and for ten days at that!
After a little less than two days it feels like I never left. One child richer, there I am, negotiating traffic, dirty pavements and grumpy bus drivers, but with the mentality of a (laid back) Californian.
So the bus doesn't get there on time, so what? Another one will come along shortly. And there is nothing like a run in the woods in the early morning hours - why did I never get up early to do this when we lived here???
I wonder how long it would take for for the novelty to wear off?
I can also, proudly, announce, that even though I never completely lost it, I have adopted a faux west coast drawl, but my north London accent is still there, alive and well - it only takes one sulky shop assistant at Red Shoe in Crouch End to bring it back to life again!!

West Village, NYC

After a breakfast in the West Village that took healthy eating to an almost utopian level we take the kids to the Bleecker Street playground for a while, and I end up chatting to a lovely nanny. I ask her how she likes living in NY and if she's planning on staying after her contract is up.
- I would love to stay, she says. I could go and live with my sisters, but I really feel NY is for me.
- Where do your sisters live? I ask.
- In California. Berkeley and Mill Valley. Do you know where that is?

Too well, I explain. Don't let my British accent fool you.

Some differences between NY and SF

In SF it's foggy and cold, in NY it's foggy and hot.
In SF you find organic chicken on the menu, in NY you find Amish chicken on the menu.
IN SF people get stoned and mellow on a Saturday night, in NY they get drunk and loud.

Ok, it's just a little tail to the top, but I know you're all dying to find out what happened to him

I am taking a little break from blogging and a break and a much needed rest from my beloved city San Francisco. The summer is here, my journey will take me to New York, London and different places in Sweden.

You never know, if WiFi is working, I might not take a break at all. If it's not working, I guess it's a sign.
Time will tell.
Have a great summer, and hope to see you in August again!

It is becoming addictive now, I can't stop playing this - it's HILARIOUS!!

Chestnut on a Thursday

- Can you sign right here, asks the guy canvassing for some petition on Chestnut when he's talked to an older lady for a while.
- Where?
- Right here.
- I can't see where you're pointing.
- Right on this line, ma'am.
- I can't see. I'm blind.
- Oh! He laughs politely. I really couldn't tell.

Maybe the big golden retriever in the white, plastic harness that she's holding on to would have been a give-away, but who am I to judge. Sometimes we don't see what is right in front of us.