A Sunday with Jack.

I spent Sunday in the sun at Mauerpark reading most of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ramson Riggs. I thought the book would be scary and didn't want to read it alone or in the dark. Now that I read it, I know it wasn't at all as scary as I thought, but falling asleep right after reading the last pages made me have a nightmare anyway.

During the time I was reading I got a text from Jack wanting to have dinner.
Jack is a good friend of mine but lately we have failed to hang out due to various reasons. Basically being on the other side of town from the other one or wanting to sleep. So of course I wanted to have dinner with him. He even promised not to flake, so we decided to meet at a vegan place close to Görlizer Park that night. It was Sunday and since it is football madness in this town, specially when Germany is playing, which they where against Denmark, so everywhere football is shown. This is so not for me and Jack is a friend that also doesn't like watching sports. Of course the vegan place wasn't showing the game and we made a pact to not go anywhere that night that was showing the game.
We eat delicious food and then walked down the Spree and got to Club de Visionaere, close to Treptower, for an after dinner beer.  This place didn't have a TV and was really nice. It was still sun out and we sat on a bridge by the water, while we made up (stupid) stories about the people around us.

This was fun and it was a nice Sunday hang out. I really like hanging out with Jack. He's interesting, interested and a good listener, smart, honest and an overall great guy.
He told me about this girl he is dating that wants him to change the way he walks. She tells him this on first date. This I think is silly because I would never do it, but I was surprised when I talked about it at the couchsurfing meeting the next day, people weren't totally against it with the premise that they really liked the person. I think that the way people walk is a way for me to recognize them from far away when I'm not wearing my glasses, and that it's nothing wrong with that people walk 'different'.  Anyhoo... what do you think? Would you change your walk for someone you date?


On another note:
I have almost figured out how I will go to Sweden on Sunday now. I'm hitchhiking to Copenhagen on Sunday. I have a couchsurfing host there, which was way to easy to fix, and going to meet a friend on Monday and then take a early train to Malmö, change train and go to Stockholm. So I will be back in Stockholm Tuesday afternoon if I don't get stuck in Copenhagen in any way. I'm looking forward both to Copenhagen and Stockholm. I'm super excited to meet everyone back home. I can't be back soon enough.

Heimweh.

Summer in Stockholm. Anton, Clara, Björn.

Dancing.

The best balcony there is.

Fabulousness.

Siblings.

Heimweh means 'homesickness' in German. I've been having that lately.
 I just watched pictures of a couple of friends travels to New York. Just looking at the pictures, they could have been taken anywhere, I just miss my dear friends so much. I never before had this much homesickness, or should I say friendsickness, because really what I miss in Stockholm are my friends. I miss hanging out in cheep bars with no music discussing what is the most boring life to have (answer: when you can give blood, you have a pretty boring/stable life), sitting in parks, falling asleep on Björn's shoulder, walking thought the different apartments in Tensta (suburbian Stockholm) to see who's home and overdose on coffee, going thought the millions of books in the many book shelf in my old apartment, Julia's fabulousness, Annika's laugh, Anna's sneak hugs, my siblings and nieces, hearing Robert telling odd fun facts on the balcony or just introducing new words he's going to use, being to many in the onion (couch) at Debaser, the light (summer in Sweden is light almost all day), hugs that never end. This list could go on.

It's not that I don't enjoy myself in Berlin but I just miss being sounded of people that know me so well that we don't have to speak and that we can talk about everything. Nothing is weird. Even if I've been home three times since September last year and had some of them visit, I just miss them so much. After being home last Easter my homesickness got bigger because of the great time for the short time I was there.
I have two weeks of work and I plan to spend a week (at least) in Sweden. I'm not really sure how I will go there yet (flying not being a option), but train, ride sharing or hitchhiking are the options that are most likely and the plan is to go this weekend if everything works out.  I want to go Copenhagen and Malmö in southern Sweden either on the way to Stockholm or the way back to Berlin.
I had many plans for these two week of but I think I will spend most of the time in the Stockholm area. I really looking forward to going home, a bit more every day that goes by. I can hardly wait.

Photos.

Airplane-ing in Tempelhof.

Jake takes a lot of pictures and he has decieded that I'm his favorite model.
"Every time I think of taking a picture I want you to be in it because I know that will be a good shot then." he said some time ago.
I think he makes me look better than I do in real life.  Even if I'm just drinking beer (see below) or if I'm pretending to be an airplane at the old airport (see above). Just don't know how he does it, but I'm glad be his model.

Graffiti tunnel.

Wagonplatz.

Soccer madness.

The European soccer/football cup is happening right now and it's something that is extremely hard to miss in Berlin, specially if Germany is playing. Yesterday was a day like that. Everywhere I biked I heard screams from footballs fans watching the game. You really don't need to see the game, at least not when Germany is playing, to know the score, you will hear people scream a lot if Germany scores and a sad shorter scream if the team they're playing scores. Everywhere, I mean everywhere, bars, cafés, spätis (late night shops)(!) are showing football all the time. People gather on the streets and everywhere is packed.

I'm not interested in football at. Sweden already lost against Ukraine the other day so it feels like they are out of even coming close to the finales. But I can't get away from it no matter how much I try.
Home, Benjamin (the father in the family that I work for) is football crazy. He talks about different teams, matches and can even throw in a fun fact or two about some nations national anthems. You can, apparently, turn on subtitle for the national anthems when the teams are singing it before the game. The song will be written in the original language and also translated to German. This was fun.

Yesterday night I went to the couchsurfing meeting as always (Wednesday tradition) for a while and then meet up with Nanna and her friend Julie. We wanted to go to a gay bar but even there it was to many people watching the game and on the street where we where, all the places where showing the game. Except one. This was a big hurrah for us, because this bar was almost empty (of course), we could sit down and talk without hearing people shout at a screen. This was more then nice. We talked and talked. The game ended and the bar filled with people. We went to another bar and talked on. The night ended with me and Nanna sharing a fries with mayo. We agreed that ketchup is doesn't really do it with fries and that mayo beats it any day. This mayo thing made us even better friends and I biked fast as the wind home on the empty streets in the dark. 

Sunday and some Monday.

Sunday I spent the most of the day in Mauerpark where the Sunday flea-market is. I biked there. Sat down in park listening to some music and started to read. I walked though the market, got a Sunday vegan burger (yummy!) and meet up with a new couchsurfing friend, Gina. We meet for the first time and just walked around and then decided to sit down in the grass and hang. She's a really cool person that I will hang out with more during the time she is here. The sun was shining and all was nice.
Jake and Josh, the brothers also showed up and since I was market tried I hung out in the grass with some Swedes that I found. I don't know what it is, but the Swedes are everywhere. I just happened to walk by a friends former room mate, that lived in Sweden for nine years, that had friends from Sweden over and also a friend of a friend. Long time no see so we enjoyed the sun together. Some left, some joined up and before I knew it, it was evening. I had a really great sunny day, in good friends company. (in Swedish you can say I goda vänners lag, which directly translated would be In good friends team.)

Jonas.

I got back home and almost feel a sleep after a second of reading and realized that my plans to have beer with the Swedes where not going to happened.

I woke up during the night by baby Jonas crying a lot, hearing his dad take care of him. He usually doesn't cry that much so when I got up in the morning I knew something was wrong. Sure enough is Jonas ill. He coughs and has a light fever, so today I'm taking care of him during the day. It's just nine o'clock and all ready I had got poop all over my hands since that also seems to be something that is happening while he's ill. Life of taking care of a baby is kind of poopy sometimes. A baby being ill scares the shit out of me. I know that it's not that bad today and I've watched him when he worse of before, just shaking in fever. I know it will pass but everything seems more serious when it a tiny baby having it. He's also way more cranky when he's ill so I don't really know what he wants. I don't think he knows what he wants either.  Right now he's napping. Being up crying all night made him tried so some rest will be good for him.
We're going to have a slow day today, Jonas and me. Take a walk in Tempelhof and I'm going to read and sing to him a lot, hoping that he will feel better soon.

And tell me I am not me on Saturday nights.

I woke up early as always today. I got of work around 23 yesterday but I didn't really feel like moving and was 30pages from reading the Swedish chic-lit I started the same night, so I stayed in and got some wonderful dreamful sleep. So after breakfast and starting a new book I was kind of up for doing something. Berlin is a slow city as it people on Saturday mornings, but I texted Nanna, my new friend that I also knew was working the night before, and asked if she wanted to grab a coffee. So we drank coffee and then because the weather was nice we got some beers (noon o'clock beer ftw!) and sat down by the Spree talking about this and that. Nice hang out.
She was going to swim and I was going home to have a skype date with Mirjam, a friend that now is au pairing in Connecticut. We try to skype once every other week at least. I'm waiting for her to wake up and calling me now.

But it's a Saturday today. I'm off all day and tomorrow to. I feel the need to dance night. And maybe make out with a stranger. This night is packed with things. I want to go to Smooth's trailer collective and see a concert, and to two WG (shared apartment) parties. I manged to get Jake's brother Josh back to Tempelhof from the airport yesterday. It was surprisingly easy, so I want to hang out with those guys too. But yeah, most of all I just want to dance, so let's do some dance references. Disregard the rest of this if you don't want to read and be liked to a lot of songs about dancing.


I'd rather dance with you then talk to you when I put on my dancing shoes so come on and dance with me.  We can dance to the beat and go wild dancing. Let's dance to Joy Division and do the safety dance. Man must dance so no dancing with tears in my eyes. D.A.N.C.E! Dance, dance, dance! Dance on the devil's dance floor and dance with somebody. I'm going to be dancing the whole way home. It's those dancing days. Because I'm not myself on Saturday nights.
Warm up dancing starts right now until Mirjam calls and will go on all night. Yay weekend!

Medical Swedish.

Sometimes couchsurfing can be weird but most of the time it's wonderful. Like when with no effort at all from my side, I got a offered a job by being a part of the Job in Berlin group on couchsurfing.
I got a message from a guy that wondered if I wanted to be a practice patient for German medical students that where doing a exchange year in Sweden. He needed native Swedish speakers to help out by talking easy Swedish about a fake illness. For this I would get paid and get breakfast. Offer me food and I will be there basically, and this just sounded like easy fun.

So last Saturday morning I got to breakfast with a group of students and switched between Swedish and German while eating. My case said that I had a urinary tract infection after coming back from my honeymoon in Thailand a couple of days earlier. Easy. I sat in a room and during 2 hours nine students came in and tried to figure out what I had. Their Swedish was at very different levels. Some spoke almost fluently, others just had a very basic vocabulary and looked at me all confused when I said anything. Some took it really serious and where professional. One thought that my Swedish was so different from anything he had every heard, which was a surprise for me. I think my Swedish is dialect free and without any difficult words. He thought my word use was special, but we could communicate and talked about Uppsala, where he is going in Sweden, and places to live and how wonderful that city is after he figured out what illness I had.
It's not really hard to get that I fake had a urinary tract infection (It hurts when I pee and I need to go to the bathroom often. Really anyone would figure that out after that sentence), all did it, and after they said that they wanted a urin sample and blood sample and said that I would get antibiotics, I chitchatted with them.
You have to know some chitchat in Swedish if you're going to live there. Like how to small talk about the weather (typical) or explain why you choose Sweden for an exchange year and so on. I always find it interesting that people learn Swedish and love Sweden so much as some of these students did. The two hours went passed fast and I had fun.
I could do this every weekend, so if someone in Berlin needs a native Swedish speakers for anything and offer food (money would be a bonus), hook me up.

In other stuff that you don't do every day, is that I will go to the airport and pick someone up that I've never meet tomorrow. Not just anyone at the airport, but Jake's brother. I have never been to the Tegel airport since I don't fly and I need to find someone and bring him to Tempelhof. My sense of direction is awful and finding thing/people isn't what I'm good at. This can go wrong in many ways but it can also go right in many ways. Tomorrow is going to be an adventure. (We're going on an adventure, Charlie!)

Swedish National Day.

Today, the 6th of June, is Sweden's national day.
It's a day I don't celebrate. It's a holiday in Sweden so in the past years I just got more paid when I was working, else nothing special. This day celebrates that Gustav Vasa was elected king 1523 and also the new instrument of Goverment in Sweden in 1809 (read more about the day here).
This is no big deal really. It became a holiday in 2005 so people still really don't know what to do on this day it feels like. Waving Swedish flags in Stockholm might happened but nationalism and Sweden aren't friends.

I listen to Swedish radio every morning while I drink my coffee. I like my morning radio show and just because I live in Germany would not make me stop listening to it.
Today they talked about the national day and asked people around the world who where listening to email what they where doing to celebrate. So I wrote in. A Swedish guy, also in Berlin wrote that he would boycott everything German today. I think I will not do that. I wrote that I would not celebrate more then sing "Euphoria" while biking (see video under). This song won the Eurovision Song Contest for Sweden. I think that's enough.
The awesome Swedish band First Aid Kit was in the studio as well, so I think I will listen to them all day to. Enjoy some Swedish music on this Swedish Day.

Schloß Charlottenburg.

I have a lot of time on my hands and I deicided that I should start explore on the time I have. This basically means that I should bike more and see parts of this city that I haven't seen yet. One of the places I hadn't been to was Schloß Charlottenburg. So I looked at a map how to bike there and did it. It went better then I though. I usually have a pretty bad sense of direction, but on a bike I think I'm better at finding places.
Half an hour later I where in Charlottenburg, parked my bike and started to walk though the palace gardens.

I think I thought about the Schloß because of the season. Three summers in a row I worked in places around Stockholm, with start May-June and going on to September. So by now I would give tours and take care of tourists all day. I would walk to baroque gardens for a morning walk and talk about art and history all day with my collages. Even if we just had a day in the week of we would spent it taking tours at other royal palaces or museums. That's how nerdy it was, and I loved that being all cultural all the time.
I can't say I really miss the job per se, but I do miss these palaces and environments I was in every day. And of course the wonderful people I worked with.

I was in Charlottenburg early and decided to walk though the gardens, find a spot and read in the sun.  So I walked though the baroque gardens and around the palace. It is just beautiful and I started to think about other palaces and gardens. The connection between Prussia and Sweden during the 1700s and other things I talked about in my tours. 
Some other day I will go into the palace and spend hours looking around inside.

This period of time, the 1700s and 1800s I like a lot and I want to visit more palaces, like all the ones in Potsdam, outside of Berlin. I want to read a book about Catherine the Great, my favorite royal from the 1700s, which I will as soon as I finish the books I'm reading now. The summer history Jenny is coming back.