Category Archives: Sweden

A couple of days in Nynäshamn

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Two days in Nynäshamn with my uncle and cousins was just what I needed. The east coast of Sweden has had a real summer, pretty much the opposite of the west coast. They have had one day of rain for six weeks, we have barely have any sun and lots and lots of rain and storms.

The weather was not perfect, a bit cloudy, but we still went swimming in the ocean right below their house. We took their boat out, unfortunately algae were blooming like crazy out there. We also barbecued, ate ice cream in the harbor, and enjoyed an amazing sunset over the ocean from their jacuzzi.

A very nice weekend. Lots to drive since I am not used to driving, and 10 hours in a couple of days was a lot. But I listened to an audiobook and it was a new experience. I finished Legend by Marie Lu and 25% of the second book Prodigy.

Swedish summer – the best day of the year

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This summer, that is not a joke. Today has been the only day so far this summer that was something to hang in the Christmas tree (I think that is a Swedish expression, but it basically means something that was good). And best of all, both Jesper and I had the day off work! Since I love the ocean, we went to it with my mom and Jespers younger sister.

It was 25 C (77 F) and the hottest day so far this year. It has been around 15 C, rainy and on the verge of storm for three weeks straight! It’s been awful. Tomorrow, it will be colder again and rain all day. So this might literally have been the only summer day that was this year. Sad, sad, sad…

We drove to Öckerö, an island in the northern archipeago of Gothenburg. When I was a kid, we always drove out there, had lots and lots of ice cream and played in the water for hours every day (back then, the summers were always warm and not stormy, it would probably be fair to say that the amount of sunny days this summer equals the amount of stormy and fall-y days when I was younger). Not so much playing in the water today, but I definitely went in and I am fairly certain when I say that this was my first dip in the Swedish ocean probably since 2015 or maybe 2014. Not okay!! Water is my element and it sucks that I haven’t been in it for so long (Greece last July though).

I did not get any reading done, nor any writing or thinking of ideas for my book. We walked around, Jesper took pictures and we barbecued dinner on the cliffs. It was the perfect summer day!

Here are some pictures that I took:

And here are some pictures that Jesper took:

I am a lucky person

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I am very restrictive with how many showers I take per week. That kind of sounds bad, haha. Of course I shower when I need it, every couple of days or three or more often when needed, but I have learned through the years that if I shower too often my hair actually gets greasier.

Today was an exception, I actually had two showers. Both Jesper and I were off work today so we went on a long walk downtown, playing Pokemon Go. We are both exhausted now after walking for so many hours and even walking home over the bridge. Just before going home, when finishing off a Raid, standing on the middle of the square in front of the train station I felt something heavy hit my head. A fucking bird pooped on my head!! And not little either! Soooooo nasty. It’s crazy how good they are at aiming.

This reminded me of 2013 when I lived in San Diego and always got pooped on by the pelicans. One day even three times! I must be a crazy lucky person, right? Jesper told me he had never been pooped on ever in his life. I have lost count. The earliest I can remember was in middle school when I was waiting to go through the door to the wood carving class and I got a poop on my shoulder. Ew.

I actually bought a lottery ticket today, but I think I made the mistake of paying for it with our card which we have in common. I didn’t win anything. I think you say people who get pooped on by birds are lucky so they won’t feel so bad…

A summer day

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Summer in Sweden can be amazing. But honestly, it has sucked so far! The weather has been horrible and there has only been one good thing about it so far, and that can’t be taken away. That the sun is up until 11pm.

It has been extremely windy for several weeks now. Jeans and a jacket is neccessary. The rides at Liseberg are not functioning properly. I don’t care about being tan anymore, but I do care about feeling the warmth of the sun. This summer has made me miss California more than usually.

Yesterday we got a glimpse of the Swedish summer. Both Jesper and I had a day off work so we borrowed my mom’s car and drove out to his mom in Lerum. It was sunny, but hazy, barely no wind. They have a house right next to the forest and a woodland lake. We played games, kubb and krockett. We had the “Swedish fika” out on their porch. Jespers younger sister even went swimming in another big lake nearby. We didn’t bring any swimwear so we watched and enjoyed the calm and beautiful view. We ended the evening with barbecue. It was a nice day!

Here is a link to a 360 picture I took of the woodland lake right behind their house.

New eReader

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Like I wrote in my previous post, the warranty did not cover the supposed self-inflicted pressure-related damage to my Kobo Glo HD so they would not fix it nor give me a new one. So I had to buy one. And the only one similar was Kobo Aura ed. 2. Yesterday it was delivered to the store and I picked it up.

It looks very similar and the case is really nice. If I hold my boyfriends Glo HD up next to Aura ed. 2 it looks a little bit more grainy, but not too much. It actually also feels faster. Maybe my Kobo Glo HD was old and slow, but I had to press turn a page when I was about half a row away from being finished with the page. This one goes almost instantanously. And that’sgood! I miss the Glo, but I think I will be satisfied with Aura too.

It is a leathery-looking/feeling case which holds together with magnets. It also instantaneously goes from sleep mode and vice versa when you close and open it. Super convenient.

It is obviously already full of cat hair, can’t be avoided with two furballs spreading their love everywhere.

Kobo Aura 2nd ed.

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Today I got the verdict from the store where I bought my Kobo Glo HD. They claimed that it was a pressure-related self-inflicted damage so the warranty was not covering it. I honestly got really upset and spent a lot of time in that store complaining and explaining that it had worked just fine until I plugged it in to my computer when the screen divided itself into four.

I have seen different types of screens crack before, and usually if there is some pressure on it, the damage happens instanenously, it seems to go outside the laws of physics if it all of a sudden had an incubation time!

I feel robbed. I did nothing wrong but took great care of it after accidently drowing my previous one, it still looked new after 1.5 years. Now I have to buy a new one just because the warranty does not cover extraordinary things. The only e-reader similar in size and prize and technical aspects is Kobo Aura 2nd ed, but it is not HD and I am afraid that it will look grainy when reading on it.

The guy in the store felt some sympathy I guess, since he gave me 230:- discount out of good will. I feel bad for my bad temper, I know what it is like to work in service and I am embarassed, but it is stupid that I won’t get shit for this, when I have no idea what happened.

It was not available in the store, so he ordered it for me, I guess it will take a couple of days. Too bad for my reading stats, since I haven’t checked in forever I have no idea what it can be. Too bad.

R.I.P. Kobo Glo HD

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Today was a sad day. Completely out of nowhere my Kobo Glo HD died. Or three quarters of it. Last night it was working perfectly fine when I was reading. It was looking fine all day, but the second I connected it to my computer to transfer a couple of new books it looked like this. It looks like the pixels on three quarters of the screen died or froze or something. It works in the bottom left corner but that’s not enough.

I had only had it for 1.5 years after accidently drowning my old Sony PRS T2 in water in my gym bag when the bottle was leaking. Anyway, I left my Kobo at the store where I bought it today, hopefully the warranty will make them fix it or worst case scenario, give me a new one. But it will be another one since Glo HD is not selling anymore. I hope they can fix it so I get to keep all my reading stats. Let’s all cross our fingers for the little guy!

It is a good thing that my boyfriend has one too so I can use that one for the next three weeks (tops).

First page is written

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Whoah, this was fun! The first page of my book is written (the first page in Word, I guess that equals around two pages in a printed book?) and I have to say that I like it. The language sounds good both in my head and when reading it aloud to my boyfriend. I can’t wait to write more!!

This whole weekend I finished drawing the map and figuring out what the different territories would look like. I wrote short synpopses of the first three steps in the story. I think the whole story will be maybe eight or nine steps? Well, I got eager and wanted to start writing, I can finish the short synopsis steps another day. I tried thinking of names (both for characters and places) as well, but after drawing a blank this whole weekend, I realized that that will be a huge pain in this process. Any help is appreciated :).

Coloring book

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The fantasy story set in Sarah J. Maas’ latest series A Court of Thorns and Roses got my extremely caught. She was amazing with the environment descriptions, described vivid colors and fantastics scenarios. When I enjoy something and have a beautiful picture in my head of what it looks like, I always wish there will be a movie or TV show where I can see this on screen instead of just in my head. In a majority of the cases I am very certain that I would be dissapointed… However, I feel like a coloring book could work! The pictures look really good, and when I get to decide colors I think the picture in my head will be even clearer. So therefore I bought my very first coloring book as an adult. I also bought new pencils, the ones I have are probably a hundred and thirtyseven years old and I wanted to give this book a fair chance. If I feel like it I can also add water and make the colors float into each other or mix. Cool pencils.

Reading of a non-finished script

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This was a new experience for me, and I have to say that I learned a lot from it. And also found som personal motivations. A couple of months back I signed up for the test-reading of a non-finished script for a book by a young Swedish author, Gabriella P. Kjeilen. I have heard of her main series before, Mellody Looh, but haven’t read them. This new novel she is writing is a stand alone novel set in the same universe and she wanted test-readers who both read the Mellody Looh series and not. I thought it would be a cool experience so I had no expectations at all. Except that I had a hard time figuring out how fantasy would sound in Swedish.

It is not high fantasy which I am used to reading, and since the setting of the book was Sweden, ca 80 years in the future, and mostly in Gothenburg, Swedish worked perfectly (like with Stjärnklart by Lars Wilderäng where he gives detailed descriptions of the city of Gothenburg set in a spaced-out sci-fi scenario). The fantasy part was also a bit hidden and the main focus was on the main character’s personal revenge which reminded me of one of my favorite series Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas.

I am not going to go into detail what I thought, that’s up to the author to work with, but I will definitely put a final review up after I have read the final version.

But while critically reading (since I normally enjoy-read) I realized what I myself should think about when I am writing my book. Oh, right, I haven’t made that announcement yet, or have I? Eh, well, I have decided that I will finally realize one of my oldest dreams, I am going to write a book. During the past few months, I have been thinking about the story, the setting, and written down a lot of notes so far. The next step I guess (which I will start with any day now since I am now done with everything: my MSc degree is done and all my students’ grades are set) is to start the actual writing. After thinking hard about this, and making pros and cons lists in my head, I have decided that I will actually try to write it in English. I have a very hard time even imagining a high fantasy world in Swedish. And honestly, for the past 4 years I have written approximately 95% more in English than Swedish. So I don’t think there will be any issues, and if it will, I guess I will just switch to Swedish or ask for help.

It is too early to reveal the plot yet, but I think it will be interesting and I hope original. Thoughts and ideas have been drawn from many of my favorites, but I will of course try my best and make it my own. Stay tuned for updates!