Oh no! My time in Sweden is almost over! Oh yes! I will see my friends soon again! No! What about my friends here? Yes! Getting a normal life again! No! Yes! No! Yes! Aaaaaaaaaaargh!

At the moment there is a storm in my head. I really miss my life in the Netherlands, but I know I will miss my life in Sweden as well. They are both such excellent lives! Today, I will leave for my two-week travel through Sweden and Norway, and I'm really excited about it. But I know that, when I go back, I will have to leave all this behind!

If I look back on my EVS-time, I feel I've been through a lot, both good and bad things. It started with the youth center where I worked, Zokker, which wasn't the place I imagined it to be. Add the homesickness, the darkness and the lack of Swedish friends, and you will get the first 6 months here: not very good (although I had fun with my friends as well. It wasn't all bad! We went to Stockholm, Kopenhagen and Estonia!).
Then in March, I went home for a short visit, and everything just changed. I saw that my friends were still my friends, and that they didn't change so radically. This made my homesickness grow less and less when I got back. In this time, I also stopped working at Zokker, a choice which I have never regretted. I think I should have done that a long time earlier, but I wanted to stay and proove myself, and not dissappoint the nice people. Oh well. My new project, Real Life, kicked serious ass. I felt useful and  happy, and I think I was appreciated by the people there as well. Even though I didn't work there as long as in Zokker, I see it as my main project in Sweden. Too bad it stopped as well.
Meanwhile it was getting lighter and lighter, I accomplished the impossible (I made Swedish friends, and nice ones too!) and my life in general was getting better and better. Greta and I began to swim again, we grilled a lot (blegh, I can't see another 'korv') and summer came. My film project was nice to mess around with for a while, and now I have holidays.
When I walk around now, I already see that the people and buildings will soon just be memories. This sucks, but at least they will be good memories. People, I love you!!!!!

Yet another big trip! The people in Växjö decided that they wanted to go to Dalarna (mid-Sweden) to celebrate 'Midsommar' there, and they asked me to come as well. We rented a minivan, got some people in it and drove all the way up. It rocked. This is what we did on...

THURSDAY! (21st of July)
I went by train in Växjö, to meet up with the people who would go on the trip: Fred (France), Fabio (Italy), Clara (Austria),  Davide (Italy) and Evelina (Sweden). We said goodbye to Rupi, who was going to move back to Austria in the weekend, and headed to Jönköping to pick up Steffi and Johannes (Germany). We drove and drove and played Man-o-War and Richard Cheeze (what a horrible man!) and drove, untill we came to Falun, Dalarna. We went to Evelinas grandparents, who had picked up Manja (Germany) from the station, and had some evening-fika, before we all went to our camping, the wonderful 'Smednäset' in Svärdsjo, where we were the only people from the hundreds of visitors not to come from Sweden. We built up our hyper-cool tents, went for a midnight walk (without it being really dark offcourse) and went to sleep, untill...

Friday! (22th of July)
After breakfast, we went swimming. And after swimming, we had lunch. Traditional Midsommar-lunch!
Some of the campings guests had found out about our strange, international group, who were sleeping in tents (everybody brought there caravan, garden gnomes and lawnmowers... and we were the strange ones?). So they invited us for this lunch. We had sill (yucky herring) and sprit (booze), and felt really Swedish. And we sang Swedish songs, or tried to play-back a little. And said 'skål' after every song. Our own Man-o-War song was, offcourse, the best. 'Born with a heeeeaaart ooooooof steeeeeeeeeeeeel...skål!'.
And then it was time to do some exercise! We rented some boats, and went on to the lake. My boat (with Davide and Clara), was the fastest, so we were the first ones to reach the far-away island. We were really proud (except for Clara who was just really scared). And we looked quite cool in our orange life-suits.
After this adventure, we wanted to get some of Swedish Midsommar Culture. So, we got into the minivan and drove to the town of Svärdsjö, to see the raising of the May-pole, and to dance Smågroderna (the dance of the small frogs) and many other dances around it. We had so much fun, eventhough we didn't have any traditional clothing on. Evelina introduced us to some other family members, and then we went back to Smednäset to paaaaart-ay! And barbecue with hot spices, next to this. We danced all night to Swedish Schlager, with it's wonderful waltzes and beautiful Cha-Cha-Cha rythms. But, this being Sweden, the music stopped at 2 o'clock (and it was still quite light!), so we went with the local camping youth to the island of the cows, and had funny conversations there. And then came...

Saturday! (23st of July)
We woke up with hang-overs, but still enjoyed our breakfast. Today, the plan was to leave the camping for ever, and head to the Falun Coppermine, to have some underground activity. And so we did. Finally, we saw a bit of darkness, as we were going lower and lower beneath the earths surface. We had nice orange clothes on, and big hats against the stones falling on your head, and we listened carefully to the strange stories of the Finnish Guide, about her adventures in South-America. She also told us about 'the Lady of the Mine', who could make accidents happen if she didn't like the attitude of the people in it. The miners couldn't wistle, swear, or talk about her, otherwise she would get upset. So the miners called her 'mormor' (grandmother), because then she wouldn't know they were speaking of her. 
Also we wondered why there was a christmastree at the place, where a miner once got lost and was 'preserved in the sour water as a pickle'. We saw a lot of stone, and red mud, and cool mining stuff. I had a song of Belle & Sebastian in my head, so I whistled it. But then it came to me: 'oh no, I whistled! The Lady of the Mine!'. Clara said: 'you should say mormor! aargh!', so I said: 'oh, f#"%ck!'. But, unlike the unlucky miner, we made it alive out of the mine, and went away, to a wooden cabin deep inside the forest. here we would spend our last night in Dalarna, in an area where there were wolves, bears and elks. Offcourse we only saw the mosquitos, but it was exciting to know that there could come a bear any moment around the corner to eat you. Or a wolf. Or an elk. We grilled, got stung by the mosquitoes, and discovered the forest, that was still untouched by human hands. We made a fire in the house where we were sleeping (this house was especially build for this, so nobody got hurt) and went to sleep on the wooden beds, untill we woke up on...

Sunday (24th of July)
Au. Mosquito bites. Bee bites. Wooden beds. No pillow. Au. Rain. Wine. Usch.
Well, enough with the moaning. We had some rainy breakfast, before we went to the car and drove back! It was another long journey, but we got to see the place where Steffi and Johannes live (Eksjö), and I had to sleep in a real bed in Växjö, as my train had already left. We had a nice trip. Pictures online now.

The music tip this time is, offcourse, Man-o-War, with their triomphal war-song 'Stand and Fight!'. Skål!

Oi oi oi, now my latest project has ended as well! We at Real Life are really disappointed with the performance of the new Swedish Prime Minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, as he has STOPPED GIVING US MONEY! So now, we had to stop helping youth without a job, and now we have to let them rot in their houses, living of government money (hmmm, mister Reinfeldt, please explain again why you stopped our subsidy? What were you thinking??).
Well, anyway, it was the best EVS project I could wish for, even if it only was for 2,5 month. The people were great, I could work with all the ideas I got and I felt I did something good for the people and the Kalmar society. The difference with my first project was huge. Take for instance the last day: in Zokker, I just screamed 'hejdå! (goodbye) to everybody, and some of them were not to busy in their computergame to greet me back before I walked out the door. In Real Life, I got a big hug from everybody, and the people were truely greatful for me being there. It was touching :). Also, my colleague and friend Fredrikchen, has made a nice art work of the work team, which you can see in MyMedia.

Now, I work in my hosting organisation, Kumulus, which is not bad either. In my last 1,5 month here, I will be editing the movie I made here, and I will work on the conference material for a conference in Estonia, which Vilis (Latvian volunteer and colleague) is organizing. And I want to make a travel through Sweden and Norway as well, so I'll be having fun.

The music tip is a kind of mixture between Dutch and Swedish culture: Cornelis Vreeswijk! He moved as a teenager to Sweden, where he became one of the main heroes in Swedish Music. And his 'incestlåten' is really funny :).