another long lost walk (excerpts from an email)

At 2230 it was almost twilight. now it's midnight and darkish- especially due to cloudiness that has been continuing.

I took a long walk today to get home and it took about 2 hours instead of 30 minutes because I was busy getting lost. I discovered some really cool parks, including one with a long pond that had an egret or stork of some kind. we looked at each other for a while. I've been trying to find the weird birds I see on this website http://www.birds.se/new/index.asp but it hasn't helped. there's a really cool ocean beach bird that is almost all white that I want to find a good picture of. plus the egret thing. also one time I saw a bird picking grubs out of the ground and it had this awesome long orange beak. The pigeons are all really fat here, but smaller still.

I picked a big bouquet of wildflowers on my way home. Since the environment belongs to everyone our teachers encouraged us to "plocka blommor" or pick flowers. Lovely.

I was at a secondhand shop today and bought some people's old photos form the 40's, 30's and even one or two from the 20's. It's a distressing interest that I have such a fascination with other people's events and history, but I figure most of the ones I picked out were sort of artistic or messed up in an artistic way. I also got a "cigarette tin" from germany to keep them in (some research online turns out that it's a crayon/writing utensil tin instead- no wonder there's a cowboy and a traditionally dressed Dutch woman on its cover) until I mount them somehow, also a small italian mosaic brooch. pretty sweet. I will go back there to buy some old (50's-80's) postcards, too- some from sweden actually, but also some from switzerland, germany, denmark, france... cool. at least they can be decorations for a while, until I send them out to someone, sometime. I remember getting an old postcard from my brother; I'm sure I still have it back at home somewhere. I wonder if I would have wanted to go back to get those vykort (postcards) if he hadn't sent it to me a few years ago.

We have a trip to belgium coming up next week, and the program recommended bringing at least 50 Euros with us for 7 meals and maybe more for "personal expenses." I guess I'm just cheap. (Dad would say "frugal")

I can always have swedish time with the students who are still (sometimes) around. Don't worry, I'm still having fun! I've just been really mellow the past couple days, and seeing the beauty that is part of every swedes life makes me a bit sad for returning to america. they have these awesome places called "colonie" where it's a large plot of land split up into pretty small plots with really tiny houses on them (no plumbing- communal toilets for the large plot). the purpose? cultivation and gardening. you can rent one for $200 a year or buy one for $4000. beautiful. i want one. tomatoes, creeping flowers, zucchini, bushy bushy flower bushes, a swing, a tiny house... another ideal life I wish I could live someday.