Alabama update

after being bumped from an overbooked plane, leaving one day later, receiving $1000 each in travel vouchers and saying hi to Iceland for a short layover: we are finally here.
my american parents picked us up and atlanta airport and the first thing on the agenda, after some driving, was dinner. we found an Outback and had delicious steak. i never eat airplane food so i was quite hungry.
i fell asleep on the way home and wake up when David swerves for a possum on the road. 5 min later we turn onto the dirtroad on their land. as we get out i look up at the stars. i havent seen that many stars that clearly since i lived in sydney. amazing. and the night is buzzing with life form various insects and animals. its so loud that i have to keep my window closed when i fall asleep. we are home.

it is now 7am on our third day. freddy is sitting in bed playing his new guitar. he named her dixie, but she's not ready to see the world just yet. he picked it up yesterday in dothan when we went to have lunch with his dad at the fire department. people have the funniest questions about sweden. almost everyone there asked about hunting, socialism and anders breivik.

so far i have:
- raced a rottweiler on the fourwheeler
- cleaned the pool out
- made musli
- seen the fourth Final in NBA on tv
- picked up two trays of eggs down at the chickenhouses
- been to walmart to fill up my supply of pens
- finished the book Hunger Games by the pool
- seen an alabama sunrise
- had a guided tour to the mysterious "devil pit" outside someone trailer a mile away (a pit full of crucifixes, symbols and a baby chair in the middle)

today is a new day with endless possibilities :)

love to all of you, beck

my latest projects

creative projects are one of my hobbies. it can be anything from lego to finding old books. my three current projects:

1. my vinyl player

for months I've been looking for the perfect one. i ended up getting the first one i looked at: a Crosley CR-49 in blue. after looking online i actually ended up just getting it from the urban outfitters at Biblioteksgatan in Stockholm.

one of the upsides to vinyl is that you can get really cheap music!

I've been looking in thrift and goodwill stores and I've build up quite the collection for the price of two normal cd's. crazy. the two records i keep coming back to are billy holliday - lady day and ryan adams - ashes and fire. I've also started to discover classical music more.

swanlike by tschaikowsky, which i saw yesterday:

2. photojars

i got the idea from a picture on the internet and for a few weeks I've been checking thrift stores for the perfect glass jars. last saturday me and freddy went to a new coffee place we were recommended by mariatorget on södermalm.across the street we found this vintagestore. they had the perfect one and from there i started getting more. i asked the guy at the store if they take cards. yes, he said and pulled out his iPhone. this'll be interesting, i thought. and mark my words, he attaches this small cardslot to his phone and puts my card in.

"do you want a receipt?", he asks. "then fill out your email address. i can also take a photo of your purchase if you want me to attach it to the receipt so you remember what you bought"

so i payed for the old glass bottle with the utmost modern technique. crazy world.

3. photoalbum

yeah, i know. photoablums aren't very original at all. but the one thing that always bugged me was that the spiral backs were never intended to contain the thickness that the album gets after putting pictures in it. but i found this folder-ish album by Or

dning o Reda and its does the job very well. you just add your own loose pages. i like. no more adapting the number of

photos to the number of pages in the album. just choose yourself.

swanlake and billy holliday

hello!

its late. but i can't sleep until I've written something.

great day. love walking up from the subway station stadion to greet a clear blue sky and the cool tall round building. it always makes me happy.

schoooool.

then coffee at Snickarbacken 7 with Jennifer Lekardal. a beautiful creative genius.

then off to the royal opera to watch swan lake. one of the pros about being in music school is that you get free tickets to the shows. we switched up our seats in the second act. it was gonna get too late though so i had to miss the last two.

im so impressed by ballerinas. their incredible timing, control and persistency. beautiful.

when i got home i put on some billy holliday on my new vinyl player, had some tea and salt och blandat and sat down to journal.

i guess its 1pm now. gotta go.

Lego man

He awoke abruptly by a firm grasp. It wasn't the normal delicate touch of a female. Instead this new hand was bigger and more rough.

He caught a big enough glimpse of the sky to see that it was gonna be another one of those beautiful sunny days that have been passe

d out so generously this past week.

Then everything went black.

He didn't recognize himself and this new speed was not as fast as the one he was used to. He shrugged his shoulders and fell back asleep.

A new abrupt awakening followed an hour

or so later. The big rough hands picked him up and looked at him. Then he heard the owner sigh and apologize into a machine he held against one of his ears.

He took the chance to look around. This was certainly a place he had never been before. It looked like a locker room and just as he started to read the names on the lockers he went down again.

Off they went to who knows where. After a whil

e he realized that he was in a car. He could overhear the conversation of two young men. Nothing interesting.

Another firm grasp and ooooooooooo. He was flying! High! For the first time in so long he felt like he was free. Then someone caught him

. Awwww. The delicate female touch again. He was home.

Freddy took the wrong keys this morning.

car problems, yummy lunch and some bookshelves

so far this week I've dropped one of my gloves twice and almost forgotten my cap on the bus. I've already lost two pairs of gloves, a headband and two umbrellas this fall/winter. any tips on how to overcome this problem?

the weekend was great! Great (and packed) services on sunday and inspiring teaching.

monday me and sara went to the jazz club Fasching and listened to some jazz/fusion. quite the turnaround from the music we normally see but it was really good. the singer is in my class at school and she is extremely talented.

most live music I've seen lately has been the typical new underground music in stockholm. like electropop with a crazy amount of effects on the vocals.

after my classes i went home and made lunch. my dad and my little brother were coming over for lunch and then i drove them to the airport. right now they're in the air on their way to Dubai.

only problem was that the car wouldn't start when i was leaving the airport. after several attempts and a parking ticket i was finally on my way home.

a few days ago i was looking online at some cool bookshelves. here are some cool ones i found:

Winter

the most beautiful kind of snowfall happened today. the one when the wind is almost still and the snowflakes fall in slow-motion in big flakes.

inspired and with quite a bit of time on my hands i therefor started making a slideshow with pictures from our wedding photoshoot. something I've been meaning to do for... well, i guess one year.

i have felt very connected to the world today and still i haven't left my one bedroom apartment. I've been listening to the radio, checked out chanel's website, been on Facebook and on the phone.

the morning started at 4am when freddy got up to go to work. i sat up and we had a glass of oboy together before he was off to catch the bus to work. he had a different shift today and worked as a senior courier instead of just a normal courier. its pretty cool how he has gone from working two days a week to have a full-time contract driving one of the busiest routes in central stockholm. and today he was the senior courier overseeing the routes around central. a bit of bragging, but its pretty cool since he has only lived in sweden for a year and a half and don't speak swedish fluently (yet).

soon I'm starting my "teaching practice" which will last for 5 weeks. i will basically be working at a school, following a teacher around to observe and learn. like an internship i guess. I've been assigned to be at Östra Real. their schoolhistory goes back over 300 years and they've had this particular building for about 100 years. its located in the upperclass area of downtown stockholm which scares me a bit. I've watched too much gossip girl i guess. a guy in my class told me about one of his classmates in high school who transferred to this school. he said that she transferred back after a while and said that no one liked her because she didn't have a gucci bag. haha. i don't have a gucci bag, should i be worried? I will keep you posted here...

last night i had my first rehearsal with the worship team. so much fun. I'm excited to get more involved in the worship team. so much is happening in church. we have so many people coming through the doors on a normal sunday. over the next few weeks we will be getting visits from other hillsong pastors: brian, joel a'bell and phil dooley. i have a feeling it'll make me miss Sydney a lot. just the other day when me and freddy were sitting at the movies we discussed which five food places we would go to if we had a day in Sydney.

my list: mad mex, eat at home chicken burger, sonoma (almond croissant & latte), the book kitchen (late breakfast topped off with a lemon tart from the bakery across the street) and a barbecue on the rooftop of flat 44.

i think I've rambled on long enough now, here's the slideshow:

http://vimeo.com/35029913

a weekend out and about.

its monday again. i have a short break between school and evening college and even though i only get to be home for like 40 min its still worth it.

2h on public transport today. its hard not to embrace the apathy that spreads through the bus/train when the doors close.

neither Facebook or instagram is working on my phone now. (freddys old phone). and you realize firstly that you don't really need it and secondly how much time you all of a sudden have on your hand. okay maybe not that much, but definitely a few minutes here and there. Add it up and i have now gained 40min of extra time today. what to do with it?

this weekend was great. early sat morning me and freddy got on the train to gothenburg. almost 4h later we got off and were completely bombarded by the rain and the wind. in the short walk from central station to the shopping centre i was soaked for the rest of the day.

i quickly came to the conclusion that people walk a lot slower here than in stockholm. they also keep their head up more and are not always walking alone.

we hung around in the city from 11.30 til 19.00. stores, food, stores, walking, coffee, stores, coffee, walking, coffee....you know. a day off with your husband.

we found da Matteo, the place that roasts and supplies the coffee beans to our favorite cafés in stockholm. it was a really cool place and then we went to all the vintage stores around it. i scored some amazing brown leather shoes.

eventually the time came around and we headed to sticky fingers, the place where Kadawatha was playing that night. i was the lighting operator so i checked out the gear. since it wasn't that much to work with i just helped out for a bit and then went for some more coffee.

i met elin milton, the wife to one of the guitarists in the band. one of the most amazing women I've known. we've been exchanging letters since summer and it was great to finally see each other again!

the gig went great. ill post a video they uploaded recently with footage from a festival-gig this summer.

sunday was mine and freddy's 1 yr anniversary. its crazy its already been one year. and its weird that there's still no snow when there was so much last year.

frida's (brothers fiancé) had her bachelorette party this sunday and i was so glad i was able to be there. we had a nice time in a jacuzzi with food and snacks. unfortunately i had to cut out early to catch the train back to stockholm.

gotta go to evening college now. haven't been in a while now! Had the surgery three weeks ago, then i was resting from that two weeks ago and last week me and the sound guy were setting up and were wondering why no one came. haha, turned out it was cancelled.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ_bxoh3-EQ