150203 vain

After two years in London, I moved back to Stockholm in 2012. Feelings were mixed. I have always loved my hometown in a somewhat ridiculous way (love is ridiculous, isn’t it, ridiculously good, but still). London had been crowded, expensive, infrastrucurally poor and anyone who had followed my blog knew what I didn’t think of the british way of insolating their buildings (don’t get me started on sash windows…)

And life went on. Work went on. Old friends still remembered me. Even my old job, the Estonian school of Stockholm, wanted me back. As if nothing had changed.

And the blog. The blog had been a way to vent my experiences in London. I had written in Swedish for my Swedish friends and since I moved back the point of the blog disappeared. I did a few tries to write on the problems of immigration once back in Sweden (one would think being a Swedish citizen would mean this was an easy task – well think again),but somehow… It all dried up.

London, however, didn’t. Visting friends a year after my moving home and I realize I miss the place.

Stupid. I use the better part of two years longing for my beloved Stockholm. I remember for example november of 2011 as a particularly gloomy, windy and rainy part of my London life, so now everything should be fine. How can I miss this, I wonder, when standing in the slow functioning Piccadilly line on my way back to Heathrow. As usual, I have to bend my head, because the tube is made for hobbits.

And yet, at that particular visit, I had visited Twickenham and walked by the Thames. The narrowboats, Eel Pie Island, the signs that warn people to not park in high tide (why did they not build the lock in Richmond just a tad higher, oh why?). How can I not love this.

Anyway. Why this sudden return to the blog?

Well, I have many weaknesses. To count them all would be a long and arduous task. Today I will just cover one of them:

I’m vain.

Sometimes I picture myself as a man’s man. A man who thrives on being alone, making decisions on his own, confident in his own judgment.

Well…

During my last visit to the island (”We are not an island! Don’t ever remind us of that…”), I met friends at a bar, when a complete stranger approached me to talk about my blog and how much he liked reading it.

Now, this had occasionally happened in Sweden. Friends had complimented my blog and I had a following of perhaps 30. Not bad. Not Nobel Prize, but, well, Sweden is small.

But they were all swedes. Since most of my friends are in Sweden and since the theme of the blog was loosely ”swede’s experience abroad”, I had written it all in Swedish. This choice may also have liberated me, feeling free to criticize one or two aspects of the British building traditions – no one in England would ever read this – they don’t speak Swedish.

So I look with skepsis at mr X: Ehhh… How..?

”Google Translate!”

It is not that I’m not aware of the big american company and its products, but here is a complete stranger saying he went through the trouble of translating it all (ok, it is two clicks away, but still) and then read the half jibberish that Google Translate often produces.

Dumbfounded I mention the episode to E who replies: ”Sure, I read it too. Of course I did. Actually, I had problems with the one with the thing with…I couldn’t really understand the translation…”

Soo…

A part of me quickly tries to remember all my blog posts. What did I write? How offended are they? Can I ever return to this country?

But the rest of me lives and prospers in the land of flattery. Whenever someone says I have done something good I respond in a manly short manner. Inside, however, there is a circus of joy and tap dance: they liked it. They LIKED it.

So, to X and E. This is a relapse that is all your fault. Whether this is a one off, that will be read by one and a half reader or the first in a series of blogs that eventually will make me rich and put me in the land of famous and owners of fast cars (I love Aston Martins)… well…