My family is the same, which is kind of nice. I’ll be staying with my parents in Canberra until I’ve found a job and am back on my feet. My brother and sister have aged a year but are just as I remember, and the same can be said of my parents. I’ve met up with many of my friends the past week, but still have some to go. I don’t have a car, which in Canberra is a social life death sentence.

I’ve spent a lot of time telling people of my experiences in Sweden, which were all positive. As I’ve repeated in previous posts, I made lots of great friends, saw many cool places, and just fell in love with Sweden and it’s people. I also made some more personal changes, with the two most noticed being I lost some weight (around 12 kilos) and grew my hair longer (see any recent photos of me).

I also grew as a person, which I suppose is bound to happen after leaving your home and spending a year in a foreign city. But honestly, I do feel like a different person compared to when I left. I’ve become passionate about things I didn’t care much for before, and have learnt a lot about myself and what I want to do with my life. Also, this taste of living abroad has made me want to do it again. I’ll return to Sweden one day, but I also feel like moving to and living in countries like Japan, Canada or Chile.

But first I need to find a job – preferably as a software developer, which was my line of work before leaving Canberra. Then, who knows?

Also, what to do with this blog? The title is a bit meaningless now that I’m back, but I’m loathe to abandon it. Maybe I should register lukewasinswedenbutisnowhome.com? I’ll think on it.

If you read my previous blog post, you would know how fond I am of Stockholm and the people I’ve met here. I’ve really enjoyed living in this city and feel like I’ve made a home here. While I was never sure how long I would stay, one year was always the rough plan. Now, on my final night in Stockholm, one year seems much too short.

When I made the decision and booked my flights a month ago, it was very hard to tell people my plans. The first to know were my roommates, Nik and Doug, the two Swedes I originally met in Australia two years ago. Since then we have become like brothers. I will miss them the most, but I know we’ve forged a friendship that will not easily break. I’ve made several other true friends as well, who I won’t name for fear of forgetting someone. You know who you are.

Something that surprised me about my stay in Sweden was how much Doug’s family accepted and embraced me. I had a final dinner with his parents on Friday night, and his mother said that she felt as though I was part of her family, like she had another son. I’ve never felt so welcomed. I was touched.

But I couldn’t let my last days in Sweden be filled with sadness. On my final Saturday in Sweden we held a big farewell party in our apartment. The theme: Australia! We had plenty of good Aussie music, and prizes for best and worst dressed of night. I must say, it was a great success. I painted myself green and gold, wore the flag as a cape and called myself Mr Australia. Some of the costumes we had included an aborigine, VB Man, Muriel from Muriel’s Wedding, Angus Young from AC/DC, and of course some surfer girls. I’ve included the pictures below.

The past few weeks I’ve been kept busy with the final arrangements and making sure I made the best of my time here. It wasn’t until the early hours of Sunday morning, when the party was dying down and the neighbours had stopped complaining, it really hit me that I’m leaving.

A friend surprised me at the party with a going away gift – a picture she’d drawn herself which is a beautiful mix of Australia and Sweden. That really touched me, and as I sat outside my apartment by myself and drank the final beer of one of the best nights of my life, I realised what an awesome time I’ve had in this country. The connections I’ve made, the places I’ve been and the things I’ve seen all swirled through my head. It was then that I truly realised that I’m going to miss this place. I’m going to miss it a lot.

It’s hard for me to cry. Maybe social conditioning, trying to keep up a strong front, whatever. I went through a long and hard breakup, and never shed a tear. But that night I did. Just a little.

I’m writing this now before I go to sleep, after saying goodbye to all my friends on my final night in Stockholm. Fuck it is hard to write this. What a time I’ve had. What an experience. Leaving it all behind, leaving all my friends behind, seems so wrong…

There’s nothing that will stop me returning to Sweden. Nothing. One day.

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Stockholm isn’t a huge city. With a population of 2 million, it barely makes the top 200 cities in the world. Still, it’s big enough to have all the advantages of a modern metropolis; a good public transport system, a vibrant nightlife and a restaurants with food from all over the world. But this are not the reason I love Stockholm.

The main reason I love Stockholm is because of Swedish culture.

Sure, Swedes can be quiet and a little distant. But once you break past this barrier or shyness, there is a lot to like. Swedish people share many characteristics of Australians that I like, and not many that I don’t. Swedes are fun, easy-going, heavy-drinking, intelligent, decent, cultured people (in Stockholm anyway).

I love the winter, and I love the (short) summer). I love meeting a friend in the city for a fika, or having some friends over for a förkrök on the weekend. I like catching a movie at a bio, working out at one of the SATS, and watching a La Liga match at an Irish pub in Gamla Stan, drinking cheap stor stark or a pricier Guinness.Swedish food is fantastic, though the lack of meat pies and sausage rolls is concerning. I love köttbullar, falukorv, pytt i panna, and hamburgare from Max or Rasmus Grill – especially when drunk or hungover. At Christmas, Easter and Midsummer the best food of all comes out: senapsill, lax, prinskorv, räka and oxfile. Then there are crayfish parties, where you eat kräfta, drinks snaps and sing traditional drinking songs.

So it may be expensive, cold, and dark, but this icy wasteland has warmed my heart become my second home. I’m going to be leaving soon, and this makes me sad.

But I’ll be back. 

Thanks to Niklas Humbla, Annika Arnell, and Doug and Micke Stjernfelt for acting in the film; I couldn’t have done it without you guys. I’d also like to thank Doug’s parents, Phillip and Gussie, for allowing us to use their house in Åland as the principal filming location.

Comments are welcome!

Moving to a new city and riding the train everyday was a new experience for me, but it didn’t take long for me to get used to it.  The trains almost always run on time, they run every day (minus 3 days in the winter when heavy snow stopped them), and they run through the night on weekends. I now can’t imagine life without the convenience.

The Metro system in Stockholm isn’t very complicated – there are three main lines, the Red, Green and Blue. These lines contain 100 stations, of which I’ve visited 40. I’m pretty good at getting around the inner city actually, and feel like I know my way around.

The atmosphere on the trains vary greatly depending on when you ride it. Swedish people are big believers in respecting people’s privacy and personal space, which means strangers never talk on a train; it’s even considered weird to make eye contact. But this is turned around when catching the train 3am after a Saturday night, when all of a sudden all the drunk people are best friends and everyone is very chatty.

I’ve experienced a lot on Stockholm’s trains. I’ve been offered vodka by a drunk one-legged man on a Sunday morning; I’ve passed out drunk on the way home from clubbing; I’ve waited an hour in the depot after accidentally missing the last station; and I’ve seen a homeless woman get off at a station, squat, and relieve herself right-then-and-there. I’ve heard people speaking Swedish, English, Arabic, German, Spanish, French, Italian and Russian. I’ve gotten quite good at hiding alcohol bottles from the guards, but was once caught and made to pour a whole beer onto the tracks.

And just this weekend I witnessed a girl getting stuck in the closing train doors as she ran in. The greatest thing about this incident was that the only part of her that made it into the train were her large, Swedish breasts. For a split second before the driver relented and the doors released her, I and a good many people onboard witnessed the most glorious cleavage imaginable. I love Sweden, I love Stockholm, and I love riding the tunnelbana.

The area around their land is very nice and peaceful, and there is a great running track that goes near the coast and has a few nice climbing spots.  The family also have a boat in a nearby harbour that’s within walking distance, and often use it to get to one of the nearby towns (such as Grebbestad, the closest town to party at on a Saturday night). It’s also quite nice to just go out and look around the archipelago, which we did one day. When it’s a little warmer you can make a day trip to an island and spend the day swimming, sunbaking, and then have a barbeque.

There are three houses and a football field on the family’s land; one house owned by Doug’s mother (Gussie), and one each owned by his aunts Cisse and Helene. Including all the children and partners and friends, there were over 30 people down to celebrate Midsummer. And I wasn’t the only non-national there – two of Doug’s cousins American husbands, and one of his cousins has a Spanish boyfriend, which makes things a little more interesting.

In Sweden Midsummer is celebrated the day before, on Midsummer Eve. The day’s festivities begin with a nice lunch of traditional Swedish food, the same as if found during Easter and Christmas. We ate sill, köttbullar, prinskorv, lax and snaps; by now all fond favourites of mine. We ate with Doug’s immediate family; his parents( Phillip and Gussie), his brothers (Michael and David), David’s girlfriend Maria, and their beautiful 1-year old son, Alex. And not forgetting Niklas, of course.

After lunch we went out to meet all the other family members to dance around the maypole. That’s right – a long-standing Swedish tradition is dancing around a giant pole which represents a giant penis. Songs were sung, fun was had, and I generally had no idea what was going on.

After dancing round the penis came the playing of brännboll, another Swedish tradition. I don’t fully get the rules, but think of baseball with a socialist-bent. There are two sides, one in and one out. The in-side hits a ball with a stick and runs around bases, and makes points for getting home. The out-side gets points for catching the ball, and for getting the ball home while a runner is between bases. The game is played on time, and once each side has played a round the game is over and a winner announced.

After the brännboll we played the traditional football game. I’ve never been good at sport, but currently have good condition from running a lot and I’ve been practicing my football skills with Doug. And so a big group of us played football under the hot Swedish sun (25 degrees, incredible!). I now feel more Swedish than ever.

After a couple of hours rest it was time for the Midsummer dinner. Phillip, as always, was the cook for the night, and so we all crammed into Gussie’s house to eat and drink. Doug, Niklas and I were clever enough to sit at a table with some of his cousins and their American husbands. It was clever because this particular branch of the family are Christian (a rarity in Sweden, of course) and don’t drink alcohol. Which means that the bottles of wine placed on the table were just for us. It was great.

I sat next to the Spanish boyfriend of one of Doug’s cousins, and we talked football. Spain was actually playing at the time, and won halfway through the dinner (and went on to win the entire Cup, as it turns out). On my other side was Douglas’ cousin Samuel, who has been studying theology for several years in America, and with whom I had a very in-depth discussion of religion.But then the dinner and my stay in Fjällbacka were over, and much too soon in my opinion. I’ve since been once more, for Gussie’s birthday, and I hope to come again. It’s a beautiful, relaxing place, and as of now is my favourite place to be in Sweden.

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I have a confession to make: I loved LOST from the first episode. My love for the show only grew stronger as the crazy stuff started to happen. Locke was in a wheelchair before the crash? Ethan wasn’t on the flight manifest?? They found some kind of hatch in the jungle?! It wasn’t long before I was a compete fanatic. I loved the mystery, the science-fiction trappings, and the conflict between the characters as they struggled to survive and make sense of their surroundings.

** SPOILERS BELOW **

Most of my friends stopped watching after the second season. But by that point I was a true believer, and kept watching every week. I spent more hours than I care to admit reading LOST theories online, analysing every detail in every episode. I was really hooked.

But then the final season came, and last Sunday the final LOST episode aired. And it was all shit. There were no big answers to the most pressing questions. The writers seemed to have forgotten half the mysteries, and the rest were given flimsy, half-answers. Some of the most motivated characters were revealed to have not known anything all along, which raises the question; what the hell were they doing on that island?

The finale seems popular from what I’ve read online. I thought it was trashy and boring. The final battle between good and evil was an epic fist-fight on a collapsing cliff in a thunderstorm. The antagonist (the mysterious Man in Black with whom there is no personal connection) finally got the upper hand of Jack, pinning him on the edge of the cliff and slowly sliding a knife into his neck. Then Kate comes in from nowhere and saves the day with a well-timed gunshot. Ugh. How many times has that kind of deus ex machina already happened on the show?

The stupid sideways-flashes of the last season (where all the characters experience their lives as if they’d never crashed on the island) turned out to be a kind of purgatory. Everyone ended up there after they died, in order to reunite with their soul mates or some other clichéd bullshit. Hooray, everyone goes to heaven together! It was a cheap, sappy ending, with no hard realities and plenty of slow motion shots of everyone smiling.

The final scene was poetic, showing Jack dying in the jungle, in precisely the same spot where he woke up in the pilot. The final shot of the series mirrors the opening shot; Jacks eye opening in the first shot of LOST, and his eye closing is the last. Still, we know where he’s going once he dies, and that happy fact is the worst aspect of the finale.

I hate that kind of religious message, that everything is going to turn out all right, so don’t worry. It’s not a fucking Disney movie, there are adults watching this show. Put some damn force into the ending! It’s wishful thinking that everything will turn out ok. Life doesn’t work like that. The moral of the ending is that the characters that sacrificed their lives didn’t really sacrifice anything, and now the murders don’t seem so bad, do they?

LOST had so much potential! But the writers (mainly Damon Lindleof and Carlton Cuse) pulled way too many punches along the way, and gave up on explaining all the little mysteries that they wrote into the show, which also means most of the character’s motivations make no sense. Because of all of this, LOST went out with a whimper instead of a bang.