Ramble XX

*Sighs deeply*

Finally, things are settling down now, that’s good. It’s a pity though that my TV was postponed but I guess that’s life. It’s not like we need a rule forum anyway I think. I only have minor stuff to bring up and maybe it’s better to play a little and bring them into the game first and then evaluate them later when you have a better perspective on how things work.

I think that all in the group knew I’ve been to Umeå to have some fun this weekend and Danne and PB went to Jokkmokk to celebrate Matte’s birthday or something trivial like that. I hope you have had just as fun as I have had.

Friday wasn’t the best day, but that was mostly because the buss-ride down there was horrible. It was cold and it’s not healthy for my back or neck to sleep on a bus either so when we arrived in Umeå both I and my sister were stale as icemen. But then to meet the family which we have been living with this weekend were really nice. They are friends of the family and Maria babysat their oldest son, Nils who now is 10, since he was born. I myself hadn’t seen him in like six years, when their second son, Hugo, was born.

But they are really nice kids both of them and as most people they were really fascinated over my hair. Six years ago I had just started to save my first afro so they had never seen my afro. One thing that is quite fun with this family is that the parents are named Anna and Bosse, which is the same name as our, mine and Maria’s, parents names too.

When we arrived it was mostly to get acquainted with the house and they showed us the guestroom and all before we all ate tacos for dinner. So we mostly played with the kids and helped to dice and slice the food. Then the suggestion to go to a place named Leo’s Playland was brought up by one of the kids. They wanted to bring us there to play with us during Saturday. We agreed to this since it actually sounded quite fun.

After an evening when we played some more and watched some TV with the family they finally went to bed around 22:00, tough Nils somehow hurt himself before that so the evening ended in tears and a lot of hugs plus a bump on the head for Nils. As soon as the kids were in bend we borrowed Anna and Bosse’s bicycles’ and went to a party one of her friends in Umeå had invited us to.

This is a good-bad end of that day. The good thing is that it was really fun and we had had about two to three glasses of wine so we were in a good mood at least. The bad thing is that we got some crazy directions. To sum it up, we ended up walking all over Umeå’s campus which is about five times bigger than Luleå’s campus… which is QUITE big. And it took us about one or almost two hours to get there. The clock was almost exactly 00:00 when we arrived at the party after asking a dozen people for directions and being barked at by two or three dogs.

The party was almost over by then too, so it wasn’t really any good flow when we arrived. But people were nice and we got some free alcohol and so on. The person who had invited us is a singer of a band and he was quite drunk. When we arrived he was really drunk and looked like someone who had just had about a bottle of whine alone or maybe something stronger. Not too soon after we arrived, about half the party had either gone home, to another party or to a pub or something. Our host had puked and then finally passed out in his own room.

But it was actually pretty okay anyway. They were singing and talking a lot before it all ended and all the drunk people were commenting on my hair and touching it as usual, haha. We also got the compliment that both me and my sister had not only good looks but good taste in hair styles too (that’s a first, at least for me =P). And our host was constantly saying that he really digged my hair and that he would like to fall asleep on my hair, luckily he didn’t.

Well, the way back from that party, around 02:50 when the host had really passed out and the only few remaining were his room mates in that corridor, wasn’t hard at all. Now when we knew how to get home it only took us about 10-15 minutes to find our way to the district in which we lived in… but then we lost ourselves anyway. This residential area in which we lived in is like a maze when you only have seen it during the night and not being completely sober. You know how it’s like, all the houses almost exactly the same and when they are deeply nested within each other then it’s not easy. If it’s only been blocks, like there is in most areas in Luleå, it would have been easier. So we went around for about 20 minutes before we finally found our house =). But then again, we had fun all night and it wasn’t too cold so it didn’t matter really.

Well, thanks to not drinking too much the night before it was no problem at all to wake up the next day. Although my sister had a watch which every hour said the time so I woke up about every hour to; “It’s five’ o’clock AM, It’s six’ o’clock AM” until we decided we had slept enough around, eight’ o’clock AM =S.

Well the morning was mostly playing a little with the kids, watching TV with the kids and then after breakfast it was quite a hassle which I haven’t seen or experienced for ages. The family planning! I know some families aren’t like that, but most of the families our family is friends with are orderly and well mannered – which you can hardly believe when it comes to me =P. They had promised to be with one kid then they should call here and there and then there was a children’s party the next day so presents needed to be bought and homework needed to be done and so on and on. Not to mention that they were trying to get the kid’s to get out of their pyjamas and into their clothes if they wanted to go to Leo’s Playland and so on. It was quite fun to watch this charade and remember how it had been almost ten to twelve years ago in our house, nice nostalgia.

Well, to sum up the day from that point we played as hell with the kids in this bizarre world of gremlin’s and gigantic castles and adventure constructions. It was quite fun I must say though we spent most time in a big air thing which you could make somersaults and playing soccer. When we come home we rested for a while and I had been invited to a party during Saturday on which I had brought alcohol with me to drink. So we prepared ourselves as their family prepared to go to a neighbour for some strange neighbour dinner with kids. I remember we used to go on these when I was quite small but since I was too much trouble and most kids hated me in our neighbourhood it ended with us mostly hanging with the same people on our street.

Well, my sister and I had decided to go to the city before the party so we went into the city after all preparations’ where my sister treated me dinner on a restaurant as a late present for my birthday. We ate quite good and expensive food and we shared a bottle of wine before taking the bus to the evening’s party which was really, really fun. The only time I’ve had more fun with alcohol involved is in Japan.

Imagine you arrive at a place where you know absolutely nobody except for the only one you came with. Imagine this and then imagine that this place have about thirty to forty completely unknown strangers there. Then you add two radical people with a two totally different social edges and just throw them into this head first. Then mix this with Mintu, Wine, Punch and beer and you will get the amazing results of this party.

It was really fun, and we talked to everyone and seemed to amaze everyone on the party. I met a lot of interesting people and I even met former citizens of Luleå which had seen me or knew me even though I didn’t know them. I don’t know anything more to tell you except for boring details but it was really fun and nice and it ended with me and my sister sharing a cab with some strange guy which Maria insisted on calling Birka¹ with Hugo while I was showering after the day at Leo’s.

Well waking Sunday was a completely other thing than Saturday I tell you that. To begin with I almost fell asleep the first thing I did when arriving back home. But I slept quite long from about 4’o’clock to 9 and just relaxed until Nils went into the guestroom, which they by the way had built in their garage, and woke Maria around 10’o’clock. I wasn’t sober when I woke up I tell you that. So I just mainly tried to keep it cool until it had started to go away, which was a little hard since they wanted to play with me. But I managed with lame excuses and fleeing into the toilet =). Most of the Sunday went to playing with the kids and helping Nils with his homework and such and then later we took the bus back home.

So in short this weekend was a great success, we had a lot of fun and made two new friends or at least I did. Maria has met them quite often even after Hugo was born, which was the last time I saw them. They also seemed to want both me and Maria to move down to Umeå and the strange thing with this was that it was mostly their Mother Anna, who wanted this even though the kid’s didn’t disagree (rather the opposite) but Anna was serious and the kids were kids =). Nils even reminded me of Robert a little when he was in his age; energetic, kind and quite clever for his age. Hugo on the other hand seemed like a regular six year old. Shy, small, and easy to agitate.

Well, well… that’s a summery of the weekend at least. Now back to the regular life. Prepare for AFC, the meeting and make sure to turn in all the papers and such. Well, have just a couple more things to work out about Taraien then I think it will soon be almost complete, the only thing after that that will be missing is adjustments here and there to make it a more realistic but yet fantasy-style culture.

Best regards,
Herid Fel

1. She had seen Ronja Daughter of Thieves’ ↩