Tagged: americanabroad

Yesterday, at book group, one of the women asked us to help with an experiment her daughter was doing for school. She is asking everyone she knows to write a few words or sentences about what they think of America. Not Americans—AMERICA. She’s drawn a map of the U.S. on a big piece of paper and she’s putting all the notes that are BY Americans inside the confines of the country, and all the notes that are by NON-AMERICANS outside of the penciled country borders. I joked that my view of America has been revised rather drastically since November 4th....

Today made me miss my family terribly. We hosted a sort of mini family reunion with a couple of Anders’ cousins and their kids…cousins that he hasn’t seen for 25 years (despite the fact that they only live about 1.5 hours away), and that I’ve never met either, despite having lived here for 11.5 years. They had another get-together some years ago, but we were out of town and couldn’t make it. Anders’ mom was the youngest of 12 siblings (she was 25 years younger than her oldest sibling…I’ll just pause for a moment while you contemplate the horror there)...

We have been go-go-going non-stop since I arrived. Working every day and shopping every evening. I’ve met Chuck! And Bluepoppy! And Christina! And Bluepoppy’s T! And being at Soliden this weekend filled my whole middle with a big golden ball of warmth. The temperatures all this past week have been in the middle 80’s (*boggle*) and Mom and I have been having a great time tooling around and just being together. And it’s half over, already! Where does the time go? Zooooooooom! >>>> Photos!

Anders arrived home late last night from his 2 week business trip in Italy. Now it’s his turn to hold down the fort for 2 weeks, and make sure the kids get their homework done and the fish get fed and the dishes done and the laundry folded. Except for my bathroom bag, I’ve been packed since this afternoon. I am ready to go. The taxi is coming at 7:45 to take me to the airport and from there I’ll fly via Amsterdam to Boston where I’ll wait until my mom’s plane lands and then we’ll pick up the rental...

The American Women’s Club Malmö turns 10 years old this month. I’m pretty proud of that fact because though I wasn’t the one who started the club, I HAVE been around since the very first meeting (at which there were 7 people, including Lizardmom, and of said 7 only 2 are still members: me and the founder) back in 1997 when I was gigantically pregnant with Martin. He was supposed to be due right then, practically the day we had the meeting but he chose to take his sweet time and in fact, had to be YANKED OUT 3 weeks...

Today, in its loosely defined state of 33 hours awake so far, involved 3 airplanes, 9 hours total of layover/airport-wait time and a train, plus two 50-pound suitcases. I am very glad to be home. Things I boggled at, the short list: The Butt Hut (bwahahahaha!), ketchup-flavored potato chips, THE PRICES, the fact that I spent an hour and a half in the bookstore and came away with ONE BOOK for myself, the amount of strip malls in America, the variety of goodies on the market with Reese’s name on them. Things I wanted to eat while in the States...