Jenna In Sweden

No New News

Well, I think I’m going to stay away from Facebook for awhile. I do like the tumblr scene a hell of a lot though so I’ll probably kick around here. 

I find it all too easy to vent on Facebook actually, which could get me into a lot of trouble considering how many people watch what one says. Sometimes it’s actually quite hard to be on your best behaviour when everyone is watching and EVERYONE wants you to be happy _all_the_fucking_time_.  

What happens when I’m having a bad day? How on earth can I always be on my best behaviour when I’m only human? Who do I talk to? I’m tired of having a bad day and inadvertently bringing my boyfriend down. 

In retrospect, today has been a very good day =) We bought new coffee and had ice cream in town and the weather has been fantastic and my stomach is slimming down. You know, that everlasting mini-paunch where we keep our extra cookies… it’s finally disappearing!

Running outside in good ol Bergsjön is actually fantastic. The name of our area directly translates into “Mountain Lake” (Berg + Sjön), because we live on a mountain haha. Running around here is quite a workout, lots of ups and downs which works up quite a sweat!

That’s all for now folks! Ttfn!

Magic and Cuddles: Last night

My mom carried me for nine months. She felt sick for those months with nausea, then she watched her feet swell & her skin stretch. She teared. She struggled to climb stairs, she got breathless quickly and she even suffered many sleepless nights. She then went through excruciating pain to bring me into this world. Then, she became my nurse, my chef, my maid, my chauffeur, my biggest fan, my teacher & my best friend. She’s struggled for me, cried over me, hoped the best for me and prayed for me. Most of us take our mom for granted. Reblog if you love your mom more than anything else in the world.

(Source: romanceinthedarkness, via bumbleful)

“I know [x] from Toronto, do you know [x]?”

Okay here’s my own mini-half-informational-rant for the day. Every day in this new country I will always be meeting someone new, and surely one of the ways to identify with a new person is to talk a bit about their homeland.

This is where I need to clarify something: Just because I’m from Canada does not mean I am from/know anyone from Toronto, Ontario. As a matter of fact, I don’t know anyone from Montreal, Quebec either. I’ve never even been to either of those cities.

Canada may seem like an “everyone knows someone” country, but that’s not necessarily so.

The largest city in Sweden would be Stockholm, right? Let’s take Metropolitan populations by comparison just to be fair:

Stockholm metropolitan population: 2,091,473

Montreal metropolitan population: 3,824,221

Toronto metropolitan population: 5,583,064

Toronto is a really popular city for foreigners. It also has a really great airport that connects to a lot of European countries. I know that Canada is all “friendly” and “small-town” but please stop assuming I’m from the biggest city that could possibly exist in Canada.

That would be almost the equivalent to me presuming that every Swede I meet is from Stockholm. Or “Oh my GOD you’re from the Netherlands? You MUST be from Amsterdam! Have you ever been to cafe [x]?”

Yeah, it gets annoying pretty fast. Toronto is a big city. I suppose it’s really likely that I might know someone, but really, no. I should start asking everyone if they’re from Stockholm and see how well that goes *rolleyes*.