isobelll - with 3 l

A few months later, just after new years, I ended up in Christchurch by chance while hich-hiking and didn't really know where to stay but I txted (short text message by cell's) the couch surfer that I'd met while staying at my Swedish friend (and oh, after a night of partying on town with the couch surfers last time I'd been in Christchurch I ended up on their floor anyways - even though I was staying at my other friends house (Hmm, did I make myself clear just then?)). He, I'll call him Angel, said "sweet as, when are you coming?". Yay! I stayed only for one night on his couch but enjoyed the company and his veggie food very much. Another box of smiles, Thanks man! Again I liked the people but didn't really care to much about the Christchurch, sadly a rather boring city.

My hitch there, who'd been a quite scary one in the end, where teh truck driver tried to kiss me twice even though he was old enough to be my grandfather, had kindly enough organised the next ride for me within the same truck company the following day. I wasn't sure if I was gonna take him up on his offer after having said no to the one about staying in his motel room but enjoyed the morning checking out some galleries after stying with Angel and meet up with the next truck-driver in the early afternoon anyways. He took me from Christchurch all the way to Palmerston and we got along real well. I even helped him unload and we had almost the same taste in music too, which is really uncommon while hitching.

Palmerston was a small wee town which I only chose cause I could get on the road cutting cross country towards Alexandra the next day. And cause I loved the idea of free camping, this was gonna be my first time. I'd gotten my tent for the new years festival just a couple of weeks before from a friend in Karamea who didn't need it anymore. After looking for a place for about an hour I decided that I was way to shy/scared to put it up in one of the perfect places I found, which all were filled with cows. Grr! So I found a place on an off side road, the grass between the paddock and the road seamed to be "non-claimable" by authority's and my home for the night. I didn't want to be to far off as well, if something was to happen. I'd heard about people getting robbed or raped while free camping at various spots around the country, stories I rather not know about. Or tell for that matter?

But my place was perfect, I again watched the sunset while having my dinner (rice with beans and sweet chilly sauce - my favourite along the road and made as soon as I found a microwave and easy to prepare for lunch/dinners ahead). I fell asleep while listening to the birds.

I meet a Swedish girl throw the same education agency while studying in Nelson, or we mailed each other but hadn't met until I came to Christchurch. She was real sweet and I stayed on her couch for a few days. We sat talking all night and checked out the city the next day followed by a sweet party at night (with real boring people but we had a good time anyways, making them jealous while we were dancing). I think I stayed with her 3 or 4 days and I also managed to meet up with some sweet couch surfing people who I happily consider my good friends today.

But maybe the nicest thing apart form speaking Swedish after so many months of only English, even though I miss the English now, was when she brought me along to a horseback riding tour. Wow! I Absolutely love horses and have been riding for more then 10 years but its been a while since I'd been on a horseback. But after about 15 minutes I was at ease and back in the game. I think we were gone for about 3 hours and saw the most stunning landscapes, a huge river and were able to gallop all over the fields. Ah! This is it! My horses name was Arrow and we got along real good. One day I'm gonna have the time and money to go riding on a more reaglar basis, until then that sweet memorie will have to do. Yet another box filled with smiles.

I left Christchurch the next day with a sore body, its been a long time since I've used those muscles.

One of my favourite moments in New Zealand, and favourite stories to tell if you've already heard it, was when I visited Mount Maunghanui. One of the hitches was a bit scary due to the Maori guy (everyone's been warning me but I refuse to believe in the prejudice, racist comments against the Maori's) with tattoo's all over his face - blue flames. Then he started asking me how it was travelling alone as a girl, the usual question, if I liked to party, what I liked to drink and soon enough if I had a boyfriend where I laid and said that I had someone waiting for me in Sweden. Then the scary bit began, "You've gotta be real rich if you're travelling like this?" Well no! Not at all, if I were rich I might take the bus and not hitch? But I put it in perhaps a bit more diplomatic words. Telling him about Couch surfing and using the internet to get a hold of people where I could stay for a day or two was apparently notthe right thing to do. "Oh, but then you've got to have your laptop with you?" Pointing to my bag in the back. No way, that's way to expensive and I wouldn't carry it around with me anyhow! But I got out in one piece and with all my belongings. Maybe he just really wanted to know but it sure as hell felt like he wanted to know if it would be worth the trouble robbing me.

After hitching yet another ride I got to the beach which, apparently?, was the destination for the day. I've heard about Mount Maunghanui and that it was suppose to be real beautiful there but not really knowing that I was gonna find this spectacular beach. The water was real warm, filled with fun waves, seaweed and lost of salt which I merrily swallowed while playing in the ocean. As I was sitting in the sun, getting all warm and cosy again I wondered where I was gonna spend the night. Having seen town for just a second I realised that it was probably gonna be to expensive checking in at a backpackers (which I only did when there were no other options) or camp-ground but where could I pitch my tent just randomly hidden?

And suddenly I knew. Mount Maunghanui was to my left (I think) out on a peninsula and on the other side there was another small stretch of land surrounded by ocean, see the pitctures above. That one was gonna be my island for the night, yaaarrrrr!! I was gonna claim it to be all mine! My plan was brilliant. After waiting on the beach for the tourists to go home I snuck out on the peninsula and hid my backpack while I was looking for a place to crash, running around and playing hide and seek with no one looking for me of course. Ok, so you lose some sanity points while being on your own travelling the country, I must admit. Or maybe I didn't have any before either, I leave that for you to decide. The island was beautiful and I soon found the perfect place for my tent, just near a cliff edge, overlooking the ocean and hidden/sight underneath a huge tree. Yay! Just before sunset I pinched my tent and, to my surprise, remembered that I had one last bottle of beer (warm but nice) in my backpack. I took it and my dinner to the highest place on the island and watched the sunset. As the moon rose I knew that this was gonna be one of my best nights in New Zealand. It lit up the entire bay and the Mount, which looked absolutely beautiful. I can't describe it in any other way. The pictures looked completely computer generated but are real.

"I claim this island to be mine, yarrrr!" I waved with my beer knowing that I'd forgotten something important, I didn't have a flag. But instead of using a t-shirt on a stick I decided that another game of hide and seek on the now abandoned island would do.

I've realised over the years that my money is spent not on booze and candy but art and music. And I can't and wont carry the albums with me so I got all music digitally but I love concerts, and will do almost anything for a chance to see my favourite bands. (Some of them are on a list to the... uhm, right? I don't "do" left and right, can't tell them apart). But when someone asks me about my favourite band I always say that I've got two that are at the absolute number one, Björk and Nine Inch Nails. I've spent I don't know how many hours at end listening to both of them, laughing and crying at the same time. I've never been fortunate enough to see Björk live but had the pleasure to watch Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails creator, front man and really everything) 4 and a half times!

The first time I didn't even know the band, it was in Roskilde 2000 (?). The year with all the deaths at the Pearl Jam concert where I was suppose to be but got held up, puh for that one! I was at the festival with my mum and her friends, just turned 18 and my first festival. My favourite band at the time "Bush" were playing at the same time as NIN and I ran from one concert to the other and saw some of the final songs with Trent but then forgot about this amazing man for several years. Actually my mum made me listen to him in the end. Years later my boyfriend at the time liked NIN and gave my mum a cd which she for a whole years played over and over in her car, ok so this must be good? I slowly got into the music and when "with teeth" - the album - came I was lost. Shortly afterwards my phone rang and a very excited voice said "Nine Inch Nails are coming to Hultsfred, we need to go!!!" (Hultsfred is a big Swedish festival close to where my mum lives). We needed to be there, me and mum who'd made the call.


It was pouring down when Trent came out on stage. Wow! One of the best concerts in my life. The best thing, perhaps, was reading about it in the papers afterwards from a reporter who clearly didn't know anything about Trent, that he'd called the audience "you fucking pigs...!" while we were all lovin' it this poor reporter didn't get why. Haha!

Nine Inch Nails started, just as before he took his big break, spitting out god music and I got more and more lost. Fuck, this is to good to be true. He came to Stockholm not to long after Hultsfred and me and my mum where there again, screaming and singing along. He came a third time and that concert (even though it sadly had a horrible boring audience) was my mums 50th birthday gift!!


I moved to New Zealand and thought that I would never see NIN again, sadly but true. "The Slip" came out and sure enough a new tour was posted, with one stop in Auckland. Yay! I couldn't wait for the tickets and got them on pre-sale on the homepage as a fan and got a special ticket that let me come in with the other dedicated fans before the public was let into the concert hall. Wow! And there I was but this time, my 4th and a half, it was without my mummy which was really weird. Trent said that this was probably gonna be his last tour and I went form the concert with mixed feelings, what no more albums? No more music? Fuck, what the hell am I gonna do now, huh Trent?

So I took heaps of pictures and videos of the concert and loved every last minute of it. Until just a week ago when I out of a pure chance and a cute Danish guy, ok I gotta tell that story later on, checked out the Danish festival Roskilde and what bands they had for this year - and started screaming and txting my mum, NIN is coming! I still don't know if we're gonna be able to go, money, time, work (still don't know if I got it but the interview was ok I think)? But I'm keeping my fingers crossed for one last chance to see my favourite band - Nine Inch Nails.


"Nine Inch Nails - Something I can never have" Auckland, NZ 2009

So the story about the cute Danish guy? Well, ok... but now its getting personal again so this is the time to stop reading if you're scared or just feeling way to politically correct cause I'm sure as hell not!

So I went to Knutepunk in Norway and meet up with heaps of friends that didn't know that I was planning on coming, Ninja!! Had some sweet reunions and cool moments that I thought were forever gonna be buried in booze memories from last year. I wont go in to them, at least not right now.

The LARP convention started with a Larp, yay! Even though it wasn't that good and brought up a theme that wasn't really appropriate or rather it was to big for that short amount of time I got some good gaming and had a lot of fun. (I'm not gonna try and explain larp, which I've tried many times over in the blog I think.) So I got the part as the flirting bimbo and didn't really know who to flirt with. There were three guys to choose from that my character could "fall for" but two of them didn't seam to experienced with playing and had a totally different gaming style then I have, I mostly go all out within reasonable limits of course. But I saw that one of them, The Game Master or rather the guy with the papers, had a character that was perfect for gaming and the guy itself seamed ok and the same "all outthere" gaming style as I have. So I played along, flirted and got closer so I could drop a real sweet line, later I heard that it must have been strait out of "American Beauty" - "Oh... Have you been working out?". Looking up on the guy with huge admiring eyes and biting my lip, this was all in game of course. (That is, my character as the bimbo was flirting with his character - larping.) Later I found out that the Game Master, the one organising the game for us had giving me this part so that he could have some game time with me. Oh, really? I should be pissed of for being type casted but well... I really can't.

Cause later on that day, as embarrassing as it is to admit, we started flirting. As ourselves. Gah! But he was a bit to cute besides it was way to fun not to. And I always, as bad as it sounds, go for fun. Or I try to. So we kept on flirting and late at night when I was heading up to my bed and I just had turned down the offer of getting a drink in his room I left him with a sweet, innocent and nervous good night kiss.

The next day I had heaps of games to go to and some real cool seminars. One was how to have a monologue in a game and help each other having them (a meta technique in larping) and in the afternoon we tried it out by taking part in the game "A place to rest" where all the communication between players was in monologue form, yay! This actually turned out to be such a good game that its competing with some of the best ones on my list, and I've been doing this for more then 10 years now. Good on ya, "guy's"!

The gala dinner came and went, I kept on spontaneously gaming with a few friends and then the cute Danish guy (hmm, I'd better get him a nick name that's shorter... what to call him?) came and asked me to dance. Which I at first couldn't due to game but later on loved every minute of. He turned out to be a real good and fun dance partner who loved to play along to the lyrics and after being part of a secret ritual on knutepunkt, getting back with an old friend and then returning to the dance floor to have some more fun with TCDG (The Cute Danish Guy). You all know what happened afterwards. Come on, I'm not some sort of saint. You know even though I can try to hide it. We spent the rest of the weekend being rather cute and me having a strangely warm tummy whenever he was around.

Ok, so I crush rather easily but at the same time there has got to be something there that really captures my attention. And for some reason it did, even though it was a guy which I'm not really interested in any more and way to young. Lets not go in to numbers, just that he was way to young. I'm thinking I might have some sort of "I'm getting old (26 now) complex" cause this is not the first time I'm going for people that are way younger then me, embarrassingly enough. At some point we started talking about relationships, oh no... Not that one again. I always get into trouble right about there cause there are so few relationship anarchist around and when I started explaining that I want just what everyone else wants but without rules that make me wanna jump fences, that I preferred trust and warmth. The love you can only experience when its totally voluntarily and being chosen every time someone spends time with me it got sort of complicated. Apparently "you can't have the sweet without the sour". But what?! No, no, no... That's not how I wanna live my life, besides there is always heaps of sour when you relate to people - why would I want to create more just by following this silly norm we've got in society? No, not my thing. "But you're just gonna go back to Stockholm and forget all about this. Gone with the wind..." Well, No, that's not me. I keep in touch and when I say, "I'd love to see you again" I actually mean it. So even though we are as unlike/alike as we can be and everything else that's "wrong" I still kinda like him.

But hey, he's another box for me. Everyone that has made me smile, for whatever reason, goes into a little box in my head and on rainy days or when everything has turned into pure shit I look for my little boxes, dusty and forgotten but not lost. And I open them and smile, feel, love and remember. So Thank you for making me smile, whatever happens that was the simplest and most important thing. Now we have a good mailing contact that I hope continues and that we at least stay friends. I'd like that very much with a still somewhat (scared) warm tummy.

To explain things a bit clearer, relationship anarchism means that every relationship - every time you relate to someone - its unique. This means that all your contact with someone else is totally unique and can't be replaced. So every time I'm jealous, cause of course this happens to me too, I think about how I wanna be treated and that I'm, however hard they try, am unreplaceable. So if I talk about more people then one in this blog ots because I'm trying to be as open as I can and show me, you, someone or just write about this other way of looking at relationships with the people we love.

Band of the day: "Nine Inch Nails"
New Zealand Band of the day: "Left or right"
Muic that has been playing all night: "Tool" and "A perfect circle"

Got ya! I told my mum that I was gonna come visit her but always pushed the date and finally said "I'll see you on Saturday". But little did she know about my plans... Early on Friday morning, after just about 3 hours of sleep (due to reasons I'll explain later) I got on the bus that would take me about 5 hours downwards in the country. But the stupid bus company Swedbus (http://swedbuss.se) fooled me and it turned out to be 2 buses with a stop over in Västervik for about 2 hours. WTF? I needed to hitch hike the last bit anyways so I got real pissed of cause the bus from Västervik was only gonna take me to Vimmerby which isn't even an hours ride and I'd paid it totally in wain. I decided - to hell with them all - got out in Västervik and instead of waiting for another 2 hours I started walking back to the big road.

I got a bit nervous not only about trying to hitch in Sweden, the Nordic countries or Europe for the first time but also using my right thumb. And having a sign which I for security reasons hadn't had duing my 4 months of hitching in New Zealand. That way I could always say no thanks to the ride and blame it on being a stupid tourist that I again was on the wrong side of the road. This I never had to use though, even if I realized that some of the rides were rather sketchy and maybe I shouln't have gotten into the car. But I'm alive and well. *Touch wood - reaching for my head*

After about an hour and a half of walking backwards trying to get to the highway I started getting worried. People are a lot colder maybe cause of the climate here but there is something about Swedish people (me becoming one of them I must admit, applying and getting the citizenship not even a year ago- now I'm both German and Swedish). The cold and tired faces of stressed people. Out here in the country side its a lot better but there is still the hint of fear in everyone's face. You never start talking to someone on the bus or the street. They might be out to get you! Security cameras everywhere. Big Brother's watching. A guy ol me that after 20 years on the same job, which he actually seamed to like and do well, he started getting controlled when he got there in the morning and when he left for the day. Isn't 20 years enough time for earning ones trust? He got mine. He picked me up and I shared a ride with him and his family all the way to my mums front door. Thank you and I trust you. Fuck you, Big Brother, fuck you...

First Emil (the dog) didn't recognise me. He sniffed and sniffed until he must have gathered up all his brain cells and finally knew that his big sister had come back! And he started running all over the place, going all wild. The family is all back together, yay! My mum however wasn't around. So I put down my pack and went on looking until I found her in the garage cleaning her car and listening to her "fake pod" (yay, don't give in to evil mac). What the fuck are you doing here??? Haha! Love, reunion and family. Finally. Its almost been a year since I'd seen her, way to long but with the being on the other side of the world, literary, its been a bit difficult. Oh, I've missed you heaps mummy! So I ninjad you too! Fuck, I've even gotten requests of people wanting me to ninja them. Well, you never know. I might maybe get there, some day. When you least expect it of course.



We talked all evening and I went to bed at a reasonable hour, a real bed with covers and pillows. Wow! But best of all, with my old teddy Katariana who fell asleep in my arms about 10 minuites into the movie been played on my laptop. Luxury pure.





And oh, I almost forgot. I only slept three hours cause I was taking a spontaneous walk with Cat late at night while talking about "us". Ok, I'm getting personal now so if you wanna stop reading this is the time.

I've been in love (more or less) for more then a year with hen and and hoped the love we shared would continue now that I got back to Stockholm, at least for the time I'd be spending here. But our meeting in Morocco didn't, as you can read about in previous posts, turn out as planned - a reunion in the Sahara desert and the trancesahara festival. So everything has been kinda weird between us, it didn't feel like we'd even meet at all.

I began to feel like the typical woman, wanting physical attention and getting the cold shoulder one minute and the opposite next time I turned around. Making me feel very insecure, scared of showing my own feelings and unloved. This is very common in a lot of "normative-relationships" and is another reason why I'm totally uninterested in them (if you missed it, which is hard to do, by now - I'm a relationship Anarchist and queer (not defining genders), which means I'm neither interested in being in a normative relationship or acting/being treated as a "typical normative woman"). So I got quite pissed of and tired of being scared not to be loved back, or rather not to be "fallen in love with"(for lack of better words) and equally of being treated like/feeling like a "normative woman". Knowing that Cat would never willingly put me in this situation, cause hen is a strong believer in relationship anarchism and queer too, so what went wrong? Or why was I feeling like this?

+ I have no intentions of coming back to Stockholm and having my heart broken, none at all. Of course I knew that me being here again had no guarantee that we were gonna find our way back or rather find a future together as friends/lovers/companions. Though its hard at times I can always try to "turn off" or rather not "build up" even more of the "bubble-falling-in-love-warmth" in my tummy for someone, which I wanted to know if that was the case.

So we talked and talked, something that is the centre of all relationship anarchy "thingys/lovers". Which is one of the reasons why I love it, not only having the big talk when its already to late to save anything. And after a while we realised that it partly had been a misunderstanding, as so many things usually are, we speak in different languages when it comes to "love talk/feelings and such". And we decided that we were gonna take it real slow. Cat still being sort of startled of me, as hen said it, that I was "being back form the dead". Which made hen scared of losing me again, or not seeing that I'm here at all. And therefore not knowing how to act around me. I've been gone for a long while, longer then we'd known each other (I've known about hen for years but never having the guts to get to know hen for real until about January 2008). But I'm still on a journey while hen's been "left behind" and even though hen's gone throw a lot its still in the same country and the same city. So while I'm moving on and on hens still. Meeting up again is therefore a bit tricky cause we are at different places in our lives and/or relationship. Gonna spend heaps of time together and try to find a new way to relate to each other and the new people we've become. But oh, yeah... I'm still/again hopelessly in love... (For lack of better words).

Song of the night, ta Cat : DJ Krush - On the Dub-ble

I've got a special place for the summer in Stockholm or rather we'll see how long I'll stick around but I'm very happy to crash on my best buddy's couch in his living room. Thanks again, Kazai for letting me stay. Here's everything I need. A place to sleep, a tea pot with a working kettle, a bathroom (or well there will be after they've finished renovating it), power for my lovely Yvanne (my laptop) and good company provided by the flat mate's but mainly of course by my lovely friend Kazai.

But there are a few things that scare me. The fact that I'll be living with three guys is one thing, that they all love computer/video/drinking games is another thing and neither of them seam to know how to do the dishes directly after making dinner but I can live with that. There is something else that scares the shit out of me, they've build an altar in the middle of the living room where I'm gonna be staying. Its a huge... no you don't get it, its a HUGE flat screen TV with a play station 3 and X box. WTF?? How people can live and worship this thing I will never understand, especially people who spend their entire days in front of a computer screen at work. Why the hell would you wanna spend your time off glued to yet another screen? I'll guess its one of the mysteries in life. I'm thinking of building an altar of my own in a corner of the living room, with a small Buddha and some incense. Maybe a candle or two and I really should start meditating again so that might be the perfect opportunity to start, being inspired NOT to sit in front of that... "thing". Even though I spend a lot of time in front of my computer I still think there's a huge difference - controlling what you want the screen to show you or getting commercials brainwash you into thinking you want possessions. Gah! Ok, I've turned into some weird hippie but hey, at least I'm out there... hmm, doing what? Swimming with the dolphins! (But that's another story).

I woke up on Sunday the 5 of April with a terrible headache and we checked into a double room at 11 am so that I could stay inside and sleep. (For the reasonable price of 130 Dirham for both of us). Which I did while Cat tried to find out what was wrong with me. I got worse during the afternoon and my fever climbed to a level were I started mumbling weird stuff and spontaneously cry like a little baby. As usual I was pulling my "ah, what the hell... it can't be that bad" while Cat, who 'd been doing his homework on google, knew that this could be something serious. The main suspects were The evil Heatstroke, Mr Malaria and Miss Dengue Fever. All who need attention after 72 hours if you don't wanna be in serious trouble, time was running out. Cause our main problem was my insurance company who insisted that I had bought a complement to my home insurance and that one couldn't be used until I'd been abroad for at least 40 days. WTF!!?? I' haven't HAD a home for nearly a year! What the hell are you talking about?




I got ill on Sunday the 5 of April, on Tuesday the 7 of April we got the call we'd been waiting for - it was all just "a system error" that I was forced to pay with my fever dreams. The headache was still going strong and I was now in different stages of consciousness. My whole body was in constant pain and I'd stopped eating.


The quest to find a doctor that we could understand began. Which proved to be a lot harder then we thought. Finally we found a hospital that had been recommended by an Australian insurance company and Cat helped me into a cab. Finding my way out of the hotel and in the busy streets of Marrakech was almost to much for me. But soon it was all gonna be over. My insurance company wanted to talk to the hospitals administration before approving all the medical coasts. But of course they were out somewhere and we had to wait another 2 hours while I was getting weaker and after waiting about an hour I broke down and started crying making everyone else in the waiting area nervous, these people were all family and friends of patients already admitted to the hospital. Cat tried to talk to the reception again but got ignored. Then I stopped breathing. I didn't realise that this was such a big deal, I just thought that I was gonna rest for a while and breathing was just way to much of an effort. Cat, real angry and scared by now, got a hold of a doctor who understood English and said something like "I want you to help my friend, she's dying!". All the sudden another doctor and some nurses came and took me away. I remember that he had a striped sweater and keept on wondering how the hell a respectable doctor can wear something like that and if he wasn't just way to warm for that pullover anyways?

The doctor and the nurses insisted on speaking French (probably cause they didn't know English but who knows) and when I clearly didn't understand them they switched to Arabic which made a lot more sense, NOT! What are you saying? No, please... I'm in pain! Painkiller anyone? Hello? What's wrong with me? Can anyone tell me what's wrong with me? Medicine, yes please but what is it? I got intravenous drip which made it even harder for me to know what they were giving me. I stayed in intensive care for 2 nights (I think) and slept most of the time. Freezing while my fever was raving throughout my body. At some stage a nurse came and helped me downstairs in a wheelchair. I meet a new doctor who made me stand in front of his X-Ray machine but as soon as I got up on my feet everything zoned out. It sounded like everything was so far away. I could feel myself leaving it all behind while my body started to sink to the floor. They seated me in the wheelchair again and the doctor looked equally worried and stressed. It took another two turns while the nurse pressed my body upright and taking her hand of my back just long enough for the machine to work it's magic. In the next room I was helped up on a table and yet another doctor tried to find out what was wrong with me by "ultrasounding" my tummy.

Finally I was strong enough to get out of hospital and back into my hotel room. But I had to call the doctor again the very next day, after waking up with rashes all over my hands and body - itching like hell. The over counter meed's didn't work and the doctor prescribed various Arabic medicine which made me feel a lot better - about 24 hours later. I wouldn't wish that itchy rash to haunt even my worst of enemies, or wait a minute, of course I would. I'm not some sort of saint - The perfect revenge, perhaps? As my sanity that had been compromised by my constantly itching hands was slowly getting back to normal and I was feeling a o better my body decided that I was fit for fight and up for round 3. WTF?!


I got real sick to my stomach and spent the night running back and forth to the loo and when morning came I was almost in the same state as before hitting the hospital except this time it was because of my tummy and not the pain. Weak and scared with the flight back to Sweden coming up the next day we called for the doctor a third time (!) and I suddenly had what seamed like a whole pharmacy next to me in bed. The Hotel we were living in got real worried at this point, is she ever gonna get well?

On the 14 of April we got on board the plane and left Marrakech. Our plan had been a romantic reunion on the Transahara festival in the middle of the desert with a week exploring Morocco before hitting the dance floor or rather dance dunes. Our "vacation" turned out to be something totally different but never the less exciting having that "near death thing" and all. With a stop over in both Paris and Amsterdam but neither of which we had the time to do anything but wait in the airport we were back in Sweden late that evening. And if I never have to decode someone speaking French again - it will be way to soon.

Bargaining being of course the first thing that happens while trying to get in to the city from the airport (taxi), this "quest" seams to be the first thing that happens in any given city around the world. Why has no one come up with a working transportation system for this problem?

Marrakech was a stunning city that felt like being inside a cool computer game (yes, I'm an old gamer) and the market, Djemaa el Fna, struck us with full force. An old lady started talking to us and I've, who'd just been to Thailand, was very polite and said "no thanks" to her henna tattoo offer but that was not an option. While Cat left me and went on walking she grabbed my hand and said something about "gift for you!!". And even though I struggled some and repeated that we didn't have any money she insisted on her wanting to paint a flower on my hand and I was way to scared of her to say no. Then she started asking us for gifts,. What? We don't have anything! But it ended, mainly cause she'd kidnapped my hand, by us giving her our chocolate. Resigned and a bit scared with a (sorry to say) hideous red henna tattoo flower on my hand we moved along and tried to find a guest house which wasn't as easy as we'd thought.






Checking out wiki travel at an interet café was helpful but all the hotels had changed both their names and prices + we didn't have a map of the city. But it wouldn't have helped us anyways, we (or rahter I, for some strange reason Cat always knew where we were) got horribly lost in the medina but somehow we finally found a secret ally that lead to all the hotels near the market and while we thought that we were getting fooled by a local guy "offering us to show us a good hotel" it actually turned out to be someone who wasn't taking advantage of us and we found our home. Sleeping on the terrace the first two nights, a bit chilly after dark dropping down to what felt like +10 C, at the Hotel Afriquia for 40 Dirham per person/night.

I flew in from Thailand and Ninjad Stockholm for 3 nights, one longer then I'd planned but with the time difference I totally lost track of when and where I would be at any given time. I left Bangkok on the 31 of March at 1 am and arrive 12 hours later on the 31 of March at 7 am, in my head I wasn't gonna be in Stockholm until the 1 of April. This I only realized on the airport at the gate before boarding the plane and throw some sort of miracle I found a free internet portal and was able to tell Cat that I was gonna come a day earlier, in fact "I'll see you in about 16 hours!!". After waiting for as long as we have it was a, to say the least, weird feeling. Anticipation.

The first thing I did when I got of the plane was to fight the system, fucking Sweden! Everything is dead expensive, ok not like in Norway where they actually got a commercial for coffee that says "expensive - cause you know it's better" but I just thought it should be "Norway - expensive, cause we know you have to pay". The point is that it was fucking (excuse the French) expensive to get from the airport to the city. After a few sour comments and the initial chock of freezing temperatures I called Kazai and made it very clear to him that he was living in a shit country - cold in both heart and climate. What the fuck are you up to, boy? He, startled of my honesty and of me being a day early, caved and admitted that "yes, you're in the wrong country for warmth - but oh, I love you girl"!

Finally the hour had come, where was Cat? Misunderstanding where we were suppose to meet but then... Love. "Oh, I've missed you so much!" With a nervous hug and a kiss on the cheek we made our way into cold Stockholm and I wondered how we were gonna find our way back to each other. With the up 'n coming trip to Morocco we concentrated on getting Cat ready for leaving the country and meet for the first time - for real - when we got back to the airport and made our way to warmer climates. Where I said, "Hi, Cat!" outside of Aralanda and throw my arms around hen while not being able to hold back my emotions with a passionate kiss. But Cat was startled and I got scared, might it only been me longing for this?


We left Stockholm on the 2 of April for one night in Paris, this was in my head suppose to be the romantic beginning of our reunion. Seeing the Eiffel tower maybe? But the trains had quite for the night and the buses were few and hard to find. After a while I understood that all the beautiful and lovely French people I meet under my travels were in exile, this was a harsh and unfriendly place. We made our way into the city but had no way of getting to the Eiffel tower, found some food and a lot of homeless people instead before making our way back to the airport for a good night's concrete-floor-sleep.

I am the super Ninja! Haha! Fooled you all. ;) Ok, so its like this - I'm back in Sweden, Stockholm at least for the summer. This of course no one knew about, not the beautiful people at Knutepunkt (a larp convention I go to every year, this time held in Norway), not my old "gang" and not even my brother. So today was the day my ninja skills were gonna be put to test, I arranged a play date with Cat and my brother and while Cat was busy hanging out with Hip-hoper I snuck up on Brother, attacked him from behind (yeah, yeah... how many years of martial arts did you say you've been practising...?) and the best thing was, cause I've dyed my hair, he didn't even recognize me! Ha, ninja that one!

Afterwards we checked out the weird but hilarious film "Herr Landshövding" which apparently has caused quite the debate in Sweden, what the fuck is the governor up to? Well I can tell you, he's on "fika" (which means e is taking a social coffee break). I was laughing throughout the whole film and it felt just like being back on track with the dry Swedish humour that I've been missing so bad. Getting together with parts of the old gang afterwards was a sweet and well deserved bonus.

Song of the day: Apparat - Arcadia

Back to reality? Fuck no, never! But back on the blog. I'm gonna try and discipline myself enough to actually start posting my adventures and stories here, but have patience and if I know myself right its gonna be a horrible non-chronological mess of what happened 4 months ago and is going on in my life (or head) right now. Of course there is the constant debate on how revealing one's blog should be where I hope to have the readers full support (or the future me - embarrassed but happy that I wrote my "wild-stupid-cute" adventures somewhere). And if there are any readers out there then I'm as always interested in your comments and they will in fact probably become my inspiration and motivation for keeping up this blog. So hang on tight!

A picture of my home, my stuff my castle. It holds all I own (besides my laptop which was stored at a safe location) and the most important thing of all - my tent!