Same same but different: An autumn journey to Sweden

Travelling is great!, my body tells me. It is like coming outside of a room with fuggy air and inhaling the oxygen deeply into the lungs. It can be like removing dusty glasses from your eyes and seeing clearly. But it can also be like putting on some glasses and seeing the world in a different colour.

Gauti, his mom, little sister and I flew out to Sweden yesterday morning. Altogether, I have spend two years in Sweden and think it's a wonderful and very beautiful country. So it was great coming back. Our trip didn't start especially well, though. Most flights from Iceland to Europe have early morning departures, hence we had to leave the farm at half past three at night. We all climbed into the old Nissan which I got just a few days ago and started driving. Both Gauti and I were with a "this car won't make it to the airport" feeling. One of the rims has dents and hence, the air was released slowly but constantly from the tire. The night was dark and the streets were lonely. The mountains were disguised in the darkness but the yellow lights of Reykjavik were sparkling on the South End of Faxaflói bay. "Maybe we will make it though", I thought when we entered Reykjavik. A clattering sound in the car told me something else. A quiet hissing from the right back tire, too. The car was literally slowly slumping under our butts and we made it into Hafnarfjörður, 35 km from the airport. Then the journey ended. And it was quiet and dark.
Icelanders are never panicking though. They course a bit which basically means putting all Icelandic course words into one sentence and uttering it fastly, period. Then they continue with practical stuff, locking the car, ordering a taxi, throwing the bags in and sleeping on the backseats. Not too bad actually.

Central Sweden welcomed us with bright sunshine, blue skies and bright autumn colours. A great contrast to the dark night in which we had left. And the travelling makes me seeing Uppsala so differently than when I had left it half a year ago. Mild. Like a new place but the same time like a home. A mixture hard to describe. I often feel this when I return to places twice or several times. They change. I change. It was like this when I went from Sweden to Iceland. It was like this when I went from Iceland to Sweden.

We rent this cozy house in the countryside and I felt so welcome when I entered it again. My books were welcoming me like friends. My wool socks knitted by my grandma were smiling at me in their bright colours (I don't know what I were thinking when I decided I wouldn't need them in Iceland ...). Our landlords treated us with spaghetti Bolognese and salad (and I had a hard time trying to speak Swedish again). All in all, we enjoy our days in Sweden a lot (it is good to have guests and showing them around).
The pictures are showing our love for autumn colours.

Uppsala's Domkyrka rising from behind the colourful autumn trees.

Horse chestnuts. I one heard that it's good to carry one of them in your pocket. It is supposed to protect you from colds.

Uppsala maple leaves, Iceland lopapeysa and Estonia hat: a happy mixture. (I call it "Estonia hat" because I bought on a ship journey from Estonia to Sweden.)

An "insect hotel" in the Botaniska Trädgården (botanical garden) in Uppsala.