On Saturday we went to Gothenburg, to celebrate little Tyra, X's cousin's daughter, who turned 4 years old. The road to Gothenburg was quite painless, but the road back...but let's take it from the top.

We took a train from Stockholm, ending up on the same ride as X's brother, mom, grandparents and cousin Isak. On the way I read a lot of "Death Note", i.e. a Japanese graphic novel-cum-franchise that focuses on Light, a highly intelligent lad who one day discovers a notebook dropped onto Earth by a shinigami, i.e. a God of Death. Yeah. The notebook contains instructions, telling Light that entering a person's name, time of death and manner of death will kill that person - according to certain rules. Oh yeah. Of course, Light doesn't believe it, but tries the book and kills somebody with it. That's just the start, and it evolves across 12 separate volumes! Having read the very first volume I ordered a big box ((But of course, there's a much swankier box around.)) containing all the volumes including a how-to-read-Death-Note-book that I won't give a toss about until I've read them all.

Here's a little video I made from having drowsed away to the train and Bon Iver:

Listening to a lot of music - especially the recently re-mastered and re-issued albums by New Order and Okkervil River - we arrived in Gothenburg after four hours of train. We went by train to Linda and Mathias, who welcomed all with open arms and smiles all around, as we huddled in from the cold outside, to find another cousin and X's aunt and her family there. Very nice!

The family had made tacos and tortillas for all and we dug in. As I was busy collecting food I heard the front door open and Linda - Tyra's mother - say the surprise was on the way in! How exciting! I had no idea what the surprise was, so imagine my freaking as I laid eyes on the scariest thing since the bunneh in "Donnie Darko":

Mathias and the bunny.

Fuckinell! My lord! The rabbit's evil eyes! I nearly dropped my plate, but managed to pull through by drinking wine and getting lost in my sickness. Yeah, sick. I've been down with the influenza that's sweeping most of Sweden and I haven't been this ill for so long since I don't know when. The last time, probably.

The road home wasn't as lovely as the meet with the family; the f-ing train broke down one third on the way home and left us in Töreboda, a place so tiny and freaking cold my eyes nearly popped. By the way, the train stood still for 45 minutes before we were ushered out into the cold. One staffer said "Don't worry, it's not cold outside." As I stood outside, freezing, I spoke with a man from Slovenia, together with X and her mom. The Slovenian had a great sense of humor and we laughed as we wondered what could happen to us considering we'd been lied to and that people wearing uniforms told us to get on a train. "It can't happen here", he said. Geez! Ye of little faith!

The new train arrived and also broke down, albeit a little later, in Katrineholm. Yeah. We stood still for 25 minutes and then rolled again, after the train had been rebooted twice. We were home 01:30 instead of 22:00. Leeervly. Luckily, Lotta hadn't vomited anywhere and wasn't starving. She was warm all over as we petted her and almost fell asleep at once. What a horrible ride home. Gah!