Fom Israel to Sweden and back again!

Hey all,

Again the blog seemed to have slipped out of my hands...whoops! Anyhow last time I mentioned that I was going back to Sweden for my brother, Axel's, graduation. In some way the graduation from High School/Gymnasium has become more of a celebration than any other graduation from any other school level in Sweden, how that happend I have no idea, if someone has an idea please enlighten me. So on early sunday two weeks ago Adi drove me to the station and I hopped on the train to Ben Gurion airport to fly with Turkish Airlines via Istanbul to Sweden. This time it was my turn to be extra checked at Ben Gurion, which means they open your check in bag and check your carry on extra carefully. This resulted in that my non-working laptop battery needed to go on an extra check and arrive some days later as its not working at all anymore, which I guess seemed mysterious to the border control. Anyhow I got to Gothenburg mid-day on Sunday the 29th of May and was met by my dad and brother. We went back to the apartment and that day was spent talking and organizing boxes of my old stuff, throwing some away and moving the rest to a different storage room.

On monday I met up with an old classmate of mine, Ida. We spent a day in Gothenburg talking about old memories and the future while eating lunch, ice-cream, getting a hair-cut, searching for envelopes and getting a Graduation present for my brother. Later in the afternoon Ida jumped on the buss back to her University town to back up her apartment for the summer. I went back to my parents place and had a nice evening. Tuesday was spent buying, cooking and organizing for my brothers Graduation which happend on the Wednesday. All of us in the family worked hard and fell asleep fast that evening. On Wednesday my grandmother, my aunt and cousins and other friends of the family arrived to Gothenburg and we went to my brothers school to wait for them to run out of the building to sing the student song and then jump on to the truck that would drive the students all over town so that they could have a great time and tell the world that they graduated which is a fun Swedish tradition. As we were standing there waiting for Axel to come out we had flowers, gifts and big sign with a picture of him when is fiver years old, so that he could find us in the mess of other parents, sibling and relatives. Then Axels class came out of the building screaming, jumping and being allover happy. They sang the student song and then all the students ran to their families. We congratulated Axel and hung flowers around him which is also tradition, he was wearing a nice new suit and his student-hat, which is also tradition. Then all the 120 something students jumped up on the truck and started singing and screaming and the truck drove of to make a tour of Gothenburg. The rest of us drove back home and prepared the party. Later people started arriving and the entire afternoon and evening was filled with nice talks, food and drinks. Axel came home to the party and we had a toast and then later he left for the student-party in the city. Later me and my cousin also headed into town to meet up with some friends to party and do some drinking and talking.

On thursday I meet up with another friend, Erik, We had a day of playing Kubb, BBQing and as well talking about memories and the future. We also go to watch the swedish version of Big Brother which sucked just as much as the israeli one, so conclusion understanding what they say does not make that program any more fun. On friday I went back to me parents apartment and started packing my bag again as I was leavning mid-day saturday for Isreal again. In the bag I packed my clothes, some old stuff that I found and loads of chocolate, candy-cars and kabamoose. In the evening me, my dad and my mum jumped on our bikes and went to the ferry that took us across the river to the other-side of Gothenburg. When then rode our bikes to a nice restaurant were we met up with my sister, my brother had already left for Greece with his friends. After a very nice meal and conversations we rode our bikes back and me my dad watched the last half of the football match between Sweden and Moldova,Sweden won 4-1. On saturday my parents drove me to the airport and I jumped on the flight back to Israel, where Omri picked me up. But more about that later as this post is by now pretty long.
Til you read again,
Carl