After my abortive attempt to go to Greece, in which I ended up only making it as far as Berlin because of bad weather and repeatedly canceled flights, it was somewhat of a relief to make it back home to Karlskrona. I had hopes of getting a lot done this week, but because of a cold I picked up on the airplane I ended up just laying around the house, doing a little reading and playing some music but not much else.
I did make it to the Irish ja
m session at La Bodega the other night, which was pretty good. They played a few of the tunes that I had learned since last time but I still only knew a small percentage of them. There was a French fiddler there, a young guy who really did an excellent job with the Irish tunes, complete with triplets and tricky bowing. He was so good that I haven't felt like playing since I heard him... sometimes it is frustrating to know that no matter how hard you work on something, you will never be able to get to a certain level that other people seem to achieve with relative ease.
I am still a little under 
the weather and I usually try to take good care of my immune system when I am sick by eating healthy and not drinking alcohol, but it was New Years Eve last night, so I decided to throw caution to the wind and live it up. Had a very nice New Years with friends from the MSLS program and I'm glad I didn't miss all the fun... I feel about the same today as I did yesterday so the late night carousing doesn't seem to have done me much harm.
We had a “house crawl” last night, so a big group of friends went from apartment to apartment for drinks and food. We started out with homemade eggnog, then I hosted people at my place with a concoction of Lingonberry juice (very Swedish) and vodka. We had Glogg, or mulled wine, after that and then my Irish friend Victor served us hot whiskey toddies, which are wonderful with a slice of lemon.
Just before midnight we walked down to the seaside to see the fireworks. It snowed here recently and its been quite cold so the Baltic is frozen over as far out as one can see. There was a big crowd of people, all drinking and laughing, the Swedish girls wearing short skirts and stockings with their coats and mittens... its really amazing what they wear when the temperatures are down in the teens! There were some official fireworks and also lots of people setting off their own displays, so rockets were going up all along the bay from one end of town to the other.
The moon was full and it was a little bit misty, which made the smoke trails and colored lights show up in an eerie way against the nig
ht sky. Afterward we had another stop to make at Brendan and Jen's for coffee and hot chocolate with Baileys... the perfect end to the night, especially after being out in the cold.
2009 has been a really good year for me in spite of the global recession and all that... a lot has happened in the past year, beginning with completing my degree from JMU, then getting accepted to the MSLS program, going to Costa Rica, two weddings and an engagement in the family, moving out of my house, comin
g to Sweden, and the intense workload of the past 5 months. Also had trips to Stockholm, Copenhagen, Ireland and Germany in there... it hard to believe so much has happened in just twelve months. Keeping this busy helps to some extent in counteracting the feeling that time is speeding up as I get older, and it definitely gives me a lot to reflect on.
I'm grateful for all the support I've had from family and friends to uproot myself and come to Sweden, as well as for all the wonderful new friends I've made here. I have great hopes for 2010 to continue learning and exploring, sharing some of the expertise I've been developing with others and doing my part to help make society more functional. I'm also hoping to figure out on a personal level where I want to be after June... many things have fallen into place rather nicely in the past year but there are still some missing pieces. It would be nice in the coming year to see some of those begin to fit together as well.
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