London Moments.

Brick Lane by night.

Pheeew... And here I thought I was going to get shot at any moment!

Obviously I sat at the very back of the double-decker bus. That's what all the cool kids do, right? Right?

You can't go to England without having a proper English breakfast. You just can't.

Accompanied by some strong English breakfast tea, that is. 

A vast majority of the photos I have of Zoey from our days together look like this. Why someone as astoundingly beautiful would ever want to hide her face is simply beyond me. Haha, I just realized it looks like she's in total despair! I promise, she was just being shy. I didn't hit her or insult her or anything. I'm a nice girl! No, really!

We went to the City Farm and made friends with a... duck? Goose? Ah, this is terrible - I live in the country, for crying out loud! I ought to know these things!

 Pretty goat with impressive beard.

BUNNY!!!

OK, honestly, I don't know how much this goose (?) liked us. Something tells me that is not a look of utter adoration.

But this sweetheart! She did like us! She kept following us arround, wanting to cuddle.

She even liked the way Zoey's duffle coat tasted.

Put me in a place where there are animals and I'll be this happy.

Zoey dressed especially to match her new best buddy, Vic the Chick. They had obviously called eachother that morning and decided what to wear. Vic the Chick was like, "I think I'm going for those mustard yellow orange-ish feathers", and Zoey was all like, "again?! Alrighty then, the duffle coat it is. Again."

Jazz hands!

This fluffy darling somehow reminded me of one of my cats.

I had the tastiest sea food pasta ever for dinner! Or it could simply have been that I was famished, and that the company was so spectacular.

The spectacular company in question, a.k.a. miss Disco Pony herself, apparently had some kind of chicken.

Meeeow! My spotty kitty from Avanna followed me all over London, keeping an eye on my stuff, hissing at anyone who came too close.

Swept Away.

On Monday morning, I drove to Skavsta Airport...

...and hopped on a plane to London.

Bye bye Sweden...

...well hello there, England!

Incredibly enough, my phobia of flying decided to stay at home, and I arrived at Gatwick a little nauseous but extremely excited.

London looked exactly like I remembered it, only a lot smaller. More... accessible. 

And I'd love to tell you all about my days in London right now, but I can't. Just wanted to say "hiiiii! I missed you guys!" real quick and let you know I'm back home - because my baby kitty Biianka is sick. She has terrible diarrhea, which means I have to wipe her tiny butt constantly and make sure she drinks and doesn't get worse, and also that I'll talk to you again as soon as I have a moment.

I'll just tell you this, though: I'm so, so, so, so, so glad I went to London to see Zoey. I can't even begin to tell you how much it meant to me. If I would stop blogging today, every single post I've written, all the hours I've spent on this blog since May 15th would be 100% worth it. Because I'm not a girl who's easy to sweep off her feet, quite the opposite, actually. Still, that's exactly what she did. 

Adventures.

Let's take a break.

Bringing a laptop to London would be stupid - I'm going there for two days, I won't have a place to put my stuff, and I know myself well enough to be quite certain I'm going to complain nonstop about how my shoulder is killing me from the weight of the bag.

Oh, and I've been extremely busy these last few days, so no time for pre-posting.

In other words: I'm off to London, and I'll see you Wednesday night!

PS. I'm going to London to see a girl. Someone I've gotten to know through this blog and come to consider a real friend, even though we have yet to meet in real life. And you know what? I'm not even nervous. There's no doubt in my mind that I will love Zoey. DS.

The Answers, Part 2: Going Places.

Let's continue with the answers from the Q&A-session! (Part 1 can be found here.)

Barbados bikini girl!

Part 2
To travel or not to travel

What is your favourite city/country in the world (outside of Sweden)?
(Asked by rehane)

I absolutely adore Berlin, especially Kreuzberg where Ronnie and I lived for a while (we still have an apartment there, that we share with a group of other writers). Other cities that have given me that peculiar feeling of belonging are Rome and New York, though I think I've been to those places for too short of a time to truly know what it would be like to live there. Haha, I know that's not what you asked, but I just love to get a sense of home when I visit a city!


I wanted to ask which countries, cities or places you want to visit the most? And would you maybe someday want to visit Lithuania? :)
(Asked by Ieva Jankauskaitė)

In Shanghai, I lived for a couple of months with a really sweet and beautiful girl who came from a small village outside of Vilnius. She introduced me to a group of lovely people from Lithuania and Latvia, and I would absolutely love to go there one day!

To be completely honest, though, I'm not the biggest fan of traveling. I know it sounds terrible, and of course I adore visiting new places and learning about different cultures and lifestyles, but I get extremely stressed out from the whole experience of, well, going somewhere. And when I get stressed, my body reacts instantly - which means that every single time I go anywhere, I get sick. Trust me - these last couple of years, I've been really sick (almost unable to get out of bed) in Paris, Berlin, Thailand, Los Angeles, Seattle, New York, Barcelona, Barbados and probably some more places that I was too sick to even remember visiting (haha). Gosh, I even get sick while travling to other places in Sweden.

But it's a lot worse the farther I go: I'm scared to death of flying, I get awful jetlag complications even when the time difference is only a few hours, and I can't stop thinking about all the things that could go wrong at home ("what if someone breaks into our house? What if we have a water leak again and the whole house is ruined when we come back? What if there's a fire? Maybe I forgot to pay one of our bills, or the cats get sick and the people who are watching them don't take them to the vet and then die! What am I doing here?!").

In other words, I do travel a lot and I love parts of it, but it's also somewhat wasted on me. Luckily I've learned how to appreciate cities even when sick, but still... I'm so tired of people asking me "How was *insert any cool travel destination here*?!", and having to answer "it was great, though, well, I was mostly in bed (and not for any of the fun reasons)".

One happy Annika in Rome.

Sorry about the rant, I'll get back to the question now! I would really, really love to go to Italy again. Ronnie and I visited Rome our first summer together, and it was one of my most amazing experiences ever - I wasn't even sick! (No rules without exceptions, you know.) So I'm very excited to see more parts of the country. Venice would be incredible, and Ronnie and I are thinking of going to either Sicily or Sardinia early next year to celebrate our four years together.

Cousin weirdness in Seattle.

What's your favourite travel destination? 
Asked by Bella Stephens)

I was in Seattle for only a couple of days back in April, and I want to go back there so bad! My dear cousins and my aunt live in the area, and it would be wonderful to get to spend more time with them. I didn't have time to see nearly as much of the city as I would have liked to, obviously (and yes, I was terribly sick while I was there), but from what I saw it's such an incredible place. It's sort of like a mix between Stockholm and New York, and so full of cultural happenings and awesome places to eat!

(Oh, and I thought New York was quite spectacular.)

What do you like about Berlin? Or, what do you not like about Berlin or Germans?
(Asked by Nastassja)

Haha, there's nothing I don't like about Berlin! And I'm sure there are idiots in Germany just like in every other country on this planet, but luckily I haven't met many of them.


Berlin is one of my favorite cities in the world, for sure. We mostly hang out in Kreuzberg - Ronnie and I used to live on Wrangelstrasse, close to Schlesisches Tor, and now we share an apartment with some friends on Eisenbahnstrasse, near Lausitzer Platz/Görlitzer Park. Of course I've been to lots of different areas, but I don't feel like any of them can live up to Kreuzberg! My second favorite part is Prenzlauer Berg.

What I love about Kreuzberg is that it's so cheap to eat and drink, I love all the cafés, bars and restaurants, and most of all the friendly and laid-back atmosphere. I never feel better about the way I look than when I'm there - not because people don't look good, gosh no, but because I don't feel like you're judged on your appearance nearly as much as I'm used to. People seem so comfortable with themselves, there are cute dogs everywhere and something fun is always happening on every block - an art exhibition, a band playing, a movie showing, whatever.




I'm from Estonia and I'm interested in knowing what neighboring countries you've visited?
(Asked by Liisi)

Well, I've been to Tallinn a few times, and I think it's a really interesting city! And of course I've been to Finland and Denmark, but Estonia is the only Eastern European country I've visited. I'd like to change that in the future. (I was in Romania and Bulgaria with my mom when I was a kid, but that was, like, twenty-three years ago... so I don't remember that much.)



Which countries have you been to and where would you really, really like to go?
(Asked by Piia)

I travelled a lot with my mom when I was little, so I can honestly say that I don't know what countries I've been to (again, my memory from back than isn't the most accurate!). To name a few: Finland, Denmark, Estonia, Norway, England, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Turkey, Czech Republic, USA, Mexico, Barbados, Thailand, China, France, Romania, Bulgaria, Germany and Morocco.

I would really love to go to San Francisco! I have a feeling I would fall head over heels in love with that city.