The light burns!

Spring has certainly sprung in Stockholm! The photo was taken a couple of days ago at 10pm, and earlier this week I was woken up by daylight at 3am. I'm now making use of both blinds and curtains to block the light out.
Of course I remember similar things happening during the summer in Turku, but I don't remember it being quite so dramatic. Someone mentioned to me that Turku is on the edge of another time zone, I'm not sure if that makes any difference. I remember last summer when I visited Stockholm seeing the sun rise at 3am, and next week will be a year since that trip, so maybe I shouldn't be quite so astounded by it. But when I was here in September the daylight hours were shorter, and now I've seen the transition from winter when it was very dark for most of the day.
Unfortunately the change in light levels has disturbed my sleeping patterns a bit, and other people have also mentioned having trouble sleeping this week. Thankfully I now seem to be getting back to normal.
Due to the arrival of spring I've noticed more and more how the wildlife in Stockholm seems completely unfazed by the presence of humans. It's so normal to walk straight past small birds, getting very close to them, and they don't even seem to notice. In the winter I saw the occasional wild rabbit running around, but recently I've been seeing a lot, and although they are slightly more nervous than birds they also seem quite undisturbed by the presence of humans. In fact, I went to the park last Sunday with some friends for a drawing session, and there were quite a few rabbits running around. It was a beautiful warm day so the park was quite busy, but they were running around past groups of people with no care at all. I also saw a very sweet little boy chasing after a rabbit for quite some time - the rabbit could run much faster than he could.
This is quite alien to me as I'm used to being in London - I've seen a much bigger variety of birds here, and the rabbits are certainly new for me. In London you get the odd fox, and sometimes the soul destroying sound of foxes having sex, but that's pretty much it. I think the rabbits are nicer than the foxes anyway.

Recent lovely observations

Things have been busy and stressful this week, so I'm very happy that it's Friday! We've now signed the contract for our flat though, so we officially live there. Although I've been busy I've noticed a few things later that make life in Sweden a little bit more lovely.

1. Bus drivers

I'm used to living in London, where bus drivers tend to be grumpy at the best of times. Maybe the bus drivers in Stockholm are a bit happier in their jobs, but they are so much nicer! Since moving to Högdalen I've been travelling to work using the t-bana and then a quick bus journey, and I've found the bus drivers to have a totally different attitude. Often they say hello to you when you get on the bus, which is totally alien to me. Even better, when they can see you running down the road desperately trying to get to the bus stop in time, they'll actually wait for you! I cannot count the number of times that I missed a bus in London because the bus driver just drove off even though I was running as fast as I could towards the bus - in fact it was a novelty if the bus driver actually was kind enough to wait.

2. Flowers for name days

In the local supermarket there is a small flower section, and I noticed the other day that they have a sign there telling customers the name days for the week, so there's no excuse to forget your loved one's name day. Being from England I don't have a name day, but I still think it's a nice thing.

3. Dogs

This is not a new observation, but there are so many cute dogs in Stockholm. It almost seems like everybody has a sweet little dog. I love pugs, and I've seen so many pugs since I got here. In fact a few ways ago I was walking down the street thinking about pugs (as you do), and a lady suddenly appeared walking two of them. Maybe I just have a weird superpower that allows me to summon pugs. I'm sure that has many useful applications in life. On the way to work this morning I saw at least four lovely looking dogs, including one pug.


This week has certainly not been the easiest, so the little things can make all the difference when you feel a bit down. This weekend I hope to relax and cheer up, and I'm thinking of going to an hour long meditation class tomorrow morning to start the weekend in a calm way. It's easy to get overwhelmed in a new country when you're trying to establish yourself; perhaps I've been too harsh on myself and expected too much of myself. My only comparison to this experience is living in Finland, which turned out amazingly well in the end, and I think it's easy to forget the more difficult aspects of that experience, and the fact that there were so many challenges. Obviously, some of the challenges I face here are different - it's a different time, different country, and different circumstances. Perhaps this week can be a reminder to slow down, accept that it's not all easy when you have a lot of commitments and interests to balance, and keep going.