Pizza again

Swedish pizzas are bigger than Swedish dogs.

My brother's new home

Closing in on my brother's new place

My brother recently moved, so when I visited Sweden I wanted to see the new place. At the time, they were not yet fully installed in the new home, but they kindly showed me the place anyway. It was very nice. It was also quite big. They had several bed rooms, each of them larger than my whole apartment in Japan...

They were redoing the kitchen walls and were not quite finished yet.

They have a small garden, which is fun for their dog.

They also have a small balcony, which our parents' dog found interesting.

Pig shaped Dalahäst

Their dog has already found a space he likes.

Dog photos

I did not have that much planned for my time in Sweden, so I ended up hanging out with the dogs quite a lot (most people I know in Swede have jobs and did not have time to meet me that often). Here are some of the many many dog photos from my trip.

The new dog. He likes food, and knows where food is served.

Sometimes the younger one is too much of a pest and the older dog then jumps up to his viewing space (good view through the window), which the young one still cannot climb, to get some peace and quiet.

They like to chew on things.

A neighbor a few houses down also has a dog, which was apparently interesting.

A good thing with small dogs is that you can find space for them between the PC and the monitor. 

Arriving in Sweden: cold, bread, plants, dogs

I arrived in Sweden in early October. It was already cold enough for there to be frost on the ground. In Japan, you could still walk around in just a t-shirt.

My parents seemed fairly happy to see me, but they recently bought a dog. He was even happier to see me. My brother also stopped by, and had his dog with him. I became friends with his dog the last time I was in Sweden, since people figured that I probably had nothing better to do than babysit the dog while everyone else had to work or hang out with their friends or whatnot. He was also very happy to see me. I was told that my parents' new dog was actually related to my brother's dog. A younger half sister of my brother's dog is the mother of my parents' dog.

I always end up eating way too much when I am in Sweden. One thing I like is the bread. The first thing that happened after reaching my parents' place was that they served me lots of bread.

My parents grow all kinds of things nowadays. They have an apple tree, a plum tree, a cherry tree, and much more. They had endless boxes of apples, and they were making plum wine in what used to be my hobby room. They also grow strong peppers, and had some peppers out to dry.

I found some Japanese mangas, one in Japanese and one in Swedish, from the very funny series "Yotsuba to".

Japanese summer barbecue

Back in September I was invited to a summer barbecue by the river. One of my magician colleagues organizes a barbecue with his old friends from school every year. I was invited last year too, and it is quite nice.

This year I had received some corn the day before when I volunteered at a hospital, so I brought that along and we grilled that too. It was great. Other than that, there was lots of meat and vegetables and some fish.

People also tried to make cheese filled meat patties and some to make hamburgers. That went so-so, since the equipment available was not really appropriate...

My corn was treated in different ways. One was wrapped in some foil and shoved into the coal and one was put on the barbecue like the other vegetables. Both ways gave good results, though parts were burnt beyond the point of edible.

My friend had brought his dog, which spent large amounts of time chasing all the crows that gathered and tried to steal food from the grill.

The place these barbecues are held at is pretty nice. There is a river nearby, and it is pretty quiet.

Some of the participants decided to try some "who can jump from this rock to that rock without falling into the river" challenges. That, predictably, did not end that well.

Towards the end, people started setting marshmallows on fire and eating them. Marshmallows on fire turn out to be quite hot.

In Japan you also traditionally bring a watermelon and hit that with a stick while blindfolded. Last year they split the watermelon by hitting it karate style, and this year a different guy had to do that. It went surprisingly well, but of course after hitting it with his hand and splitting the melon, parts of the melon rolled away in the dirt and became less appetizing. This was solved to some extend by washing it in water. The edible parts were very good.

After the barbecue, everyone except me were very tired and immediately fell asleep in the car.