Alex

Standing in the Central Station in the middle of Stockholm, god how I hate that station, taking the green subway line, train 19 going south, getting off 20 minutes later at the station before the last stop, and I'm home. Farsta, no place like it.

It takes me five minutes to walk from the station to the house where I live. Following the crackled asphalt lanes home in the sunny afternoon makes me happy. I can't resist to walk with the tips of my fingers touching the top of the bushes on the right side, the branches covered with frosted ice spikes in winter, explosive green buds in spring, white delicate flowers in summer, and blood-red berries in fall.

I pass the three-storeyed apartment buildings with the small gardens in front. When me and my best friend and flatmate Sara where new-comers in the neighbourhood and walked by in our most hung-over teenage-rebel looks (leather jackets, strange hairdos, jeans with holes in them, tired expressions and what not) the parents of the small children who lives there used to look at us with worried expressions. Over a year has passed by now, and there have still been no ritual animal slaughter on their front steps, their seven year old kids have still not been transformed into miniature hooligans because of our drug dealing and general bad influence, so they don't bother about us anymore.

In this time of the year, this short lane is edged with fruit trees, bushes and borders covered with light violet, lilac, white, yellow and pink flowers. The only thing more beuatiful is the same lane in winter, when the ground is covered in one foot of the purest snow, every branch covered in frost, soft cotton-like snowflakes slowly falling from the sky, and the whole world is white, sparkling and enchanted.

I walk over the small parking lot, a proof of that a lot of asphalt doen't destroy the cosiness of an area if there is enough vegetation nearby, and I'm home.

Home is a 66 square metres apartment on the first floor with a double set of messy bedrooms, a small kitchen with a table screwed on to the wall and a leaking tap, a livingroom with three white and one clear blue wall, a hallway, a bathroom and a balcony. And a low rent, suited for two poor students (well, one and a half poor students, Sara studies half-time and works part-time). Home is great, inspite the always half-empty refridgerator, the thin walls (I listen to my neighbours TV for hours some nights when I can't sleep) and the fact that the whole building needs a through renovation (like, ten years ago).

I haven't even left yet, and I'm already being nostalgic. I love this place, and the area. I think I'll even miss the otherwise ever so annoying leaking tap in the kitchen. Being homesick is a part of the appeals of being away, I guess. This is a home that I will never come back to though, Sara'll move back to her mom's when I leave.

We'll see what the future holds for us.



/Alex