I can't say that I get very excited about my birthday anymore, that passed a few years ago. But it's a good excuse for meeting friends, cousins and other interesting people. And I did meet many of those during my two weeks in Stockholm over what we swedes call a fika.
The birthday itself wasn't really worth cheering for. A morning at home, then going to Sundsvall with two classmates, then going to bed after a short walk in Sundsvall. Of course it's great to have company of two friends in a car instead of sitting alone on a train, so there is some good to it.
What annoys me more than having to go for a long trip on my birthday is the reason for it. In my 13 years in school I've never seen a worse failure when it comes to creating the schedule than this. We had a lesson between 8.15 and 11.00 today (tuesday), that was it. The next lesson is next wednesday. Just like most of my classmates I'm heading back to Stockholm tomorrow. I don't mind coming back to Stockholm, but I do mind spending 8 hours in a car and paying 600 kr in fuel for three hours of school.
I understand that it's hard to make a good schedule for everyone, but who on earth got the idea of making this lesson obligatory? Now that I've had the lesson I can say that I could easily have done it from home after asking a classmate for a few details. It might have taken 30 minutes longer as I wouldn't have the help from the teacher we had, who was quite good but I'd be willing to sacrifice far more than 30 minutes to avoid the trip to Sundsvall and back.
Good thing that there's always light in the dark. yesterday and today I've been speaking a bit with many old friends of mine, both from Freiburg and other places and periods of my life. Happy birthday is a good excuse to start a conversation and not lose contact entirely. When I come back to Stockholm it's easter, that means that I'll most likely meet some other friends as well. I guess life is pretty nice if you just chose to ignore certain annoying schedules. And perhaps I should, so I do. Life is nice!