Monrads Gate

It’s stormy in the States right now. I guess you all have heard about Joplin, MO, where over 230 persons died the the last week in the tornados. I was in Missouri that day, a couple hours from the storms, on a train towards them. Luckily the train turned and changed direction after a while. But there was intense storms with rain, thunder, extreamly strong winds, and even the sky turned black in the middle of the day. All of a sudden it was dark outside. But I didn’t realize what the storms would cause until I got to Kansas City a few hours later when I got to see the disaster on TV.

I can’t even imagine how incredibly strong and damaging a tornado would be since the storm I was in obviously wasn’t nearly as bad.

Slightly ashamed to admit, I actually did the opposite from everything my experienced friends had told me about public transportations and took a 9,5 hour long Greyhound bus ride between Kansas City and Minneapolis the other day. And needless to say, I encountered some of the most interesting people on that bus.

Imagine a cow boy with an accent so weird not even the Americans would understand him. Then add some white trash, a few gangsta dudes, a few Mexicans, some black guys, an Amish couple, a hippie that slept the whole way and a really funny bus driver. That was my company that day.

And honestly, I had a blast with those people.

Has anyone who reads this been to Mall of America? The largest shopping mall in America. It’s huge. For example, there is an amusement park in the mall. Yes, in the mall.

Hope to put up some pictures on fb soon.

I guess you can google it too.

Yeah. Just google it.

The last week has been crazy in many ways. After being in Tennessee for about two weeks, I headed to Kentucky, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, where I met some friends, then Iowa and Minnesota where I am now.

And yes, almost everyone has Swedish or Norweigan ancestry and they all know how many percent they are which nationality. Met a black guy today and his last name was Jörgensen. Also met a girl who had cousins in Kristinehamn, which is 20 minutes form where i live, and she had been in my hometown Karlstad just a year ago. A teacher in Jonathans school also had relatives near Karlstad and a lot of people know some random Swedish words. Kinda fun.

I stay with my friend Jonathan and his family one hour west from Minneapolis for a week, until Tuesday I fly out.

I haven’t spent so much time online the last week. Even less time blogging. Not only because I’ve travelled a lot the last week, but mainly because grandma passed away a few days ago. Hence, I’ve had a hard time and I have for obvious reasons not felt like bloging or writing about my own life and my travels when there’s so much more important stuff going on.

All of you who got to meet my fathers mum surely know that she was an amazing woman who spred wisdom, love and most of all a massive portion of pure joy wherever she’d go. I will remember her as a smiling grandma who I seldom got to see cry, else than out of happiness to see her sons, their wives or her grandchildren.

Thank you for everything, farmor. I will never forget you.

Woke up in Nashville, Tennessee.

Had lunch in Kentucky.

Going to bed in Missouri.

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Today I had, besides the world’s largest Nascar race in Alabama 2009, my probably most Southern experience so far when I had beakfast on an extreamly Southern cafe namned ”American Cafe”. I like it. Especially the fact that people in the South generally are extravagantely polite, they call people by Sir, Ma’am or even Darling and before you had finished your cup of coffee there was always someone there, can be anyone, to ask if you’d like some more.

And the accent… Yeah!

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I’m currently layig down on a floor in a house in the middle of nowhere in Missouri, close to Arkansas. Google Fairdealing, MO. That’s where I am. Tomorrow I head to St Louis to see some other friends for the weekend.

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Don’t know if you’ve heard this, but the Judgement day is probably not on Saturday. Just saying. We don’t know when it is, and people have been wrong multiple times before when they have claimed the end of the world. And they all look like fools the next day. Believe in Jesus instead.

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Had a good ride on a four wheeler today. Almost ran over a turtle and a cow but didn’t.

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Good night.

Yesterday, after some Southern spring storming in the morning, four of us went into Vanderbilt, Nashville and met this lady who’s working with Nepali refugees. They are originally from Bhutan and have been refugees in Napal for 20 years and have now been moved to different parts of the world, such as America, Norway, Finland, not Sweden, Denmark, Germany, etc, and there’s about 500 of them here in Nashville. They all speak Nepali and many of them only remeber Nepal. So I got to use my entire vocabulary for a few hours, over and over, as we met new people, just hanging out and tell them that Jesus loves them.

On Monday we will go there again for the whole day and hang out. Can’t wait to do that again! There’s something with Nepali people that stirr something up inside of me. And when I tell them I was there for nine weeks recently and tell them my Nepali name and stuff, I feel I almost have more in common with them than with the Americans.

Sometimes people have asked me which country is my favorite country and I use to say Nepal and America. Which is kind of ironic. But still. Awesome.

Other news: One reason to go to the US is the Jamocha shake on Arby’s. It will change your life. Period.

Now I will go and have some dal bhat and rice crispy treats. Bye.

I wrote some stuff about animals yesterday, but I want to add some things today. Three specifically picked animal experiences from my life today:

1.The lightning bugs.

Since there are a lot of them here, they are really noticeable at night. A blinking green weird light. Which is a bug. So my friend Lisa and I decided to take her car to a bridge where there apparently are a whole bunch of them, and man, that was stunning! It was dark, but there was bugs blinking all over the place. Just fantastic. I also managed to catch one in my hand. Wow!

2. The Snake

Saw a dead snake on the road, at least 120 cm long. Black. Later, as I took a walk, there was another one, shorter, crawling over the road, and I almost stepped on it. Ops.

3. The turtle

So I’m taking a bicycle ride with two friends about sunset, when we all of a sudden see this big turtle walking on the side of the road. So we stop to look closer at it and we picked up a stick and held it close to it’s mouth. The turtle slowly opened the mouth and suddenly… SNAP! They have so strong jaws they can bite a finger off. And as we stood there, three ladies walked by. “How y’all doing tonight?” one of them asked and then they saw the turtle, no big deal to them really, but she told a story about how she saw this ginormous turtle the other day that must have been at least twice as big as the one that we found today. Legit stuff. Can’t wait to see what’s waiting tomorrow!

We also saw four white tale deers, a bunch of frogs and 5 000 black cows. Tomorrow we’re all going to Kentucky to swim in a lake.

See ya.

Djur jag sett hittills i USA:

Storkar. Jordekorre. Stora silverfärgade ödlor. Typ en miljard korpar. En vandrande pinne. Lysmask. Tvättbjörrn. Skunkar. 12 000 ekorrar. Gamar. (Körde nästan på en gam med bilen.) Lamadjur. Åsnor. Grodor. Buffel. Örnar. Greyhound (både bussen och hunden). Emu. Get. Papegojor. Kardinalfågel. Hjortar. Ormar. Sköldpaddor.

Djur jag inte sett hittills i USA:

Apa. Haj. Afrikansk vildhund. Belgisk jättekanin. Röda hund. Zebra. Isbjörn. Mungo. Knubbsäl. Flygdinosaurier. Lappuggla. Jak.

So I’m in Franklin, Tennessee right now, hangin out with Cameron, a friend that will work with me in Sweden next fall. Pretty awesome stuff.

I have eaten a lot of peanut butter jelly sandwiches and a ton of hamburgers. Have gained about 26 kg and have bought a gun.

I had forgotten how many churches there are in Tennesse. Seriously. Me and some friends went to a church Sunday evening and on our way there we passed at least seven other churches and one Christian bookstore. On some streets they have serioulsy ten different churches. No joke.

Also I was in Memphis on a wedding. It was crazy nice, outside in a botanical garden, and they danced out from the wedding to the Super Mario theme. Legit stuff. ”Dada da dada da! da…”

Alright. See you later.