Return to California

What's it like being back in California after living in Sweden for 10 months?

I arrived at Oakland airport from Stockholm on Monday, it's now Wednesday and I think it's too early to tell, but here are some reflections on my journey and first impressions upon re-entry to California.

I narrowly missed the 6:20 a.m. bus from Norrköping to Stockholm Arlanda Airport on Monday morning and found myself following it round the roundabout on my way to the parking lot. Oh well, worse things have happened at sea. The next bus didn't leave Norrköping till 9:20 which would get me to the airport too late. I had to change my plan and take the train instead. Ticketing on SJ, Sveriges Järnvägar, is fully digitized. The smart phone app is the way to book a ticket on one of the many trains to Stockholm Arlanda. I take the next one, leaving at 07:19. Strangely a first class ticket is cheaper than a second class ticket so I find myself luxuriating in a large chair on a fast train and being served breakfast of coffee, apple juice, yoghurt, musili, 3 different kinds of breads, Kalles-Kaviar and boiled egg.

Oakland may not be representative of this huge a diverse state of California. As my sister-in-law Patsy said at an unprepossessing gas station somewhere in the no-man's land of the 101 between the Bay Area and Santa Barbara when visiting in 2016, "this isn't the real California."

The overwhelming impression I have of Oakland is grunge. It's just so dirty. There's so much trash everywhere. Roads are pot-holed, grass and weeds sprout from cracks in sidewalks. Houses appear to be literally falling apart. Many are old. Oakland was built during the late 19th and early 20th centuries when ex-slaves came to the end of the railway line, got jobs at the docks, could afford to buy houses and stayed. Now very few people can afford to buy houses here as the run-down neighborhoods catch the over-spill of techies and yuppies from San Francisco who lap up the cheaper rents in the downtrodden neighborhoods and raise them up again, to the extent that some houses are being re-built from the ground up, and coffee shops abound.

 

Last night Felix and Mae took me to a Thai restaurant in San Francisco where we ate blue rice along with other multi-colored foods I couldn't name with flavors that were so intense and diverse I felt as if a pixie was playing a xylophone on my tongue. The waitstaff wore flamboyant and colorful Hawaiiantype shirts and satin shorts in a variety of colors. Someone was celebrating a birthday. This was announced by a fanfare of drums and cymbals that continued for a good 5 minutes. Felix and Mae drank beer flavored with chilli. I drank Jasmine tea.

Today is Wednesday. Felix's best friend Nate, whom I have known since the boys played water-polo together for Cabrillo High School in Lompoc, not only picked me up at Oakland Airport on Monday, made me breakfast of eggs and sausage yesterday, but also took me on a tour of his workplace, The Crucible, today. The Crucible is an urban arts center. A nonprofit organization where classes are offered in subjects such as welding, lost-wax metal casting, electronics, ceramics, and 3-D printing. We wandered through machine shops with old metal cutting and drilling equipment salvaged from dying industrial plants; forges and glass-blowing rooms, jewelry making and neon-sign workshops. I was in a strange world of machines and metal filings, loud noises and fires.

Tonight we are off to hear Felix's girlfriend Mae sing in a jazz club.

What's it like being back in California after 10 months living in Sweden?

To paraphrase Dorothy in the Wizzard of Oz, "Something tells me I'm not in Söderköping anymore."