Phew.
Might be a strange way to start a blogpost, but it pretty perfectly sums up the past two weeks. I came back home from Memphis and spent four days in San Diego. They quickly filled up with a midterm, a photography job at at conference and a bunch of other fun stuff like a washing machine malfunction and sushi-dinner, before I once again packed my bag and headed to the airport. This time to go to Atlanta, Georgia, where my cousin grew up. It’s been almost three and a half years since we last saw each other, mostly because I’ve managed be out of the country whenever he came back to Sweden to visit, and the rest of his family (mother, stepfather, half siblings) I’ve never even met.

I landed a late Friday night and woke up early the next morning (super early if you’re jet lagged) and drove to Athens and University of Georgia to watch a football game. American football that is, the weird one they play running with the ball in their hands despite it being called ”foot”ball. I was expecting something of an event, but nothing like the show that unfolded. Tens of thousands of Georgia Bulldogs fans dressed in black, red and white filled the huge stadium in the middle of campus. Luckily I blended in quite well in black jeans and a red jacket. Some would call it luck, others would call it skill, closest to the truth, however, is probably ”travelling only with a small backpack and clean clothes in short supply due to the before mentioned washing machine malfunction”. 

This was college-level football, but holy guacamole, what a show. There were national anthems, a 100+ people strong marching band (where my cousin’s younger half brother plays drums), more American flags than I’ve seen in a while, Georgia Bulldog flags, mascots (yep, plural on the mascots, a real bulldog and a guy in a bulldog suit), tributes to the military and US veterans, Coca Cola commercials (it’s founded in Atlanta), several different cheerleading teams and a big smoke machine. The Bulldogs won big time over University of Massachusetts and I was still speechless several days afterwards.



The rest of the week was spent hanging around the small town outside Atlanta where my relatives live. We went to check out the town of Marietta, went on some short hikes, saw some monuments from the civil war, went bowling and played frisbee golf. The entire family is full of super talented musicians, so there were some jam sessions too. One day we drove to downtown Atlanta, walked along ”The Beltline”, rode electrical scooters, checked out the very hipster mall and walked in the botanical garden and Piedmont Park.





But the grand finale of the week was of course Thanksgiving.
I haven’t celebrated Thanksgiving before, and was not really sure what to expect.
Turkey? Televised football? More turkey?   

However, my amazing hosts whipped up a ton of vegan food (a ton of food in general) and I spent Thanksgiving helping out in the kitchen, fire BB guns at empty beer cans in the garden and drinking whiskey (I mean, it’s the south, right?), eat delicious food, play some music and laugh until my belly hurt with a bunch of unique and funny people that were invited and showed up right and left. I was also taught how to do the worm and dance to Queen, and what I take with me is that the most important thing here in life must be to feel free to be yourself surrounded by people you truly enjoy being around.
That’s what I am thankful for.

I had a smooth flight with great views back to San Diego and I’m writing this early a Saturday morning (thanks jetlag…), thinking that it’s actually quite nice to be back home in California.

Last night I made my way to the beach and watched the sun fall down behind the ocean.
Had to pinch my arm it was so pretty.



I can barely believe that I’ve already been here more than two months now, that this quarter is soon over and that Christmas is around the corner. Life keeps on turning, it ain’t perfect but it sure is beautiful.

As always, thank you for reading and take care!