Well, not really as my friend Daniel who is on the front page of one of Sweden’s biggest newspapers SvD, today, announcing in an interview that he is done with writing books. Daniel wrote his first novel by the age of 23 and published his third book two years ago. By giving up writing, I think he is depriving Sweden of what would have been one of its greatest authors of all time.

My own appearance in the media is more modest. Last fall, I was contacted by the editor of a student/early career magazine (Perfect Match – and yes I know, it does sound like a dating site), who asked if I would be interested in writing about my job. Every issue, they have a couple of (semi-) young persons writing a journal for one week, describing what they do at work. I was in the Western Balkan when the request came so it was quite an interesting week to write about.

But then I did not hear anything for a long time. The editor told me that he would send me a copy of the magazine, but nothing came in the mail, and I did not see any new issues on their website. In the end, I just assumed that the didn’t survive the financial crisis. But when going through old e-mails the other day, I found an e-mail from the editor and I decided to check out their website again. And there it was! So for all my Swedish friends, check it out issue number 4 (p. 25) if you are interested!

Towards the end of the week, I did get getter and was able to join Caroline and Martin when they went to see some of the sights around DC. One evening, we had drinks and dinner in Georgetown and were sitting at a bar down by the river for a while, watching private parties on oversized motorboats. Having grown up on the sea, I have difficulties seeing the charm with these boats, on which you are nowhere near the water and where it seems almost impossible to appreciate the nature around you since you are almost always behind windows. And if you necessarily have to have one, why put it in the Potomac river??

Another day, we went over to the Congress and the Supreme Court. It was actually the first time I was up on Capitol Hill and the  first time I saw the Supreme Court. It is funny how you picture things when you see them on TV and in movies: Before coming here, I thought the White House would be bigger than it is. On the other hand, the Congress was much bigger than I had pictured it, and now the Supreme Court was much smaller than I thought it would be.

The Supreme Court and the Congress dome.

Caroline and Martin with the Mall and Washington Monument in the background, and me in front of the Congress.

Later, we met up with Martin (Mr. M) at the Zoo, where I introduced everyone to Dippin Dots – one of the amazing things that this country has invented! (It is ice cream drops frozen at a very low temperature.)

(Maria – nu kan du se min nya väska ovan!)

I have been home sick these days. On my way back across the Atlantic, I sat next to a guy with a cold who for eight hours refused to use a napkin. While I thought it was really disgusting, I thought I should try to have a little more class than to ask for another seat (despite several empty rows), and watched instead movies with headphones on almost the entire trip. And now I am stuck with a severe cold. I hate being sick, but the worst thing is that Carro and her boyfriend Martin were here for a week and I was hardly able to hang out with them. Not as much as I wanted to anyway. It was terrible because I had been looking forward to them coming for months, but I couldn’t do much about it. I was tied to the apartment from Tuesday to Friday with my lovely guests looking after me instead of me looking after them. (I guess I don’t have to add that I truly HATE the guy on the plane!)

Monday, I was still kind of OK and I had taken the day off to be able to show Carro and Martin around a bit. We went down to the White House and walked around in the areas around before having lunch in the Sculpture Garden. In the evening (after some shopping in Georgetown), we had afternoon coffee/aperitivo at Cafe Leopold where we met up with Martin (Mr. M) and where we also saw White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel a few tables away. It is actually the first time I see someone from political Washington here, so I was really excited. Carro was almost equally excited about the fact that she saw the brother of the person on who the character Ari Gold in Entourage is based. And to be frank, I guess that does add a little to Emanuel’s persona.

Am back after my two-week trip to Romania. It was a great mission with a nice team and a reasonable meeting schedule. Sometimes, these trips have four to five meetings per day with no time for lunch, and there is little choice but to spend the entire evenings following up on all your other work and to do the writing for the mission reports. But not this time. Even if we had a couple of commitments also in the evenings, the meeting schedule had a nice pace. Except the trip to Brasov, there was however little time to see anything but the closest surrounding of the hotel we stayed at, and the view from the car on our way to various offices (mainly the Ministry of Agriculture’s, that of its project team, and our own office. I can add that the the Romanian Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Rural Development sits in the by far most beautiful ag-ministry building I have ever been in!) So I did not have a chance to explore Bucharest, which was a  bit unfortunate since I was looking forward to seeing the ‘old town’ this time. But since we had a meeting at the Ministry of Finance, at least I got a glimpse of Ceausescu’s palace, which was right across the street. Hopefully, I will be back in Bucharest again in not too long – Romania is really becoming one of my favorite countries!

Me in front of the palace after our meeting at the Ministry

This weekend started well with a Swedish tradition at IKEA, College Park (MD). My Swedish friend Monika and I had already decided to go on IKEA’s (1st) “Annual Crayfish Party” when I got an e-mail from Kerstin, who leads the small Swedish group that I have been singing with this spring, announcing that we had been asked to sing a few songs at this event. Eating crayfish with friends and family in August is a cherished Swedish tradition, preferably undertaken at an outdoor table on a someone’s porch in the archipelago one of the last evenings of the Swedish summer. If you are really lucky, you’ll be served home-fished crayfish, but regardless, there will for sure be snaps on the table.

Anyway, given that this was to take place at IKEA and that the ticket was $ 10, I did not have very high expectation. I thought it would just be crayfish served instead of the usual meatballs with lingonberries in the IKEA restaurant. And they did serve it at the restaurant, but not at the normal counter where you go with your tray (anyone who has been to IKEA can picture this as it looks exactly the same all over the world). Instead they had arranged a very nice buffet with both crayfish, potatoes, vegetables, crisp bread, cheese, and yes, even meatballs. For dessert, they offered Swedish princess cakes and Mums Mums. There were about 400 guests, and both a duet playing jazz music and a group playing folk music and dancing folk dance, in addition to our little group singing. And it was great to see all the Americans and “new Americans” struggle with the crayfish and mixing Swedish dishes that I would never have thought would be eatable together. It started at 6:30 and I wasn’t home until 10:30, but it was really a lot of fun! I hope they do it again next year.

Am just back after having had dinner and French conversation with a couple of Martin’s friends. They meet up once a week just to speak French together, and this time I was invited. I have to say that my French sucks right now. I tried to take part in the conversation but my vocabulary was completely lost. I think that what I really need is two weeks in France! Or on a French speaking island in the West Indies perhaps…

But no vacation plans for now. I have several trips coming up within the next months, so getting on a flight doesn’t seem so tempting right now. But there are things to see around here too. Last Saturday, Martin and I went over to Old Town Alexandria – a small town located a little further down the Potomac River. It was my first time there and I thought it was a lovely little town – like taken out of a 19:th century story book. While there, we discovered that there are boats going between Georgetown and Alexandria, so we took the boat back to DC. Think I will do that trip again soon!

                                 Small streets and lovely houses

                                             By the river

                                        On the boat back to DC

I think that most of my colleagues in the International Organizations have already seen this many times, but the rest of you might find it amusing.