marie just pointed out that i've forgotten to write about our short visit to umeå! so, here it goes:

last weekend tommy, bob, the toyota and i went on a short trip to umeå. we left after work on the friday, drove through lots and lots of heavy snow, and borrowed the apartment of jessica who was away for the weekend. when we arrived we got the key from marie, who's both a friend and a neighbour of jessica's, combined in the same person. very clever! everything went fine and we were all happy and slept well, even though our feet were wet after all the snow.

on the saturday tommy was supposed to leave relatively early, to look for new shoes and some other stuff. but the toyota turned out to suffer from a flat tire... fortunately we had a spare tire in the trunk, so tommy could change tires in the middle of the rather thick and very wet layer of snow on the unploughed parking place. and with big wholes in his shoes. i was a bit disappointed with the toyota at first, until i saw the big piece of metal sticking out of the tire... even i can understand it's difficult not to get a puncture from that.

as the toyota is not a very heavy car, and the spare tire was meant to be used on summer roads, it had some difficulties getting out of the parking place. but eventually he and tommy managed to get on their way.

after tommy and the toyota had left, bob and i went for a wet walk with marie and orwhar, and were invited for a home made delicious apple cake and hot tea. tommy joined us after a while, with new shoes but still wet feet.

before we went back home to nyland again we had dinner with tommy's parents and some other relatives.

back in nyland again i can say i have learnt a few things: the roads are in much better shape on the countryside here in sollefteå than in the big city of umeå, there's always room for a spare tire in the trunk, it's nice to have neighbour-friends who invite you for hot tea and apple cake when you're cold and wet, dog walks in wet snow is much nicer if you have company and cars always break down when i'm with them.

oh, i almost forgot to mention: tommy's parents brought us gifts from their trip to china, and i got the cutests little china-shoes! and a special china-shoe-bag to carry them with me in :). unfortunately the shoes leave black marks on the floors, so i can't use them until summer :(  ¶ 6:35 PM