There hasn’t been time to write. I’ve taken thousands of photographs and that’ll have to do – I’ll go back and fill it in someday, but for the moment it’s enough to say that I’ve woken up in an off-season ski cabin in Idre, Sweden. It’s cute and strange and nothing quite works the way I expect it to. It took all four of us to lock the front door. It took my instincts and Alex’ Danish to operate the refrigerator. The thing we thought was a meat freezer was a clothes dryer and the rock sauna is something that none of us dare approach.
I’ve been sick for about a week – and though I feel like I’m finally climbing out of my dry hacking cough and moist everything else, I’m highly-concerned about the rest of our little party because yesterday Kristen’s throat started acting up and this morning I could’ve sworn I heard a cough from the other bedroom.
We organics, ruinin’ everything.
For the last several days we’ve been exploring Stockholm, a city I knew nothing about and was thoroughly impressed with. Not as aged and dense as anything in Brussels, but airier and more relaxed, a port city with access to cold, black waters and refreshing sea breezes. It’s only now, more than 48 hours after our departure and starting at a map, that I really understand where we were.
There’s going to be a lot of that. Looking back and “getting it”. I’ve taken a lot of photos of signs and placards in addition to my usual memory galleries in the hopes that I can have better context for everything I’ve been looking at. Staying at least ROUGHLY in the moment and trying to soak it all in at any given time has left me breathless and full. I AM sad that we’re not getting the time to cross a couple more borders (we can SEE Norway from a good hill here!) but I AM grateful we’ve somewhat slowed our pace.
For a given value of “slow”.
For the first week, wandering Belgium with my brother, Del, Ike and Max, public transit, trains, trams and metros kept us mobile, walking between 6-9 miles a day, exploring Bruges, Bang, Ghent and Brussels, because of the whole “get in tube, get off tube” method of travel, the cities bled together somewhat. They certainly had their own flavours, but in my mind it’s a little hard to keep straight.
Sweden, however, now that we’ve left the concentrated busy-ness of Stockholm, feels more like the American West and I’m absolutely in Love with road tripping, watching the world change slowly outside my window, and feeling the more hard-won joy of mileage (kilometerage) that has everything to do with self-navigation (well, google) and taking the wheel (okay, fine – Alex and Ana have done all the driving).
Beautiful lakes, small towns, forests as far as the eye can see. Straight, tall pines stretching into the ever-shifting skies and the temperatures are steadily dropping as if we were driving somewhere in the American Northwest.
Passing briefly through Iceland, I was struck by how ALIEN it all seemed. Black rocks and distant jagged peaks. Belgium could’ve been Maryland and much of Sweden has felt like Pennsylvania or Ohio, but slowly other clues have seeped in and by now the beautiful strangeness around me is unmistakable. Maybe I could be convinced we were lost in Wyoming somewhere? But there’s a lot more water. Colorado? But greener. I do wish there were gigs at the end of the drives, or at least (and actually more preferable) open mics, but honestly that would’ve been hugely disappointing with how sick I’ve been… for all the woulda / coulda / shoulda / next times of the trip, I think I MAY finally be coming to terms with it not being a music trip.
Ha – and I’d still have no clue where to start in changing that. We’ve met no musicians. The language barriers have seemed far to intimidating to just stop someone on the street and we’ve seen no music stores or anything, no nexus to network from.
And so, mine goddess forbid, it’s “just” a vacation.
Mine goddess.
We forgot to thank the mine goddess.
Damn.
Kristen’s up. Sleeping late is a beautiful thing after all these days of being on-the-go, and we’re both pleasantly tousled and slow moving. Hopefully we can breathe! I’d like to smell the forests around me!
Something I’ve been thinking about in Brussels and in Stockholm – something in stark contrast to Monday’s experience in the mine with Johanna… really it feels like almost no-one likes their jobs. For all that “Life work” balance is a good deal better in Europe, long vacations, (usually) shorter hours, etc – it sure seems like that means people are all the more eager to just get done with their day and move on. The people don’t smile at the reception desks, and there is no casual chat at the cash register. Servers are pretty no nonsense as they set down your food and move on and are definitely not interested in the conversation that I THOUGHT we’d be having again and again “oh, you’re from America, and how long are you here and do you like it? You MUST try…”
Maybe it’s just that they don’t do tips here and all that friendliness is just a sham? But it really seems like people here are just getting through the day. That makes me a little sad – but my sample size is not NEARLY large enough, and my lack of the language means it could ALSO simply be impatience with my dumb Americanness. I’m willing to accept the possibility that people are not having a miserable day until MY dumb ass gets there…. sigh.
