in short: two weeks in sweden, with a detour through the åland islands to attend a philatelic forum. it’s been good.
i have trouble putting the experience of being here into words… i guess most of all, stockholm feels civilized — that’s the word that comes to mind. but it’s also quietly beautiful: streets are clean and parks are taken care of, everything is green and birds we hadn’t seen before crossing our path with their broods in tow. the nights are barely nights and the light wakes us up very early, but it’s hard to mind when everywhere we look there’s light shimmering in the water. we scored a house swap within walking distance of most museums, a cozy place with overflowing bookshelves. the owner became a mini penpal of sorts, emailing often with questions about recycling, the lack of black people in the south of portugal or the range of electric bikes. it felt like a pleasure, through and through.
we saw the vasa ship and the postal museum, and revisited dear old friends that we’ve known for 20 years, each of us settled into a different country. they look the same, only now they have cute kids that speak different languages and look a lot like them.
åland felt pretty special. the ferry is a whole thing — comfortable cabins, supermarkets, live music, restaurants and gaming rooms for the children… the trip lasts 5 hours but it flies by. mariehamn itself feels human sized — you can walk it from end to end. we grabbed some bikes from the hotel and cycled around, into the wetlands and across tiny islands. i’ve always liked islands, the size of them, the geography and terrain. åland has the kind of islands that are just a smooth weathered rock jutting out of the sea — the kind that tove jansson used to spend her summers in (the kind i dream about sometimes, when i’m tired of the world and want to escape). it feels like half of sweden or finland has a hut somewhere, on a island or in the woods.
maybe i’ll write more about the trip at some point… i have some sleep to catch up on, to prepare us for a busy month ahead.