Coda

The Hotdog Guide in Gröna Lund Amusement Park (from top to bottom: you can have your hotdog with mustard, with pickle mayo, with relish, with two scoops of mashed potatoes, with shrimp in mayo, or with sautéed onions)

A Swan With Her Cygnets in Djurgarden

Benny Andersson's House, Near Käknatorget (The Käkna Tower)

Djurgardenbronskanalen (The Canal, Near the Djurgarden Bridge)

Well, I left the hotel after my last post and made my way to Åhlens, the department store next door. I figured I would buy the Swedish language dictionary I saw at only 14 dollars Canadian. This is great because the only thing I have at home right now is a Swedish-English dictionary that doesn't tell me if a noun is an "en" word or an "ett" word (like "un" or "une" in French). This new dictionary will also tell me how to write the plural of nouns: there are five ways of forming the plural of a noun in Swedish, and I always get those confused. (Example: the plural for kvinna, meaning "woman", is kvinnor; but the plural of telefon is telefoner; and the plural of dröm, meaning dream, is drömmar.)

After this, I caught the ferry from Slussen to Djurgården. I decided that I would spend a lazy afternoon just enjoying the sunshine and trying not to think of stressful things. I enjoyed lying down on a huge flat rock and listening to the sound of the waves. I went all the way on foot to the small cabin on the canal where I had had the ice cream. On the way, I saw Benny's house again, so I took a better photograph of it. But suddenly, I really needed to pee. For a moment I thought I could go behind the rain shelter that ABBA was photographed in in 1970, but that was just a sacrilegeous thought. I couldn't pee on hallow ABBA ground... I ventured into the woods and stumbled upon a small burial site where some pre-Christian Swedes were buried some time between 500 and 1100. Although less hallow than the ABBA site, I still had to respect this place.

After emerging from a nearby hillock, I took some more pictures of this beautiful location. I also found the distinctive looking V-shaped tree that Benny and Frida were photographed in front of. Then I stopped for a late lunch, around 2:00 p.m. at a quaint little restaurant on Djurgården. I had some lasagna with a side salad and some pear cider. Yummy!

I walked away from Djurgården and along the coast back to Slussen, where I was able to take the subway back to the hotel. It was a very hot day, and I was glad I had my shorts on. Some Swedish men were going around without shirts.

But I am still thinking of the earthquake and hoping that I will receive word to tell me that everything is OK at my place...

When I got to the hotel, I paid my bill (I wanted to do this before I leave tomorrow), and I came to the business centre here to write my thoughts. As I am waiting to meet Hans tonight around 6:00, and as I am not sure if I will have time to post something new from Sweden, I thought I would take a few minutes to reflect on my two weeks here.

My experience in Sweden was a very rewarding one. In some ways, it is exactly what I expected it to be, in terms of its progressive, socialist, and inclusive outlook. The biggest surprise for me -- which will sound very silly -- is that it was a lot more European than I expected, in very subtle ways.

I certainly learned a lot while I was here, about the culture, the people and, ultimately, about myself. I learned that my Swedish-language skills are quite modest, yet they do allow me to communicate, especially in situations where I find myself with people who speak no English (or French, or even Spanish) at all. I learned that I have a lot to learn about the language, and this is a challenge I may decide to take up by having more private lessons. I learned that I want to "live life" a lot more. All too often, I get sucked into routines which sometimes feel very comfortable and I begin to like the familiarity too much, leaving me with no sense of adventure. The trip was good to shake me up a bit again. And I learned that my life is very, very good right now (presuming the quake did no major damage to my home). It was a short trip in some respects -- it sped by without my doing everything I had put on my list, but then again, it was an impossibly long list. In other ways, it was a very long time, especially being away from Troy, and also from my cats, in that order. I still have a weekend in Iceland ahead of me, and I am not sure what to expect there, but I am nearly ready to come home.

Maybe I am just a sentimental old fool, but I am feeling sad to be leaving. It was a great experience, and it really was the best possible destination to mark my 40 years of existence on this earth.

Thank you all for your loving thoughts which you shared with me during my journey, and for accepting to read my daily words. Despite the geographical distance, keeping this blog was a way of staying conneced with the people I cherish the most in my life.

Thank you all for being a friend...

M.