Scandinavia… tilting to the left

SO… 4 nights in Copenhagen and 2 and a half nights through my time in Stockholm, and you’d think I’d have more to say… I’ve realized a few things though, which I shall obviously share with you, because that’s why you’re here.

I am sick to death of churches, museums, galleries, exhibitions, and anything of the type. In the end they really are all the same. With the exception of specific things like the Vasa museum in Stockholm that I went to today that has an enormous ship that they pulled out of the water almost intact after nearly 350 years. That was okay. But still…I would have preferred not having to pay for it.

As much as I hate admitting it – I do like having company. The last 2 cities I’ve been in I’ve not had the easy meeting of English speaking fellow travelers that I have had in previous places… and I’ve felt myself withdrawing more into my own little world… but then pouncing, often uncomfortably, on the nearest English speaking person that I hear say something remotely interesting. The last 2 days in Stockholm I’ve walked for at least 6 hours each day… and apart from taking a ridiculous amount of photos and getting very tired and going to bed early and getting a good nights sleep every night… all I’ve done is worn down the soles of my shoes.

And realized that when taking photos… its ALL ABOUT THE LIGHT. Stockholm is such a grey city during the day (or it has been so far) that I’m actually getting better photos here at night time, because at least I KNOW there’s no light… and I can use the flash or one of the more complicated (in a way that I know what it does and why, but not necessarily HOW) night time settings… but a grey overcast sky is just shit.

Spanish people annoy the crap out of me… how smart do you have to be to know that whispering at 3.30 in the morning is no less likely to wake people up than turning all the lights on and banging pots and pans… it has the same effect… it makes me want to destroy Spain… I’m sure there are SOME nice ones around… but… whatever… I’m just aggravated because they’ve woken me up the last 3 nights running… and some other stuff that I won’t go into…

You Can get used to everything being tilted about 5 degrees off centre… it took me about half a day, but I can now sit at the table without fear of everything sliding off into the ocean… its an odd feeling… I don’t know how long I could put up with it for, but suffice to say that I do enjoy being on land, and appreciate it even more after living on a boat for a few days…

Funny how when you try to do something after putting it off for fear that you’ll stuff it up, that you actually find it easier than you thought… I’ve found that a lot recently… and I’m hoping it follows through for University…

Books are heavy.

I’m going to have to wear about 5 layers of clothes tomorrow when I catch the plane to stop myself getting charged the ridiculous over weight fee.

Citrus fruit seem to be especially good up here… even though they still appear to be imported from the same places we get ours from…

I think the bread rolls I got to make sandwiches with are meant to be eaten toasted… they’re strange.

There’s only 5 days until I’m back at home and I’m still not sure how I feel about it… I’m almost more nervous about going home than I was before I left to come overseas… I wonder why that is…

Fear of the Known…

I’ve now been further north than I’ve ever been before… I walked as far north in Stockholm as I could be bothered… basically until I didn’t see anything in the distance that I wanted to take a photo of…

Did you know you can dry preserve, in the manner of apricots that we’ve all had… Oranges? The supermarket I went to the other day had a dried fruit section – and amongst the normal things like apricots, pineapple, guava, mango, and pawpaw, was Orange, Strawberry and Kiwifruit… fantastic…

Other than that… I think I just have to reiterate (I’m sure I’ve said it before) that unless you know someone in a city like this… it’s really what you make it. And if you don’t have a good time, then its no-one’s fault but your own…

An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.
- GK Chesterton