Despite the fact the Andrew and I do a lot of international travel, our ability to combat jet lag is not always in top form. Usually we can tough out the very long first day going to Europe and beyond, stay awake through dinner time, then crash and wake the next morning reasonably coherent. Not so lucky this round. We had a 15-hour transit getting to Stockholm – overnight – and arrived in the early evening the next day. We did make it through dinner with our host family, crashed at about 11pm…and I was awake at 3:30am. Ugh! Andrew didn’t do much better. We tossed and turned for a few hours (and of course it was already light out) and then gave up and got vertical around 6am. We managed to get some last minute tips from Richard, bid the family farewell, hit the grocery store and the mall for lunch (Andrew even got a facial…don’t laugh), and about 3pm we went home and slept!
Oh the heavenly nap. With the long days we went out around 6pm on a 4km walk/hike in a beautiful forested area that loops a golf course to shake out the cobwebs – and got back to the house for a simple dinner at 9:30pm. We are definitely going to have to get our biorhythms adjusted.
A few initial observations…
Surprise #1: MOST people we have encountered here speak English. This may not surprise some people, but somehow we expected to struggle just a little bit with language. Nice surprise – but our challenge will be to learn enough Swedish to read street and directional signs. We have figured out that “Hej” (pronounced “hey”) is like our Hello/Hi, and “Tack” (Tahk) is Thanks, so we are off to a flying start (Ha!).
Surprise #2: After being told that Swedes are MUCH more reserved than us rowdy ‘mercians, we have so far found everyone super friendly and willing to help point us in the right direction and open in a relaxed way. We are not at all ones to stereotype – rather we try to adapt and be respectful of local cultural norms. So far, we have been made to feel very welcome and not at all felt we were intrusive.
Not so surprise #3: Natural beauty here is very green, very lush, and very accessible. I am sure we will see much more when we head to Sigtuna and Uppsala tomorrow, and Stockholm the following days, but for today we have enjoyed wandering the local woods and catching glimpses of local deer and listening to a bird symphony.
Until tomorrow,
Esther
Living La Vida Loca 