Stockholm July 1-21

A selection of the people I met when I was home in Stockholm. Daniel, Christina, Emma, Sten, myself, Mats, Anna, mom, and x Helena x

As I’m writing this, it is actually July 23, and I am already in Bishkek in Kyrghyzstan. I guess the fact that I haven’t had time to update the blog until now says that I had a great time home in Sweden? Yes certainly, but it also says that there were a lot of things I had to do before continuing my journey.

As it has been some time since all of this happened and I was sometimes to drunk to remember the details :-)), I’ll try to be brief. But if you know me, you know that it will be hard for me!
When I came “home”, it was the first time I’ve come home from a journey without having an actual home to return to! You see, I’ve sublet my apartment to a lovely couple from the south of Sweden while I’m away. This means that not only do I not need to pay the costs while away, I actually make some extra money from it!

This is because Sweden has a weird system of rent control, which means that building owners have a hard time making money when renting out apartments, which means that no housing gets built, which means there is a permanent housing shortage (at least in Stockholm) for as long as I can remember. Most of the time this really pisses me off, but this year I can finally enjoy the fruits of it!

But I had something even better awaiting me at home. My lovely Helena was waiting for me at the airport, beautiful as ever, and with the hugs that I so very much needed lined up. Coming home to her and her family might very well have been the best thing that has happened to me on my journey!

Unfortunately I never really had time to settle with her and her son Robin, because we kept moving all over Sweden. Just a day after I came back we headed off to Hälsingland for the wedding of John and Majvi, two of my very best friends - more about that in a later blog entry. And soon thereafter we left for my parents in Åmål, to coincide with the annual Blues Fest, as well as my birthday – but I’ll do a separate entry on that as well.

The rest of the time I spent in Stockholm, sort of having a vacation. Don’t I have a full year off – why do I need a vacation then? Well, traveling is not always restful, you know. Going on a one-week charter to Mallorca or something similar probably is, but backpacking in foreign lands where you don’t know the language isn’t – at least not for me.

So it was very nice to just hang out with friends and really doing nothing. Going back to favorite places like Sodra Bar (my favorite summer bar on a veranda overlooking beautiful downtown Stockholm) and Kungsträdgården (a park in central Stockholm, great for people-watching), as well as finding new ones like Kärsön (a great beach next door to the royal family, with an opportunity to go nude if you want to) and a great club where I had the time of my life.

But the best thing was of course to get to meet my friends again. When I’m traveling I honestly can’t say that I miss Stockholm itself much, despite its beauty. But I do miss my friends. A lot! Guys, if you read this, it was great meeting some of you, and I’m already looking forward to when I get home the next time so that I can see the rest of you again!

And of course I spent most of the time with my darling Helena. I don’t know what I can say about it all. She gave me the best time I could ever have hoped for – and then more. We haven’t known each other “for real” for very long yet, but she is already one of the best things that have ever happened to me, and I treasure every moment we’ve had together – even our fights!
[That actually brought a tear to my eye. Oh well, time to switch subjects.]

Among all that enjoyment I also had some preparations to do for the next leg of my journey – mostly relating to my equipment. It’s more or less always fun to buy new equipment, but less so when you have to replace lost stuff. I don’t really know how I managed, but I lost the following on the trip: One shirt, one t-shirt, two pair of socks (merino wool - sniff) , two pair of underwear (I obviously need to check my laundry bags better in the future), one camera pouch, and finally one bloody expensive Leatherman pliers/knife. At least my family was nice enough to get me a replacement of the latter for my birthday!

But there were lots of other things as well – paying dad for two months worth of bills was the least fun part, but writing e-mails and sending photos to the people that I promised on the trip to do so was the best! It really brought back a lot of the happy memories from Central America. If you are one of those that haven’t got a reply yet, don’t despair. I have already sent out close to 100 MB worth of pictures, but I am getting to the bottom of the pile now!

Buying gifts and tools for the Habitat subsidiary in Kyrghyzstan was also great fun – I’ve read up a lot on both Habitat and Kyrghyzstan the last few weeks and it feels really good that everything I bring will come to good use! But more on Habitat and the voluntary mission in a later blog entry. There’s nothing like some decent cliffhangers to get people to come back to the blog is it! :-)

And on that note, I’m out of here. I’ve been in Bishkek for a few hours now, and it is time to see the town!