I did a touristy thing for the last couple of days

Johanna, Stoffe, Lars and I went out on a slow boat to Sandham in the Stockholm Archipelago, then came half way back and camped on Grinda, where we shelled and ate shrimp, and swam. Totally stunning, from the ostentatious summer houses and launches to the amazing lime green Baltic seaweed to the sheer number of islands (30,000, even when you discount rocks of less than 50 metres diameter)

Scandinavian Skullduggery

Well, not quite. Maybe my ad lib title reflects my memories of visiting the Historik Museet today, looking at old viking swords and the loot won with them.
I´m in a quiet Stockholm suburb called Älta.

I love searching for the Swedish letters on the keyboard `ö´ , ´ä´, and my favourite ´å´ (pronounced ´awe´) Once again the immortal verdict of Vincent Vega comes to mind. They got the same shit over there they got here, but there it´s a little different. Just three extra letters. My old friend Johanna maintains one good reason for not taking her husbands name (Stål) is that it has a Swedish letter in it. ´Causes so much hassle when you are travelling´.

I have been learning a very specialised set of Swedish vocabulary The words I´ve learned, Johanna reminds me, aren´t very sophisticated or even useful. I can say ´hut´, ´doggy´, ´blanky´and not a lot else. You might have guessed - I have been spending quite a bit of time with her one year old.

I thought Norway would make me a bit homesick. It actually made me feel comfortable, it was so like New Zealand. Well, New Zealand at sixty degrees latitude with a very cute lilting language. Sweden seems more, well, developed. Stockholm (pictured below) is a real city, the kind that roars a bit; the mountains are all up north; and people are nationalistic without a sense of irony. (There are 30 or so specified days a year when traditionally you raise the Swedish flag on the, ahem, flagpole in your garden)

Image: Windowlicker (CreativeCommons-Attribution-Sharealike Licence)

Nature is still incredibly close to hand. Just like Oslo, the forest starts before the city ends. Beautiful mixed forest of birch, pine and fir, smelling amazing, with a carpet of wild blueberries. Sprinkle liberally with small lakes and you have yourself a nice wee hinterland. I´m having a good time.

(Image: public domain)