STOCKHOLM My love affair with Sweden began long before ever setting foot in Scandinavia; I had never been to Sweden before unless you count spending one full day at an airport in Iceland. I first felt deeply in love with its people and at one point with A Swede but who hasn`t right? , they bring a sense of peace within me that is easily disturbed if I am not around them, nothing summarizes this better than a phrase from a very popular book at the moment and it goes like this, (please note that I am replacing the word Swedes in the phrase, this book has nothing to do with Sweden or Swedes); “I chose the Swedes because their demeanourcalm, quiet and introspective-did something to soothe my shattered selfi1” Reading this summarized my feelings towards this group of people and their way of life, realizing of course that it could have been any other people or civilization, it just happened to be them, due to time and space placing me in their path. On to the story of my first time in Sweden and it goes like this; My expectations, building to a crescendo of intolerable laughter as the days got closer to my departure to Stockholm, which probably annoyed the heck out of my colleges yet they all gathered and wished me good luck as the day that everyone had heard about for so long came around. I arrived in Stockholm, the airport unpresumptuous, loved it check, long bus ride to the city through what I can only make out in the middle of the night, through glimpses of a full moon, where forest of tall mythical looking trees, which I love, check. Waking up at the crack of dawn not wanting to miss anything I opened my hotel window to take a big breath of that dry Scandinavian air, only to be confronted with the face of another building, of course I had forgotten my hotel was smack in the middle of the city surrounded by building, so I eagerly armed myself with a map got dressed really quickly as I did not want to waste time and headed off to take it all in. And so I walked, I jumped on busses asking to get to one museum ended up in another, which was a great surprise in the end I heard stories of many Gustavs and his Swedish empires, read stories midsummer magic and winter wonderland Jul (Christmas) I jumped on another tour bus where the bus driver was friendly enough to tell me his life story before taking off. I walked and walked searching for the first sign that would scare me off my Swedish trail, I met people and even said things to try and solicit some negative reaction and to no avail. I felt at home, out there on my own I felt like this is the place I belonged, this city which with its dry air and busy subway lines reminded me constantly of back home New York, had an element of peace that was just not befitting to a busy metropolitan city, then I realized that whichever direction you took 15-20 minutes out, you are back in nature once again. This has to play a part in the reason for the calmness that resonates in such a busy city.
1 Phrase is from The Life of Pi chapter 1 pg 3 and refers to the sloth, I replaced the word Sloth for Swedes
8 ACCESS for & by volunteers May 2013