... and Sweden!

After Tuscany, I flew up to Sweden to visit my friend Charlotte, and then another friend, Maria.  Charlotte is really busy juggling work and living arrangements, so we only had one day to spend together, but it was one really great day.  We went shopping...

...we got coffee...

...we went out for lunch...

...we ate Swedish sweets (chokladbol! kanelbullar!)...

It's not bad... Definitely very salty...

...and I tried one of Charlotte's favourite Swedish candies, salty licorice.

Basically we just hung out for the entire day, relaxing from work or traveling, catching up on the past year since we’ve seen each other, and reflecting on how Salford and the year since we left have changed us.  Days like this are really the reason I travelled to Italy and Sweden and London.  I just wanted to spend time with far away friends.  

The next morning, Charlotte got on a train to go to work and I got on a train to Malmö, a city at the southern tip of Sweden (right across from Copenhagen).  I met another friend from Salford, Maria, who is staying is Sweden for the summer.  She’s only been in Malmö a few weeks, so we casually strolled around the city and along the coast.  While we were watching the sun sink over the horizon, we got the crazy idea to jump off the observation deck into the sea below, so the next day we came back and did just that.  It’s probably a 25-foot (7-8m), and I have to admit, standing on that ledge was seriously frightening.  But I jumped anyway.  Twice.  And Maria did it once, too.  I’m not entirely sure I’d do it again (the pressure on my ears was not comfortable), but it was a hell of an experience.

And because that wasn’t enough excitement for one afternoon, Maria and I went to a sauna house about a mile away on the coast.  We found an empty sauna and sat down in the heat, ready to relax, but after just a few minutes an employee from the sauna house informed us that all of the saunas are nude-only.  

Ah.  Okay.  Didn’t know.  So we put our swimsuits back in the locker room.  Outside the saunas there is a network of criss-crossing boardwalks, many with staircases that lead directly out into the Baltic Sea.  When the sauna got too hot, we walked out and swam in the sea.  The water is fantastically cold, but after a few rounds of the sauna and a cool-down then back to the sauna, it all started to feel really comfortable.  And hey, I swam in the sea for the second time in a week!

Maria and I spent the rest of the trip just like Charlotte and I did - talking, catching up, reflecting on the past, and wondering about our next steps.  And of course when I’ll be back in Europe.  I don’t have an answer for that, and I don’t know when I will, but I feel pretty confident that this isn’t my last trip.