Archipelago

It's official. I love Sweden.

On the way home from the airport, Richard said he had plans for Saturday, if it was okay with me. We were going sailing. We had a wonderful chat that evening... it is really nice to see Richard and Dorothy again. We ended up talking until about 1, and then getting in a few hours of sleep before the alarm at 7 for sailing.

I've had a lot of people tell me that I needed to get out and see the archipelago. Sure, I thought, could be nice, but I don't know how much extra time I'll have, or how tough it is to get out there, or how much it would cost. And, clearly, those things are all nearly impossible to find out. So I wasn't so optimistic.

Dorothy had to work on some stuff in preparation for starting her PhD program, so Richard and I got ready and headed out to the boat together on Saturday morning. We met his brother (Jörgen) and his fiancé (Kajsa) at the dock and headed out. Rather than do a run-down of the whole day, here are the highlights:

1. Cultural enlightenment. I learned that, in Sweden, coffee breaks (fika) are critical. So critical, in fact, that if you choose to work through half your lunch, you can go home a half-hour early. If you choose to work through fika (usually 15 minutes each in the morning and afternoon), you still have to stay just as long. But people won't like you any more.

2. A lot of pictures. Not edited yet, but I have an inordinate number of sea and sky shots, a couple of which I think will be nice, but many of which are just kind of bland pics of what is really an absolutely stunning place.

3. Party, party, party. When we got to the island we were going to, we landed on one side and had a bit of a bbq. Then walked around it to the main area, and were promptly given free ice cream by a woman with incredible eyes but wearing a clown costume (not quite sure how to react to that), then heard some music coming from across the plane. It sounded live, but too good to be live. So, we went to see. And it was live... an amazing little 4-piece cover band, with a keyboard player who could sing - man, could he sing - showing why Sweden has such a tremendous pop music history. They did a few tunes - rock, r&b, pop... and just nailed them. And they were playing to maybe 100 or so people on a little island in the middle of nowhere. What a country!

4. Sailing is fun. Last time I sailed, it was a team-building exercise with my company. I don't know about you, but "team-building" usually seems to be a code for "you're going to hate this, but if you do it, we'll buy you dinner". I didn't hate it, but it was a lot of work... we were on a vintage racing boat, and there was a lot of pulling, tying, and leaning. Richard's boat, on the other hand, could more or less be sailed by one person, and it was just relaxing. Beautiful. For the first time, I understand why people do this for fun.


Today I joined them at church, and it was great to be reminded, once again, that God is not local. He loves to be loved in Sweden as much as he does in Switzerland or Canada. It was very, very good. After the service we went downstairs for fika and I had some time to talk to a neurologist who is on her way in a couple weeks to do post-doc research at Cambridge, and a family who just moved to Stockholm from Dallas a couple months ago as missionaries. I guess we were there for about an hour, and for a guy who often likes to stick pretty close to his friends, I didn't really notice that I had lost track of Richard and Dorothy in the first few minutes.

After church we had a bbq... Jörgen and Kajsa came over again, along with Richard's parents, the fascinating young Spanish guy who lives downstairs (dropped out of school at 15 because he was bored, g0t into computers, made enough to have spent the last year not working but, instead, studying finance and biology on his own online because... he thinks they're interesting), and a few other friends.

Here's the thing. Swedes are really, really friendly. I have met some really wonderful people here in just a couple of days... as I was saying good-bye to Richard's mom ("see you next week!"), she said, "I hope that we can see you again... maybe for dinner at our home mid week?". "I hope so," I said, "that would be really nice."

As they pulled away, it occurred to me that, for a moment, I forgot that I don't live here. Richard and Dorothy have already made me feel so at home that it's just wonderful. Sure, I don't know the language, but I'm kind of used to that.

Tomorrow I'm off to see the old town, to take pictures, and see if I can find the heartbeat of this city. I can't wait - it's going to be incredible. Even if I don't get free ice cream.