Island Fun

I am back from my northern island adventures and feeling just a little guilty at my luck after checking the weather for Pennsylvania. From what I see, the humidity is back with a temperature to make it throttling. After reading that, you really don't want to know what the weather is like here. You really don't.

The Swedish island adventure was as close as I will ever get to living fantasy, I think. Seriously, how often does a body get to chill on a Swedish island alone with nothing to do all day but read, swim, play games, and eat?

We were quite a motley crew: 2 Swedes, 2 Austrians, 1 Italian, 1 Spaniard, and 2 Americans. The language of choice was English - in all it's beautiful array of interpretation (I find accented voices are curiously interesting).

I have some very strong impressions from this trip.

Let's get the negative ones out of the way first:
1. Parts of Sweden smell like rotting, salty, putrescent sea life even when you can't see the sea.

2. Swedes prefer musical audibility to air circulation when driving in cars with broken air conditioners. This experience turned out to be the sauna of the trip.

3. Mosquitoes suck. Literally.

Everything else was gorgeous and perfect. Our group of eight was split. I went by train and by car, journeying for about 4 hours - including walking time - while the others went solely by train. Jon (in Swedish it sounds like "Yon") spent most of his childhood summers on the island and was a great host, even those times when he paraded around the island just wearing his sailor hat and some very tight undershorts. Yeah. We did things like Beebee gun competitions, playing a great game called Kubbb (which I shall try try to bring to America), burning nachos, catching and eating fish, swimming, tanning, reading, eating tons of hot dogs...

We had two unfortunate casualties for the weekend. One of the Austrians was literally devoured by Mosquitoes. She had a violent reaction and half her face swelled to twice its size. Her Italian boyfriend was good spirited and said she looked a little Asian.

The second causality was the other American. During our stay, the two of the oven's burners broke and couldn't be turned off. We had to resort to pulling the oven out, unplugging it, and pushing it back in whenever we wanted to cook. Nick, the American, received the oven onto his foot, crushing his big toe. OUCH. Both of them survived, thankfully but I'm anxious to see what other mishap was in store - bad things come in threes.

Me? I had a good time. I finished reading FAREWELL TO ARMS. Great book. Hemingway is like a trip: it's more about the journey than the destination. I have never felt "good" about any of Hemingway's endings. They cut off abruptly and all of a sudden you are wondering where the last five pages of the book went because this can't be 'it'. Ah. Style, I like it. It's a great part of who he is as a writer. He doesn't tell you everything.

Today I am hiding out and taking some 'me' time. It's funny but I really have fun with my own space, my own quiet, my own noise... Besides, I got too much sun and now I feel like a sick cherry.

I put up pictures. On the right hand of this blog, my pictures are scrolling and I believe if you click on it you can get to the newest ones first.

Tentative Schedule:

Monday - Stockholm
Tuesday - Stockholm
Wednesday - Flogsta
Thursday - Flogsta
Friday - Farm FOR THE DURATION