8 October: I was in Stockholm for three days then rented a car and drove south to catch a ferry to Visby on Gotland Island, where I am now. Except for the day in the forest and canoe while in Helsinki it begins to look like Nature has receded in my itinerary considerably since the trip along Norway’s west coast. I blame myself for not paying enough attention during the months before I committed to this itinerary. That time was dominated by house buying and selling and then moving to Texas and already now having decided it was the wrong move and preparing to buy and sell again and return to California, and all of that after a two-year trip delay due to Covid. So, I was distracted and I’m sure I thought that just being in these countries would in itself be a rich experience. Turns out that was largely right but there’s no question that if I’d insisted on more time in natural settings, I’d have been happier. I enjoyed Stockholm for its abundance of old architecture, which I admire immensely, and one day I took a boat excursion to view the archipelago, the constellation of islands and peninsulas flaring east of the city for many miles and many of them inhabited. The contrast of those suburbs to the conventional ones I passed leaving the city is tremendous and if I were to move to Stockholm there’s no question which I’d choose to live in. But I was in the midst of crowds just about everywhere and between that and absent Nature, I missed some of what these countries had to offer.
Photo by Michal Lawrenin on Unsplash
