| Monday, July 28, 2008 |
| Traveling - Part II |
When we got back home after our long day of traveling from Grand Rapids to San Francisco, my dad called to tell me that there was an apartment waiting for us in Stockholm. A few months earlier, after Hobie's passing, I had decided to look into moving to Sweden for a while. My brother had spent February working in Paris, so I thought perhaps Joe and I could take our work on the road, too. I figured it would be a piece of cake to find a place to rent for a few weeks in Stockholm, which turned out to be dead wrong; there don't seem to be a lot of short-term rentals in that city, like there are in Paris and London. However, a relative had finally found one.
Despite the fact that I had experienced less anxiety than usual on our flights, I wasn't particularly keen on the idea of planning another trip right away. And yet, I had to decide fairly quickly what to do. It's always been a dream of mine to "divide my time" -- you know, like you frequently see in author bios on book jackets: "Sue Grafton divides her time between Montecito, California, and Louisville, Kentucky." My parents divide their time between Michigan and Florida. Of course, the difference is that (a) Grafton is fabulously wealthy and (b) my parents are retired; we are neither. This venture would entail some financial sacrifice on our part.
Still, I really liked the idea of living in a different place as opposed to simply vacationing -- really getting to experience another city as a resident instead of a tourist. Granted, I'm pretty familiar with Stockholm, having spent a lot of time there over the years, but I've only been there twice in the past decade and both of those trips were on the brief side. So we decided to go for it, and we're going to spend the entire month of August living in the Östermalm neighborhood in Stockholm. We're both going to be working, and hopefully having fun, too.
What will it be like to spend a whole month in another country? Considering the current exchange rate, will we be able to afford to eat anything other than knäckebröd? Stay tuned to find out! I'm going to try to blog every single day in August (don't laugh -- I said try) with stories, photos and reports. I hope it will turn out to be an entertaining and informative log. |
posted by 125records @ 4:34 PM  |
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| 3 Comments: |
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A few years ago I lived for five months in Berlin, Germany. Although the personal circumstances around it were dodgy -- I moved there with my girlfriend, with whom I broke up almost immediately upon arriving, but since she was the German-speaking one I was still dependent on her and indeed we lived together for the whole time I was there -- but nevertheless I look back on it as one of the most vivid and interesting parts of my life. There's just something really great and interesting about living somewhere long enough to feel more or less at home, but still being enough of an outsider to feel like you're on vacation. I hope you have a blast! And I'm looking forward to reading your posts.
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Are you sure the hypnotist didn't just make you believe you're going to Sweden, when in reality you'll be vacationing in Hoboken?
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I love traveling and my lottery fantasy is to have houses all over the world. I would like to really get to know some foreign places.
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A few years ago I lived for five months in Berlin, Germany. Although the personal circumstances around it were dodgy -- I moved there with my girlfriend, with whom I broke up almost immediately upon arriving, but since she was the German-speaking one I was still dependent on her and indeed we lived together for the whole time I was there -- but nevertheless I look back on it as one of the most vivid and interesting parts of my life. There's just something really great and interesting about living somewhere long enough to feel more or less at home, but still being enough of an outsider to feel like you're on vacation. I hope you have a blast! And I'm looking forward to reading your posts.