5/9 – The blonde goes African – or what’s wrong with home?

What am I up to here really? Rushing around to places like Wyoming, Brazil, New Mexico, Argentina and Rome. Having tickets booked for Istanbul and can’t let go of the thought of sailing in the Caribbean in January, hiking in Bhutan in March or bringing my purple beauty on a road trip to Croatia. Or why not getting back to places like Wanaka, Melbourne and Mendoza as quickly as possible?

What happened to home? And what happened to Sweden? Does everything need to happen so far away? Do I sound like my mother now?

Got a real eye opener just before my last offshore hitch. Just when I thought I’d run out of social quota and when my packed schedule seemed to slide more and more towards the just-too-much end of the scale instead of the fun-with-a-lot-of-things-planned end, I decided to try and recharge my batteries in Gothenburg with some top-quality social company. Just the train ride to get there made my blood pressure come down to an acceptable level and once I was sitting on my friend’s sofa with a beer in my hand I started to come back to civilization again.

The next day was spent in the pristine archipelago of Gothenburg. Hard to admit for someone who’s always spent the summers in the archipelago of Stockholm, but Gothenburg has got some good stuff as well, really. Fresh seafood and bubbles for dinner didn’t make the day any worse.

A couple of days later, southern Sweden kept on climbing on my want-to-visit list. After a morning dip by the beach in Magnarp, breakfast while watching butterflies and a quiet stroll watching cows and horses – eh, ok, a one year old was involved in those animal activities there – I took the bike for a de-tour on my way back to Copenhagen. Lunch in the harbour of Höganäs, coffee in picturesque Mölle and an amazing ride up to the lighthouse in Kullens National Reserve. Tarmac smooth enough for roller skis and this fantastic light you get when driving through a forest in sunshine. Conclusion, Sweden shouldn’t have to wait until I’ve bought myself a camper van and retired from working. Think I need to fit a couple of road trips in north from here in between the far-away-land plans. 

Having said that, at this very moment, the bags are almost packed, weird looking toy money has found their spot in my wallet and the Malaria prescription has been changed out for a whole bunch of white pills. Extra memory card and cleaning kit for my favourite toy has been purchased and packed together with the tri-pod. A high-clearance pick-up (fingers crossed for a Hilux), tent, camping kitchen and hostel for the first night in Windhoek have also been sorted. In other words, feels like I’m pretty set for the trip of the year and I’m sure Namibia will show Andy and me it’s very best sides during the next few weeks. Can’t wait to see the sand dunes in sunrise, spot some big game at a water hole, watch the wrecks along the Skeleton Coast and visit some villages where people live in a different era still. Counting on returning with thousands of photos, even more memories and hopefully some good stories to share.

And even if there’s absolutely nothing wrong with Sweden at all, I’ll keep my travels through home country on the to-do-list for another little while… Next year perhaps… Or the one after that… 

23/8 – How hard can it be? #3 – Just wanted a notebook.

The May weekend in Rome was supposed to be about food, wine, photography and coffee. Not about iPods, smartphones, laptops, GPSs and all other sorts of gadgets. Except for the camera, the only device allowed to come along was my mobile. Not sure my faithful black w810i would be called a mobile really these days, but I’ll stick to it until it totally collapses or I’ve got infected by the iPhone bug like everyone else.

Thus, no laptop was packed for the trip and thus nowhere to make notes, like the draft for this blog entry for example, or the rest of the Rome story – which is still to come, I know. Didn’t have much stationary available at home either since the majority of my things were still packed away in moving boxes back in May. In other words, not much of handbag size to write on to bring along. No worries, I’ll just get a notebook at the airport to use during the weekend, easy as that…I thought.

First try, tax free shop – Not much of suitable size to write on in there and would be too hard to keep the flimsy perfume paper strips in the right order for a whole weekend. Could be an interesting concept for another trip though.

Second try, newspaper stand – Exclusive moleskin notebooks for half a fortune only, more suitable for the middle-aged businessman to match his briefcase and fancy pen, i.e. not for me.

Third try, toy store – “No, sorry, only colouring in books.” Hm…back-up plan perhaps.

Fourth try, book store – “A notebook? We’ll get more in next week, what size screen were you thinking of?” Ok, salesman working in a different reference system than me.

Started to get a bit frustrated by then, seemed like there was a whole airport without a simple A5 or smaller notepad to be found. At the second newspaper stand, I finally found one, which fulfilled my criteria. And there was only a single one left on the bottom shelf of the rack. Don’t know if that was because there are more people than me who still just like to use a pen and paper for making notes sometimes, or if the poor notepad had been sitting there since the 80’ies or so waiting for a blonde with an urge to use a pen again. Didn’t really matter at the time, because five minutes later I was waiting for the Rome weekend to take off with an enormous Caffe Latte and happy scribbling along on my new notepad. 

How hard can it be? #1

How hard can it be? #2

  

17/8 - Always look on the bright side…

The most positive statement I’ve heard in a long time was made by one of the guys from the 100% British rig crew on my last hitch. When it was announced that we were running out of drinking water, he quite as-a-matter-of-factly concluded, that the only food the galley could make without water would be deep fried food. The 62 Brits onboard must have felt as they were in paradise.