First I went with Frida to her parents place on the countryside. We were there for over two weeks and also visited a friend at Gotland, a small island in front of the Swedish coast. Relaxing, reflecting, finally seeing this beautiful Swedish lake with a sunset.. And looking forward; where do we want to be together, and how, and what do we want to do? On Gotland I finally saw some real sea again! The Swedish coasts are nothing compared to the Netherlands, just rocky. Interesting to look at but not that much enjoyable as the Dutch ones. But at Gotland I got to experience it more. Gotland was strange, Sweden in small it is called. Flat in the south, cold in the north. And a lot of rocks :)

Then my brother Tijl came by and we went backpacking into the forests. As we both never did such a thing before we started carefully, but already within 24 hours we came back and repacked our backpacks :) Then it went better, but I now know I’m more a cyclist.. Canoing on the Swedish lakes with Tijl was fantastic. We went for a full day and slept on one of the islands. We also went to Stockholm, which was a bit strange.. and a lot of fun.

When Tijl went back to the Netherlands, the last week for me and Frida physically together started.. That was a lot harder one. With al the plans in our heads, it still wasn’t easy to cope with. I tried with a party on the last day, which helped a lot in making it a happy after-halfyear-party. Nonetheless, saying goodbye was almost horrible.

Then I traveled to Berlin. A nice trip on a train and ferry where I met a Japanese guy with which I later spent a day in Berlin with. Berlin was really nice. A good atmosphere, lots of bio shops and not such a busy center as for example Amsterdam.

After two days of Berlin I went on to France. There was a nice park in Lyon where I ate my lunch. And then the wonderful week in Rancy, France. I was there with a group from Mens en Spirit (Human and spirit) at La Ripe Blance. Also a lot of ‘down to earth’ stuff, which is really necessary for a spiritual heavy week :) I could reflect a lot on the last half year and life in general. I started a new company which I wanted to do already for some time, Frida helped me knowing that, and the France week helped me starting it. When I left there I knew I would just start. More on that later via the website and maybe the blog as well.

And then at last, the travel back to the Netherlands. Seeing the Eiffel tower in the distance as the train came past Paris and via a beautiful station of Antwerp. Having traveled a lot, I could finally write destination Alkmaar in my interrail log..

On the wall is a quote:

En känsla infinner sig,
en tanke uppstår,
en idé föds.

After reading this, the first weekend here in Sweden, I knew the last sentence and thus the rest a little bit. “En idé föds” is about an idea being born. So, maybe something with chance (känsla) and thought (tanke)? Almost, as känsla is ‘feeling’, not chance. Google translate thought is was like this:

A feeling arises,
a thought occurs,
an idea is born.

Sometimes you’ll hear a piano in the background. In the corridors, next to the filharmonin, there is a piano. Just like now, sometimes somebody comes by and plays it. Just some notes, to practice. But everytime I paused my own music if I was listening, I paused my work, and just watched the trees or the rain through the window next to me. An anonymous piano player and me. The only ones in this place at the moment.

I said goodbye to the cats and my mother. Then my two little brothers went with me to Amsterdam. We ate something, my father joined and we drank the favorite station beverage, chocolate with whipped cream. My father told about how his parents influenced his choice to work or study when he finished high school. As both his parents tried but couldn’t go to study they both encouraged him to study, so he did.

The day before I had a drink with two colleagues at Mediamatic about this topic. One of them was told by her parents to go work at the farm. Then I realised I didn’t know how my parents were influenced by their parents.

Two friends from HKU joined and all waved me out as I left with the night train to Copenhagen. It was funny to notice the large ammounts of snow as we went more to the east. The last week there had been some snow in Alkmaar but in Amsterdam for example you didn’t see any snow. I thought of these people living and working in Amsterdam didn’t know that there was snow in the rest of the country. And I heared that it was minus 19 degrees in Maastricht. Together with the snow we saw when we past Arnhem I realized I didn’t know that the rest of the country had that much snow :)

At Emmerich we got the first customs check. Later at the border of Denmark (at 6.45 a.m….) we got the second. And somewhere half in Denmark we got a third, narcotics this time.

I talked with my roommates and neighbours, we played with the chopstick mikado. Very interesting to play mikado on a train.

One girl was going to study in Sweden as well, now for one week and later for three months. Another guy – Emil, yes as Emil from Astrid Lindgren ;) – from Sweden just came back from a tour through Europe. He planned on traveling to 50 countries before he turned 50. He was at 37 (countries) now, Belgium being the latest addition, Latin America probably being the next.

A guy from Århus, Denmark, joined in Düsseldorf. He was working at energy labels for almost every electrical machine, work for which he traveled to Brussels every month. In Denmark we had a lot of fun with two little girls from Thailand. One was busy with asking us “what are you doing?”, “why are you there?” all the time. With Emil I told them the story of the Rumpnissar in Ronja Rövardotter, saying “Voffor gör di på detta viset?” until it drives you crazy.

And then came Sweden..