We have a few new folks in my group and one of them said today, “Oh wow, you’re already back! That’s nuts! Who goes to Stockholm for a long weekend?”
Nuts ‘R Us, apparently. I love these quick flyby trips to far-off places, and it’s my preferred way of traveling (here’s a link to my post about that very topic.) I can’t imagine me taking two weeks off from work in a row, my job is just not set up for that kind of time away. But I’m able to carve out long-ish weekends fairly often, traveling around a holiday or adding a few days on either end of a weekend.
One upside is that I get to see lots of places in the world, if not for very long. The way I make this work for me is to relax into the (really very true) fact that if I love a place, I can always come back. If you pressure yourself to see everything and hit all the tourist spots, cultural monuments, and historical highlights in a teensy trip you’ll be dead by mid-afternoon.
On our last full day in Stockholm we had the option to go see the modern art museum …and I really REALLY love modern and contemporary art. My home is a shrine to Scandinavian modernism. Passing up a modern art opportunity is painful for me. But the day was beautiful and the city was humming and we decided instead to go for a boat tour of the harbor followed by a long walk to get the alleged best hotdog in all of Stockholm. It was a perfect day. I don’t regret spending the afternoon walking hand-in-hand through the inviting city streets. Yeah, we missed our chance to see the museum on this trip but it gives us something to add to our wish list, a lovely page in our future travel book.
Today: Had lunch with C. over at the commissary and even though I usually dread all work lunches, it was great chatting with her about every topic under the sun. A really good day.
