The Second Coming

Now on separate flights, arriving in O’Hare within a half-hour of each other. I’m in a speck in the sky, somewhere in the turbulent blogosphere above Lake Superior, typing at four hundred miles per hour, killing time.

We bookended our trip with a return to Paris, walking up and down the stairs of Hotel Bonsejour and receiving help from Aunt Linda and having fun with her and her friends all over again. Here are the pictures. I think that of all the cities we went to, Paris is our favorite.

To anyone who has actually been reading this: thanks for letting us know from time to time that we weren’t just typing into Internet wasteland. We hope that some of our observations had their own merit, and for those who have just been reading along to keep tabs on our whereabouts, we always appreciated that too. With all the interesting things going on in fascinating parts of the world—and in Iowa and New Hampshire—and with all the quality travel and history books that better cover topics and places we’ve touched on, it’s nice that some people (admittedly, people that we know) care that Annalise and I did this, and then that….

Here’s something that’s over-rated about travelling abroad: food and drink is as good as it gets, in the US. This is because not one thing we ate or drank in Europe isn’t imported, somewhere, to a storefront on Clark or Lincoln Avenue in Chicago. So, despite the presence of huge Guinness souvenir stores in Dublin, and the existence of Italian food in, oh, Italy….well, in case it hasn’t been obvious throughout life, you can sample the finest from all European cuisine from within one, big melted pot. We look forward to having everything packed onto the same city block, walking distance from our new apartment, and in a more favorable currency. (Obviously, there are exceptions.)

We’d go again, though, for sights, and perhaps for sounds too. Actually seeing things in 3D, hearing the funny accents in person, and covering miles upon miles of museums, languages and people makes you feel like you belong to a collection of places, and not to just some small cloud of space surrounding an arbitrary A-B daily commute, but to a bigger world. The depth and breadth of travel scope this sense of belonging, and, in the end, we feel good with our scoping of Western Europe. Moreover, becoming transplantable by virtue of constant relocation sometimes feels like being freed of everything that makes life seem to go by fast: routines, backdrops, possessions, stability, “other plans,” and attachments to things overall. I think we both hope to do something like this again.

We also hope to continue this blog, though make no promises. There may, at the very least, be some pictures from time to time, so check in now and again.

Boy, we still don’t need to put our tray tables up. According to my watch, we should land in 20 minutes. I’ll probably be the second one of us to arrive.

Diminishing Distances

The presence of close family, ubiquitous spoken English, modern buildings and the rootedness of eight full days…Britain seemed familiar. It was nice to see Ida so much; I hadn’t shared a room with her in fifteen years. Without the constant interruption of her cell phone, the whole dynamic changes—she didn’t scurry away, spur of the moment, to talk to her friends for 30 minutes.

We spent as much time at restaurants with Mom, Ida and Jeff as sightseeing, and I mean that in a very good way. It was great to talk to them. And Mom and Jeff were super-generous, covering our hotel, and many meals and sights—no easy feat when everything is double-price. Here’s an idea of how expensive London is: used a credit card to pay for one, one-way, intra-downtown Tube ticket; got billed by Chase for $10.68. Granted, that’s the extreme example, but we still can’t wait to return to Chicago, where we’ll never need to double or three-half prices.

Our hotel was near the other Hyde Park. Saw a show on our telly called “Can fat teens hunt?” The answer is yes.

Big Ben was smaller than I imagined; for Annalise it was bigger. Thanks to TV and photos, so much of sightseeing is just 3Dseeing (especially for places that you can’t go into). Westminster and St. Paul’s were very expensive, the museums were free. Jesus would be speechless. The pubs were disappointing. No chimney sweeps, or even monopoly men with monocles. Pure Baltic Avenue, really. Most closed at 11:30, and many beers were watered down. And British beers, when not transformed into sink water, aren’t all that great anyway, at least not compared to where we’ve come from.

Oh, I’m just nackered from taking the mickey while bonking a bloke’s fish fingers.

In less than 24 hours we’ll be in a new apartment, with our own loo. Until then, mind the gap.

Pictures!

Stockholm stuffers

Sorry for the delay in posting. The title is Annalise's.

So, Sweden. Sweden was great. Another few days totally different from all our previous ones. Can’t believe Sweden was six days ago, and we arrive in Chicago in six days.

We were put up perfectly, that was the most remarkable thing. I mean perfect. We’ve never had more accommodating hosts on this trip, or perhaps ever, than Marshall and Pia.

To give you an idea: 1) They cooked for us all the time and paid for everything 2.) When I was nervous I had lost my USB drive, Pia searched the laundry room and even opened the vacuum cleaner bag to make sure it was nowhere to be found 3.) They gave up their own beds for five nights, absolutely refusing to sleep anywhere but on cots in the study. 4.) They bought us flavored vodka. 5.) Marshall met us at Stockholm Central station. 6.) When we weren’t looking, our laundry had been done.

We are grateful for their tremendous hospitality.

And we had fun! We drank so much vodka. I ate reindeer. Blitzen, I think. He tasted like steak. Marshall talked to me about Linux computing, the family and a few other things.

Spent a day in Stockholm. Stockholm is a balanced city, straddling eastern and western Europe, juggling neighborhoods old and new without making it obvious. (We tried to take more pictures, but they weren’t coming out at 2:30 p.m. To put the paradox in Marshall’s vocabulary, the capital city is both ‘fine’ and ‘grim.’)

This was Christmas, by the way. Trekking around Europe, we barely noticed Christmas coming. We were even less aware when it showed up. Now it’s done. Apparently it’s winter in Chicago, but it hasn’t been cold in Europe. Right now it’s about forty degrees in London, which is what it was in Sweden.

We flew Ryanair to London from Stockholm. It was about $30 per person. Only 1342 catches. Here’s a few:

Upon arrival to the airport, we had to pay $3 processing fees. The airport is an 80 minute bus ride from Stockholm, and these busses cost money. The destination airport is 60 minutes bus ride from London.

Final two: the flight left at 6:20 a.m., and we could only bring one small carry-on bag each without incurring a hefty extra fee.

This meant that we had to stay up all night, taking a bus at 2 a.m. from Marshall and Pia’s to Stockholm Central station, taking another bus at 3:25, getting to the airport around 4:45. And, to shed luggage, I transformed into a suitcase myself. I wore two pairs of pants, three pairs of socks, two T-shirts, three button-ups and all seven of my boxers. This left hardly any clothes, the remainder of which I crammed into my laptop bag and coat pockets. I looked fat and mean and wasn’t messed with. Annalise doubled-up on some items and, between the two of us, we cut to two bags total without leaving anything behind but lotions.

Now we are in London, which is for another post. We saw a TV show last night called “Can fat teens hunt?” Can reality TV get more real than this?

Pictures.

Denmarkable

Wrote this awhile ago, it's unedited too.

On the train to Stockholm. The Swedish train is amazing. For example: It has Internet on board! I’m not going to use it because I don’t need it right now and it costs money, but wow.

Our man in Copenhagen, Mr. Lewis Lebolt, my second-cousin, was the host with most. He took us on tours of the city, and to a movie (“I’m not There” – another Bob Dylan biopic) and a fine dining experience. We could not have been treated any better.

Lewis was also as great of company as you’d expect from someone who works nights doling drugs to inpatients at a psychiatric ward. Really good stories.

We saw the sights as well, including a quality art museum, Tivoli gardens, a tower and some harbors. And we caught up with our mutually favorite professor from Carleton, Professor Keiser, and his family, the Keiser’s.

Their daughter Alanna, who was seven when we used to babysit her, is now ten. Her precocity is astounding, almost creepy, like the discomfort you get watching a movie like Baby Geniuses, where babies wear professor glasses and talk like adults. When asked how she likes Copenhagen, her reply was accompanied by gestures, like she was a debate team champion: “Well, at Sibley [school back in Northfield], I felt we learned more, and it is quite an adjustment to go to such a different school here. But it’s the differences that make my experiences interesting.”

What can I say about Copenhagen? There are a lot of things to say, but it’s not coming to me. We’re overtired, since the only train available left at 6:23 this morning. But there are things that made this turn in our trip unique, as with most our other turns. It seems nearly every 1-5 day stint diverges from the prior one—from all the previous stopovers.

One thing we’ve noticed is that we are completely, thoroughly used to traveling. It seems I could do this the rest of my life, train around everywhere, showering less, sleeping less, and leaving freshly finished books in no name train towns like the dot we just left midway up the west coast of Sweden. It’s not that I, or we, want to do this much longer. In fact, we don’t. But we could, and I for one never imagined getting used to regular relocation.

What’s the gain of this, aside from the trite but true visceral understanding of how big and old the world is, and especially Europe? It seems the ability to be fully transplantable is, in itself, something. I imagine that living like this forever, not ever belonging to any place or having any place belong to you, leads to disassociation with possession in general. What you spend money on is transient: train tickets, museum tickets, food. What you can see or talk to, what moves around you and outside of your control, is, inevitably, what’s of interest and possible meaning.

There’s things I’m not used to, like reconnecting with family members I don’t know that well at the same time as foreign places spin around our heads. They kind of blend into a novelty factor, like the Duomo in Florence, the interesting Carleton Thanksgiving outside Rome, a dancing woman in a glass cube in Prague and a train with Internet. People live in Paris. People live in Amsterdam. People live in Brugge and Rome and Naples and Chambery and Vienna, and all these people are different and the same. People live in Copenhagen, and Lewis Lebolt, my dad’s cousin and friend, and my second-cousin and now friend, is one of them. But just like all the people and places above, it’s not like I’ll be back in Copenhagen anytime soon. And it’s not like these places and people are novelty factor to themselves, it's just our moving vantage point. Am I making any sense?

It’s comfortable knowing that things are coming to a close. For example, I could ditch our train passes here if I wanted. Though they don’t expire until 12/27, we’re not going to go by rail any time before then. It’s all family from here on out, except for four days in Paris. We will always have Paris (Lewis, Annalise and I watched Casablanca in Copenhagen.)

Anyway, things are going great and we’re in good hands. Marshall’s meeting us at the train station in Stockholm. I am apprehensive about the snow I see, since I’m still sporting my unzipped jacket.

Here are some pictures.