For the majority of the year, a trip to Stockholm has been at the very top of my bucket list. I've said it before and I'll say it again, no man has ever accomplished anything without a true sense of determination, and in regards to my travels, well, I moved out here for a reason. My first attempt at making this trip happen was back in April, but my plans fell through as I ended up going to France instead with a couple of newfound friends. Although that trip was one for the books, it also resulted in a soon-to-be-forgotten interaction. In any case, while away with work in October I came across a dirt cheap return flight with Ryanair for 30 euros, naturally, I couldn't pass it up.
Nevertheless, throughout the duration of the trip and even before there were many occurrences and influences that made the entirety of my visit feel somewhat, out of place, for a lack of a better means of description. First of all, although I had notified my bosses that I would be away traveling to another country, I was basically told I wasn't allowed to so, in response to that I basically said, "okay, yeah sure" and found myself with added motivation to make the trip in spite of their attitude, and of course, I did. The whole situation at my workplace isn't necessarily the best nor happiest it could be, but more on that later. Although the untimely feeling during the trip was a product of my job, there were also various things I did, or didn't do while I was there, consequently, I returned to Germany with a huge voided feeling and a desire to further explore Sweden.
On a brighter note though, from beginning to end I met a collection of people that made my travels more than worthwhile. The night before my flight's early departure, I decided to take a train down to Munich and spend the night and party it up a bit since I had to leave from a nearby airport anyways. That very night I met several Americans that were either traveling or working here in Germany, and of course it resulted in an intriguing exchange of experiences and stories we had all compiled during our time as expatriates. That night I also ended up going out alone and ended up at a pre-game bar named Sausalitos. The crowd consisted of lots of young people of different cultural backgrounds hitting up the early Bavarian nightlife and lubricating their social skills with an expansive selection of cocktails mixed by some relatively skilled bartenders (mind you, with skill comes higher prices.) While there I actually ended up meeting a really cool South American girl named Claudia. She was very kind and was more than happy to integrate me with her local friends from the city. After a few hours, I made my way back to the hotel, and before I knew it I was on a plane to Stockholm.
Of the many things I learned about the city itself, some of the things that stood out and I made note of were that a) it gets dark extremely early, the sun is already almost down by 3:30PM at this time of year! b) the Stockholmare find their own hometown to be extremely boring, and this notion is manifested into the fact that the only true party nights are Friday and Saturday and c) it is utterly and immensely true what they say about the aesthetics of the town and its people, truly beautiful. Wow....let me say that again, wow! I mean, THIS is considered ordinary and very common to see if you walk around the densely populated shopping areas and parks. Anywhere else, it's fair to say it's a rare occurrence or they've simply been arranged. Fucking incredible. I should also note that, off the bat anyone would consider a society with abundant beauty to be extremely stuck-up and pretentious, but the truth is that it is in fact the complete opposite. The locals are very, VERY welcoming and are more than happy to indulge in interaction with foreigners...of course it never hurts being good-looking ;) haha
In all seriousness though, although I had various and meaningful interactions while in Sweden, I still came back with a desire to learn more about Stockholm and the country as a whole. I fully expect to return in the near future. I think that part of the reason why I also came back feeling as if I had unfinished business is because Friday night consisted of me drinking profusely, I wasn't even aware that I had drank so much. It all happened as if I had too much too fast, and blacked out before I even made it out the door that night haha. I was fortunate to have made two very good friends in my hotel though, they took me back and settled me in properly and spent/wasted the night and the majority of Saturday (day) sleeping off a horrible hangover. I would just like to proclaim that my drinking levels are soon to decrease significantly, and that my return to Sweden will deserve its very own blog post.
In other developments, although I was due to fly home about 12 hours from this very moment, I was told by my job that my vacation dates were to be changed and rescheduled for administrative reasons. In reality what this means is that they decided to figuratively shaft me in the asshole with a bean-stock sized throbbing penis and fuck up all of my plans as well as those everyone else had made that was counting on seeing me while in the US. I would like to offer everyone my most sincerest apologies for the sudden and untimely change of plans, however, I did in fact reschedule my dates and will be home from December 5th until December 20th. I decided not to spend the actual Christmas and New Year's holidays back home because I already had plans to host my good friend James who will be flying all the way from California to spend approximately 12 days with me here in Germany. Furthermore, I would have already had the majority of those next 12-14 days off anyways, so it would be senseless to practically waste perfectly good vacation days on days I will already be off from work; this will enable me to accrue more vacation days in 2012 and come home again a few months after the holidays.
I also have a few more updates on the whole on-going quarrels with my job that I wrote about here. There are some pretty big moves that are tentative at the moment, but could very well define the next few months or years of my life, but I'll write about it in a few weeks when the time is more appropriate. I'm sure I'm leaving out several other things I had the intention of writing about, hopefully I'll get to it in an upcoming post. Lastly, thank you everyone for being so understanding and cooperative with and of me these last few weeks, I know that things have been relatively tumultuous, but I am determined to figure things out and make it all work out for the best, one way or another. Oh yeah, and don't forget to follow me on twitter ;) Cheers all!
Nevertheless, throughout the duration of the trip and even before there were many occurrences and influences that made the entirety of my visit feel somewhat, out of place, for a lack of a better means of description. First of all, although I had notified my bosses that I would be away traveling to another country, I was basically told I wasn't allowed to so, in response to that I basically said, "okay, yeah sure" and found myself with added motivation to make the trip in spite of their attitude, and of course, I did. The whole situation at my workplace isn't necessarily the best nor happiest it could be, but more on that later. Although the untimely feeling during the trip was a product of my job, there were also various things I did, or didn't do while I was there, consequently, I returned to Germany with a huge voided feeling and a desire to further explore Sweden.
On a brighter note though, from beginning to end I met a collection of people that made my travels more than worthwhile. The night before my flight's early departure, I decided to take a train down to Munich and spend the night and party it up a bit since I had to leave from a nearby airport anyways. That very night I met several Americans that were either traveling or working here in Germany, and of course it resulted in an intriguing exchange of experiences and stories we had all compiled during our time as expatriates. That night I also ended up going out alone and ended up at a pre-game bar named Sausalitos. The crowd consisted of lots of young people of different cultural backgrounds hitting up the early Bavarian nightlife and lubricating their social skills with an expansive selection of cocktails mixed by some relatively skilled bartenders (mind you, with skill comes higher prices.) While there I actually ended up meeting a really cool South American girl named Claudia. She was very kind and was more than happy to integrate me with her local friends from the city. After a few hours, I made my way back to the hotel, and before I knew it I was on a plane to Stockholm.
Of the many things I learned about the city itself, some of the things that stood out and I made note of were that a) it gets dark extremely early, the sun is already almost down by 3:30PM at this time of year! b) the Stockholmare find their own hometown to be extremely boring, and this notion is manifested into the fact that the only true party nights are Friday and Saturday and c) it is utterly and immensely true what they say about the aesthetics of the town and its people, truly beautiful. Wow....let me say that again, wow! I mean, THIS is considered ordinary and very common to see if you walk around the densely populated shopping areas and parks. Anywhere else, it's fair to say it's a rare occurrence or they've simply been arranged. Fucking incredible. I should also note that, off the bat anyone would consider a society with abundant beauty to be extremely stuck-up and pretentious, but the truth is that it is in fact the complete opposite. The locals are very, VERY welcoming and are more than happy to indulge in interaction with foreigners...of course it never hurts being good-looking ;) haha
In all seriousness though, although I had various and meaningful interactions while in Sweden, I still came back with a desire to learn more about Stockholm and the country as a whole. I fully expect to return in the near future. I think that part of the reason why I also came back feeling as if I had unfinished business is because Friday night consisted of me drinking profusely, I wasn't even aware that I had drank so much. It all happened as if I had too much too fast, and blacked out before I even made it out the door that night haha. I was fortunate to have made two very good friends in my hotel though, they took me back and settled me in properly and spent/wasted the night and the majority of Saturday (day) sleeping off a horrible hangover. I would just like to proclaim that my drinking levels are soon to decrease significantly, and that my return to Sweden will deserve its very own blog post.
In other developments, although I was due to fly home about 12 hours from this very moment, I was told by my job that my vacation dates were to be changed and rescheduled for administrative reasons. In reality what this means is that they decided to figuratively shaft me in the asshole with a bean-stock sized throbbing penis and fuck up all of my plans as well as those everyone else had made that was counting on seeing me while in the US. I would like to offer everyone my most sincerest apologies for the sudden and untimely change of plans, however, I did in fact reschedule my dates and will be home from December 5th until December 20th. I decided not to spend the actual Christmas and New Year's holidays back home because I already had plans to host my good friend James who will be flying all the way from California to spend approximately 12 days with me here in Germany. Furthermore, I would have already had the majority of those next 12-14 days off anyways, so it would be senseless to practically waste perfectly good vacation days on days I will already be off from work; this will enable me to accrue more vacation days in 2012 and come home again a few months after the holidays.
I also have a few more updates on the whole on-going quarrels with my job that I wrote about here. There are some pretty big moves that are tentative at the moment, but could very well define the next few months or years of my life, but I'll write about it in a few weeks when the time is more appropriate. I'm sure I'm leaving out several other things I had the intention of writing about, hopefully I'll get to it in an upcoming post. Lastly, thank you everyone for being so understanding and cooperative with and of me these last few weeks, I know that things have been relatively tumultuous, but I am determined to figure things out and make it all work out for the best, one way or another. Oh yeah, and don't forget to follow me on twitter ;) Cheers all!
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| A Swedish dusk as seen from Old Town Stockholm |
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