Saturday 16 August 2008

Home and Sweden


Well, home at last and a well deserved break from travel and all it's associated stresses. It's always great to get home after travelling, but generally speaking the initial excitement of seeing everyone starts to pale soon enough, and the latest edition of the Irish "Summer" certainly doesn’t help.

There is the odd ray of sunshine though, and a drive through Connemara in the evening light is a good way to appreciate it. Even if it looks like some of the locals don't welcome the intrusion.

After some r+r at home, its was time for another mini trip to Sweden, which almost didn’t happen for Martin who couldn’t remember the safe place he had carefully left his passport, the day of the flight. Unfortunately, the weather in Stockholm was only marginally better than that we left behind, though we did have one afternoon without rain, and despite Martin's expression, the city was an interesting place to spend a few days.


Even if we didn't do much more than eat, drink and be merry. The old town area was especially pretty. And the locals were generally pretty friendly, especially when accosted and plied with food at 5am, and their English was quite amazing, some even having completely Irish accents to boot. Still, I can't help feeling on the whole that the Baltics offer a better deal for an extended break than Scandinavia. So after a brief stopover to catch up with Mr Dave and friends in Glasgow, it was back home and preparing to board the coffin ship. Sorry, Qantas plane.

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