As
I type, it is almost exactly twenty four
hours until I depart for Heathrow and begin my
Swedish adventure. This evening, I have been for a farewell meal with my parents, grandparents
and two of my cousins. The result
of this was me being the biggest sponge, as my family kindly all chipped in for
my meal, gave me the £5 change (which we laughingly decided will probably
equate to about half a pint/a small tube of cheese in the notoriously
expensive Scandinavian country for which I am bound) and my grandparents
presented me with a generous financial contribution in the
twee-est of envelopes. I feel that I
should be at least a little emotional after these most generous of
goodbyes yet I am not upset in the slightest because, quite simply, I don’t yet
really believe that I am actually going.
This disbelief is perhaps rooted in the fact
that I have not yet even begun to pack, that I’ve not sorted any insurance/finances/medical
details and that it has been less than twelve hours since I returned
from a fairly raucous fortnight in Zante. I am exhausted and, in all honesty, all I
want is a day in bed to catch up on the two weeks of sleep and trash TV
that I have missed. I do, however,
realise that this mindset is both completely ungrateful and unhelpful
so I have scoured the internet for things to
get excited about. (This is the kind of
great prioritising you’ll get used to – despite an endless
‘To Do’ list of administrative nightmares, here I am
blogging and Googling. It doesn’t bode
well.)
1)
Friday
Nights. Apparently
on the fifth night of the week, when you buy a drink, many bars provide
free food. Firstly, as an
avid eater and a terrible financial manager, I am
never going to turn down free food. Secondly, this uncannily resembles
ones of my favourite Plymouth institutions which was, of course,
the free barbeque at Ride
on a Friday evening.
And thirdly, well, I don’t need a third: Free.
Food.
2)
The Röhsska Museum of Fashion, Design and
Decorative Arts. As
a self-confessed, and probably slightly pretentious, lover of fashion
and novelty kitchen items in equal measure, I am very keen
to visit this place, which sounds like utter heaven. My slightly dubious online information
source also promises a vast collection of restored
knitwear. Shoes and food gadgets
and textile creation all under one roof? Please, just get me there now.
3) Christmas. I love the festive season even at the very
worst of times, yet I have high hopes that yuletide in Gothenburg
will be amongst the most magical I experience. It’ll be properly cold, meaning
the opportunity for proper festive knitwear,
the lights are apparently spectacular and then there’s the famous Liseberg Christmas
market, offering up large glasses of glögg (mulled wine) all round,
or so I hear. Goteborg.com
also refers to itself as The Christmas City and, I promise,
that is more than enough for me.
There are, I'm sure, many
other attractions and traditions lurking within
Sweden’s second largest city which I cannot wait to discover but,
for now, simply the promise of food, fashion and festivity has stirred
some excitement and that is all I need. Now,
it is time for goodnight and soon for goodbye, to England at least.
