Hej!
That’s hello in Swedish, just in case you didn’t know – often repeated twice… thankfully, I arrived last night, after the passport trauma of Monday (well, my forgetfulness, more like!). Yesterday wasn’t without another ‘hiccup’ – I have an ‘old people’s’ computer bag – one on wheels! – and always attach my rucksack by it’s purposely designed strap to my computer bag ‘puller’. Well, clearly I didn’t do the connection right yesterday, and I happily sailed through the priority’ lane  🙂 and got to security – without my rucksack! Once again, panic – airlines tell you to put ‘valuables’ in your hand luggage, and mine had my ‘cannot-be-without’ iPod in it, headphones, phones (I always take extra phones with me for ‘local’ SIM cards in whatever country I’m in), books, and much more…

I went back to where you get your passport and boarding pass scanned and asked to be let out to look for it. You can’t do that, apparently! It needs a ‘manager’ to come and check you out, and it takes at least 15 minutes to get one…. everyone (except me, I guess) seemed very relaxed, blase, about it… and it was a good 10 minutes before I was reunited with it! So, two things that have never happened before happened within 36 hours of each other on the same trip….

….I’m praying that it’s a good sign for this trip, that any attempt to stop me failed (though not without anguish!), and I arrived here at the lovely home of my dear friends

Stojan and Soila Gajicki (Serbian and Finnish, if you’re wondering if they’re Swedish names! – and I go to Vello & Ingalill Vaim tomorrow, Estonian and Norwegian! Yes, there are Swedes in Sweden!!). I’ve not seen any of them for about 4 years, so we had a wonderful evening and morning catching up, and talking about the possibilities of future trips together.

The view from my bedroom window here is one that causes me to suffer for the Kingdom… 😉 – such a beautiful lake, just slightly down the slope from Stojan’s sauna, so generally it’s into the sauna, then a run down the hill into the lake, then back into the sauna…. trouble is, running – or even the slope dwon to the sauna and lake – isn’t something attainable -YET – with my knees, but again, soon, I know….