Something I wrote a few months ago...

It’s odd to me this is a truly public medium of communication, so theoretically anyone who had a mind to look up a Sam would find this one. Though I’ve heard neither news reports nor any other great to-do made about my annuals, analysis, or musings here. In truth it seems like I have a subscription of one, not exactly enough to sell ads at this point. I do hope this isn’t seen as a complaint, I think you have to be far more extrovert then myself to truly be comfortable expressing yourself into the ether. I guess that’s all an excuse of why I have not tended this space better and written here more often. Maybe it would help if I knew some of friends keep them as well so we could blog together, but as yet I’ve not known many. Nor is writing here something I think I could do in a group. Whatever the reason, I’m just not much of a blogger, not to suggest this is the last entry but to explain the infrequency of my past entries and the possible intermittent postings in the future.

Well what is there not to report since, my last post? I’ve crossed a good portion of Western Europe, flew across the North Sea, and crossed the Atlantic Ocean twice, in general not bad.

Sweden was amazingly beautiful. I had to take a bus to the airport I was flying out of so that allowed me to see the countryside outside Stockholm. There was trees everywhere, which coming from Spain was a great shock and when you were out in the countryside there was stereotypical postcard type scenes every where with the red barns and grain fields. Stockholm itself was very beautiful with the old town in the middle of the bay and the new sections to the north and south of it. I had the opportunity to see a few of the museums, most specifically the Vassa Museum which has a ship from the thirty’s years war(circa 1630). It didn’t even make it out of Stockholm’s harbor before being sunk by a big wind. Because it went down in the Baltic sea it was well preserved. Sweden used to be ruled by Denmark until it broke away under the leadership of the first king of Sweden named Gustave. I went to see Sweden because I’d heard it was socialist’s paradise (thank you Econ-professor at Kenyon) what I found was no one living on the street and a city that was amazing clean and pleasant. I was fortunate enough to stay with a woman I knew from Kenyon who is married to a Swedish fellow who were nice enough to let me stay in their house for the duration of my time. Half of the reason I enjoyed Sweden so much was because they were great hosts.

From Sweden I took a flight to Dublin Ireland. It was the first time I’d been in an English speaking country in 7 months, it was weird. I could get over the fact people would pass me on the street and they would be speaking English. It was reverse culture shock and took some getting used to. I only spent one night in Dublin and from there I went to Galway for two nights. It’s a university town on the western side of Ireland. It was a cool town with a lot of bars that play traditional Irish music and plenty of tourists swarming all over the place. I’d never seen so many Americans abroad until I got to Ireland. Unfortunately we’re really easy to spot most of the time.

From Galway I headed back to Dublin where I met up with a boyfriend of a good friend of mine. He’s a native Irishman, so he was able to show me around to a few places. We spent the Thursday night I was there hanging with a few people from his work and talking a lot. He’s a real cool guy even though he and I don’t exactly agree on the whole spiritual nature of life. I stumbled home at about 4 am and had to get up around 9am to eat breakfast and make it to the airport. Man getting to the airport was rough, I felt like crap combined with the lack of sleep, it was not pleasant. I slept a good portion of the way back to the states, all in all it was a pretty uneventful flight.

It was a quiet homecoming, though my Mom true to form was there to collect me from the airport. It was great to see her and find out how she’s been. There is one thing to hear about how life is going over the phone, there is a whole other to have it come into your present reality. My Mom was doing well and it is always great to pontificate with her about whatever’s on my mind. A lot of travels and consequences were still ringing in my ears, so I was a buzz with those.

I spent about an entire week not wanting to do anything. In theory I was looking for a job, but in truth I wasn’t trying very hard. I ultimately was able to get a hold of a friend of the family who owns a painting business and needed help to finish his end of season work. He was in need enough to hire a novice like myself for a month. I worked for about two and half weeks for the four weeks I was home. It was fairly long days by comparison with what I was used to but it was nice to be of use to someone else other then just myself for once. I’ve never been part of a crew that was so focused on a task, I felt like the slacker for wanting to take the occasional break, where I’m usually the one with his nose to the grindstone.