Finland, you maiden in the north-eastern part of Europe. With your 99 years you are becoming an old lady. As today is your birthday of sorts, your independence day, I feel the need to dedicate a few words to you. 99 Years of Finnish Independence A lot has happened in the past 99 years –…
Kära Sverige! Welcome to the story of my life as a foreigner in Sweden, a country known for social democracy, blonde women and fermented Baltic Sea herring. Some people claim that it is the home of Santa Claus. I beg to disagree. For those of you who don’t know, Santa lives in Finland. According to Statistics…
This morning when we woke up the world outside our window was white. Some lazy snow flakes were falling towards the ground. It was the first morning in a long time that the ground was white. Many people think of Sweden as a cold country. Of course it’s true for some parts of the country,…
A few days ago I wrote an article about the wanderlust gene. According to the hypothesis, people who possess this particular gene are extroverts. A little voice in my head objected: “what about me, the introvert?”. And my thoughts wandering. There are times that I doubt the extroverts undertands where I’m coming from. What would…
Once in a while my Facebook feed tells me about articles and news stories on the so-called wanderlust gene. Apparently this is not really new but those stories intrigue me, so I decided to explore this matter a little further. What Is Wanderlust? According to our favorite source of them all, Wikipedia, wanderlust is the “strong…
There comes a time (or several times) in everybody’s life to think about what they should be, or how they should be. I admire two kinds of people, those who are adventurous and those who are brave. Let this be a Friday feelgood post about the way we would like things to be. Whenever I…
It’s (finally) Friday and I thought I’d share some weekend inspiration. August has begun and in my world it means that fall is slowly making its entrance. I find that fall is a season when inspiration strikes. In my world it’s not the beginning of the end, rather it’s always a new beginning. I still…
Hello friends! Today we will share a few tips for all of you who want to travel more. It is not uncommon that people ask us how we find the time and money to do all the traveling that we do. A word or two of comfort, it is not as difficult as it might…
It’s a rainy Saturday and there’s plenty of time for writing and pondering, so let’s talk about a summer of challenges. Before continuing to the actual things I’d like to try this wonderful summer of 2016, let’s focus a while or two on the definition and nature of a good challenge. One of the definitions…
I have always admired people who are well-versed and well-traveled, people who suddenly charm a tired group of souls with their travel stories. Travelling, I think, is partly popular because it gives people to chance to collect these stories, it gives them the opportunity to shine. Travel Stories: The Time I Slept Under a Tree…
It’s time again to summarize weeks 14 and 15. But first, hello people! How are you? Here the sun is finally showing up and we are looking forward to some upcoming trips. This week our only trip was to what is supposed to be the biggest mall in Scandinavia. It’s actually called Mall of Scandinavia….
Let’s talk happy thoughts. In my Facebook feed this morning I saw that the newspaper Hufvudstadsbladet had a poll about the three things that brings you most happiness. Here are my happy thoughts right now – what are yours? Happy Thoughts Right Now Embracing the fact that we do not know everything means that there…