It was a FINE CRUISE.

Ahoy hoy!

It's been long enough that I'm not sure exactly what to say or write about. I'm currently stationed in Stockholm, where I'll stay until the 21st before flying back to Paris, and then home to Seattle on the 23rd. The last....week? has been a whirlwind, and time continues to move forward in an odd fashion that is somehow both very fast and very slow.

The trainride from Grenoble to Paris was no trouble, and getting back to Olin's was a little bit like coming home, knowing how to take the metro and get into the building and all. After Leo and I hung out for a bit, I headed off to bed to get a good night sleep before my very, very, very long bus ride. I got to the bus station with an hour to spare, as directed, and got myself a coffee and a pain au chocolat for breakfast, as well as a (as I would later discover) very unappetizing sandwich. The next 23 hours passed in a haze, spent on an overheated (23C!) bus. The woman next to me through all of France and Belgium was really nice. German born, living in Paris for 20 years. She exited at Cologne.

Somewhere in Germany I was joined by a way-too-forward new friend who didn't speak any English but tried his best to be charming in French. He was a talker. Which gets to be a little awkward when you don't speak the same language. We tried for a while, had his (actually cute) friend translate a tiny bit since he actually knew some English, and for the most part I ignored him til we parted at Hamburg a few hours later. You can tell from the picture how....comfortable....I look.

In reality, the busride was probably one of the most mutli-cultural, multi-national experiences I've ever had. I talked (directly or through translation) to people from:

France, Germany, Brussels, America, Russia, Iran, Iraq, Sweden, Mongolia, Korea, England, Algeria, Tunisia, Ghana.

Pretty cool.

Eventually we arrived in Copenhagen, and once I determined that I had no clue how to get to his station by bus, I called Cookie. We decided to meet at the station since we'd have to catch the train to the airport from there anyway. I bought an English-language magazine and a coffee, and an hour or two later Cookie arrived and we were off on our adventure.

After a bit of a walk, we met Shelley at Slussen station, continuing our walk down the waterfront to the Viking Lines docks to meet Per, Shelley's Swedish friend. I can't tell you how much of a comfort it is that Swedes are A. Really, really nice and B. Almost all English-speakers. The four of us (Shelley, Per, Cookie, and me) shared a cabin on the Mariella, a big cruisliner (otherwise known as a glorified ferry with gambling and booze) for two nights round trip to Helsinki. It was a ton of fun! I was glad to have Cookie's familiar face on-board, and Shelley and Per both proved to be great company. The cruise was weird, kind of like a giant floating frat-house. But we kept mostly to our quarters and had a lot of fun people-watching when we left.

So that brings me to now, just about. After arriving in Stockholm and getting to an internet cafe on the 15th, I found a last-minute couch in Brussels, but soon after realized I couldn't get myself there without paying an arm and a leg. A bit of stress and some deliberation later, I came up with a Ryanair flight for 100 USD from Stockholm to Paris on the 21st and the decision to skip my flight to Copenhagen with Cookie. I'm currently crashing with Shelley at the home of the family she babysits for (where she lives), about 30 minutes out of the city by commuter train. We're having a blast. The kids are adorable and the two of us seem to have quite a lot in common. Went to Yoga yesterday and did Bikram for the first time (hot yoga). Quite an experience, even moreso given that the class was taught in Swedish. I came away proud that the instructor rarely had to correct me in English, and I managed to keep up, despite being BY FAR the largest person in the class. Or building. Or maybe that they've ever seen? Swedes are tiny.

Anyway, off I go! Shelley and I are gonna watch Grey's Anatomy at 9.

Love you all.

<3 A