“Would you like some coffee? It's fresh! I made it yesterday..." I just smiled... It was Sunday morning just after six as I stuck my head out of the door opening of de wooden cabin on the camping. I woke up around five in the morning due to the banging and knocking in the cabin next to me. Sleepily I looked at my neighbor. He was cleaning a cloth to get rid of the dust under guidance of music (Schubert!!) and looked at me radiantly. "Now then, my cabin is clean again!"
At six in the morning??
I saw the coffee from yesterday on a boiling plate on the porch. It just so happened I was looking forward to some coffee and Schubert was okay with me as well. "Well, if you insist" I said. "A small cup, because I want to pack my things and step on my bicycle".
An hour and two mugs later - the coffee was actually very good - I knew his life story and that this part of Sweden has the most stable climate of Europe and that just a bit to the east is the center-point of Scandinavia. And there under the ground a huge underground city will be built. Because later when world war three breaks out, everyone flees to Scandinavia. That is, the few hundred Europeans that are left by that time. Because as the rest of Europe will be bombed to peaces with nukes by the Americans, the people that are left can come to this self-sufficient city.
I decided it was time to pack my things and step on my bicycle before UFO's start to land and the dinosaurs are returning...
It's great in Sweden! I arrived at a hair saloon that appeared like a café It was in a village of only five houses. Apparently all the heads had their hair dressed as the hairdresser had some time for a customer that did not want to have her hair done, but wanted to have a cup of coffee. I was even allowed to eat my own lunch on a bench outside if I wanted to. Maybe I should let her do my hair when I'm on my way back home...
The thing that isn't just great but fantastic: all the wild animals you get to see: I spotted four moose among which was a mother and a calve, about seven deer, a fox, three squirrels, two mice and four dead snakes (which were overridden on the road).
On the other hand there are animals in Sweden I don't like that much: mosquitoes and other stinging things.
It has been a good year for the mosquitoes. Because of the very wet spring it's worse than normal. I think there is another reason: the tourists are back! Finally, fresh blood this summer! What a hardship they must have sufferd last year!
By the way, it has been a very hot summer in Sweden! Every now and then the mercury comes above thirty degrees Celsius. So, I cycle, swim, cycle, swim, cycle, swim and cycle. With this alternating routine, not much get done. I camp out in the wild a lot or sit on a camping with not much connectivity with internet. Instead of processing notes, I'm speaking in a dicta-phone.
But what I do get done takes quite some effort and sweat (in buckets). Never thought that Sweden would make me sweat like this!
