The man in seat 32

Yesterday, SJ informed me that my carriage and reserved seat would not be available on the morning train up to Gothenburg. Luckily, both were, so now I can drink my morning coffee in peace and watch the rainy west coast of Sweden pass by outside. In two hours, I will be at the estate agent’s office to finalize the purchase of my new apartment at Ahrenbergsgatan 4F and, by eleven, the moving company will deliver all my stuff.

Taking advantage of a special autumn-break deal, I was able to stay at Clarion Sea U in the port of Helsingborg for just 686 SEK, which became even better when I was given complimentary access to the pool as the hotel was practically empty. Being able to swim in 35-degree water in the dark reminded me a little of when I was in Sligo with dad twenty years ago, and I will definitely return if I can find a similar bargain.

Clarion Sea U

K1

After all the crisscrossing, it felt so good to have a slow weekend next to Araslövssjön. For dinner on Friday night, Linnéa made canard à l'orange, which was simply incredible together with a bottle of K1 Shiraz from Adelaide Hills that I had brought along from Kalmar.

Sticking to the French theme, we then watched both The Dreamers and two thrilling episodes of Lupin, which has become one of the most-watched non-English-language series on Netflix. Set in Paris, the series combines the playful gentleman-thief tradition of the early twentieth century with the legacy of French colonialism in a way that immediately draws one in. As for turn-of-the-century nostalgia, I brought along a box of Mozartkugeln from Austrian Airlines, adding a little Habsburg sweetness to our otherwise French-themed weekend. Now I am on the train to Helsingborg where I will stay at the Clarion Sea U before taking the first morning train up to Gothenburg and my new apartment on Ahrenbergsgatan.

Finitude

Seeing Patrick Stewart as Macbeth on Broadway in 2008 had this larger-than-life quality, of a figure transcending the stage and the ages. In the role of Jean-Luc Picard, Stewart has been with me ever since the early 1990s, as our highest aspiration of what humanity can become in the future, or as Leigh Philips put it, of a “radical enlightenment project married […] to humanist forgiveness”. As such, it was with great sadness that I learned that Stewart has died at the age of 86, as if we needed another reminder that even the most extraordinary lives are finite.

Yesterday, I spent four hours on the train across Sweden, reviewing a manuscript for the journal Cogent Arts & Humanities (how come I always review manuscripts in days while it seems to take months for everyone else #notbitter), before arriving to sunshine in Kalmar. And today has been a truly stunning autumn day as I have walked with my parents for hours across town, visiting the cemetery where my grandmother Alice rests, and now I am about to take the train down to Kristianstad to see Linnéa for the weekend. As is tradition, I was able to go for a fast morning run around Stensö, perhaps exhausting myself a little with an average heart rate of 170 bpm.

A beautiful mind

Even if the terrible train crash in Spain cast a dark shadow over everything, it was great to see Eddie again and take the train down to Halmstad, all three of us together. After checking in at Scandic Hallandia and sending everything in the apartment off to Gothenburg, we got to walk in the autumn sunshine along Nissan, swing by Nordic Wellness, and make full use of the top-floor spa.

Later in the evening, we watched the 2001 film A Beautiful Mind in our hotel room. Set mostly in Princeton, it featured Collegiate Gothic architecture, psychiatric illness and unwavering love. I remember liking it very much the first time I watched it, decades ago, but as so often happens, seeing things through the eyes of one's kids adds another dimension.

Gotha

Boarding shortly after ten last night at Frankfurt Airport, our Airbus A320-211 “Gotha” took us back to Sweden and Landvetter Airport, where William and I had a hotel room waiting for us. Considering that it was a Tuesday night in October, I was surprised to see the flight fully booked, leaving me both happy and apprehensive about the future, that people are still travelling even as the sustainability of it all remains an open question.

Watching the departure board at FRA, with flights to both Rio de Janeiro and Cape Town, it still felt good to have shown William a little more of the world beyond all those mindless memes.

End of an era

Returning home to New Jersey with Austrian Airlines in April 2008, the clock ticked over and I was upgraded to Star Alliance Gold with SAS. Since then, I have kept requalifying year after year, although I was granted the standard exemption during the pandemic. Over the years, I have traded SAS for BMI and BMI for Turkish Airlines, but the gold card has always been there, scoring me some incredible complimentary upgrades along the way, most recently on a transatlantic flight in April. But all good things must come to an end, and in four days my status with Turkish Airlines will expire once and for all.

As such, it felt fitting to mark the end of nearly two decades with a visit to the Star Alliance Lounge in Vienna and then the Senator Lounge in Frankfurt as William and I make our way back to Gothenburg.

Dubrovnik

Close to forty years after my last visit, William and I returned to Dubrovnik this morning. Driving up along the coast, entering Croatia and the EU was a breeze (contrary to my fears that the new EU Entry/Exit System would cause delays). With not a cloud anywhere to be seen, we walked through the old town, which brought back lots of childhood memories even as the number of tourists made clear that these were no longer the sunset years of Yugoslavia.

At Banje Beach, we were suddenly alone, with only a Canadian couple from Winnipeg testifying that the water was absolutely lovely, which it was. As a Scandinavian, it is truly unfathomable how afraid people seem to be of cold water, which is particularly strange when the water is not even cold (the coldest my watch registered was 20 degrees). But I am not complaining, as this meant that we got to have the beach more or less to ourselves. After a while, the SUP rental people arrived, and we were able to go for half an hour of paddling for €10 each.

While we would have loved to stay longer, reality back on Sweden's west coast was calling, with the removal company arriving tomorrow morning. To keep cars away from the old town, Dubrovnik has introduced a scheme under which unauthorised vehicles entering the restricted zone are automatically detected by cameras, with fines potentially exceeding €1,600 for rental cars. I find this a very good initiative, even if it meant that we had to walk a couple of kilometres uphill to get back to our rental car. Then it was less than an hour's drive to the airport, where we returned the Fiat Panda without a scratch but with 299 kilometres more on the clock than when we picked it up. All in all, an incredible holiday.

Blue Cave

Today, it was time for the highlight of the trip, a speedboat ride from Kotor to the Blue Cave. Accessible only by boat or kayak, it is located on the outer coast of the Luštica Peninsula and is famous for its iridescent neon-blue glow.

Waking up to an incredible sunrise, William and I jumped into our little Fiat Panda shortly before seven and drove the 50 kilometres to Kotor, a journey that took nearly an hour and a half, leaving us with just enough time for a coffee inside the walls of the old town and to spot the 300-metre-long Italian cruise ship Costa Deliziosa anchored in the port. Setting off in our speedboat, we first headed out to Our Lady of the Rocks and its Roman Catholic church. Built on a man-made island in the middle of the Bay of Kotor, it was exactly the kind of tourist trap that I am willing to pay to visit.

From there, the speedboat took us across the bay to see submarine tunnels, or bunkers, dating back to the Yugoslav era. Abandoned after the end of the Cold War, as they were no longer large enough to accommodate modern submarines, the tunnels nevertheless provided a definite No Time to Die vibe, helped along by the Bond soundtrack our captain played. Heading straight out to sea, we then passed Mamula – prison island turned luxury resort – before facing the Adriatic head-on as we continued towards the Blue Cave.

Luckily, the water was calm enough to allow for a most memorable swim, even if it was obvious that the French tourists on our boat would not have lasted long in Ramsjön ;-) Afterwards, it was a bumpy ride back to Kotor but, in the end, William got his spaghetti bolognese and we could look back on a true morning adventure.

The fear is the mind-killer

Just like when I first went surfing in Hanalei Bay on Kauai fifteen years ago, the key is to let go of your fear, to just be present in the moment and stop thinking about everything that could go wrong. It took me a few minutes, but soon enough I was standing up next to William who – of course – was in perfect control of his own board from the moment he got on it. Paddling around in the bay below the hotel, I was again reminded of how important it is to keep conquering one's fears as one gets older.

Otherwise, today has been nothing short of incredible as we started the morning by driving down to the cable car in Kotor and taking it four kilometres up the mountain to an altitude of 1,348 metres above sea level. Built with Austrian technology, the cable car opened three years ago, and the views were simply stunning (and a bit fear-inducing), overlooking first the airport in Tivat and then the Bay of Kotor with all its cruise ships. After a cappuccino and an orange juice at the top, we drove back to our hotel, listening to William’s favourite music on Spotify and picking up an older hitchhiking woman with relatives in Sweden who told us all about the local monasteries. Now it is time to cash in on waffles and another Americano coffee.