Final Travels

I fly back to California today, just a few days past the year anniversary since I arrived in the UK. I just finished an amazing, whirlwind trip of Europe in which I visited many new places and saw a few great old friends. Being in Sweden for Midsummer was absolutely fantastic - if you ever get the chance to be in Sweden for that holiday, go! As we were so far north, it would get darker at night but never get fully dark, and the sun was up blazing through the windows by 4am. Midsummer's Eve involved copious amounts of herring, Swedish drinking songs, wildfowers and coffee. Besides the amazing Midsummer celebrations, one of my favorite things about Sweden was the idea of "doing a fika", which means sitting down somewhere and enjoying a cup of coffee, normally with a friend and some cake or a little bite to eat. This is a tradition I hope to bring back with me to the US, where coffee (or whatever your drink of choice) is not something to be sucked down in a take-away mug during your commute but rather an excuse mid-morning or mid-afternoon to take a 15 minute break from your day and enjoy it. From Sweden I flew to Germany and spent a few days in Berlin before meeting up with my friend in Göttingen. Berlin was not my favorite city, and I was a bit worried that I might not enjoy the rest of my trip in Germany, but Göttingen is a lovely little university town that reminded me just a bit of Ann Arbor with, of course, a very strong German flavor to it. Through a series of events, I was able to participate in an open event at the World Master's Orienteering Competition and had a great time sprint orienteering in the town of Gosler. From Germany I went to Belgium and visited Brussels, which is very small and somewhat like a dingier Paris but has a lovely charm of its own, and took a day trip to Bruges and Ghent as well. I spent my last few days in Paris and then took a quick trip to the town of Reims, which is the capital of the champagne region, so we toured both the Pommery and Veuve Cliquot champagne cellars (and of course sampled their products as well). All in all it was an excellent trip, and I'm excited now to be headed back home to enjoy the California sunshine and to unpack my suitcase and do some laundry. I've had an amazing year and I can't express how happy I am to have had these opportunities. Thank you Roger M Jones! Signing off for good now, thank you to everyone who has read this over the past few months. Cheers!