‘Frozen yogurt!’
‘Drinkable tap water!’
‘Paper towels!’
Gretchen and I are like kids on Christmas morning in the arrivals hall of Stockholm airport. I hadn’t realized how much I’d been missing all the things just mentioned. Discovering them suddenly, unexpectedly, reduces us to squealing infants.
‘Fresh air!’
‘Tall, attractive men!’
‘Wine gums???’
This last discovery makes this Friday in Sweden the best Christmas I’ve ever had. Wine gums, a sort of hard gummy candy native to the UK, are for me what a shot up the arm is for a heroin addict.
We’re back in the western world after a wonderful but exhausting hiatus of about two months. We’re both heading north to Jamtland, a province about halfway up Sweden, where my old friend Philip has just moved, and are planning on some much-needed R&R as we abuse his family’s washing machine, internet connection, and kitchen. Gretchen will then be heading down to Italy to do some traditional Eurotripping and I’ll be off to Kiev, Almaty, and Istanbul.
There’s nothing like being on the road to make you appreciate the little comforts of home. It also serves to broaden your definition of home: when I first lived abroad, in France from 2004-2005, London became the place I’d go to for comfort food and a dose of family time. Gradually, Paris began to feel the same way: I still remember my mother’s shock when, over Christmas dinner in Greenwich that year, I mentioned how excited I was to go home.
Here in Sweden, I’m realizing for the first time how much my desire for home can be satisfied with a few things that I can take for granted in the western world – tap water, etc – and a friendly face from my past. Philip and I lived together in a tiny apartment on the 8th floor of a majestic eighteenth century building underneath the Eiffel Tower during my gap year. He finished college this June as well and moved to his mother’s home town of Ostersund, Sweden. Philip’s been informally adopted into the Morris family for a long time now, so I’m looking forward to getting to know his a little bit better.