Refreshing weekend (26-28 Oct)

I knew that I was already in a sort of pleasure trip but still I was desperately looking for a weekend getaway. And going to Stockholm would definitely be so because I hadn’t done anything like this before i.e. traveling down to another country not for work but on a vacation and that too all alone. And to support this desire, my travel got planned within my budget… round trip in nearly 200Euros :).
Reaching stockholm in itself was going to be some sort of adventure. It was complicated because had to take a taxi to the neighbouring city and then a train and later a bus to reach Venice airport. And all this in a non english speaking country was challenging. I wasn’t thinking much abt the Sweden side, thanks to Abhijit he was going to be there at the airport.
In actual too the travel turned out to be a very nice experience…realizing one thing traveling in Europe is really easy if you are well informed before hand i.e. everything is in place, organized and on time you just need to be aware of things.
Though I was very excited about this trip but I didn’t really have any image of Sweden in my mind. I don’t remember seeing this country even in photographs. So had a blank visual with the only knowledge that its going to be a very cold place. To add to this blank image was the travel from Stockholm airport to Abhijit’s place…I kind of got restless…because nothing that I saw gave me a new country feeling, the feeling that I would carry as Swedish. All that I captured that night either felt like the Europe that I have already seen in Italy or it felt like U.S.
But the next day, Saturday did full justice to my keenness for a new country….its a beautiful country…very peaceful…felt like a vast country because of the remotely populated country side...dense forests….large landscapes of green grass…beautiful lakes surrounded by woods and artistic houses. My most cherished memory of this trip is going to be the walk that we took in the woods close to Abhijit’s house…it was simply awesome…with the autumn leaf trees….very very refreshing…it felt as if you will have all answers to your queries in life in a solitude walk in those woods. You need to be there, feel it, absorb it and cherish all the peace. Really refreshing.

The next day, Sunday was planned for the old Stockholm city, Gamla stan…it was a beautiful place typically Europian...but truly speaking I wasn’t really awestuck by that place…because it felt like any other tourist destination of Europe especially of Italy. It was definitely different in its own way but still. Anyways Sunday gave me the city life of Sweden…commuting busy crowd…a very U.S. and to some extent Mumbai feeling.
So now the combination of all these portrays my picture of Sweden. And after this trip my wantings for visiting new places has all the more increased....looking forward to the next trip :).