Dreaming big

The other day, someone asked me if I was in Sydney for the 2000 Olympics.

Nope. J and I had been living in London for a year and - let me tell you - more than a little homesick as we watched the broadcasts. Friends and colleagues would marvel to us at the beauty of Sydney that was beamed into their homes, and we'd nod our heads with pride.

Twelve years later, here we are... living in Los Angeles, watching the London Olympics. Life can be funny, can't it?

London. A city I had a complicated relationship with, but still called home for a chunk of my twenties. It feels a little like déjà vu, watching the media hype about a city I know so well, from the perspective of outsiders.

Who knows where we'll be living in another twelve years? Back in Sydney? London again? Vancouver? Singapore? Somewhere else in the US? All of these are very real possibilities - but so much of this answer depends on the industry that J works in, and where the jobs are.

Although we're about to visit Sydney, we've already started thinking about where our next big overseas trip will be. We're dreaming big, I think, but there's nothing wrong with putting it out to the universe. You never know.

We haven't been back to London since we left, and there are so many wonderful friends we'd love to see once again. This pretty much places London as high priority on our list. It would have to be in summer, naturally. I don't do British winters well, but London in summer is magic.

Last night, J and I began dreaming about where else in Europe we'd squeeze in a side trip to, once London is organised. It took us - unanimously - all of half a heartbeat to know where else we'd go.

Sweden.

For a number of reasons, we both love Sweden and its people. We've been there. We have friends there. I even have a Swedish aunt who spends every northern summer there - forty years after marrying my uncle in Australia. The postcards I received from her and my cousin, as a child, intrigued me - a place on the other side of the world, that even has a princess with the same name as me (spelled the same way, no less). I knew I had to go there one day.

When J and I hopped over from London to Gothenburg to visit a friend, one northern winter, it was under a blanket of snow but lived up to everything I'd imagined it would be. We stayed in a civilised hostel (such a thing had eluded me in previous backpacking adventures), where families also stayed (Swedish families), and we were struck by how much more doable travelling with kids around those parts would be - and that was long before kids of our own were even a twinkle in the universe.

We decided two things on that trip. The first was that we had to return and experience Sweden one summer. The second was that when we had kids, we'd have to travel with them around a country like Sweden, Germany, or the Netherlands - as they all have family-friendly hostels.

That was ten years ago. We now have kids, and we want to offer them the chance to see other parts of the world (besides the US). The Faery's name is straight from Norse mythology, and hell, she even looks Scandinavian. We have to go back. Besides, hostel breakfasts - Swedish style - are the shiz. True.

So. When our pennies are saved, that's where we'll head... because I will simply die if I never get to experience summer in a country with scenery like this:

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...and now that you've heard this, oh universe? Let's make it happen. Svenska is calling.