A Return to Sweden

LULEÅ, SWEDEN

Until last week, the last time I had passed through Arlanda Airport in Stockholm, I was 20 years old, and on my first trip out of the country. I was pulling an oversized duffel behind me, a large pack precariously balanced on top. I cringe a little to think how poorly I had packed, having not yet learned the value of a small backpack nor honed my packing list. I’m sure there were several pairs of shoes and at least a week’s worth of underwear, excesses I wouldn’t consider packing now.

After several days at a conference in Umeå, where I floundered through the faint memories of my Swedish vocabularly and basked in the vague familiarity of the landscape, I hopped on an early morning train and headed North. I watched the verdant birch forests pass by, and remembered that the last time I took this ride, those same forests were blanketed in snow, and the cold seeped through the windows. So desperate to experience the far north, I had left Växjö on the very first weekend, but then, Luleå was only a stop on my way north of the Arctic circle. I don’t remember much more than a futile search for a hostel that was open in the winter, and the -28˚C temperatures, the coldest I’d yet experienced. I do remember being surprised that I could actually be warm in such temperatures, and looking back on my poor wardrobe and total lack of real winter experience at that time, I am even more impressed now.

Today it is precisely 100˚ warmer than the last time I was here, and this time I visit the tiny sandy beach at the end of town. I sat for a bit in the shade of pine trees, watching two blonde Swedish boys splashing under a cloudless sky.

In the afternoon, I headed out to Gammelstad, the original site of Luleå and now an UNESCO World Heritage Site. A sea of tiny red wooden cottages (408, to be exact) radiate from the 15^th century stone church in the center of the old town. These “church cottages” were used by rural families who had to travel long distances to come to church. Built first along the roads, and later filling in the spaces in between, the houses are close together with only the narrowest paths leading to some of them. The cottages are now mostly privately owned, though it’s unclear whether they are used as similarly as a place to stay for those living further afield when they come into town, or as vacation homes- none appear to be full-time residences, although I think they’d be quite suitable for that- significantly larger than recent tiny houses. In true, perpetual Swedish fashion, each window boasts a pendant light, candles, and a couple of plants.

In the late afternoon, I catch the bus back to town. On the rumbling bus in the afternoon sun, my eyelids feel increasingly heavy, the 5am wakeup call now catching up with me.