This is the second summer that we’ve spent a couple of weeks in Sweden, and it seems that indeed it’s likely to become a regular part of our annual itinerary.
Last year, we were in Stockholm for two weeks (where we also did our first ever housesit, which we repeated this year!) but this year we split our time between Halland near the North Sea coast in the southwest of the country and the capital in the east.
It’s not often that we really get to take time off work now that we can work wherever we are, but whenever we come to Sweden to hang out with our friends Alex and Björn, we always end up relaxing and taking some quality time off, for which we are very grateful.
We arrived in Halland by train from Germany via Denmark (thanks Interrail!) where our friends had rented a little house in a remote location near Falkenberg and spent a week hanging out with them. Most of our days plans revolved around cooking and eating meals.
We also made time to go out for walks by the coast and see lighthouses, something which Björn had developed a recent fascination for.
I occasionally practiced yoga and we also ventured into the forest to walk along the Hallandsleden trail briefly, where we made jokes about having come all this way to see the forest, but not being able to for all the trees.
And we had adventures driving through fields and getting lost following the GPS instructions to find small farms and B&Bs serving fika where we played with kittens.
Other than that, we just spent time being. Or at least tried to.
So what did we take away from our week in Halland? Well, we learnt how to recognise the difference between the crops of rye, wheat and oats growing in the fields around our little red house.
But more importantly, that sometimes (even though it’s not always easy at the beginning) we really need to disconnect for a while, surround ourselves with nature, spend quality time with good friends and have our main concern be what to cook for our next meal.
And therein lies happiness.
