My Newest Passion

When I get into something, I go all in for a while. When I got bit by the flying bug and went and got a pilot's license, I did it in four months. And for over a year, nearly 100% of the books I read and movies I watched (tapes from Blockbuster!) were aviation related. In the early 2000's, home for a solo weekend working on a home improvement project while listening to NPR (no such things as podcasts in those days!) I had the pleasure of listening to Car Talk four times. The much-repeated episode had a caller with a Vespa. That Monday, I researched online how to get a motorcycle license, that Saturday I took the written test, and I bought my first little scoot a week later. 

This time it has been a slower burn. Last October, I attended a quilt show put on by a local guild. I was astounded! Just blown away! I wanted to do this!

I've always been attracted to fiber arts, for viewing more than doing. When I lived in Ohio, a friend came to visit for a weekend and we went to many Amish stores in the area, looking for a quilt he wanted for a wedding present for friends. We went a number of places (I found a helpful tourist map of Ohio's Amish country that listed the stores, important in those pre-internet days) and we looked at nearly 100 quilts. I was blown away by their sophistication. There were traditional quilts, pieced with tiny pieces of patterned calico to make intricate designs. But there were also bold and striking patterns, expanding my mind with what a quilt could be. Where we bought the quilt finally was the real thing, a store with kerosene lamps and two teenage girls that spoke to each other in soft German dialect. (And which symbolized some of what neighbors to the Amish deride as hypocrisy: God allows 19th century technology (kerosene) to support commerce, but not 20th century technology to ease the burden at home, where they use homemade candles. And even electric lights in chicken coops where regulating light and dark can increase egg production, and diesel tractors in the fields. But women's work at home, that doesn't bring in cash, doesn't get automated.) (Gratuitous ranting digression over for now.)

My father's family actually were from a related German-derived sect, and I have some fragile family quilts from that side of the family. My mother's immigrant family arrived at the turn of the twentieth century, but also made quilts when they arrived. When I lived in Chicago, one of the family quilts in a traditional pattern hung on the wall behind my bed. 

I have actually made a couple of quilts, long long ago. One in grad school, using the sewing machine I bought with college graduation money and many scraps of actual clothes I had lying around. I still have that one in a closet. And the second was baby-sized for the birth of one of my nephews, before I moved to Maryland. That one disappeared long ago. I have a shelf of quilt books from those earlier eras, with many traditional patchwork patterns and layouts. Each quilt I made involved cutting the fabric into squares and shapes with scissors and stitching each piece one at a time. Then I quilted them on my basic machine, bunching up the blanket-sized fabric to feed it through the machine as I stitched straight(ish) lines.

The quilt show last year had some traditional patterned quilts, beautiful in their intricacy, but I was most struck by those with abstract or impressionistic bold designs. Take a look:

This is titled "Beautiful Colorado"
This is the one I keep coming back to. 
I aspire to be able to design and execute something on this scale, abstract yet not.

Detail of the quilting

This wall hanging is abstracted from
architectural photography:
it's a building
I love abstract shapes made in the real world
it's the kind of photography I tried to do

Another wall hanging

Fabric art, not meant to be used
I love this and would display it lovingly, but it's not my cup of tea for making

A detail of an abstract design on a 
queen-sized quilt meant to be used
How fabrics can blend and define

 

I've been mulling about attempting to make something again myself. I've always sewed, but not a lot. The last time I put real effort into it was making cloth masks early in the pandemic before good quality disposable masks were available to buy. I so enjoyed the work - it involved engineering - making a 3-d shape from 2-d objects, building an outside layer, a middle filter, an inside comfortable layer, always studying what seemed currently most effective, design - choosing the fabrics for other and inner layers, and construction - some hours at the end of which I had useful, tangible, products. 

But I doubted my skills and my stamina to take on a project like this. Finally, with my big vacations this year behind me and autumn vibes in the air, I decided to stick my toe in the water. 

My go-to social media these days is Reddit. Of course there are sewing and quilting subreddits. But it was actually a post in a local group, about local fabric stores, that alerted me to my local little quilt shop, Three Little Birds. I went on a field trip, determined to at least give it a try. I picked up a little bit of cool fabric, and a great big book. Because of course I got another book.

 As it turns out, this seems pretty much the best book ever. It turns up recommended in the forums online, though I didn't know that when I got it. I sat down and read it cover to cover. What a revelation! Tools and techniques! Designs! Design principles! Short cuts! And, of course, gadgets! Many gadgets!

And YouTube tutorials! Recommended on Reddit was The Ultimate Beginners Guide series, a dozen videos each from twenty to ninety minutes long, showing step by progressively more complicated step how to cut, stitch, quilt, and bind an entire quilt. I watched it all, though most of on 1.5x speed because each one got repetitive as a pattern was put together.

Guess what, guys? No-one uses scissors to cut fabric any more! Get yourself a cutting mat, some thick plastic rulers, and a very very sharp radial cutter (kind of like a pizza cutter). Line up your fabric - stack up your fabric, measure twice, measure again, and slice that stuff up! In a few minutes you have dozens of pieces. And maybe they are the wrong size, because you read the wrong side of your reversible ruler three times in a row. No matter, toss them in the "future projects" bin, and slice up more fabrics.

And sewing? None of this 3 stitches forward, 3 back, finally sew your seam, cut the thread, bring another piece over and do it again. Instead, design your pieces so that sewing a couple of seams in a big square can yield four sets of joined small triangles to use in your design. And pin and bring several pieces to your machine and just keep going without cutting the thread between them until they are all done. 

Pro tip: radial cutters and needles and pins are sharp. Keep band-aids handy, but if a drop of blood gets on your fabric, saliva is reputed to get it out. 

Also, who knew there was so much to learn about the right way to iron? Some say "sewing" is really just "ironing, with a few breaks at the stitching machine". 

So far, I'm trying to build up my physical skills with some small projects, while mulling designs for big projects. What do I like? What kind of project can I reasonably tackle at this point? Design patterns are available on the internet for downloading. They have cutting and piecing instructions which at this point I find very useful. The subreddits have a lot of people with "look what I made" and I'm studying and thinking about what about it I like and what it takes to do it. A purely traditional patchwork? Not for me, right now. But I'm downloading patterns and putting my own fabrics and colors to them mentally, thinking about how it's going to go. 

So far, I've made two placemats. The first, all rectangles. But even with the rectangles, figuring out the piecing, including seam allowances, is surprisingly complex to put together. Yes, some seams were ripped out and re-done before it was over.

The top shows the individual pieces, 
the bottom is the finished and quilted mat

 

This second one is more complex - it has triangles rather than just rectangles. Precision in matching points of corners is everything in getting a quilt to come out right.

These pieces will come together to make the placemat

The almost-finished placemat. 
Quilted, but still needs trimming and binding (will use the dark blue)
(This is a fabric I bought in Congo, I have a shirt I made years ago that matches)

My next project will be either yet another placemat, with still more intricate piecing, or a comparably intricate pillow cover. Still noodling. I've got ideas for some big projects, but I don't want to go buy stuff for a big one yet, I want to have some stuff completely finished first. And I want to think things through before I start. My ambition is to design something, but I'll probably just use my fabric choices in someone else's pattern first. But I'm looking at my photographs for inspiration for where I want to go with this.

BTW, I work on these in the basement where I've got stuff set up and can leave it. I have a little TV down there, where I'm running the Great British Baking Show. During most operations, I glance at the TV but mostly just listen. My sore neck means I have to get up and stretch and run through some exercises regularly. Three times in the hour-ish long show, and then again at the end, they are judging the bakes and the contestants. I use those intervals to stand up and stretch while actually watching the screen, it's a good interlude.

The Organ Recital

What I look like

Did I learn this term from one of you, my faithful readers? It refers to what happens every time old people get together. "Have you heard the latest on my gall bladder?" "What's up with your heart?" I have a small list of things derived from an essay I once read about "things old people do that I swear I never will" and oversharing on bodily functions (and dis-functions) is prominent on my list. However, health is certainly a concern, and vital to our well being, and fundamentally, keeping track of my health is the main reason I started this blog. I very much appreciate updates from my friends about their health, because I care. There's a time and place for everything, and here is my current organ recital.

Weight loss 

I continue with my weekly 5.0 Zepbound injections. After my July hiatus, weight loss has resumed. It is, however, slower than at the beginning. This is to be expected in any weight loss, and no reason why this should be different. It takes fewer calories to maintain my smaller body, after all. There is no prize for remaining on low doses of the drug, and if I totally stall I will increase. But it takes weeks or months for a stall to be real, so I kind of have a major checkpoint/ assessment in mind for November as we go into winter.

I've learned some things while being on the drug, and re-learned other lessons. I've been eating all my life, and off-and-on dieting for at least forty of those years. The big thing is, when I don't pay attention, my weight will go up. That seems somewhat true even with the effects of the drug. I will drift towards eating too much of things that don't further my goals. I don't way overeat like I have in the past, I'm less inclined to finish what's on my plate, and at the margin I'm more inclined to choose healthier things, but I still love chocolate ice cream!

For decades, I've set my preferred tastes and food choices. I find with the drug, some of these are not so great anymore. High fat and greasy things don't sit well in my stomach. Even, to my surprise, some sweets don't feel so great. I'll go to a restaurant, automatically choose from the menu the same way I would before, and then it doesn't always feel great. This is feedback after I've eaten it, because from habit my desire for certain foods is the same, and while I'm eating it the taste is generally good. During my disastrous Intuitive Eating phase, I would pay attention after eating something. I often regretted something, but that was intellectual - I knew it would not further my weight loss goals. But it was almost never a physical regret. The exercise of "keep eating those cookies until they make you feel sick" never ever made me feel sick. That's not true now. I am more prone to nausea is general now (though I've not actually gotten sick). Sometimes, after overeating something, my regret includes a physical regret. When that happens, I'm trying to sit with that feeling for a while. I want to inhabit this feeling, so that I learn on a really visceral level that different choices will make me feel better in the short term, not just further what seems a distant and remote goal.

But I'm down 25 pounds! With daily weighing, at least once a week I'm seeing a number lower than any before on this current loss trajectory. So progress, for sure. I'm shopping my closet, as I'm now weighing less than the day I retired - I'm in the range of clothes I already own that have been sitting for while.

 My eyes

 I have had a condition for almost a year now where my left eye is oozing sticky stuff in an annoying and unattractive way. This predates my cataract operations. (The operations themselves went well and I continue to be thrilled with not wearing glasses, but not having them to hide behind makes the ooze even less attractive.) I learned long ago the ooze is just tears, not an infection. My eye doctor has given me drops and referred me to an eye micro-surgeon. My primary care doc speculated it was an artifact of allergies and tested me extensively and had me get a sinus CT. I have a mild allergy to dogs (thanks, Bixby, who is currently on the back of my chair leaning against me) and take a daily claritin, but the CT did not show any evidence of chronic inflammation. I finally saw the eye surgeon, and she confirmed it's just tears, my drainage is blocked, and she wants to bore a new hole from my eye socket to my nose. Yuck, but it will eventually prevent a lot of daily yuck (constant wiping and washing of my eye has led to irritated skin around my eye and nose). And, she will remove some ugly (to me) skin tags and a keritosis on my lid at the same time. And, after this is done and healed, she wants to go ahead and do an eyelid lift, which she thinks is (borderline) medically necessary, the magic words for insurance! The boring operation will be in November. I might have a black eye at Thanksgiving, but there are few other risks.

My neck

I have a pain in my neck, literally. My range of motion is somewhat limited, and it hurts most of the time. This has been going on for some months, because I always assume aches and pains come and go, but it hasn't gone yet. The limited range of motion is partly why I haven't been hot to ride the Vespa - doing visual checks over both shoulders is vital to staying alive on a motorcycle, and I can't do them well, and it hurts to do them at all.  I went for a PT assessment, and now I do a series of stretches multiple times a day, with a weekly visit to the facility, where they massage it. I bought a stand that can hold my kindle or even my ipad up at eye level, keeping me from bending over a device in my lap. I still use my hands to turn pages or scroll or click, but it's surprisingly comfortable and was easy to get used to. I also got a microwaveable wrap that covers my shoulders with a stand-up neck collar, so nice to have warm heat. Also, many more frequent breaks from whatever activity. Staying in any one position for a long time isn't great. The PT is just a week old, jury out on how it gets better.

Exercise 

Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, all is well! I am grateful every day for health and strength. I remain faithful to my 2x weekly strength training, but have fallen away from the more vigorous cardio. Every day, I have an excuse why not. I'm working on that, because I do believe, down in my body, that it makes a huge difference to everything. 

I bought an ebike, and it is SO FUN! Riding it is weather dependent, of course, and I'm timid about traffic on roads and tight slow speed maneuvering on crowded paths and trails, so I'm not riding it that much yet. I live at the top of a short steep hill, and climbing back up at the end of every ride was a deterrent to riding a normal bike, and that barrier is gone now. Except for the steep hills, I keep the electric pedal assist at the lowest (but not off) setting for most of my rides. I've done some exploring of parks, and ridden the twelve miles that are the whole length of the parkway by my house up and back. As we get into fall, I hope to ride more. The bulk of any indoor cardio is on my BIL's old stationary bike, usually with blasting loud music. This will help with getting outdoors on the actual bike too.

Check-in

 

My weight this year.
There are bobbles up in April (France) and
in July (Sweden). 
I have to pay attention!

It turns out I didn't lose any weight in July. I was at the tail-end of my low starter dose of Zepbound, and I skipped a week's meds entirely for my colonoscopy. But I think the biggest impact was 15 days of travel, and a "what the heck, I'm almost on vacation!" mindset for the week before. I simply ate more than I had been eating, with a definite increase in the amount of alcohol (beer) and also ice cream before leaving. And while away, I had some beers, and really didn't monitor what I was eating. I tried to monitor "how much" and how it made me feel, but honestly I just went with the flow. I think it's clear to me now that keeping the weight off will require life-long vigilance, even if I stay on the magic drugs. 

But on the bigger, longer picture, things are going well:

My weight since 1988

 This is a good reminder that I have been a fat person for a long time, but that it is totally possible to change that. An aging body may make it harder, but new tools are available. I first weighed roughly what I weigh now more than 30 years ago! (And I never had any maternity weight to blame, either.) My current weight is about what I weighed when I retired, in 2019.

I feel great about this. I never really adjusted to the most recent post-Covid surge in my weight. My closet is full of clothes that more nearly fit me now, and I'm pulling them out and happily wearing them. I haven't permanently retired anything yet, but I'm having to wear a belt with a number of trousers that didn't require them before.

So by the numbers:

• It's just over 20 pounds
• By BMI reckoning, I've moved from "obese" to "overweight"
• By clothing size, I'm closer to "L" than "XL"
• And, in what makes the most significant difference to me, I've lost inches --
  One inch off my bust
  Two inches off my waist
  FOUR inches off my hips!

A major driver for me of weight loss is wanting to wear clothes that I feel good in and that I believe make me look good. The way my pear-shaped body is out of proportion when I'm at my heaviest makes me feel bad. I worked hard over the past few years to embrace body-positivity and not hate the way my body is. I made some strides, and I certainly never considered my weight a barrier to exercising and being fit. But being able to buy a jacket that fits my shoulders and still zips over my hips is wonderful! I can now button a collared shirt all the way down. These things make my daily life more pleasant.

So onward! Excelsior! 

 EDIT TO ADD because it feels timely:  Fun Fact! My weightloss in 1996 was kicked off by cyclospora, from raspberries from Guatemala. I lost 8 pounds of water weight overnight and went to the ER in morning, where they stuck me with an IV before I'd finished filling out the forms. I then left the country on a work trip for three weeks. It lasted about 5 days, and then it kept coming back, slightly less virulent, every three weeks for several months. It finally tailed off. I never ended up with antibiotics, because I'm allergic to many and was traveling.

Additional Travel Notes

Me in all my glory aboard.
This is my preferred color family

I've spent a lot of time the past few months on Reddit, in particular, a forum called "Her One Bag". There, folks trade tips about traveling light. I tried out some ideas from there on this trip. My next big trip is Antarctica, and some of these lessons will be helpful for that.

Bags

I've written before how I like having my hands free as I negotiate airports and train stations, so I prefer a backpack to a drag-along bag. It's also more practical on board boats where there isn't much storage space for empty luggage - a soft-sided pack is easier to store. Many travel packs are designed so they are clam shell, zipping open two roughly equal sides to lie flat like a suitcase. I like that design a lot. The bag I've been using for years, the Cotopaxi Alpa 35L, is fine and 35 litres is about the same amount of space as a European-sized carryon suitcase. But, when fully laden, the Cotopaxi feels heavy and uncomfortable. This year, I invested in a new bag, also 35L, also clamshell - zip flat design. My Pact Cero weighs less empty than the Cotopaxi, and has an integrated waist belt to help balance the load. It also has some extra well-thought out features like little straps on the side that can be deployed to hold something like a jacket or sweater. I think, despite the nominal same-size of the two bags, the Pact is slightly smaller. But I like it a lot. I used it on my short Baltimore trip, to check out its features, and it was pretty much perfect for the Sweden trip. The shoulder and waist straps can be tucked securely into pockets on the bag when I check it - less stuff dangling to catch on something. As I missed my connection on the way to Sweden, I'm feeling carry-on luggage was the right plan on the way there. I checked the backpack on the way back, because it would matter less if it was delayed (as it turns out, it made the trip just fine.) I weighed the fully packed bag at home before I left: 17 pounds, within the 8 kg Lufthansa limit.

I have a cross-body bag kind of like a small briefcase I think I bought from Uniqlo that I use as my personal item in addition to the big backpack. In it I put things I'll need during the flight - charge cords, headphones, eye mask, snacks, water bottle, sweater, e-reader, ipad. This bag fits easily under the seat and still leaves room for my feet. But, this bag is not a great daypack to use when I'm at the destination. For this Sweden trip, I bought a thin nylon daypack that stuffs into its own little case, only about the size of two thumbs when stuffed. I also have a tiny waist pack, just big enough to hold my passport, phone, and earbuds. In Stockholm, I set out early in the morning wearing a sweater and the waist pack, with the little folded-up daypack stuffed in my pants pocket. When I bought a couple of things in a museum gift shop, and it became too warm to wear the sweater, I put the stuff in the day pack and was able to resume being hands free. (BTW, I vowed some years ago that I wouldn't buy any pants, skirts or dresses that didn't have pockets and I've stuck to that. All part of trying to be hands free!) I also brought a nylon shopping bag that folds and fastens into a thumb-sized bundle. It normally lives in my purse, for random purchases when out and about. I didn’t use it, but I might have, and don’t regret its minimal space.

I did not bring my normal (or any other) conventional purse on this trip.

When I go to Antarctica I will need more stuff than will fit in my lovely carry-on backpack. I'll pack a check-in wheeled suitcase, but I may bring the big Cero carryon backpack on the plane with some essentials in case of a luggage mishap on the way there.

Clothes

My travel clothes for the past several years have all been casual as I've been doing outdoor things and not going to fancy restaurants or on fancy cruise ships. I blended in nicely everywhere in I was in Sweden - women my age either dressed in practical clothes like me, or on the hot days, wore huge tent dresses festooned with big pockets. 

This trip was 15 days/14 nights - 1 night on the airplane, 4 in hotels, and the rest on the ship. No chance to do laundry, except sink laundry. Here is what I brought on this trip:

3 short sleeved merino wool tshirts - good for re-wearing several times
2 soft bamboo short sleeved tshirts - 1 became pyjama top after a day of wearing out and about
2 polyester longsleeved shirts (thin - good either for sun or cold) 
1 Long sleeved linen button down shirt - worn as open layer over tshirt or buttoned and tucked

2 sweaters, 1 close-fitting merino, 1 loose fitting polar fleece, could be stacked

1 pair knit ponte pull-on cargo pants (these are bulky, dedicated to airplane wear, love the multiple deep pockets!)
3 pair LL Bean nylon hiking pants, water resistant/quick dry
1 pair pull-on nylon bermuda shorts, as PJs, double as swim suit cover up if needed (but wasn't)

Underwear: 9 nylon underpants, 4 nylon bras (wash in sink and hang dry in bathroom) 
4 pair socks, of varying heights and thickness

Tank bathing suit

1 pair pull-on red sneakers
1 pair Keen hiking sandals, neutral color (sturdy soles, good for rocks)
Oofos flip-flops

Rain jacket 
Ball cap
2 polyester Buffs (neck scarfs)
fingerless sailing gloves
Sleeping eye mask

How it worked: 
Overall, it was colder than I thought it would be. I think the thermometer was about 5 degrees F lower than forecast when I packed. There was a lot of sitting around outdoors in the wind, in between calls to help pull on ropes. I was never too cold, but if I had more warm clothes I would have worn them.

Many one-baggers swear by a single pair of shoes. I wanted to allow one pair to get wet and have a day to dry. Plus, I find changing out of even very comfortable shoes a relief. And the oofos are bliss. I didn't actually wear them out of my room very much, but I loved having them. 

I had plenty of tshirts and pants. With a couple of sink washes for underwear, I had enough stuff overall. (Things took nearly 24 hours to dry in the humidity aboard.) I wasn't hiking on the ship days, my socks didn't get used hard. I kept the thick and fuzzy pair reserved for inside - never to get wet.  All of my pants and tops were compatible colors- mostly blues, with greys and purples - so everything could be worn with anything. 
But what I definitely would have worn if I had brought them:
- Watch cap (beanie)
- Thin but cozy polyester long johns- they can make a big difference!
- Another sweater - more for variety, but also one day I could have stacked another layer

The only thing I brought that I didn't wear is the bathing suit, but I don't regret for a minute that I brought it.

Stuff

I tried to be disciplined about not bringing all kinds of things that would have potentially been useful but were not needed. I love my gadgets! I also like to be independent and ready for anything. On the other hand, for years I've had a minimalist toiletries kit that I actually added to for this trip. Apparently I've recently grown fond of the various substances I slather on different parts of myself. 

Toilet kit:
Hair brush, toothbrush, flossers, qtips, nail clippers, small scissors, small mirror
Stick deodorant, bar soap/shampoo, lip sunscreen
Decanted into small liquid containers, small enough to carry on:
Face wash, moisturizer, shampoo, face sunscreen 
(I bought sunscreen and toothpaste in regular size once I got there)

Laundry kit:
"Soak" brand soap packets
Rubber braided clothesline (can stick clothes through the braids, don't need clothes pins) 

Medicines- didn't use everything but don't regret bringing:
Tylenol, Statin, Migraine treatment, eye drops, Claritin, Pepto bismal (I will always have that!)
Dramamine
Accupressure wrist bands for sea sickness
Thermometer, Covid test
Bandaids, blister pads, N95 masks

Electronics:
Phone, Ipad, Kindle, Boox ereader, 2 apple pencils for writing in ipad
Airpods (with removable "leash" to not lose them if fall out on airplane), Sleep phones, small bluetooth speaker (the last was unnecessary), second pair cheap but noise-cancelling earbuds
Universal adapter with USB-A and USB-C ports, 2 USB-C to USB-C cords, 2 USB-A to USB-C cords, apple watch charger, small power pack charger. I carry one set of USB-A and USB-C cords in the small bag, and the others in the larger bag.  (I'm SO glad all my devices charge with USB-C - except for the apple watch)

Food - I dipped into these on travel days:
Kind mini bars
Dried edamame  
Small metal water bottle- also used aboard

I bought in Sweden a small notebook and a ballpoint pen, and carried them around in my tiny waist pack to write notes the old fashioned way. I don't like typing notes on my phone, and I don't generally carry the ipad around with me during the day. (I have a bluetooth keyboard for the ipad, but haven't been bringing it lately. I write with a special pencil on the ipad, that's as satisfying as paper and less likely to get lost.) I’ll plan on paper notes again in the future.

A gadget I didn't bring and kind of missed is a monocular (is that really a small telescope?) I bought one a couple of years ago, its small and light, a good alternative to heavier binoculars, I may bring it to Antarctica.

I own a fancy good electronic camera, bought 6 or 7 years ago (and still on the market today). It weights a lot, and goes through batteries like there's no tomorrow. I haven't brought it on a trip for the last three years - it's just too big and heavy. But I think I'll want it for Antarctica. That's an argument for having a robust carryon on that trip, in addition to the big checked bag.

On this trip, packing light worked well. I think my MVP for everything was the ball cap. Without it, I might have been colder. And with the northern light always at an angle, it really kept my eyes from being bothered by the sun.

Edit to add:

I left out some things. Since this post is really a reminder for me, I want to capture it here.

Food: I always travel in my carryon with Gin-Gin individually wrapped hard ginger candies, my go-to for nausea. I also travel with some some cough drops, as I have a dry throat that often results in coughs.

I also pack in my bag a small container with tea bags (lemon-ginger and peppermint) and individual instant coffee packets. If I have access to hot water, I have coffee! And the tea is for soothing.

Sweden: Afloat in the Baltic Sea and Stockholm Archipelago

Our route, in red. 
I boarded in Kalmar in the south, and departed from Stockholm in the north

Thursday evening I boarded my ship, the Eye of the Wind. The captain was the same captain I had two years ago, in Scotland. All the rest of the crew was new to me.

I was delighted with my cabin (which I had to myself), an upgrade from the one I've had the previous two years. It had a full-size bottom bunk, and a single-sized top bunk. The bed was boxed in by walls except for a yard-long opening to get in and out. Very cozy and snug and secure! The cabin also came with a built-in seat and little desk, (which my previous cabin didn't have), a closet, and a nice little private bathroom with shower. 

My cabin, showing boxed-in bed
All the mahogany woodwork is gorgeous!

That first evening, we had an orientation to the ship and then a welcome dinner. There were six other passengers: a Swiss father and 20-something son, a middle-aged Swiss man on this own (something of an artist; he made drawing throughout the trip), an old bearded German seadog (proud of being 88 years old!) and an interesting English couple, roughly my age. The crew of 10 were German, Dutch, English, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish. The Captain, Chief Mate, cook and engineer were millennials and true professionals, while the two deckhands and four trainees (ie, unpaid crew) were from 18-26. All delightful people, of varying degrees of extraversion. So the working language of the ship was primarily English, but often there were German conversations going on as well.

We set out the following morning for the island of Aland, with fair winds from the south driving us north. It was a warm and sunny day, but still, most of the time I needed a sweater. That evening, we tied up in the harbor of the wonderfully-named Bixelkrok harbor. Our ship is big enough that recreational harbors can't usually take us, we have to go to working harbors. In Bixelkrok, we tied up at the ferry dock, after putzing around just offshore waiting for the actual ferry to depart for the day. This holiday town had many transient boats tied up, and also a huge parking lot filled with camper-vans. The harbor master had promised the tourists something special (us) and as we pulled in, there was a large crowd gathered behind a gate used for the ferry passengers. Once we were tied up securely, the gate was raised and the crowd swarmed in. We all felt like doing the Queen's wave at them! Who knows how many holiday photos I'm in?

The next day we set out for the island of Gotland, quite a ways offshore from the mainland. This island has a rich history, set as it is in the middle of the Baltic sea. Many of the most informative Viking artifacts have been found in Gotland. Again, the good weather was mostly with us, and we sailed most of the way. However, we also ran the motor for a lot of the time - we had a long way to go, and needed to arrive while the harbor master was still at work to greet us. 

The town of Visby was definitely the highlight of the trip! It is a Unesco World Heritage site, and deserves it! We had time to check out the town before dinner, going up into the narrow cobblestone streets and wandering. There were many design and home goods stores, and I was sad they were all closed for the day (it was Saturday night, after 5 pm, after all). I wished for more time there.

 

The harbor of Visby was something else again! There were bars ringing the shore, including a shack with a very loud reggae-playing sound system. There were giant motor yachts, and on a Saturday evening, many inebriated young pretty people stumbling around them, dressed to the 9s. Very different from the modest little sailboats and camper vans from the night before! I was especially struck by the yachts that had Lamborghinis (multiple!) parked by them - did they sent their chauffeurs over on the car ferry while they sailed over? 

Nineteen hours of daylight makes
summer flower displays especially exhuberant

Next to us on the dock in Visby

The mate at the wheel during the
rough crossing. Note the two
crew members sacked out behind him

The next day, the good weather had deserted us. The captain had wanted to head to a nature-reserve island to the north, but winds were above 25 knots, forecast to be significantly higher still the next day. So, we headed west to the mainland. It was a wild and woolly ride! The seas were quite rough, and we had more than 50 miles to go. We set a couple of sails, even though the winds were not at the best angle, because the ship is more stable with them up. But the motor was working very hard the whole way. More than half of the passengers and crew were sick. I was again among the fortunate ones, not sick. I had seconds at lunch. It had cooled off, and I'm not sure if the high for the day reached 60 degrees. It rained some, but I think most of the wetness on the decks was actually from spray blowing off of white capped waves. As there was little needed in terms of tending the sails or other chores, I spent my time with my earbuds in listening to books (too rough to read comfortably). Eventually, after six or seven hours of bouncing, I felt a need to keep my eyes on the horizon and my stomach full of ginger tea. And always one hand firmly gripping something when moving about.

The point of this photo is that
a rock lurks just beneath that breaking wave

Within minutes of moving into water protected by the offshore islands ("skerries"), everyone felt magically better. Dinner was delayed by a half hour to allow more recovery time, and everyone showed up at the table cheerfully. We were just anchored, in a relatively protected area, but quite a distance from anywhere to go ashore. 

The view in Akersund

 

 

 

The next day, with the brutal forecast winds showing up offshore, we wandered among the skerries and ended up docked at the little town of Arkosund. Filled with holiday homes, they had a supermarket (with ryecrisp sandwiches!) and an outlook. I wandered happily looking at cute gingerbread houses and vistas across rocky waters.

Is this a rock or a White Whale?

Tuesday, we headed north with calmer winds and seas. The captain was obsessed with tying the ship up to a rock or a cliff in one of the many nature reserves all along the coast. We motor-sailed all day to go the almost 50 miles to the spot he had picked out. By the time we got there, smaller sailboats (many of them) had taken most of the good spots. But he found one he thought we could use, a fairly steep cliff face with a few spindly trees. This mooring was clearly his white whale- he had been talking about tying up to a rock since the first day. We nestled up to the cliff face and a nimble young deckhand jumped ashore and tried various ways to afix some substantial ropes to something solid ashore. It took at least an hour of attempting various things to finally get us secure (but again, there would be a serious anchor watch all night). By the time it was done, dinner was an hour and a half late. The cliff was so steep I had no desire to try going ashore. (The English couple climbed up the rock face, but needed to put on climbing harnesses and suspend from ropes managed by the crew to come back down safely.)

Gingerbread house in Dalaro. 
There were modern houses, too, but not so picturesque.

View from Dalaro, my ship's masts in view.

The next day, we were once again making our way north, this time to the holiday town of Dalaro. We were now fairly close to Stockholm, and the town was full of large homes and looked prosperous. There were a couple of bars in town, but I took myself on a long loop surveying the peninsula, admiring the houses and the vistas and seeing a couple of wild deer along the way. The weather had warmed up again, still sweater weather, but not TWO sweater weather like before.

And we went for a rock to tie up to again the following night, Thursday night! First, we sailed south, just for fun and scenery, before turning the ship north and towards the entry to Stockholm,  This time, we went into a bay with many lobes, and even though it was crowded with boats before us, we found a spot. The exit and shore was a little more friendly this time, and I went for a walk in the deep piney woods. I found a giant slug, as big as my hand! 

The following day was warmer still, as we motored our way through the serpentine channels between islands to get to downtown Stockholm. It was fun to arrive by sea, and to recognize places I'd visited for the first time just ten days ago. We had time to reconnoiter (I figured out how to get to the train station) and then we had a fancy dinner with all the crew, and some drinks. 

Sailing

Still life with color-coded boots, port and starboard

Navigation aid

I spent a lot of time pulling on and then coiling these ropes!

Brave people going aloft

More brave people

Cute ship.
One of our crew had sailed on her last year
so we saluted each other

Stockholm bridge

I left early Saturday morning via Uber to the train station, high speed train to the airport, and an entirely uneventful trip home. When I got in, I dropped my bags and lay down on the floor and was completely endoggened. When I finally stood up, I was covered in white and black hair from head to toe. 

Stockholm sunset

Lovely trip and always good to get home! 

 

Sweden: On Land

One of many pedestrian streets 
in downtown Stockholm

My trip over the Atlantic was mostly uneventful, except we took off more than an hour late, so I knew I would miss my short connection. I had booked the earliest flight of the day, and I had researched before I left, so I knew there were more flights from my connecting city (Munich) that would get me to Stockholm that day. But it made me glad I had packed light and had only carry-on. I tried to use the on-board wi-fi to rebook or contact customer service, and it never worked. I got maybe a couple of hours sleep across the Atlantic, but I also read an entire novel. 

To my surprise, there was no customer service agent at the gate for our very delayed flight when we landed in Munich, so I was on my own to figure it out. I hadn't been to Munich airport before, and it is way smaller than Frankfurt, but very very confusing. Both coming and going, there was a lack of adequate signage pointing the way between concourses, leading to retracing my steps and circling around a lot. But I found a service counter and got rebooked on a flight three hours later. While my backpack was just within Lufthansa's strict carry-on limits, it became clear I would be one of the last people to board, so I gate checked. I figured there was little chance of the bag going astray when I was carrying it myself to where it got loaded on the airplane.

I'm a big fan of the buzz from
jetlag + beer

I took the high-speed train to downtown Stockholm, and my hotel was just a couple of blocks away. I had decided to stay in the downtown rather than a funkier neighborhood, since I'd be arriving and leaving by train. With the flight delay, I was able to check in right away to the blond wood very stylish hotel. I tried to nap, but I was keyed up and also very hungry. So after some research on restaurants, I set forth into the vibrant downtown celebrating the sunshine and warm weather. I had the first of my iconic Swedish meals, meatballs and a local beer, sitting outside surrounded by groups of actual Swedes, not tourists as far as I could tell. After food, I walked and walked, getting oriented to the neighborhood. 

The Vasa is incredibly ornately decorated
No doubt that added to its instability

In my planning, I had bought one museum ticket already (for a specific day, not a specific time) and I loaded the public transit app and added a payment method. So my plan for the first day, Monday, was transit to the museum in the morning, with a menu of other possibilities for the rest of the day. I rode a tram to the museum - Stockholm doesn't have a lot of tram lines (versus subway or bus), but I always prefer a tram if I can. You get the view, but its route is constrained to the rail lines - it won't go wandering off randomly as I always worry a bus will. 

The Vasa museum is built around a single white elephant of a ship (the Vasa, duh) that sank on its maiden voyage in 1628. She was built as the ultimate warship for Sweden's ongoing wars across the Baltic with Denmark, Poland, and Germany. But she was fundamentally flawed in design - too top-heavy for her narrow beam. So after two years of construction, she set out with fancy flags flying for a short test cruise in Stockholm's harbor, only to roll over and flood and sink. There were maybe 300 people on board, and about 10 percent of them were trapped below decks in the quick sinking and died. She stayed on the bottom of the harbor until the mid-20th century, when she was found, raised, preserved, and an entire museum was built around her. No other battleship from this period has been preserved, so she is fascinating to study. I spent a couple of hours there, looking at the ship and the additional displays. There were several poignant items - two bodies recovered from the gun deck were intertwined, and wore clothing of similar manufacture, and one was a woman. It was not uncommon for wives to ship aboard with their husbands, so this is likely a couple who were together at the end.  

After the Vasa Museum, I rode transit to Skansen, Stockholm's outdoor "heritage park". It's scattered with buildings from the 17th through 19th century, with costumed re-actors, and lots of animals. I got an unusual lunch there - sauteed mushrooms and mashed potatoes in a paper cone. I wandered around and at one point was surrounded by a flock of sheep being moved between fields by a costumed shepherdess. Afterwards, exhausted, I rode the tram back towards the hotel. Encouraged by the example of a couple of different friends who recently blogged about their European trips, I allowed myself a short nap. 

That afternoon and evening, I had my second iconic Swedish meal, fish soup from a food hall downtown. I had spotted on the map many design and home stores, and I spent quite a bit of time wandering and admiring the lovely stuff. I am a sucker for small bowls, and I could have filled an entire suitcase with the cute and charming things I saw. But I still had train rides and a voyage to deal with, and of course I actually need no more of them. But I amused myself mightily deciding what I would buy, if I were to buy. 

Gamla Stan has attractive old buildings in cobblestoned streets
Also the Kings Palace (not shown)

The next morning I headed to the old town, Gamla Stan, by underground metro. I had read the metro stations are themselves art, and that is certainly so. To get to my train, I entered the system close to my hotel, but then went down escalators and up stairs and around corridors and down stairs and up escalators to finally get to the line I needed, so I had a chance to view several different decorating styles on different platforms. After a short ride, I surfaced into the old town. It was early, and I was able to wander the narrow streets and passageways without a lot of traffic. There were many boutiques and galleries and also tacky tourist shops, none of the initially open. By the time things were opening up, the streets were thronged with many guided groups, and I was tired.

So I implemented the rest of my transit plan - I bought a hop-on, hop-off ticket good both for the boats that circulate between the islands that make up the city and for the buses as well. I spent a pleasant hour on the water, following along on the map. Afterwards, I got off and explored the Sodermalm neighborhood - described as the Brooklyn of Stockholm. Not as quaint as Gamla Stan, more residential than downtown, it had some interesting shops and gardens and views. I found a square full of outdoor cafes, and completed my trifecta of iconic Swedish food with an openface shrimp salad sandwich on rye. Funny story - not a tourist area, menus not translated. I had been studying menus since I arrived in Stockholm, most of which were translated in the downtown area. So I saw "Raksmorgas pa frobrod" on the chalkboard menu, and tried Google translate on my phone. (Apple translate doesn't do Swedish.) It said "shaved ice"! I went ahead and ordered it, and while waiting for the food tried again, this time using the special characters above the "a" and "o" letters. “Räksmörgås på fröbröd” This time I got shrimp on rye, hooray! And sure enough, that’s what arrived.

My little oasis by the river just across the bridge 
from downtown

I finished the afternoon with a long ride through the town on a double-decker hop-on, hop-off bus, ending near my hotel. I was craving ice cream, and I found on google a gelato place not far from the hotel, but in a different direction and across a bridge to yet another island. The weather had remained fine, so I took my gelato, and my book, to a bench overlooking the river/canal separating this island from the central island. I spent a nice time there, reading and watching a parade of small motorboats, standup paddlers, kayaks, move at a sedate pace in both directions on the water, while a steady stream of bicyclers, runners, and dogwalkers moved along the paved path beside it. I had an early train the next morning, so I had a Caesar salad in the hotel bar for dinner, being glad there didn't seem to be any diarrhea lettuce in Sweden.

Such an informative sign! 
I got "Linkoping-Kalmar" - that's my train!
Onsdag 15 juli kl. 12:00 - that's right now!
Uh, what is happening?

I had booked a train ticket to the small coastal town south of Stockholm, Kalmar, where I was to meet my ship. The first leg was high speed and modern, with announcements in Swedish and English. After a couple of hours through beautiful fields and forests, I was dropped off at the country station, with slightly more than an hour connection time. There didn't appear to be any employees in the train station - there was a convenience store and a couple of snack bars - but what looked like the ticket/info window was tightly closed up and looked abandoned. There were automated signs, but my train wasn't yet listed, too far away in time. However, there was a sign that said something about the line from where we were to where I was going, in Swedish, indicating something was happening from just then through the next couple of days. Once again, Google translate failed me. My knowledge of Norwegian wasn't enough to shed light. So I ate a hot dog while gazing at the town and worrying. Finally, time moved along and my "train" appeared on the schedule, with a big red note replacing the platform number with BUS and a number. I wandered the area (carrying all my bags, mind you) until I found a map showing my bus number at the far edge. With still half an hour to go, there was nobody around so I went back and sat in the slightly air conditioned station for a few minutes, and then followed a small trickle of people back to the bus stop. More and more people showed up, no line, just a small crowd. Finally, three buses showed up. I picked one that said "Kalmar" in handwriting on a note in the window. I stowed my big backpack in the luggage on the side and boarded. As the bus filled, a guy stepped in and made an announcement I couldn't understand, except I thought I heard him say "Kalmar direct". When the driver boarded, I went and asked - he explained in English this bus was going only to Kalmar, the other buses were going to intermediate stops first. So I was fine, hooray!

Three hours on the bus (at least no one next to me), watching the fields and forests. Too bumpy to read, but I put in my ear buds and listened to a book.  Many very prosperous, big, wooden, farm houses, most red, but some yellow. In the villages, the houses were stucco, and mostly yellow but some white. Finally, the small town of Kalmar. I walked the half mile from the train station to my hotel on the water. It was fabulously cute, built into an old fish processing plant. I picked it mostly for the location, but it also included not only breakfast but dinner in the price! So I dropped off the bags, checked out the tiny town (and spotted my ship already docked down the harbor), and went back to the hotel to eat dinner outside on the veranda over the water. 

Castle ahead

I spent the next morning hanging in the hotel, re-packing and catching up on notes and using the hotel wifi. I bought a later checkout time, so I was overdue for lunch by the time I dropped my bags in the hotel's closet and went out. After a fine Chinese-food lunch, I walked to the castle. Built in the middle ages, but extensively revised and expanded in the "late Renaissance" (16th and 17th centuries) it was very well preserved and absolutely gorgeous. It definitely wasn't medieval, and it reminded me of Tudor age sights I've seen in England. I was curious about the history that would have built such a fortress in the middle of the Swedish coast. Well, it turns out this had been the southern Swedish border, with the provinces to the south being claimed by Denmark until the end of the 17th century. Apparently Denmark and Sweden have fought more wars against each other than almost any other pair of countries. Denmark was the big dog, also ruling Norway for several centuries until she backed Napoleon in the early 19th century, and Sweden was on the winning English side. (And Sweden got custody of Norway as a reward.)

After a self-guided tour of the well maintained castle, I found a quiet shaded bench in the public garden and read until it was time to pick up my bags and head to the ship.  

A sample of the ceiling in a public hall in the castle

Next: Afloat! 

Quick drop-in from Sweden

Just a quick note. I brought the iPad but no keyboard, so I have to tap this out. Complete report when I get home. 

View from a hotel window,
sublime edition

After three fabulous days in Stockholm, today was a marathon of trains and buses to get to this ineffably cute coastal holiday city of Kalmar. I’m staying in a converted 200-year-old fish processing facility literally built out over the water. Tomorrow’s agenda is to simply spend a lazy morning on the hotel’s waterfront deck drinking coffee and catching up on my notes, then storm the castle (oops, I mean tour it) and then board my ship in the evening  

The adventure continues!

I went to the supermarket next door, and found this!
Rye crisp “sandwiches”! Shelf stable!
This could be the perfect bring-along airplane snack!