Vana visits, and there is snow, but not in Spain.

 Do you remember having a "best" friend?  I remember moving a lot, and not getting to make friends for very long.  I remember getting to a new place and walking up, and back, up and back, wandering the immediate area looking for kids my own age.  I do not know how the two of us became friends, I do not have the 'pat' movie origin story- but I do know how important the friendship was to my surviving and thriving during a certain time in my life.

My friend traveled thousands of miles, and we got to learn a bit about who we have become.  I feel grateful we got the chance, and grateful that we are both here to take the chance.

I feel grateful that there is someone else besides myself that remember my little brother Elric.

I feel grateful that we did actually have, true-blue American summers.  With adventures, music, riding in cars with boys on hot August nights, the world laid out before us full of promises and decisions to be made.

We broke up the visit by going to Spain, taking in some warmth, culture and Gaudi architecture (as one does...)

We returned to:

But really the snow was good too-

Stockholm is beautiful in all seasons and we got to go to Skansen for Julmarknad, and I love Skansen in the snow.

"Sometimes you learn the hard way...more than once...more than once..."

What if a person was to look back over so many years and think..." I really was not suited for this life at all."

Not in some grand epiphany way- more of a sudden realization that something that was a normal part of life, yet hard and uncomfortable could just have been avoided?

I am really just thinking about traveling...long airplane rides with many transfers.

I have noticed that my feeling of awe, that a person can fly 10,000 miles in a day has become more of a dull ache at the thought of so many hours without fresh air.  Or the nagging idea that I am taking a seat away, and by seat I mean experience from some new traveler who has years of enthusiasm ahead of them- while my enthusiasm may be lost.

But maybe I just need a break- which I intended to have as the new year started but instead we had one last large blow to a year which truly had already hit us a fair few times. Our bad luck decided to hold and when we arrived home on the 29th (so close to the new year my superstitious thinking voice was screaming...) we found out our house had been robbed, and of course damaged in the process.

I won't write about it, but I don't want to forget it, exactly, either and I do use this medium as a chronological map of life events.

So although we were of course completely unprepared for our guests whom 

arrived just a few days after our long day with the police, they have been a really good distraction.

Our Swedish friends were entranced by Tasmania- and every dark thought we might have been having was quelled by their untainted observations.

 We had some lovely drives, listening to music, seeing the 'Remarkable Cave' at low tide.

Here is a comparison:

I couldn't even tell the cave was so large when I had only seen it at high tide, there is more than one cave, and they are indeed...remarkable.

 

Then we had family come and they were of course, sympathetic and a bit grounding for us.

The shock from snow to beach and sun is large but enjoyable.

If you actually visit here to catch up on my life, I am sorry I've been out of touch.