Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Sweden in a 1974 Mustang

At the risk of starting this blog with an overly 'sex and the city' vibe (I'm not a fan although a certain friend of mine likes to point out my Carrie-like tendencies), this was the advice my beloved friend JonJon just gave in an exaggerated (and fake) American accent... "Ma'am... just step away from the vehicle". What vehicle? In this case, my love life (or lack thereof) which in fact does resemble a car crash, albeit one of those ones you just can't help staring at no matter how sure you are that you are going to see something horrifying which will scar you forever.

At first glance, this particular car crash doesn't have much to do with the four-lane pile-up which is blocking traffic from all directions behind it. But on closer inspection, this terrible accident (aka all those other niggly aspects of life such as stable job, functioning home, a credit card where the numbers are still visible, a killer wardrobe - those things which make you feel you have reached a modicum of adulthood) is exactly why my love life has run into a rather large brick wall.

But on the up side, at last I am in Scandinavia, a place that has fascinated me for a while. I have lived in Holland (and suffered at the hands of their terrible supermarkets, utter disregard for customer service and blatantly inferior national airline but that is another cheese-encrusted story), had a brief stint in sunny Sydney and a few sidetrips to Tokyo and Seoul, but at last I am in Stockholm careering down that 20-something highway to .... hell? Not sure yet.

Speaking of cars, my friend just bought a 1974 Mustang. I told him I hope he outlasts the car. I guess that's exactly what life is like right now - an old Mustang, kind of nice but rough around the edges and oh please don't look too closely under the hood because you might just notice something you didn't want to but it sure would explain that rattling noise. Anyway, enough with the mechanical metaphors, welcome to my new life in Sweden....