Silja, part I

We found the terminal (terminalen?) without too much trouble. It was quite a long walk, and we both got slightly lost, and then Jake kept stopping for tobacco and water and then of course I wanted to get water as well.

What more? I liked the port, as I always do. I adored the ship, which I liked for the same reasons as buses in Europe. For me, they represent transience and leaving, and arriving at new destinations, and being relentlessly on the move. Running away, if you will. Except that ships have duty free shops and a nice cabin all to myself and you can go to the sun deck and lean upon the railing and watch the harbour fade into the distance, growing smaller and smaller, and the feeling of watching the coast sink away into the horizon is oddly liberating.

I adored Silja, although I was easily one of the youngest passengers there, and at times I felt that I stuck out like a sore thumb. At any rate, I didn't see anyone else my age. Most of the people on the cruise were elderly Nordic or Asian couples, or families with their young children and strollers. The ship itself felt rather like a luxury cruise, with a vast tax-free shop that had a marvellous stock of cream liquor. Bear in mind that this was my first European cruise in about 15 years, and 15 years ago I didn't even know what booze looked like. The first time I laid eyes on their magnificent collection my jaw dropped, and I spun around like a carousel, or an excited child in a Christmas candy store who has just promised their beady-eyed mother 'only to buy that one small Smarties bar that costs 50p.' The warden in charge of the cream liquor, a Slavic woman probably my age with about a pound of makeup on her face and brittle, bottle-blond hair pulled back into a tight bun, eyed me suspiciously, which I brushed off. You learn to develop a thick skin when you're out and about. I had to exercise a lot of self restraint not to get any of the stuff, because they were huge bottles, and in any case I was here on a budget and I didn't really want to blow 20 euros on a deluxe Bailey's that I probably wouldn't be able to finish. That, and the fact that I'm a self-confessed hypochondriac who is deathly afraid of alcohol poisoning.

I'm sitting here in my hotel room on the 35th floor now and looking out at the dusty ME landscape. Being in a high rise is always oddly soothing for me, and here the weather is determinedly, invariably sunny. Endless blue skies stretch out, but the skies here are dusty and there is a faint yellow smog that dirties the horizon, unlike its Baltic counterpart up north. The effortlessly colloquial jabber that used to spill out of me little more than a year ago has run dry, it seems. Or maybe not, and all I need is the right context.

There is something deeply satisfying about the long-shadowed, early evening sun here, and the way its warm, soothing yet curiously defiant rays permeate through the sea port.

Next stop, Helsingfors

Stockholm, part V

I have somehow managed to come to the end of my Stockholm chapter, which I find vaguely remarkable and even commendable. A morning not wholly whiled away in vain, then, and it's not even noon. I'm not going out again today, I don't think. Honestly, if I could have my own way I'd never step out of this room - agoraphobia, David Foster Wallace would suggest with a dry chuckle, along with some other long pedantic words that even I've never heard of.

Sweden, this'll be the last entry proper. My next entry will be about what was one of my favourite parts of my journey: the overnight Silja cruise from Stockholm to Helsinki. Sweden? As I mentioned in a former entry, I didn't take as much note of the city as I should have. I enjoyed its beauty, and prosperity, and the rugged, ruddily healthy mien of its Nordic inhabitants, as well as all the other expats who lived there. This was a city that was largely left intact by the turmoil of the second World War, and somehow this was manifested in the clear blue Baltic skies, the courteous demeanour of the Swedes, and the calm bustle of the Gamla Stan.

This city is also extremely expensive and I'm not sure if I will come back again, but for the Silja line, maybe. How old will I be when I next come? Not too old, that's for sure. I have a way of getting things that I want.

Oh look there's a 7-11 here in Stockholm of all places!

Stockholm, part IV

The Internet speed here is frightfully, jaw-crackingly, mind-numbingly slow, spelt s-l-o-w. It beggars belief and confounds all expectations. I could write and upload two entries in Taiwan with the internet speed I have here.

Weekend is going fairly well so far. I got most of my laundry done. I've finally managed to publish my first entry in the ME, despite sketchy bandwidth, a photoshop application that is incapable of multitasking, and a virus that I had to stop to google and terminate. I've also just finished two cans of Mr. Brown coffee, comfortingly Taiwanese - but at the same time I despair; am I doomed to instant or refrigerated coffee for the duration of my assignment here? Time was when I delighted in coffee, any and every sort of coffee, in all its granular, instant, cheaply garish glory. Not so anymore; I am getting too old for bad coffee. Somewhere along the journey of life I have learnt to differentiate between good and bad coffee. Wine appraisal will probably take a bit more time, more so since I've tried to swear myself off alcohol, but it'll come in time.

I've been reading 'A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again' by David Foster Wallace. The name was vaguely familiar when I first came across it yesterday. The title and the premise intrigued me, and I've been reading it on and off for the better part of the weekend. His writing style is one of my favourites - acerbic, saturnine and dry observations of how his fellow human beings interact with the environment they are situated in. My only complaint would be that his wording is a little too grandiose, as if he is thumbing his nose up at us less-endowed wordsmiths: look at me and my endlessly expansive vault of vocabulary! Nonetheless, I do admire his writing style, and I wondered how old he was now and looked him up, only to discover that he'd committed suicide 8 years ago, at the age of 46. I was quite distraught. I wonder is this is the hallmark of all good authors; that one must be steeped in negative emotions to produce truly good writing? A year ago, Jake told me that he didn't want me to be depressed in order to be inspired. Maybe that's why I've become an exponentially worse writer; I've learnt to manage disillusionment and disappointments better as I've grown older, which to a certain extent means that I've disengaged myself from my emotions, and concurrently the quality of my writing has gone down.

What wouldn't I give for a fresh brew of black coffee from Familymart! My dreams are very small.

We wandered round some more. That was a LOT of walking we did. There were a lot of people trundling round with not one, but two walking sticks, and Jake and I had a good giggle at them. A few hours on, we began to see their point.

Art gallery galore, and an elusive advertised ice cream which I just could not locate, despite my very best efforts.

Stockholm, part III - Gamla Stan and the Palace

'You will not know this for some time,' he said, 'but the longing for something--for someone--is vastly superior to possession. The strain of desire is the greatest sensation, the ultimate folly of God. I believe this is why we are always dissatisfied with art and life and people and experience: nothing can compete with our imaginations and our strength of desire. It is wise to always desire something, to keep something of a flame, an energy, to one's life and heart.'

I'm here now, here out in the ME, and it's here of all places and today of all days that I chose to continue updating my journal. Or perhaps I just had a very long day at work.

Stockholm, walking through the streets with Jake, and stopping for him and doing my very best to immerse myself in the moment. One fallacy of our generation, I think, is that this concept of carpe diem, of living in the moment, has been so resolutely hammered into our minds that we're too busy worrying about living in the moment and not actually living it. We're going through the motions and mouthing the words but not channeling the emotions. I don't know. Maybe I'm overthinking this, but I like myself when I overthink things. When I stop overthinking things, when I'm numb and dull, is when I begin to worry.

Do you know what I miss? I miss walking home along the Thames after class, which usually ended at either 5 or 6. By that time it was usually dark, because it was the Michaelmas term, and because for me London will always be frozen in time, in the autumn of 2013; specifically, October and November. Walking across Kingsway, down Surrey Street, past Temple and down to the Victoria Embankment and the Thames; seeing the glittering yellow lights of Southbank and the OXO tower, and walking down to Blackfriars bridge. Up and under the Blackfriars underpass and then to South Bank. South Bank will always be my home; I love The City and the Strand and Bloomsberg, but South Bank was the place I would always return to when all my wanderings were done. I would walk home along the river, which was black at night, and it was almost always crowded, the promenade. Past Founders' Arms, then Shakespeare's Globe, and then beneath Southwark Bridge and past the Clink, past the Old Thameside Inn, then through Southwark Cathedral and to the other side, to my beloved London  Bridge. I will never stop loving that area for as long as I live, and never stop yearning for that, either. I know on this very blog two years ago, I said I was happy about moving out, but now I look back through the rose tinted lens of nostalgia, and that was the best thing I ever did, in a way no other experience ever was, except maybe travelling. I was 22 then. Maybe I liked it because I was 22. Thank goodness I didn't stay in Taiwan for my graduate degree. I would have pined away in Taiwan and allowed my soul to crumble into pedagogic, self-indulgent demise. London is the reason I love cities rather than people; it all started from there, that hazy, chilly morning in October 2013.

Recently I've been very conscious of my own age and the passing of time. I always have - I did write my master's thesis on it, and got a distinction for that, too - but more so now that I'm here and in my mid twenties. I like living in my own house of cards, although my time is ticking away slowly but surely. Typical, really, that I'm writing an entry about Stockholm and yet all I can do is reminisce about London and the year I was 22. The truth is that I didn't notice that much of Stockholm. I remember the speedwell-blue sky and the picturesque pastel-coloured buildings lining the promenade. The restaurants and the way they were built to accommodate the sloping landscape, and how Jake and I used to sit on the outermost step. I would watch the people passing by, whilst he would take a long drag on his neverending cigarettes and look down at his plate, and then out too at whichever slanted cobbled street we happened to be sitting in.

Enough thoughts. I would like it very much if I could get at least this entry out by the end of this hour. It'll be my very first blog post from the Gulf region.

This restaurant was apparently an 'eat-all-you can' and served some of the best soup cubes and fried dried onion that I've ever tasted in my life. Two bowls was more than enough for me, however