Silja, part II

This is the third year of my blog. It's mind boggling how time just goes by, like that. That's all I'm going to say on the subject though, because lots more people have had more to say about the passage of time, in far more eloquent words and phrases than I'll ever be capable of coming up with, so there's that.

These are some more pictures of Silja. I see that the last time I wrote about my travels I'd just arrived in the ME, more or less. Different times, and I was a different person back then, wasn't I?

I'm not exaggerating when I say that this day, and this particular part of my trip, was one of the happiest I've ever been in my life. For almost as long as I can remember, I've always felt displaced somehow, and could never really settle down to one place at a time. Ironic, then, that it was here of all places - a middle-class semi-luxury cruiser - that I'd feel truly at home, that this was a place I could make my abode for a while before moving on, once more.

I found my cabin - oh, yes! and threw my sole piece of luggage onto the comforter on the bed, and then flopped myself down and closed my eyes, and drank in the sensation of being alone and my own mistress. I lay there for about three minutes, then sat up and checked if there was any wifi here. Nope. I washed my hands, scrolled through my photos a bit, then took my diary and decided to head out and explore the ship. The first place I went to - always my first port of call whenever I'm on a ship, excuse the pun - was the sun deck.

It was already getting a bit chilly when I went up, and I shivered a bit and went back and put on a sweater before coming back up. Most of the passengers, I noticed, were either middle-aged Scandinavian couples, or couples in their thirties with their young children. None of them, I noticed, were like me - a solitary Asian girl in their mid twenties. I remember getting some curious stares, but no matter. It comes with the territory, of travelling alone.

After I'd had enough of the increasingly chilly sun deck, and watched the port pull away from the ship (or vice versa), I went downstairs to look at the promenade, which I've described in some detail in an earlier entry. I did a lot of looking, imagined to myself what these luscious liquors might taste like, then went to a cubby-hole place with a wide sill, sat myself down and stretched out my legs, and did some diary-writing. Standard fare as always, but it is odd how I remember that experience so damn fondly. I sat there and wrote, and thought, and wrote some more, then I put my pen down and watched the waters ripple by as the sun sank farther into the west and the skies grew darker, until I didn't have enough light to write properly.

I went back downstairs to the promenade and wandered amongst the duty free restaurants and debated whether I should spend 15 euros on Swedish meatballs or not, but eventually decided against it. I walked to the far end, where there was a bar, and noticed to my delight that White Russians were going for 5 euros, which I ordered without any further ado. I found myself a table and sat myself down, and got out my diary once again, because it's become my go-to activity, especially on cruisers.

One of the most notable things I remember feeling that night is that I realised halfway through my White Russian that the alcohol was making me too happy, so I stopped drinking it.

I turned in fairly early that night, but not before taking a nice long piping hot shower. I kept the door open so that I could hear the music I was blasting out, and thought that if there was a heaven, then this was what it looked, and felt like: cold weather and cold air, a cabin to myself and no one else around, and a good hot shower.

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.