Sweden Diaries: 2
Our journey to Åre began on Friday, the 16th August. I awoke at my 6.30am alarm feeling significantly more refreshed than the day before, falling asleep near-instantly as my head hit the pillow last night. I climbed over Rob to reach the hotel room window – the city streets were quiet, no cars could be seen yet, only a handful of people were out either by foot or by bike. We silently dragged our luggage through the corridors before emerging out into the sleepy streets of Stockholm, with a frantic but brief walk to the train station ahead of us. On the map, our journey to Åre was almost vertically north, and would take 6 hours and 46 minutes – a marathon when the longest train journey you’re used to is the mostly grey trip to London – but this journey was different. The carriage was spacious and quiet, and as I sat down, the seat seemed to scoop me up in an embrace. I took out my book and my laptop as the train moved off, looking out of the window as we went, mentally bidding Stockholm farewell. I see the first fields an hour or so into our journey and I’m reminded that my dad asked me to report back on the crops I see – something that his own dad used to ask him to do when he travelled away from home – ‘harvested wheat and barley, and sunflower fields in full bloom’, I tell him.
The further north we travelled, the more the landscape became not much more than trees, mountains and lakes – and it was beautiful. We passed quaint and incredibly neat little towns, with houses clad in wooden panels painted rusty red and butter yellow. Each time we passed a level crossing, I would hear the bells ringing well in the distance beforehand. For what seemed like minutes as the train chugged forward, the ringing of the bells would become progressively louder, from a faint jingle to a loud alarm until, in an instant, we passed it, and the sounds of the bells would go whooshing by, the tone of them changing to a slightly melancholic one – it felt like a metaphor, or perhaps I’d just spent too long on a train. E
ach time the bells sounded I was reminded of the train scene in Studio Ghibli’s ‘Spirited Away’, one of my favourite movies, and a wave of comfort and child-like anticipation would wash over me.
Our first weekend in Åre went by in a blur. We were both still fighting tiredness, with Rob also succumbing to the onset of a cold. We took the cable car up Åreskutan, watching as bikers rode down trails on the mountain side as we went, and imagining how different this landscape will look come autumn and winter. We hiked the 20 or so minutes to the top, where lies a tiny, cosy little café that serves hot chocolate and crisp Swedish waffles with cream and cloudberry jam. Looking out at the panoramic landscape atop Åreskutan, I was struck by how similar it was to Scotland. I revel in seeing the patches of green and grey that are highlighted by where the sun is breaking out from the clouds, contrasting with the dramatic darkness of areas that the sun cannot reach. The wind was strong but felt refreshing and exhilarating – I turn to Rob with rosy cheeks, ‘I think we’ll be very happy here’. We ended our evening with what felt like an obligatory dinner – meatballs, potatoes and lingonberry jam.
The next day we set out on Åresjön, the lake that flows by Åre, in a kayak. The day was pleasant, with sun bursts beaming through the clouds, and the water felt surprisingly warm when I let my fingers dip into it as we glided through. We saw fishermen set off up stream towards Duved, and in the opposite direction we could see the towns of Björnänge and Undersåker nestled into the mountainsides. The rain fell heavily that Sunday evening, and from our accomodation we watched as the raindrops hit the surface of Åresjön, falling like a great grey sheet across the lake. It’s Rob’s first day at work tomorrow, and my first day back to figuring out what I’m going to do with myself in the way of work.
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Stepping off the train, I near-instantly felt at ease here. There is something about being out of the city and so close to nature, with significantly less noise and less people, that settled my mind in a way that I had hoped might happen, but I didn’t expect to happen so soon. Small things like patching up a few holes in my favourite trousers that I’d been thinking to do for a while but could never allow myself to sit still long enough to actually do – I had done within the first couple days of arriving. Writing feels easier here – I can hear my thoughts clearer, and pulling out my notebook or laptop to scroll down these words feels like a deep comfort to me. Our ability to create or discover a little sanctuary, a world away from the everyday, with beautiful words is like magic, and it is my comfort in amidst all of this glorious but foreign newness. It is my constant; no matter where I am in the world, I will always have these words to come home to.
