the swedish archipelago consists of 14-100 thousand islands, depending on who you ask. as far as i am concerned, just 14 would be cool enough. I spent a few days out there, being a caveman once again. we slept in tents and ate with our hands. we went fishing and gutted, skinned and fried our catch. we logged wood to make a fire. and then there was Jenny, our favorite bathroom in the whole island. it was wonderful. we were in the very beginning of the Baltic sea, in what is called broken water - half salty, half sweet. still good enough to take a shower (which we did), but not good enough to drink. for water, btw, we went to the well, which had this cool manual pumping device that you see in old westerns. it was raining for about half our stay, but we didn't care. wasn't too cold anyway. It is really easy to be a viking in the archipelago. every monday and thursday you can go on a shipping expedition to discover some island, or burn down the huts of your neighbours.
there were four of us - from holland, sweden, the US and Israel, and we got along just nice and dand - shared the food, the tools, and the women. no, just kidding, not the tools. no, just kidding again, not the women. that was a comic pause. ahm. we also shared the pain of mosquitoes, which is no small burden in certain times of the day.
after three days in the islands i was happy to be back in civilization, and yet missed those lovely islands with their picturesque views. and of course, everybody missed jenny, which we left behind.
it's funny, but i am writing all this in a place that is a total contradiction to the simple, primitive life of hunting your food and logging your wood - I am floating in a god-knows-how-many-tons cruise ship on its way to helsinki. the place looks like a busy manhattan street - people everywhere, luxury restaurants, and an entertainment crew which includes an 8 meter tall black dude (well, on crutches), a few acrobatics performers, a jazz singer and a guy that plays the sax (and i suspect doing the jazz singer). there are saunas, pools, and pretty much everything you could think of. there is also a small hospital here. hmm. something to think about. you could hardly notice it's a ship, except for those few times when you feel a very strong tilt to either side, and you are not sure if it's you who drank too much, or if it is actually the boat (or ship? what's the difference anyway?).
I met two finnish women on the ship, and they told me about finnland a little bit. "the world was amazed", she told me, "when we beat the russians twice", referring to that unclear part of history, when a tiny nation beat the damn soviets twice and simply refused to be a russian colony. go finns. that has to say something about their spirit. i will soon find out. I was told that saunas ("only wooden", emphasized one of them) are one of the favorite past times, and that nokia is actually a name of a city in finland. pretty useful.
i am going to stop here.
see you in finland.
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