No one remembers Stockholm being this hot, for such a long time. It meant that swimming in the waters of Stockholm became normal and almost passé when it usually is a special treat, saved for those rare warm days. There was some complaining about the high temperatures, and surprise and sorrow about the California-like wildfires, but everyone I knew, including myself just expressed gratitude for this climate change.
Stockholm is full of new restaurants, with some good new Asian, Italian and vegan places. The taxes for eating at restaurants were reduced some years ago, and it apparently had a big impact. People are out all the time, and the sidewalk cafés and bars are booming, supported by the warm evenings, and the Stockholmers staying around instead of flying to Greece or Spain. The charter package trips are suffering, and I would be tempted to buy a summer house here, if the summers were guaranteed to remain like this. The city did empty out in July, when Swedes migrate to their cottages along the lakes and islands of the archipelago. It is hard to think of a more beautiful place than the Skärgården, the Swedish archipelago, during this time. The days are long and warm, and there is space for everyone.
The main reason for me being here is to help go through my father’s papers. In our world of email and electronic banking, there is still a lot of paperwork. It surprises me that someone who has died still has to pay taxes. It seems that when we are no longer here, the governments should just give us a break. And the rule of the USA to pay taxes on all world assets adds to the complexity, and makes one consider giving up the citizenship that so many on this planet are trying to obtain.
Some of the high points of the recent weeks were a quick stopover in Amsterdam on the way back from Africa. Walking along the canals, and watching the bicyclists reveals a somehow more continental city than Stockholm, with more tourists too. Then in Stockholm, we took a boat ride to Kymmendö, where August Strindberg wrote some of his most famous works in a little hut facing the water. At the Waldemarsudde museum, the work of the Swedish painter Sigrid Hjerten inspired my senses of color. Then the European Pride festival this year was in Stockholm, with a huge parade, that seemed particularly political this election year. A visit to my friend’s summer house, with swimming, jumping off a cliff into the slightly salty water, and playing Swedish charades epitomized that endless summer feeling of 2018.
Now back in San Francisco, I thank all my friends for the kind birthday wishes. I am preparing for the beginning of the new academic year, but I will be back in Stockholm soon, for my father’s memorial on September 2nd.