Cold Winds, Cardamom Buns, and Creepy Dudes: A Journey North
On my last night in Italy (for the time being), I fell through the looking glass into another century. It is a story that deserves its time to be told, and this is not it. I will say that I whiled away a few hours with a drink and my notebook, a story unfolding before my eyes as I listened to the bartender rattle off in Italian, content to only understand half of what he was saying.
By the time I emerged onto the streets of Florence sometime in the early hours of the morning, I had lost all sense of what day of the week it was – let alone what year. I fell asleep with the Duomo outside my window and awoke to the bustle of another morning.
In the days to come, my journey back through time continued, whether awaking to the rolling Austrian hills outside of the train window or to the quiet Prague morning. So, too, did I seem to journey through the seasons. Where Italy had been warm, with a distinct sense of spring in the air, Vienna remained resolutely stuck in winter. I had only a few hours in this old city and I spent them bundled up and shivering, not quite coming to any kind of reconciliation with the hard lines and imposing architecture of its streets.
Vienna: Richard Linklater really made this city look a lot more romantic than it is.
My train to Prague was an hour delayed, the platform a wind tunnel of cold air shooting through the feeble layers I had. I was quickly discovering that packing for a two month trip late at night after a long week at work had been a very, very bad idea – my three, not particularly warm, sweaters would be in constant rotation in the coming weeks.
By the time I made it onto the train, I was exhausted from my jolted sleep on the train the night before and a cold day of tramping around Vienna. As my gaze flicked over the compartment numbers, I had only one pure, simple wish. Please, let my compartment be empty.
It was too much to hope for. When I came to my number in the carriage and slid the door open, I was greeted with an optimistic smile from my compartment-mate.
“Do you speak English?” He asked.
I nodded tentatively and tucked my bags away. Somehow, I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be such a peaceful journey after all.
I curled up away from him on the other side of the compartment and hunched over my phone screen – the universal sign for, please, fuck off. But my new friend didn’t take too much to social cues. As he rattled on, I jokingly tapped out a message to a friend back home.
He’s already told me he loves me, I’m a tad concerned he’s going to propose before we get out of here.
Five minutes later, he was referring to me as his future wife. A five hour train journey has never felt so long.
It was pitch dark in Prague when we arrived, by which time I had been proposed to more times than I could count and had my entire life as a housewife and mother mapped out for me in painstakingly detail by my travel companion. I slid into a taxi, alone, and closed my eyes. If it wasn’t so irritating, it would almost be funny. But it was – irritating. Exhausting. Insulting, almost. As though the only reason I was working at all was in order to support myself until a strong husband strolled up to take care of me.
My apartment in Prague was a true respite at the end of a weary few days of travel, and almost made up for it all. I had no real plans in Prague besides to rest, to catch up on work, and to wander the old winding streets and hear their stories.
It almost seemed impossible that such a place could still be standing as it was, that it had not fallen into ruin over the tumultuous years that brought in the modern age. The buildings, so vivid and striking, whether in colour or architecture or both. I could not turn without coming upon yet another incredible view. Another moment that felt trapped in a forgotten century.
Prague: A city that transports you to another time.
It was a week of quiet, of solitude. I didn’t speak a word of the language and could barely even keep the street names straight in my head. I steadfastly avoided the pubs filled with Brits, their raucous laughter spilling out onto the street. I continuously got lost, meandering through backstreets that somehow seemed to turn in on themselves to bring me right back to where I’d started.
For many, such a week might sound isolating; horrifying, even. But after a busy, sociable week in Italy, it was the silence I craved. It was the time to sit in introspection and just be. It is the kind of city I could see myself returning to for a month at a time just to write, and do little else.
From unfamiliar streets to those I knew rather well, cold winds carried me to Stockholm. If it weren’t beginning to snow, I’d have stopped on the harbour front to breathe in the smell of cinnamon in the air from the bakery across the road and the fresh air of the sea stretched out before me.
I ate cardamom buns every morning, until the one day the bakery ran out. (My friend from the Vienna to Prague train would have referred to this as a catastrophe, as he did most things.) I nestled into the fabric of the city, spending my days much as I might if I were home in Toronto. I made a day trip to Uppsala that was soured by a man harassing me, and fled back to Stockholm with all the comfort of coming home, of returning to safety, as much as the incident rattled me for a few days yet.
(Admittedly, I think this one is a cinnamon bun, not cardamom.)
I will always feel at home in the Nordic countries, because I suppose they are a kind of home. Despite not speaking more than a few words of Swedish, understanding only a handful more than that; despite the fact that I spoke to barely anyone but my slightly odd Airbnb host all week, I found myself at once at home in the city. Just as I had four years earlier, passing through the summer before I moved to Toronto. That had been the first time I had thought that perhaps I could live in Stockholm. The feeling hadn’t abated.
There are a few reasons why I took myself to Europe for two months this spring and many more why I am grateful that I did. But a not-so-secret part is that I am searching for a new home. For where I might plant myself next. And in Stockholm, the search had only just begun.
