Stockholm, Sweden

Stockholm is a beautiful city with a lot of interesting aspects to it, including its urban planning and focus on sustainability.  Picture tons of bike paths, open spaces (30% of the city is made up of parks), recycling bins, and public transportation options (bus, railway, metro, and ferries).  It really is idyllic in many ways.  And yet, I am quite sure what we will remember most are job interviews, teething, and bus issues.  Well, that isn’t true.  I will definitely remember my hour of freedom on a bike on Djurgarden Island where I weaved my way through Rosendal’s estate with gravel roads, lakes, open grass spaces, and an organic garden.  This was definitely a highlight of Sweden for me.  While I was experiencing a bicycling bliss, Chris and Quinn (our little Viking) were experiencing bus issues, fatigue, and physical exhaustion. The bus line we needed to get back to the cruise terminal had rerouted due to the Gay Pride Parade.  Therefore, Chris ended up just walking Quinn home after waiting for a bus, so an hour was lost and Quinn fell asleep in the stroller, which generally means a short nap for the day.  I, too, experienced these bus issues and walked back to the ship completely wiped out from both biking and walking.  And, guess who was wide-awake and ready to continue the day?! 

We did have quite a few of other wonderful moments in Stockholm.  Our first day, we went on a city orientation bus tour, which also included a trip to the Vasa Museum.  The Vasa Museum is dedicated to a notorious war ship from the 1600s that sunk minutes just after leaving the bay.  The top was unstable but the ship was ordered to sea anyway, and toppled over by a “wind stronger than a breeze.” Thankfully, only about 30 individuals perished. Part of the museum actually feels like you are on a ship, and most impressive, is the life-size ship they have reconstructed in the museum from the actual ship’s materials (see pic).  The other highlight would be the canal tour we went on today which took us around the bay in Stockholm and through three different locks.  The tour was two hours and Quinn was a champ, sitting in her chair the entire time.

Now, I return to the typical and not so typical travel stressors.  Typical, are bus issues.  This is a part of traveling and it definitely hit us hard in Stockholm.  Not to sound like a broken record, but these types of issues sure do feel exponential given our limited time to sight see with Quinn.  In fact, on one occasion, it led to a rushed dinner at a terrible fast food joint, because we basically needed catch a bus right back home after arriving in the city.  It was the same day we had pushed her with a shorter nap, so we knew we had to get back at a decent time for bedtime.  Awful.  Food.  And, it was $25!  We would have preferred the ship food in a heartbeat. 

Not typical, were our other two stressors.  First, Quinn is getting her last molar teeth, apparently.  She was crying for what seemed like no reason on and off for a few days.  I know, other kids just do this.  Quinn does not! We finally figured out she was teething and pumped her full of Tylenol (in the pic, she is trying to get more Tylenol like an addict).  Thankfully, she is back on track and happy as a lark again.  Yes, I know.  We are super fortunate to have a child with such an easygoing, joyful temperament! 

Second, I had two job interviews.  Both interviews were two hours using video with Skype.  Prior to the interviews, I secured a suit jacket and an Internet café.  The latter are hard to come by now due to the access of Wi-Fi, but I did find Matrix, a dark cave of a computer lab, hidden in the subway terminal, dedicated to video gamers.  It sort of felt like home after spending six hours there in two days.  It was a pretty comical set up for the interview that I would NEVER recommend to students interviewing for a job, but again, options were limited.  On the first day, my interviewers could see people walking by in the background and on the second day they could hear lots of noise in the background because I was set up next to the front desk.  Oh gees.  Given there are only so many jobs that come up in Potsdam, NY, I didn’t want to pass up on these opportunities and the search committees were flexible.  I was happy to bust them out two days in a row, and then have the next two days to relax.  Now, we will just cross our fingers on the outcome. 

We will soon be arriving in Helsinki, Finland.  We have two days at sea before this, which will entail having dinner with our extended family, pre-port to prepare us for Helsinki, and a huge event on the ship where six individuals from the ship will give official TedX talks.  Again, how do the students get anything done?  Time is just flying both at sea and in ports!

Note:  I found out I was a contender with one other person for a job at SUNY Potsdam. In the end, it was a perfect result because I did not get the offer (I was going to decline if offered) BUT the Director sees my value and wants to help me secure a job at SUNY Potsdam.  He already gave my resume to the career office, and it sounds like they may be hiring in six months.  I don’t believe these two positions I interviewed for are the best match for me; I want to hold out for a career services position if possible.  A position also opened up at SUNY Canton in the career office.  In summary, I am glad I interviewed and built some great contacts.  And, I am feeling quite hopeful about career opportunities in the rural Potsdam area!