The Essentials

I guess I have found my local supermarket. It's essential, obviously, once we get over eating out, but often surprisingly hard to find. While there are plenty of multinational chains (Carrefour in Dubai, Spar in Johannesburg) it sometimes takes a few attempts to find the place with the right food at the right price. Surprisingly here it turns out to be Woolworth. They may be going bust in the UK, but here they are the local equivalent of Marks and Sparks fool hall. So far the other places I have tried are either too far to walk or have a crummy fruit selection. How is it that a country with almost permanent summer can't produce nice peaches or decent banana?. I blame it on the global food crisis. Anyway, Woolworth it is for now.

Re-cap: Stockholm

Travelling in the last weeks has been a bit ridiculous, what with going back to Joburg and then spending less than a week in Stockholm before going back for 6 days to Joburg and then - today - returning to Kiwi-land for the New Year holiday.

But I didn't want to miss out on posting some of the things that struck me in Stockholm:

First of all I have realised that Arlanda Airport is a place of many entertainments. Not only did Stuart find a book dispenser last time he passed through, I also discovered my favourite word in Swedish:

And while we are at Arlanda, the ticket machine makes the most laughable plops when buttons are pressed (which I can't post as his blog doesn't allow posting of sound files, so you will have to just try it for yourself when you go there, or ask me and I will send you the clip - it would make a great text message tone for your phone).

on being European

People on first meeting often ask where I am from. A difficult question to answer, or rather a complex answer is required. "Where are you from?" rather than "What nationality are you?" or "Where were you born?" or "Where do you live?" implies a sense of belonging to one location not the current one and maybe even being homesick, i.e. having a home one longs to go back to. I usually don't feel that I have such a home. So the answer usually runs along the lines of: born in Germany, lived in the UK for twenty-odd years, most recently living in x, part of my itinerant life as a corporate wife. Not a short answer by any means.

But the more I travel and live in assorted countries the more I realize where my heritage (although definitely not my home - that is a whole other blog post) is. There is nothing more comfortable to me than walking down some old cobbled street in Stockholm or enter a museum in Paris, find a cafe in Edinburgh or book a hotel room in Amsterdam. I haven't spent any significant amount of time in any of those cities, never lived in those countries, but it still feels easier than locating an rating place in Dubai or a shop in Joburg. Europe is my history, my point of reference, my yardstick however much I think of myself as a World citizen. Really I am just a European.