Written by Jesús
27 Mar 2015
It wasn’t the typical bright sun and summer day. It was more like generally sunny but with a few clouds, and it wasn’t even that warm. But since summer is a mental attitude, that didn’t really matter.
I had spent most of the morning indoors, learning Swedish both on Duolingo and with some Anki flash cards (check out the Swedish-learning guide that I wrote). And somehow it felt like I needed to go out and do some photosynthesis 😛
So I called my friend N, and we decided to meet up by her favorite secret spot, in about 1.5h. That was a great initiative and idea, since I wanted to discover the location. But the bad part about secret spots is that they are secret, so I needed to find out where it was on my own. And to do that, I only had a picture that she sent me, and a tip that it was around Djurgården, Stockholm. But anyway, after analyzing the photo and checking the area in Google Maps, it was pretty clear where the photo was taken…
So I packed my backpack with the essentials (hammock, climbing gear, bike lights and some protein powder) , and I got cycling towards town.
Since it was about 20km, I had a quick 10min workout on a park halfway to Djurgården, and then stopped again to buy 4 packages of Tunisian dates (about 900g). I don’t know why, but I have a date addiction. I mean, I never get bored of having dates. They all have their own taste, shape, but somehow are all super satisfying. Due to this date addiction, I had to learn which supermarkets had dates so that I could find some when I craved them. Hahaha let’s go back to the story.
Cycling past the waterside Strandvägen road was an awesome experience. The views were just incredible!
I cycled past the Vasa Museum too, which apparently seems to like sugar.
I was just so happy. Life was super good and I was exploring some parts of Djurgården that I had never seen. I loved it.
I got there a bit earlier than N, so I climbed a little handrail to watch how a large ferry entered the city and turned to moor onto the harbour. While doing that, N arrived.
Since it was a bit windy, we decided to set up the yoga mat a bit in a shelter. After that, there was only one thing left to do: Chill out, enjoy the sunshine and view, and eat some tasty food! N had brought some tasty drink, peppers, and I had brought my pack of dates. Life was goooooooood.
Before leaving, we did some handstands, since they are fun and we want to become pros. There is just something super cool about standing upside down. Cycling back by almost sunset was also supercool!
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention where I was cycling to! Basically, I wanted to start climbing, and I met this really cool girl on Tinder (F) who Is now my climbing partner! We had a really cool afternoon climbing indoors, and I can’t believe how the time just flies when you climb. Well, that only applies to the mental aspect, since my forearms do indeed feel every single climb 😀 Hope they will get used soon!
We finished climbing at about 8:30pm, after a 3h session. Since I was by bike, I had shorts, it was pretty freezing, and I had to cycle about 20km, knew it was going to be tough. So I decided to visit my friend Jess who I hadn’t seen in ages! Also, to get to her place, I needed to cycle across a really big bridge with amazing views, and I was curious about how it would look at night time.
Since I hadn’t told her I was coming, I just went to the front door from her apartment and called her. But her phone wasn’t working, and there were no buttons to ring her door. So as sneaky as this might seem, I just went to the backyard, and I got super lucky since she opened her window at that exact time, because she was cooking something and needed the ventilation. So I shouted her name and her reaction was priceless XD I mean, who the hell expects a friend to come visit at 9pm and see him in the backyard? Not me 😀
Well anyway, it was super nice to see her again, and we had a nice chat. And even better, we had an amaaaaaaaazing dinner together that she had cooked 😀 Omg it was so tasty!
Anyway, after the power dinner, I cycled back to my place. The sky was clear and I was super happy. It had been an amazing day. One of many this year! 😀 Life is goooooooooood, but only when we do the things we love. But life is too short to spend our whole life investing and preparing ourselves for a future that will never come. That is, unless we are doing something we love, every day.
