Scandinavia, ten years later
Vacations are great. But they can also force you to confront things.
This month marks ten years since my friend Anna and I went to Scandinavia together on a Contiki tour group vacation. And seeing as how ten-year anniversaries are imbued with a certain significance.. I’ve found myself reflecting on that trip quite a lot lately. I can’t point to any particular memory of the place itself — there wasn’t a cinematic moment where I had a transcendent, only-in-Scandinavia experience. But it was a trip that affected me deeply. Now Sam and I have a somewhat similar trip to Spain on the horizon for later this year. And I think my memories of Scandinavia are coloring the anticipation I have for that trip, too.
Ten years ago, in the summer of 2012, I had been living in DC for a little over two and a half years. I had finally saved what I thought was a decent amount of money where I could do things like “big travel,” and I had finally gotten restless enough with just staying at home, and 2012 seemed like as good a year as any to set out and explore. I had only ever been outside the US twice (both times with my parents, both times to Ireland), so a two and a half week trip to Europe was a pretty big deal. I don’t remember how exactly we settled on Scandinavia as the destination of choice. I think I had picked it out and invited Anna and one other friend of ours to join (the other friend initially signed on but then dropped out). The plan was to fly from DC to Berlin (where we’d spend two nights), and then from Berlin take a tour bus to Copenhagen, and explore Denmark, Norway, and Sweden (but mostly Norway, since it had the best holy-shit-wow-that’s-pretty landscapes).
If you’ve never taken a tour with Contiki or a similar tour group, some background: Contiki runs guided tours for groups of like two dozen people who are all 18 to 35 years old. In practice, most of the people on the tours are like, 25 or 26 and kinda just fucking around, in between jobs and spending their parents’ money. OR they’re, like, Canadian and are very responsible and independent. OR they’re Australian and just have loads of time off from their jobs and like to travel. Seriously our tour group was almost entirely made up of Australians.1 Anna and I, at 31/32, were definitely among the older members of the tour group.2
There are plenty of places in Europe I would never choose to visit through the constraints of a tour group. But honestly, for Scandinavia, it’s perfect. Norway and Sweden are not easy to get to. Norway especially has unbelievable landscapes and fjords and glaciers — but they’re all incredibly remote. Seeing the whole place by motor coach makes a lot of sense, because a lot of the little towns are hours apart from each other, and there’s not much to do but drive between them and take in the incredible views. Also, Oslo is small without a whole lot to do, but it’s incredibly rich feeling. Stockholm is much bigger and more touristy (in a good way), I thought. Copenhagen was a cool city with a ton of bikes and I’d like to go back to visit sometime in the future, because we sorta had crappy weather in Copenhagen and I didn’t get to see much. Also, a tour group was nice to have because holy shit Scandinavia is expensive. I distinctly remember paying $9 for a latte in Copenhagen (in 2012!). Also well drinks at any bar were regularly $20 a pop, so we mostly pre-gamed every night out or just stayed in and drank at the hostel/hotel (sometimes the gorgeous, amazing place where we were staying was so remote and isolated, that was literally our only option). So yeah. Having a big group of random new friends to hang out with, that helped.
The other important thing about seeing this part of the world in a young adult tour group though was the pace. There was so much packed into each and every day. For two and a half weeks, we never stayed in a place for more than two nights. Sometimes it was only one night. Every day had multiple events planned and other alternative add-ons we could opt for. Every night was spent hanging out drinking too much and staying up too late. Every morning started bleary-eyed and ready for a new daily schedule. Lady Gaga knows exactly what I’m talking about.
Of course, the advantage of this approach was that we got to do a lot. We went crab fishing in the North Sea, got to see the midnight sun over the solstice inside the Arctic Circle, swam in the Arctic Ocean,3 saw The Scream at the National Museum in Oslo, went clubbing in the Gamla stan in Stockholm.. went to Malmö and Lillehammer and Bergen and Voss, just a ton of stuff.
So I enjoyed the trip a lot for that reason. But I admit, it ran me ragged. I was truly pushed to the limit of what I was able to physically do each day and still stay relatively balanced. Eventually, the pace did catch up with me, and I have one memory in particular of a bus ride (I have no idea where this was — somewhere in Norway, between fjords I guess)… when it all came to a head.
There are so many reasons we all like to travel. It’s good to get out of your little bubble. It’s nice to be somewhere where you’re truly cut off from the day-to-day routine that sometimes traps you into certain ways of thinking. Travel can be a real mental “reset” for your life, if that’s what you happen to need at the time. All these are great. But I think what I experienced on that bus ride, exhausted and strung out as I was, was something a little bit different.
I remember just being overwhelmed by the sheer weight of where I was in my life. I was 32. I had my own apartment in DC that I loved. I had the job that I had sought as the capstone to my post-college, fully-adult, professional journey. I had accepted to myself that I was gay and that was a good thing and I had really started building a network of friends in DC that I could draw on for a sense of community. But everything that lay ahead just seemed — impossible. I was struck by this vague, terrifying notion that there was no way through life except by the living of it. That life was going to stretch ahead for years and decades more, and I was just — alone, with me, not knowing ANYTHING about where this was all headed or what it all meant. Anna was a wonderful friend and we had such an inseparable, close bond. Our lives could be measured out in a series of weekend brunches and Friday night happy hours that lasted until 1 a.m. .. those were moments that sat at the very core of what sustained me at that time in my life. But it wasn’t enough — it was all too ephemeral, and it didn’t answer the question — what would become of my life, and how was I ever going to know what choices to make next?
Sitting on that bus, 4,000 miles from home, on a once-in-a-lifetime tour seeing parts of the world I would never ever see again, all of this sort of built and spiraled in my head, and I was not surprisingly sobbing the ugly cry and making an absolute mess of myself. Anna had the kindness and presence of mind to move coach seats and leave me sitting alone in the row of seats as I sat and stared out the window at the mountains and valleys and quietly wept. I was despairing and panicking, and also overcome with the beauty of everything and in awe of just how vast and unknowable all of life was. Eventually I cried myself out and I settled down and I’m sure by later that night I was back to doing shots of Aquavit4 and playing drinking games with the Aussies.
It was a good cry, there in Scandinavia — certainly one for the ages, given that I can still remember it so vividly ten years later. I’m not generally a crier, and I tend to pursue more subdued, alternative methods of therapy and inner reflection (hello, I mean, this blog exists). But, for reasons I find it hard to really describe, that day felt like a big breakthrough, and a big cry was so necessary. It was a cry that really separated what had come before from the vast, mysterious life I was yet to experience. I hadn’t come out to my parents at that stage (I had never really seen the need to), and I had to confront that that wasn’t fair to them or to myself. I don’t think I had fully embraced the notion that gay meant, like, — gay in all its parts, and in all of life. At the age of 40 or 50 or 75, I would still be navigating life, still be uncertain about how to find meaning and connection with people, and I would still be doing so as a gay person. In its own way it would be harder and different from what my parents had done or any other models I had to fall back on. I had no idea what that even meant (and in many ways still don’t), but.. in that moment it felt essential that I confront that fear.
I met Sam about a year and a half after that trip, and of course, life since then has unfolded in ways I couldn’t possibly have predicted. I can’t begin to describe how our relationship has changed my perspective on all these fears and anxieties without going into a completely different post that has nothing to do with Scandinavia. In some ways everything has changed. In some ways very little has.
Come September, Sam and I will take another trip, this time to Spain, and we’ll have some truly wonderful friends with us. It will be chaotic and stressful, and people will probably squabble at some point, and we will drink too much and not get enough sleep, and run short on time and get sunburned on the beach. There will be unforgettable, amazing experiences and bland, ordinary moments where we get lost or struggle to order coffee. We will empty ourselves of all that keeps us tethered to everyday, pedestrian life in Chicago. And when that happens, when everything from normal life is stripped away, it’s a chance to really learn things about oneself. To be open to what we don’t know and haven’t figured out yet. And maybe even to cry. A lot. Which.. that’s ok. That can be good, even. I’m looking forward to it.
Australians are absolutely everywhere in Europe. They are ALWAYS on vacation. My friend Zak once referred to them as the “sewer rats of the tourism world.” Harsh, but.. not inaccurate.
Having had some experience in this department, if I were to recommend a tour group company for thirtysomethings, it would actually be G Adventures rather than Contiki. G Adventures doesn’t have a strict age cap, and the groups are a little more diverse (though mostly Canadians, as G Adventures is based in Toronto). Less of the Contiki kids-on-spring-break vibe. But not the Viking River Cruise senior citizen brigade, either.
I count myself as having skinny dipped in 2 of the world’s 4 oceans. Pacific and Indian are still on the bucket list.
Think of it as Malort, but for Scandinavians. Vile stuff.