So Much To Look Forward To

Hi Friends!

I am at a cozy coffee shop on the mainland and enjoying a delicious fika. I'm going to spend some hours now editing footage and photos from yesterday's adventure.

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, I drove to Varberg yesterday to look at a car I was interested in buying. It was a long day at the dealership. I was so happy I worked with such a genuine and helpful person, Claes. I was so relieved to hear that they had a Hertz drop off center in Varberg, so I didn't have to drive back to Landvetter to return the rental car! The whole day went so smoothly until it came to the payment. I have a Swedish bank account from when I was a child but because I haven't lived in Sweden since 1999, my bank account was so old fashioned that I needed a cheque book to make the payment for the car. Today, Sweden is a cashless society and of course cheque books aren't common anymore. So I was stuck with old restrictions on my account and had no way to use the money. At this point I was stuck in Varberg and had already returned the rental car.

Today I went to the bank, and as you can imagine, I was very frustrated to learn I don't have access to the money unless I had this old cheque book from the 1990s! I had to submit a request to remove this old account, which would take 6 months!

I am so grateful to my Dad who loaned me the money to buy the car. So now I have my car that I will spend a long time with. As long as possible. I will take good care of it and already see it as part of the dream I am building here. I envision many photography and camping trips in my new SUV. I think my future dog will also like the car. It's a nice size and will fit both of us on long drives to beautiful nature and national parks, forests and lakes. I am so excited to drive North when the snow melts. I want to see the reindeers run free, see the milky way for the first time in my life, and feel spellbound by the Northern lights in the autumn. There is so much to look forward to now and I feel a whole door has opened now that I have allowed myself to dream again.

The lifestyle I want to live now means I really need a car to get around. Gone are the days where I had the convenience of London public transport and stuck in horrible city traffic. Here's to me, nature, and the open road, with my new car who I named, Snowflake.

Here's a little video blog from my day trip to Varberg! The day ended with celebrating with sushi before a very dark and rainy 3 hour drive up the West Coast to Smögen.