Goodbye Sweden

This isn’t the usual story about one of my adventures, but a little bit more of a personal insight into things.
Today, I’m leaving Sweden, which has been my home for the past two and a half years. I don’t have any plans to come back in the near future, instead I’ve got some plans to end up on the other side of the world for a while. It’s not that I didn’t like it here and couldn’t wait to get out, but I’ve decided to take this different path in life and it’s leading me elsewhere.

I’ve been about, tried some different things and went for some interesting adventures, but to be honest at least half of that time I still spent home at the house I once used to own. I didn’t have time to loaf around, there was a lot to do with packing and moving my stuff, preparing things and sorting out final paperwork. But it still wasn’t that different from before (ok well, save for not working).

But today, I slept in my old bed for the last time, ate at the table for the last time, rolled my bike out of the garage for the last time, and locked the doors for the last time. It’s quite likely I’ll never come back there again. Instead, I’ve packed anything I still have left onto my bike and am taking the ferry to Riga, from where I will drive back to Belgium over the course of two weeks.

Only 4-5 months ago, people would tell me I had the perfect life. Great job, girlfriend, nice house to live, etc. All of those have now left the picture, for real. I don’t think I’m sad about it, I’ve come to accept it over the past months, but it really is a strange feeling to leave a place I’ve been for so long. I don’t have any regrets either I think, despite owning the house for only half a year.

The last few days have been really stressful for me; I just want to well prepared for the trip and didn’t want to leave behind any loose ends, which made the last days come and go way too quick.
I’m still a bit worried about things ahead: my bike seems way overloaded, something seems wrong with the suspension (the rear is sagging a lot, my previous bike had a broken shock when this happened), my GPS is acting up all sorts of trouble after riding in the rain to Norway and I have no idea what might happen on the trip ahead. Last time I took this boat, I had a leaking oil line and a flat tire after one and three days…

But I guess there’s no point in stressing, I’ll just see what comes up and deal with it. Onward to new and exciting things!

Oh and here’s a very rough map of the route I’m taking, the red markers are interesting spots I hope to visit if all goes to plan.

{google_map}http://mapsengine.google.com/map/embed?mid=zPLNgXC2whVE.kBFilZ4BYt1c|width:1000|height:400|border:0{/google_map}