The best of 2011, part two

Here’s the second part of my favorite travel and life adventures of the year. And in case you missed it, here’s part one.

July: A summer house in the Swedish archipelago. We kicked off the month with an island getaway with friends. Not only did we have a great house, we had our own island. We even had to take a boat to get groceries. How cool is that? As our island was small, we spent a lot of time hanging out, eating good meals, drinking wine and just sitting in the sun. It was the most relaxing holiday I’ve ever taken. And the scenery was gorgeous too.

August: Mixing business with pleasure in Austria. We went to Innsbruck so I could attend the Travel Bloggers Unite conference for a little inspiration. We wandered around the old town, toured palaces and met a lot of talented travel writers.And of course, we ate a lot of delicious schnitzel and torte. We took the train to Vienna where the architecture and art are insanely beautiful and even the staircases were cool. Vienaa is one of the prettiest cities I’ve seen in a while and Innsbruck was charming too, what with the majestic alps surrounding it.

September: Playing tour guide in Stockholm. My cousin Kara and her husband Jim came to visit, so I put on my cruise director hat and showed them around. I love doing that! On the itinerary was an adrenalin-filled fast tour of the archipelago, touring the old town, bicycling so as to easily island hop and share some of my favorite places in Stockholm. Of course, I had them try the local cuisine and beers too.

October: Croatia – A summer paradise in the off season. Oh how we lucked out on this trip. Robert was speaking at a conference in Croatia, just outside of Split in Primošten and I, being a dutiful wife, tagged along. The weather was sunny and warm, our hotel was directly on the beach and our room overlooked the Adriatic Sea – this was off-season travel at its finest. We had some amazing local food and wine.  And just when I thought things couldn’t be better, we moved on to Dubrovnik. I absolutely was bowled over by the beauty of the old town and fell in love with a new part of the world.

November: An All-American Thanksgiving. For the first time in eight years, we had Thanksgiving in the US. I’d always felt like I was missing out on a major holiday while I lived in Sweden, even though we inevitably had a turkey dinner with friends, so it was good to be back in Cincinnati. For the record, we took part in sharing a 22-pound turkey with my parents, brothers and their families. On top of indulging in all that gluttony, I fell back in love with my hometown thanks in no small part to all the revitalization that has been going on over the last several years in the old neighborhoods.

December: Spending the holidays at home. We were back in Stockholm by mid-December, just in time to decorate for and then celebrate our first-ever Christmas in Sweden after living here for seven years. As we look forward to where we will be in 2012 – and even whether we will still be in Stockholm at this time next year – it felt like the perfect place to be.

Gott slut as the Swedes would say, which means  “good end” or have a good end of the year. In fact, there are a number of  rather perfect Swedish words for this time of year, also including god forsättning – or good continuation of the holidayys – either wishing you a continuing good continuation of Christmas from December 26th until December 30th or a good continuation of the new year from January 2-7.

Tagged as: god forättning, gott slut