Today is a good day to be in Sweden.

I happened to spend one December 13 in Sweden, on which day I thought that I’d died and gone to budget backpacker heaven. Initially unbeknownst to me, I had stumbled into Stockholm on Saint Lucia Day, a feast holiday celebrated in Scandinavia, Italy and the Balkans.

Swedes mark the festival by eating a traditional saffron bun, the Lussekatt, which were in complementary abundance on each shop counter. I’m not ashamed to admit that it was “shop till you drop” meets “all you can eat” for me that day – although the “shopping” was much more of the window / browsing variety!

Like St. Petersburg and Venice, Stockholm is a city spread across an archipelago, and I spent the rest of the afternoon on island of Djurgården at Skansen. The world’s oldest open-air museum, Skansen is really a must-see. It depicts the Nordic rural architecture and social conditions throughout pre-industrial Sweden from the 16th to early 20th centuries. From the Sami camp of the far north right down to the Skåne farmstead of the south, about 150 dwellings are exhibited, the majority of which date from the 18th and 19th centuries.

Most importantly, the girl crowned the national annual St. Lucia is brought by horse-drawn carriage to Skansen on December 13, where there is a celebration and fireworks display. Accompanied by a crown of candles, a choir of girls in white and a catchy tune, the St. Lucia and her parade are really quite charming, illuminated by the warm glow of candles.

I must explain why Eurolines was my key to surviving my first year in Europe, although really it’s very simple.  Accomodation.  I thanked my lucky stars the day I found that Eurolines had a two month unlimited travel pass, night buses, and a low-season discount.  What seemed perfectly appealing did have its drawbacks though.  The accommodation was a bus seat (although being able to sleep quite compactly, I could crawl up in foetal position and get a good night’s sleep if I had both seats to myself), and “low-season” meant “middle of winter”, so it was quite chilly for the numerous 4 and 5am arrivals.  But what I would do is spend 5 nights in the bus, waking and wandering the cities to which I had been spirited overnight, and then a few nights in a hostel for a shower and a proper bed.  I loved it.  If I couldn’t get a ticket to somewhere, I’d just go elsewhere.  I think my itinerary read something like: Budapest – Amsterdam – Dublin (as there weren’t any tickets to Stockholm when I first wanted to go, I spent the weekend in Ireland instead) – Amsterdam – Stockholm – Copenhagen – Paris – Madrid (rest, relax… shower…) – Andorra (a day of skiing in the

Pyrenees, why not?) – Barcelona (more time…) – Frankfurt – Warsaw – Krakow (even more time…) –

Prague.

  I’ve overcome my initial attention-span deficit and I am now able to stay in a place for longer than three weeks without getting itchy feet.  Maybe I can stretch it to four weeks now… 

But no, I was recently able to stay in the one place for a year and a half – however, as it was Russia, the biggest country in the world, I could quite contently “trot” at my own pace for vast distances and through diverse cultural and geographic regions without having to deal with the bureaucratic visa rigmarole of leaving Russia’s borders.  But more about that later…

An obvious side-effect of a Eurocentric education is an inkling to set forth across the continent, mapping out places where events from history books took place in Technicolor and not just in fine-print packed into paragraphs and henceforth crammed into young heads. This curiosity more often than not develops into the more serious condition of wanderlust, and then, as I’m lead to believe, into dromomania, a passion or uncontrollable impulse to wander or travel, a malady (or blessing) by which I’m seriously afflicted.

The first time I went alone to Europe was when I was 18. Having finished high school and saved my pocket money, I was determined to somehow stretch this meagre amount to last for a whole year without working. Thanks to numerous relatives, generous students willing to share their dormitories, Eurolines and Eastern Europe, this was possible. I was also lucky enough to have well-travelled parents, with well-travelled friends, who had sent their teenage sons and daughters to stay at my parents’ house, and thus the doors of Europe where open for me.

My favourite places in Europe – what I think of as the majestic golden triangle of Vienna, Budapest and Prague; countries of the former Yugoslavia, the Baltic states and Scandinavia, anywhere in Southern Europe blessed by an ocean, and most definitely anywhere with either a picturesque mountain range or a comprehensive recycling system or bicycles as a recognised and supported form of public transport. Have I covered it all yet?