Last light evenings above Helsinki. Hold on to your hats and stow your sunglasses – by the time this post is published (yes, you may have noticed I am posting with a slight delay) we have plunged into the darkness for the coming 5 months. Living in the Nordics is all about extremes.
(Above Finland; September 2015)
Sweden ends in a cute curly tail in the South. I hear there are seals down there. I waved at them. Hope they saw me buzz by.
(Above Skåne, Sweden; August 2015)
It was a long day of departure. Getting to the dock from the south end of the island took one hour instead of 20 minutes, thanks to road closures and cremation parade. There is only one main road on Lembongan – and lots of sandy wannabe-roads in the boondocks, absolutely not made for a pickup truck.
Getting from Lembongan to mainland Bali took a good while due to the wind. I sat next to the captain who was wearing a huge chunky watch and a carefree smile. “You will come back next year” he said. I just might.
Getting from Sanur beach to the airport took a good while. I had to wait for another boat to arrive. The captain with the chunky watch and smile kept me company. This was his life, every day, and I was one among 365 people in a year he probably kept company in wait of the next boat. “You will come back next year” he repeated.
I waited for my flight for 4 hours and acquainted with an Australian couple. “We come back every year, for 20 years now” they said.
The last leg from Zurich to Helsinki I flew in business class together with a world-famous rapper, his babe, and his entourage. We deciphered the Scandinavian foods on the menu together. He will probably not come back next year.
But I might just return to Bali next year. And the year after that. Get old, get stuck on one thing, and just go back to Bali because – well, it is Bali.
(Lembongan, Bali, Indonesia; and above Switzerland; August, 2015)
Even the midnight skies above Helsinki are light. All you fellow northerners, do remember to savor and soak in these moments so we will survive another 9 dark months. Live today.
(Helsinki, Finland; June 2015)
“I’m just a little white rain cloud, pay no attention to little me…”
(London, United Kingdom; June 2015)
Dusk slowly crept in over the Azure Coast as we lifted off and flew into the night. In the last hours of day the clear blue turned deep indigo, with a peach glow from the setting sun. I could not help but wonder how turn-of-the-century art would have been different had Matisse, Picasso, Renoir, Chagall, Cézanne, and the lot seen the Riviera light from up in the air.
(Nice airport, France; May 2015)
One Thursday morning in May there was no rain. There was no cold. No miserable birch trees trying to hatch their first tender leaves against the chilling wet wind from the sea. No, this Thursday morning there was a touchdown – and light, radiance, luminosity of the sun!
A stroll down the Croisette, a glass of Provence rosé and dipping my toes in the sand – and life was slowly returning to a wrung-out body and mind. And later, as I sat perched on the wall of the Castre, I thought of the Provence light and how it has inspired painters through times. Van Gogh painted his famous cypress still life works while simply staring out of the window of a mental asylum. How wonderfully strong inspiration the scenery and light must have been to drive him to paint masterworks instead of dwell in dull misery.
Life is about choices, indeed. It is about choosing to melt away in sadness, or painting brilliant wheat fields and cypresses that are adored for generations. It is about choosing to spend a Thursday holed up in one’s office – or soaking in the Riviera sunlight. But life is also about receiving exactly how much one gives. Sometimes we give it all and nothing is enough – and we are left with a huge hole in the side where a chunk was carved away. This is life, too. It hurts.
Yet, some other times, we give it all and in the end there is a reward if we choose to take it. I chose to be worth a long weekend in Cannes in May. Every penny and every ray of sunlight.
(Cannes, France; May 2015)
Good morning, endless spruce forests just outside of the capital region. Good morning, endless islands stretching into the sea like somebody spilled a bag of breadcrumbs on the water. Good morning, any Scandinavian country – you all look the same. Except for maybe Denmark which lost its trees because of the farmers.
Today it is good morning, Stockholm.
(Stockholm, Sweden; April 2015)
It was the time of the future. It was the time of exploration. It was the time when the world shrank. When you could fly from Helsinki to Paris, only stopping for refueling in Hamburg and Amsterdam. And it was the time of unpressurized cabins and flying without weather radar. 
It was the time of hope. It was the time of independence for women. When an airline stewardess visiting her home town was an exotic breeze from the great modern world out there. And it was the time of another female norm: when those who exceeded the limit at weigh-in were grounded. When wearing a ring and a husband’s name meant goodbye stewardess career.
It was the time of savoring luxury. It was the time of flying stylishly in hats, suits, and dresses. When a cocktail was on the menu between Amsterdam and Hamburg. And it was the time when air stewardesses were required to wear stiletto heels that sometimes pierced through the aluminum cabin floor.
It was the Jet Age. Right before the Space Age. When our world opened up for us. Before all the trouble with oil resources and carbon dioxide emissions. When one could simply leave the things that weigh one down behind on the tarmac, lift the nose up, and hightail full throttle ahead into the skies and a new tomorrow.
(Commercial aviation retrospective at the Avation Museum, Vantaa, Finland; April 2015)
Those frequently flying morning commuters who chose to sleep the flight away missed the morning light over Glomma river. How ever much we miss when we choose not to live with our eyes open.
(Oslo, Norway; April 2015)
This blue marble 