I had a good friend from Sweden visit for just over two weeks now. She left a couple days ago, and so I’ve been quite occupied. But in a good way! This is the first time she has visited the US, and I know she had been wanting to visit here and/or England since before we met at confirmation camp in Sweden summer of 2004. Among the variety of activities we fit into the schedule we stayed down in Washington DC for four days at my friend’s apartment just outside Georgetown.



It was fantastic! With just a map and a lot of water in the 100 degree weather we traversed the city and local areas. The Lincoln Memorial was our grand finale at eleven at night. It was so beautiful, as some of you may know who have been, and it is and remains my favorite site to see. While being in DC my friend developed a much stronger interest and understanding of America’s roots than she had before. A lot of the time I had been filling in appropriately with some knowledge I had of this country, and I was consequently surprised at how much I appreciated its history; I found myself talking quite passionately about the founding fathers for example, cheesy as it sounds. We saw the original Star Spangled Banner and I admit I got kind of emotional over it. (It surprised me too.) The city gets to you, and you get swept up into the pulsating vibrations of its past. That’s just how it is.



A few days after returning to our humble home we took off for Niagara Falls for the day. So, I know that it’s big; I know what it looks like before I get there. But it still throws me of guard every time! Even better, this time we rode Maid of the Mist. While all of us were crowded up on the top deck with our iconic blue raincoats on, I decidedly left my hood off. Couldn't complain about that method of cooling off.



Finally, the day we were to take her to the airport to go home we decided to go to the beach early in the morning. We arrived at Mentor Headlands from nine until eleven, walked to the lighthouse, and it was so nice because there was almost no-one there. We were talking about the sun (probably because it was crazy hot that day too) and she drew up an interesting picture in my mind of all the sand turning to glass… imagine that! Anyways, little did we know that after dropping her off at the gate later that day we would have to return an hour later only to pick her up again so that she could take the flight two days later that would, hopefully, actually arrive on time to get her to her connecting flight. The way I see airports: I love them, they’re exciting places with a rich variety of people and languages, but sometimes they can be the biggest pain in the butt, to be honest. But what would we do without them?



For whatever reader who may be browsing through here, I hope this finds with some good stories and fun times from this summer!