Ok, I häve come up with Sweden.s new motto: "sweden.... the country where you dont need sunglässes" :)

Yes, Sweden is bone chilling cold and cloudy, but guess what? Despite all this, what a superb country!

First of all, I say all germaphobes and clean freaks unite and move to Sweden because I have never seen such a clean country. Litter does not exist, the tap water is tasty and fresh (better than mammoth), air quality high, and so many things are state of the art. For example, in the shopping mall, the bathroom stall doors have a green or red light on the handles to let you know the vacancy status. Even the waterways, rivers, lakes are pristine clean with swedish people bragging about how they can fish and cook dinner right from the main river in stockholm. Did you know Stockholm has over 52 bridges? Parks, water, amazing old school stone castle architecture everywhere. it is just truly beautiful. Even the nightclubs are gorgeous. I kept thinking to myself, "Really, I mean really, we get to party here? Did someone make a mistake?" There are about 1000 drunk people in this antique hall with three major crystal chandaliers, solid gigantic wood tables from the 19th century, thick red velvet carpets, and mirrored\glass walls? It is so quintessential Europe. Also, The leaves are turning here in Stockholm so the colors are brilliant... orange, red, brown, yellow ... you get the picture.

Oh, but guess what? Sweden is expensive!!! 26.00 bucks for a jack and coke! I nearly spit that cocktail out when I saw the bill! Dropping 40 bucks per meal is way too easy, and typical subway rides are about 14 bucks. So yep, it's pricey.

Over the weekend we went to Oktoberfest which ended up being gluttony at its finest! Eat, drink, eat, drink, eat drink, eat, drink, eat, drink, dance a bit and then more eat, drink. I am still recovering. For the festival, we drove two hours north of Stockholm and stayed at one of Elin's friend,s house in the countryside. During the day we went wild mushroom picking for the Oktoberfest dinner, armed with wood baskets and Mintu, which is a Finnish peppermint schnapps type liquor. What an amazing experience! I kept asking everyone, "How do you know this? How do you know which mushrooms are ok to eat and which ärent and all that?" They,d just look at me and say "What do you mean? We're Swedish! We just know" :) So now if I ever find myself stranded in a Swedish forest I wont die at least from eating the poisonous mushrooms, i'll just die from something else... like maybe one of their moose's or something. moose's? Moose? is Moose plural? anyways...

Elin and Annikas friends were so welcoming and so loving.. and very funny too. No surprise since Elin and Annika are such quality people themselves. American humor and Swedish humor definatley are cohesive. And once again, EVERYONE speaks English. Gawd, I am so blessed! English is the go to language pretty much everytime i travel. It is awesome! I also carved a pumpkin for the centerpiece of the table at Oktoberfest.... Even cooked the pumpkin seeds, was very proud of myself and our American idiosyncracies :)

So now I head on out to India... pretty much the opposite of Stockholm. I'll land in Delhi which is about a humid 90 degrees Farenheit right now with loads of pollution, traffic, and a culture where personal space doesn't exist :). The next 48 hours will all be about getting to the Himalayas and I think of those 48 hours, 32 of them including traveling whether it be airline flights, layovers, or the 13 hours bus ride from delhi to mcleod ganj.

I'm a bit nervous naturally but ready to enjoy the adventure and work hard getting more and more to "Know thyself". I know along with the vision must come risk.. so, here it goes.

On the plane flight from LA to London five days ago I sat next to this hard core Christian woman...a little overwhelming but nonetheless i appreciate all spirituality for sure! Within an hour we were praying together... ha ha... of course! anyways, at the end of the flight she said she has a message from God for me. She said God specifically wants "Peace to be my guide". Sounds like a great mantra to me! So here I go, with peace being my guide.

much love to all of you. Big hugs

-barbie

ps- interesting to note that the movie "Groundhogs Day" with Bill Murray was renamed "Monday, everyday of the week". Didn't make sense to call it "Groundhogs Day" since it doesn't exist in Sweden.... Just another lost in translation. :)