A magical long weekend in Sweden

I'm back from my long weekend in Stockholm, and it has been absolutely wonderful. The nice thing about going to Stockholm for me is, that I don't have to do anything, don't have to do the sights. I've been there before so many times, that I have seen all the views, sights, museums, all the things you would normally want to see when visiting a foreign city. So I just walk around, sit on benches, go to favourite places, enjoy familiar views. I didn't even take a lot of photos this time. Stockholm seems to be one big construction site at the moment. Everywhere, the ground has been ripped open, buildings are wrapped in scaffolding, and the skyline seems to be dominated by cranes. Good thing I took loads of photos four years ago. I also didn't go to any museums. I would have gone to the Nationalmuseum, but that is closed for renovation until 2018. The closest I got to a museum was wandering around Skeppsholmen and sitting in the outside café of Moderna Museet on Wednesday afternoon. After having been up since 4am, I was exhausted and it was lovely to sit in the shade, drink a refreshing iced latte and draw one of the red polka dot trees. As so often when I travel, the weather was unusually warm and sunny. Blue sky and up to 24 degrees Celsius. I am very grateful that it wasn't raining all the time, but it was getting a bit hot for me at times, I have to admit.

On Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I attended Orly Avineri's The Visual Journal as Sanctuary workshop. It was truly magical. I am still glowing in the aftermath of this experience, and I'm finding it hard to put it into words. It was three days of stories, company, creating, transformation, growing, playing, chatting, experimenting, magic, wonder, alchemy, and so much more. It was a wonderful group of kind women and a glorious location. It was just simply perfect.

And I am very happy with my journal, that started out as a passport of a stranger and slowly turned into my own little book, developing and now containing so much more than I could have imagined or expected.

I really like taking online classes, they are a great opportunity to learn from teacher you would otherwise never be able to take a class with. But I had been wanting to go to a workshop or art retreat for ages, to actually be there, with the people, instead of just watching videos and posting in a Facebook group. And I'm so glad I went. I did not quite know what to expect, but whatever it was, the class far exceeded my expectations. If you ever have the chance to take a workshop with Orly Avineri, do it! It really is a great and enriching experience, and she is such a wonderful teacher and person.

I spent another one and a half days in Stockholm after the course, more walking around, being there, some shopping too, of course, and some more ice creams (I always feel like I'm in heaven with all the sweets around everywhere in Sweden!).

Now back home, I'm looking forward to getting back to my easel and art journal, and incorporating and experimenting with the new techniques I've learnt at the workshop.

I'll try and post some more photos next week, once I've gone through them all and had time for some editing. It seems that my card reader is broken and it took me ages to figure out how to get the photos off the card and into Lightroom, so I didn't get round to much editing yet.