5 years ago, in a coffee shop in Causeway Bay Hongkong, my best friend and I hatched a plan for the Scandinavia trip.
Scandinavia Trip Was Born
As usual, even though the idea just popped into our minds, we made an elaborate plan on paper. We gave ourselves 5 years to plan and save money so we can do 5 Scandinavia countries in 5 weeks.
There and then, high on Hongkongnese coffee, we excitedly planned our Europe trip. Each of us also picked 5 things that we must absolutely do during the trip. We included things like eating space cake in Amsterdam, getting a nordic cooking lesson, seeing the Northern Star and dipping in the blue lagoon and road-tripping across Europe, getting a tattoo (it was my friend’s idea, back then I didn’t want a tattoo yet) to name some.
We promised each other we were going to do it and we were going to do it before we pass the 5 years mark.
5 years later..
I quit my job in Singapore and moved back to Jakarta. She got promoted and moved to Sydney. A couple of years later, I moved to Melbourne. We started ticking off places in Australia (including a pilgrimage to Uluru, almost drowning on Sunshine Coast, and attending the Indonesian food festival in Brisbane) and travelled to both Gili and Goa.
Life is going well ━ with the Scandinavia trip placed on the back burner.
The topic came up again last year, a month before we were leaving for Bali for my wedding. We were supposed to do an ultimate girl trip as a part of the bachelorette party when one of us get married. Unfortunately, with the wedding a month away, it wasn’t going to happen.
So instead, I told her, “let’s book the trip immediately after I came back from the Japan trip“.
That didn’t happen too.
Then, last April, she came for a weekend trip to Melbourne. As usual, we got drunk, ate too much and behaved way too merry. That’s when we decided, the day after, hangover and not, we would book our flight ticket to Europe.
The next day, with a massive hangover, we did.
We decided on the Netherlands — for stroopwafel and weed, Norway, Stockholm (Sweden), and Copenhagen (Denmark). I desperately wanted to include Finland (making it 5 countries as our original plan), but my friend vetoed it with less than two weeks’ trip. Oh well, there will be another time.
For now (as in TODAY!) we are leaving on a jet plane, from Melbourne to Singapore then to Amsterdam to start our Scandinavia trip, ticking another one off of our friendship bucket list.
The last time I stepped into a new country and got a new chop on my passport was more than 5 years ago. Back in a hot minute, you guys. Hopefully, with more travel culture stories.
Follow me on Instagram @KultureKween for more recent updates.
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