It seemed like everyone felt Friday, June 26, was going to be the big day. The U.S. Supreme Court was running out of time to announce its decision on Obergefell vs. Hodges.

Sweden is six hours ahead of Washington, DC, so I mostly just had to stew for the first several hours of my Friday as the US slept. By the afternoon I was on a lovely boat tour of the archipelago around Stockholm. The boat had good wifi access, and I couldn’t stop looking at my phone. Has it happened? HAS IT HAPPENED?!!

It wasn’t just me. As the afternoon approached, Facebook started going crazy with anticipation. I started seeing “Go, SCOTUS!!” posts everywhere. I added my two cents:

I had barely finished posting that when I got a FB message from my friend Charles:

ZOMG. The moment I had been waiting for, the moment so many had been waiting for, was finally here! And I was alone on a boat in Sweden. Now, that’s not a bad thing, and of course I realize it was a great privilege to be able to be on a boat in Sweden.

But in that moment, I really needed to celebrate. I had to talk about it.

There was a table of men in front of me who I had heard speaking English. I interrupted their conversation, apologized and explained that I just had to tell someone the news in person. They were very nice. “What does this mean for you?” they asked. “Well, all I need is a date!” I replied.

By this time Facebook was absolutely exploding with rainbows. I soaked up all of the jubilant posts like a recently-released death camp victim let loose in a grocery store.

I had fully expected this to happen while I was on my trip, but I realized that spending the evening alone was simply not an acceptable idea. I got back online and put out the call for help:

My friend Joakim Zetterberg came to the rescue. He connected me with a very nice guy named Shannon Kile. Shannon was getting together Friday evening with “an international group of friends” and I was invited to join.

I almost didn’t go. I got back to the hotel room, tired and glued to Facebook. There was the President ecstatically receiving the phone call with the news about the decision! There was the right-wing going crazy! There were all the clever new memes detonating all over social media! Things like this:

I thought, I’m just going to sit here and relax. And soak in Facebook’s unicorn rainbow party.

Then, thank goodness, I thought, “You idiot. You’ve been invited to join some nice Swedish gay folks to help you celebrate this incredible day.” I showered, got dressed and headed out to join Shannon and his friends.

And what a good decision that turned out to be. Shannon and his buddies couldn’t have been nicer or more welcoming. We toasted the SCOTUS decision over and over. We talked about Bergman and history and America and children’s books and Stockholm.

It was also a very cool place, called Mälarpaviljongen, and it was right on the water not very far from my hotel. It was a joint that sits on pontoons right on the water on the south shore of Kungsholmen, one of Stockholm’s major islands.

And something else really interesting happened at the bar that I’ll tell you about in a later post.

Anyway, we closed the bar down and I walked back to the hotel, exhausted but still jubilant and jazzed and jolly.

Here's the cool bar where we met (shot from the bluffs of the island of Soldermalm). — Here’s the cool bar where we met (shot from the bluffs of the island of Soldermalm).

Even though I missed my friends terribly on this special night, I was thrilled that I had been able to properly celebrate this most special of days.

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After spending most of the night working on technical issues, I went back to bed at 6 am just for a nap, and slept until almost 10! While I was annoyed at missing my free breakfast at the hotel, I figured I needed the rest.

Happily, my gastric drama has not returned, and apart from a minor amount of lingering jetlag wooziness, I felt just terrific yesterday as I made my initial explorations of Stockholm.

Real Men Push Strollers

And in Stockholm, they seem to do it WAY more than women. I see three or four men alone with children for every woman I see with the little darlings. I wonder why this is?

Dude, Your Time at the Gym Has Been Well Spent

I don’t know how to say that in Swedish, but this is what I wanted to say to several buff Vikings that I saw today. Particularly the one on the Tunnelbana. (No, that’s not Eric’s little brother, it’s what they call the subway here.) He was wearing a long sleeve pullover shirt and you could still see the veins on his bulging arms. You know, through the shirt. Which would have made an impression on me if I wasn’t only and exclusively interested on what’s on the inside of a person. Everyone knows this about me.

Courage?

I don’t usually think of myself as a courageous person. True, I did see “Shoah” at an actual movie theater, by choice, and actually sat through the first four hours of it. But when it comes to real courage, I don’t think so. I’d be the worst soldier ever. I’d cry. I’d desert. On the first day.

However, I would posit that it does take a certain brand of something like courage to go to a foreign country, alone, where you don’t speak the language, and navigate the cities, hop on and off subways without getting lost, and just generally coping in an alien landscape without freaking out. And whatever that oddball kind of courage is, I definitely have it. It’s scary, but it’s a fun kind of scary.

♫ And people ride in a hål in the jord ♫

I’ve been doing it since my twenties, so I guess I’m used to it and have a certain confidence. This is my ninth trip abroad since 1987. I wonder if some people would find it so daunting they wouldn’t go. You know, like me facing the prospect of going to the movies at the Americana in Glendale.

HEY I’m on a boat!

Stockholm is a magnificent city built on hundreds of islands. There are fourteen major ones. It’s really like nothing I’ve ever seen. It’s like Venice writ large. You’re never more than a dwarf’s toss from the water here.

I took two delightful boat rides today! The first was to a tiny island where I had a lovely peaceful ramble for an hour.

The second was a circumnavigation of Kungsholmen (King’s Island), the island my hotel is on. Boat tours are peaceful and relaxing. I love them.

Town Hall just LOVES my wide angle lens.

Just How Many Spherical Buildings Are There, Actually?

Next I took a fun jaunt up to the top of the world’s largest spherical building. (Didn’t know there was a contest, did you?) It’s called the Ericsson Globe, and it’s a sports and entertainment venue. Very nice photo op on top full stop.

Lens-o-Rama

I’m already VERY glad I purchased the Sigma wide angle lens for the camera. It’s doubled my shooting potential very clearly, as the shots it can get are so utterly different from the ones I get with the Nikkor zoom. Today was a good day of practicing switching out the lenses. I’m getting better at it on the fly.

Exhausting but wonderful day!

Authentic Troll Door. My ancient Runic Swedish is pretty rudimentary, but I believe the first few words carved into the door are something like, "If the mountain's a-rockin'..." — Authentic Troll Door. My ancient Runic Swedish is pretty rudimentary, but I believe the first few words carved into the door are something like, “If the mountain’s a-rockin’…”

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