Our son, Dylan, is on a cool adventure! He left his job after 3+ years to take himself on quite the interesting 5-month journey. He found places to stash all of his belongings (some with us, some elsewhere) and took off for London less than two weeks ago. He had been carefully planning for his travels for many months, including receiving about $1600 (!) worth of immunizations he would need for the trip. From London, where he visited a college friend for a few days, he traveled to Copenhagen, then to Oland--an island just off the southeastern coast of Sweden. There, for two weeks, he's taking an intensive furniture-making class. Here's the website for the school, where he's living/working right now.
http://www.capellagarden.se/english.asp The class has 12 students from all over the world and the instruction is in Swedish, though the social interaction is all in English, he says. It's the common denominator. This is what he wrote a few days ago:I am on Oland now, off the coast of sweden, at Capellagarden...I got here easily and have been having a GREAT time...this place is very, very cool...its clean and quiet and beautiful, nothing exotic, just nice and quaint...think 'the Shire' form Hobbit, LOTR, etc...the people and the setup here and the vibe is what Its all about...I can already tell I will be sad to go...I have made friends here, its quite a social affair, with common meals, 'parties' every other night, good simple food and very interesting conversation...Sweden is a great country, not in a wow sort of way, just in a relaxing, familiar, yet new way that makes you realize that the world is full of great places to live.As you may or may not know, Dylan's passion is for furniture design. Here are a couple of photos of a table he made last year. It was a custom job for a client and was walnut veneer with slate and aluminum insets. The center part comes out and can be used in different ways. He has lots of cool ideas like that. By the way, here's a picture Tom took of Dylan and me when we went to help him pack up just before he left.
He plans to travel more in the area after the class, perhaps Norway, or the Baltics. Rachel will
meet him in Helsinki in mid-September to touch base a bit with some of their heritage. They'll travel together for awhile, then they'll meet up with us for two weeks in Germany/Austria/Switzerland. Dylan did set up a travel blog (http://dylangold.blogspot.com/), but he didn't take a computer with him and access has been very sporadic. Rachel will have one with her, so we might not get too much information out of him until they get together.When Tom, Rachel and I leave Germany, Dylan will go to Africa--Tanzania, actually. He'll work there with an organization called Greenforce. Here's that site: http://www.greenforce.org/destinations/tanzania/10_week_project/
He'll be living in a Maasai village and doing wildlife surveys. He plans to return Christmas Eve, if all goes as scheduled. There are opportunities for some exploration of surrounding areas--Kilimanjaro, for example. He'll play it by ear.
We're, of course, very excited with and for him about these experiences! He's such a great communicator (if unorthodox in style, sometimes), and we'll be anxious to hear how his journey goes and how he is changed by it. It's also wonderful that we'll be able to meet up with him in the middle to debrief some before he moves on. I'll keep updates going as we get them...stay tuned. Next time...Rachel: where to after Germany? --Sandy
