Summertime is the time for SMART goals

While I was in Malmö, I decided I needed to achieve some things. Perhaps I was inspired by my cousins making summer buckets lists, perhaps I was just giving structure to two weeks of wide-open time. But I´m actually quite pleased with the not-very-important things that I achieved.

The most important was the garden - my cousins´ house came with a garden, and they are not (to put it mildly) avid gardeners. My advice in the spring was to let things grow and we could just see if there were things worth keeping as they got bigger. When I arrived, I discovered they basically had a meadow of an invasive species called goutweed. There is a long tradition of people from poorer, southern countries coming to richer, northern countries to do the menial labor. Thus, it was most fitting that this Spanish laborer spent two weeks weeding and raking to clear the Swedish garden.

Before: a meadow of invasive species.

After: weeds conquered.

I also managed to eat lots of incredible ice cream flavors: A´s  homemade rhubarb custard, along with mango pistachio and fig. 

One day I ended up in a beautiful city garden and decided I was going to take the best bee photos I could.

Malmo borders the Orsund Strait, but I thought it sounded more romantic to bathe in the Baltic, so we took a bus just far enough south that we were officially at the Baltic Sea.