I found Swedish summer at the Stockholm Airport last week.
Here’s what happened: I had to go urinate and when I got to the bathroom I found that the wall behind the urinals was covered with flowers and tall grass so that it felt like I was peeing into a lovely field on a Swedish summer day.
Swedes, and Stockholmers in particular, have been called conformists and reserved — and in some ways they are. But every once in a while, Sweden surprises me.
Why should bathrooms be serious? They shouldn’t and I give kudos to Stockholm Arlanda airport for having fun with one of man’s most mundane activities — peeing at a urinal.
It’s the little things in life that matter and the illusion that I was peeing in a Swedish field made a big difference for me that day.