It Is Time

So in the morning, we're off...



For the last two years me and Krister have been dreaming about doing God stuff out of a van. A lot of thought put into that one, so buy me a hot chocolate and I'll give you the whole schpiel. You can imagine the surprise when we told two friends this over a lovely dinner at Eva's and they had been thinking along the same lines.

Our transportation is Mr. Blues, an '88 VW Transporter, decked out with a double bed, sink, table, small fridge and plenty of small gadgets that make a lifeless vehicle into a hopefully cozy place to spend a lot of time. It feels as if we know Mr. Blues, but we have still never seen him. See, we bought him in the south of Sweden for a cheap sum, and knew when we bought him that he had to be fixed up. After three different friend-of-a-friend mechanics had looked at him, our housemate offered to drive it up to STHLM. It got half way.

So then he sat in a garage in a little town called Sävsjö ("No problem, halfway is better than nothing") where the mechanic said both the cylinders were leaking and it would cost more to fix them than to buy a new van ("Really? Nah, it will work out"). The mechanic just happens to have had a friend with a newly refurbished engine for a 1/4 of what it would usually cost ("Hmm. That means we won't have much money for the actual trip... doesn't matter, God has our backs covered"). So yesterday the engine was installed. Tommorrow the new tires and then Mr. Blues can pass his inspection so that we can drive legally ("It will be fine!").

Strangely enough, we four haven't been very worried about the whole thing. It's been annoying, but it has been ok. Is it naive? For sure! Foolish? Probably! At the same time it just feels right. We had hoped to paint Mr. Blues and sort out the inside before leaving, but now it isn't happening. Yet we had felt that this trip would be an organic one, and now it has to be. Painting bits and pieces of him and fixing up the van as we go. We don't have much money, we don't have much of an idea what we're doing and we are in way over our heads.

This has potential to be the best time of our lives.