and they found their silver lining

July 11th, number ten

Rose – lilac blossoms (dragon slayer, glass dome, tiara)

Rose was lying on the bed, massaging her temples. Her headache had begun earlier on the day, and was still there.

Besides, this bed was very uncomfortable. How could hotel beds be allowed to not be comfy at all?

This day had been awful, Rose decided as she got up and walked over to the window. She fingered on the ugly blossoms in the window sill, wondering absently which designer had chosen them and how he could have missed how terribly they clashed with the curtains, before changing her last thought to: "This trip has been awful."

She was in Sweden for a weekend by her own, trying to breathe. She had needed to come away from work and get some rest, but so far nothing had happened making it worth the money. The first night she had been to a boring restaurant, eating boring food, chatting with boring people at the bar.

And today, after what had been described to be "a lovely, big, Swedish breakfast", but actually was diminutive and not lovely at all, she had joined a guided tour that showed some of Stockholm's churches. The guide had spoken very bad English, but she had at least understood that in one of the churches there was a statue of someone called S:t Goeran and was a dragon slayer.

That had been what made Rose give up and head back to the hotel; it was too pathetic. The little grey-haired man, speaking excitedly about knights and princesses wherever they got, how that tiara had been worn by that queen, how Sweden valued their monarchy, and so on – not even pausing to catch his breath. And, just to make it worse, the man had a very shrieking voice, so it was no wonder it still felt as though someone pondered on the inside of her head with a hammer.

And what had disappointed her most – even though it was a bit embarrassing – was "Globen", the Ericsson Globe. Somehow she had imagined it being a glass dome, and a lot bigger. She had no idea why she had thought so, but this golf-ball thingy; it was quite tragic how the Swedes sort of worshipped it.

No, this trip had indeed been a waste of money.

Or maybe it would teach Rose to appreciate home a bit more, Rose thought and smiled to herself as she crawled into bed and put the lilac cover tightly around her. She hadn't been homesick for years.