Here’s my skeletal plan.  Fly nonstop from Dulles to Copenhagen (Koebenhaven?).  Ride a high-speed train to Stockholm, after one-night stopover in K.  Rest two days in Stockholm, courtesy of that home-rental site that hotels hate.  Fly to Helsinki, stop there two days at a hotel chosen through a popular booking site.  Take a two-hour ferry ride to Talinn, Estonia.  Spend a week at a lady’s apartment (again, thanks to that home-rental site) in that old capital city (FKA “Reval” under the Russian Empire), with forays by bus into the countryside.

Here’s where that Guide has already shown Her presence;  after mapping out the contours of my journey, I discovered that a young-adult niece is living in Utrecht on a Fulbright fellowship for excellence in early-childhood education.  She received a copy of my itinerary, and plans to share part of the visit with me in Talinn.  I have not seen her in several years, and she shows up in Estonia?  Also worthy of note, she has her own well-designed travel blog entitled: “The Wide World Comforts Her.”

Then:  onto an overnight ferry across the cold Baltic to Stockholm, for another two nights there, then that same train ride back to K.  I have not idea what I will do or see in any of these countries.  I will trust the local population to steer me to the best tours and places to just walk for miles (thank you Dr. S for your reconstruction of my left hip).

I hope to learn about efforts in Sweden to host and nurture the Middle East refugees.  I hope to meet practicing Quakers (my faith) in some of the visited countries.  I anticipate seeing some fine art and architecture, and perhaps sampling the musical genius of Finland.  I expect to see the lasting impact of the oppression of Estonians by Soviets and Nazis, finally overthrown in the Singing Revolution.  Will I find the magic of Hans Christian Anderson or the angst of Kierkegaard in Denmark?