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The other night I was talking with a guy from Lofoten, the famously beautiful archipelago where most of Norway's famously productive cod fishery is based, and he was complaining about how little there is to do in Tromsø now that the students are draining out. "Go for a hike," my friend and I told him. But this guy from Lofoten would rather wait until he got back home, because it's nicer there.

Now, he may very well have been being contrary. But I couldn't help but want to tell him how wrong he was, and what a waste of time to grow up in Lofoten if you feel it precludes enjoying anywhere else. Because I've been that guy: so pleased with where I'm from that I forget where I am. And it's no way to be.

There are days when I'm just so grateful to be here, in Tromsø, right now. There are days when I wonder what I'm doing here, when I am uncertain and unhappy, when it's not as easy as just being grateful--but the days when I am grateful cover all those ills. And they remind me: I don't need to wait until I'm elsewhere to live my life, because I'm already here. I'm already living. And for all there might be more beautiful places in the world, or places that feel more like home, Tromsø is beautiful now, in spring. Tromsø is home now, this spring.

It's probably worth noting that even as I write this, I'm leaving in the morning, skipping like a stone across Europe and the good old U. S. of A.. But while I'm gone, most of my things are still stowed away in my little room here, because I'll be back in August. And I suspect Tromsø will be beautiful in the fall as well.