I have made a momentous decision. I no longer want to be a princess. It is always nice to have one’s desires at least tangentially related to reality.

I came to this conclusion somewhere between my examination of the Swedish royal treasury with its collection of heavy metal objects to be worn on the head or carried around to show one’s importance while rendering one incapable of something as simple as, say, wiping one’s royal nose-- I do not want to have a person designated as Princess Janet’s Nose Wiper—and the state apartments, where even the breakfast room was hardly conducive to leisurely drinking one’s morning beverage in sweats while reading the paper and giggling over the comics page. I do not have the requisite desire for shiny objects or the willingness to sit up straight. Also, I have a lifelong terror of spoiling the décor.

On the other hand, after my visit to Skansen, I can say that if there were indoor plumbing involved, I would happily live in pretty much any of the traditional Swedish houses represented there. The simplicity and cleanliness and attention to detail and, above all, the basic comfort appeal to me. Of course it helps that I don’t actually live there with all my own stuff cluttering up the place. That, and it’s summer.