Friday

Dinner was at Moderna Museet, followed by a walk through the galleries. A nightcap at the Grand Hôtel, a Stockholm landmark since 1874, was meant to finish the evening. The hotel, it turned out, could take only so much AWC enthusiasm, and we had exceeded it. We stopped by for a photograph, as a courtesy, and then went up to the rooftop bar at Clarion Hotel Sign. The view came with the drinks, and no one raised the matter again.

Saturday

The morning began with coffee, name tags, and the particular noise of old friends finding each other across a room. Then we looked back. AWC Stockholm's history had been laid out in photographs, stories, and memorabilia, and standing in front of it you noticed how little the basic arrangement had changed. Women arrive in a country that isn't theirs, find one another, and decide to keep in touch. Some of them have been doing it for a very long time.

The next session turned to the present. In Local Connections, members described what was working in their clubs, what wasn't, and what they were thinking of trying. Several people told us afterward that it was the best part of the weekend. Useful ideas, it seems, are often sitting a few chairs away.

Speakers from Nordic Region 2 and FAWCO followed, with a fika break to keep things civilized. Lunch doubled as networking. State Department Federal Credit Union spoke about managing money while living abroad, a subject everyone eventually has to face, usually at an inconvenient moment. A session inspired by Nobel Week Lights considered how art helps people belong across borders. The conversations about global citizenship, philanthropy, and working together carried on well past their time slots.

At Stockholm City Hall, the doors closed at 5:30 PM, and they meant it. Inside, we saw the Blue Hall and the Golden Hall and learned something of the building's civic history.

Dinner was at the Swedish Society of Medicine. The toasts were warm. Then came the music trivia, which was taken far more seriously than anyone had planned for. Some of the knowledge on display was startling.

Sunday

There was a relaxed brunch, courtesy of Costco, and a tour of Biomedicum. People lingered over the last conversations, in the way people do when they know the weekend is ending and would rather not say so.

A good deal of what we'll remember wasn't on the program: the talk over coffee, the introductions in doorways, and the sentence "We should do this together" said, by our count, many times.