My Adventurous Trip to Stockholm: Memories of a Novel Prize Winner

As many of you know, my name is Isabella Ross and I am the 1996 NObel Prize Winner. You may think that the day you would be awarded the Nobel Prize would be the happiest day of your life. Indeed, in my case it was a very happy day, but it was very exciting too. And my trip to Stockholm, the place where the awarding ceremony was held, was really unusual.

One evening, five days prior to the ceremony, I just arrived home after walking my dog in dreadful weather conditions. Although I live in California that evening you could easily think you were in Alaska; there were nine inches of snow fallen over the day. The temperature, I guess, was close to zero degrees Kelvin! The ice was covering everything and nobody except me and my dog was courageous enough to go outside.

Back home my dog Munchy and I had our ice tea and then started to fight over a book. Because you need to know, Munchy is a professional chewer and he wanted that soft,. leather-covered book for dinner. Thenm the telephone rang. Well, I thought, this should be one of my neighbours, complaining about something Munchy would have done over the weekend. But no, an unfamiliar voice told me about the Nobel Prize and that I better be in Sweeden in exactly five days if I really wanted the prize and the 500.000 dollars in cash. I was about to faint and Munchy, who is a very intelligent Golden Retreiver, was going nuts.

Given the weather conditions, finding that in five days I had to be in Sweeden was not and easy task for me. On top of that, my only pair of shoes not yet chewed up was mysteriously missing. But I did not bother too much at that time, because I had more important things to do.

That very evening, I called the airlines to book a flight. But they said that all the flights were cancelled due to the bad weather. I panicked, I did not know what to do. My dog, too, was going mad. Then, with fainitng hope, I called my private pilot. He too told me that the weather was too bad for any flight to go on and that he would not dare fly me in his small bi-motor over the Atlantic.

But I, you remember, am the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and I had to be there to receive the prize. So, I decided that I would fly myself over the Ocean in my Zeppelin which I secretly built in my garage. Until then, I did not have the courage to fly it.

Before I left, I looked for my missing shoes; soon I realized Munchy knew something about them- he looked suspicioulsy quiet! And, indeed, when I turned to him for help, he took me to his secret place, behind the old pine armoire, where he uses to hide his chewing stuff. Only one she was still wearable. The other looked like a big gum ball. Well, I did not like that, but I had no time to argue.

I packed my things quickly, instead of shoes I took a pair of sandals which I bought ten years ago in Hawaii, then Muchy and I took off in our Zeppelin over the Ocean. First, it was a bit cold out there, but as soon as we reached 5000 meters everything went fine. The only problem now was the time; we flew against the clock. To gain speed, we had to throw everything out from the balloon except for my gala dress, the shoe Muchy brought with him for chewing, and five small bottles of iced tea.

We landed in Sweeden five minutes before the ceremony begun. Our flight time was four days, twenty-three hours and fifty five minutes: a new world record for transatlantic balloon flights. After landing we checked if we were in the right country and yes, we were actually on top of the building where the award ceremony was about to start!

We entered the auditorium just in time for my award and speech. My name was called and i had to go to the stage to get my prize. I looked all around me and there were so many great people applauding me. It was then that I realized that I did not prepare a speech. I went on the stage and said: "Thanx to everyone who helped me realize my goal to make life more peaceful on the Earth. Today, I am wearing sandals as a reminder of happy days and friendly people whom I have met all over the world. And, I want to extend my thanx to Munchy, my dog, who is smart and selective enough to chew up only the worthless drafts of my books.

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