Feelings: Quiet, Comfortable.
Our first destination the following morning was Hunderfossen. Hunderfossen was the site of the Winter Olympics bobsled run and is still operational. Though there appears to be snow in them there hills in the distance (or is it stacks of white plastic-covered hay bales) the bobsled is run on wheel bobs rather than ice at this time of the year. With a top speed of a hundred kilometres per hour, a time of seventy seconds, a cost of about fifty dollars and an indemnity form a foot long, the dice wasn’t required for a ‘no’ verdict and the push on for coffee became the top priority.
Back on the other side of the freeway was the township of Hafjell. It seems like this is where they put everyone up for the games—it is hotel after hotel after camping after hotel. On our first Sunday in the country we were finding that the one hundred and sixty days on average that Norwegians work (allegedly) definitely don’t include Sundays. Nothing was open. We found a one-man operation pizza place open. They had coffee (yay) but no milk (mmm?) and we had the most enormous one-to-two person pizza I have ever seen in my life.
The Peer Gynt Veien was next on the destination program. It is a road that follows along some of the locations spoken of in Ibsen’s poetic play Peer Gynt—since purchased on the kindle for ninety-nine cents and semi-read.
Aside: The Kindle. I am still minorly ambivalent about the Kindle and the place of the kindle in the world of books. It has been handy to be able to read seven books on the go (2001: A Space Odyssey (finished now), Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (ongoing from the physical book pile at home), 52 Pickup (ongoing from the Kindle pile pre-holiday), The Girl Who Played with Fire (Swedish), Don’t Look Back (Norwegian), Brotherhood One: Dark Lover (holiday reading which I haven’t started yet, and, which is about vampires which seems apt in Scandinavia in which we have already been in Spiken (ie. Spike from Buffy) and Sunndal (ie. a weak link to Sunnydale, California, where Buffy lives), and, of course, Peer Gynt. It has been handy to have all those books and a guidebook without the weight. It has not been handy to have a guide book without an index—you have to try and guess what chapter your desired destination will be in, if it is there at all. It has also not been handy to have a phrase book that can’t be easily flicked through. It means that people switch to English a.s.a.p to avoid waiting for me to try to find a word or a sentence with thirteen elongated clicks. What’s the final vote? I’ll just do a quick poll. For: 2, Against: 0. But the margin is narrow.
Back to Peer’s road. This would be our first experience with the stressful and frequented one-lane roads we will find ourselves on often in the next few days. The Nords, used I am sure to these tiny by-ways, fly by on the cusp of the mountainside at terrifying speed while we shut our eyes, hold onto wheel or door frame and hope like hell that when we open our eyes again we will still be on the road and in one piece. Makes for a peaceful afternoon drive. We had run into a couple of tolls on the large roads which ranged between twelve and sixteen krone, but were not expecting to pay seventy to get through a gate onto this road. It was too late to go back once we hit the gate—cars were backing up behind us. Possibly the money is going towards actually building the road. The usual trend with Norway is that unless the road is wholly funded by the government (such as the world’s longest tunnel which they put their hands in their pockets to pay for and so is not tolled) then it is tolled until it is paid for. This was kilometres of gravel and corrugation and pot holes and mud. But it was high above everything and the views were stunning, and for summer in Scandinavia we were treated to snow. Coming back down we saw some more of the damage of the seemingly more than normal amount of water that is around. The ‘bomveg’ (I’m translating this road work associated warning as ‘looks like someone bombed this road’) was quite bad and large bits of the side of the road had floated off down the river.
We stopped for coffee at the end of the road with bunches of people all doing Sunday type things like going to dog shows and getting sun-burned. And then stopped in a fairly timely manner at a camping ground with cute huts (am doubting that we’ll pitch a tent again) just outside of Otta. Lime ciders, local soft cheese and chicken rolls and scrabble filled the rest of the day. When we arrived it was sun-shiny and lovely; while we moved stuff car to hut it started to bucket down and again the sound of rain justified the toss of the coin that had fallen (happily) on hut over tent. At midnight I did my final teeth clean. It was the first time I had really been up that late. The sky was dawn-like but definitely light. No torches or lights were needed to see your way from hut to bathroom. The midnight sun doesn’t give you a tan at this latitude but it’s definitely out there. Cool.
Friday, June 24, 2011
June 18th: Lillehammer (205 kms)
Feelings: Safe, Confident.
Referendum decision: The new time for starting to look for accommodation is about three, three-thirty. Also, frequent stopping en route is now mandatory. Today was a tad different as we actually had a destination—Lillehammer. Our mandatory stop en route was Hamar and its Open Air Museum with its glass encased sixteenth century church ruins. It looked quite amazing—the glass was Louvre like, Fed Square like and because we had taken the free walk around the grounds option rather than entering into all the buildings, the church beneath the glass was shadowy and ghost-like. The park where the church and the other Norwegian buildings where situated seemed a popular spot for the locals too—one man had come to practise his archery and his arrows twanged through the quiet location. In the church an Asian couple were getting married.
Lillehammer was difficult to negotiate for the same reason that it made a great place to host the Winter Olympics—it is perched on a slope angled not dissimilarly to a ski-jump. This necessitates two tunnels through town which seem to cross over each other. We knew the camping ground was downhill, but they blocked of the roads that went down from the road that traversed the down area for some reason and so going downhill couldn’t actually get you down the hill. It’s easy once you have the map but that was still a little way away. We finally found the sign for the only road to go to the ‘down’ and found the camping ground. I think that Norway may be having a higher than average level of snow melt. Parts of the camping ground had been washed away into the middle of the river. We paid for a tent place, drove the car onto the boggy tent area, sat there for a while, and then went and upgraded to a hut. All in all this was a good move as the water was quite abundantly coming from the sky as well. I really enjoyed the sound of rain on a solid roof that night.
We spent the afternoon climbing up the over nine hundred steps to the top of the ski jump. My greatest idea of fun. It was okay—only half the size of the Eureka Tower. It was a great view. There are two jumps: the actual championship jump and the slightly smaller one for practice. We decided to come down on the small one. when we got to the actual bit where skis leave snow and hit air and ran out of stairs. there was a very rocky ladder but it didn't appear to be life-supporting. the choice was to slide down a wooden panel for about eight feet or climb up the stairs again. The wooden panel won. My legs were wobbly for about an hour afterward—there was no way I could have climbed more stairs. I did obviously have a wobbly brain as well as I managed to lose the key to the cabin. Can't let you know in polite terms how cross I was. And we were charged a heft fee for the replacement. All up, financially, we would have been better off staying in a hotel. I have lost all my key holding privileges have been revoked.
Referendum decision: The new time for starting to look for accommodation is about three, three-thirty. Also, frequent stopping en route is now mandatory. Today was a tad different as we actually had a destination—Lillehammer. Our mandatory stop en route was Hamar and its Open Air Museum with its glass encased sixteenth century church ruins. It looked quite amazing—the glass was Louvre like, Fed Square like and because we had taken the free walk around the grounds option rather than entering into all the buildings, the church beneath the glass was shadowy and ghost-like. The park where the church and the other Norwegian buildings where situated seemed a popular spot for the locals too—one man had come to practise his archery and his arrows twanged through the quiet location. In the church an Asian couple were getting married.
Lillehammer was difficult to negotiate for the same reason that it made a great place to host the Winter Olympics—it is perched on a slope angled not dissimilarly to a ski-jump. This necessitates two tunnels through town which seem to cross over each other. We knew the camping ground was downhill, but they blocked of the roads that went down from the road that traversed the down area for some reason and so going downhill couldn’t actually get you down the hill. It’s easy once you have the map but that was still a little way away. We finally found the sign for the only road to go to the ‘down’ and found the camping ground. I think that Norway may be having a higher than average level of snow melt. Parts of the camping ground had been washed away into the middle of the river. We paid for a tent place, drove the car onto the boggy tent area, sat there for a while, and then went and upgraded to a hut. All in all this was a good move as the water was quite abundantly coming from the sky as well. I really enjoyed the sound of rain on a solid roof that night.
We spent the afternoon climbing up the over nine hundred steps to the top of the ski jump. My greatest idea of fun. It was okay—only half the size of the Eureka Tower. It was a great view. There are two jumps: the actual championship jump and the slightly smaller one for practice. We decided to come down on the small one. when we got to the actual bit where skis leave snow and hit air and ran out of stairs. there was a very rocky ladder but it didn't appear to be life-supporting. the choice was to slide down a wooden panel for about eight feet or climb up the stairs again. The wooden panel won. My legs were wobbly for about an hour afterward—there was no way I could have climbed more stairs. I did obviously have a wobbly brain as well as I managed to lose the key to the cabin. Can't let you know in polite terms how cross I was. And we were charged a heft fee for the replacement. All up, financially, we would have been better off staying in a hotel. I have lost all my key holding privileges have been revoked.
June 17th: Triaden (Outside of Oslo) (385.6 kms)
Feelings: Peaceful, Happy.
Rain meant that we spent a lot of time in the car—as the mileage attests. Lots of time in the car isn’t the best way to spend a driving holiday (ironically). Add to that a number of wrong turns and confusing road signs. Pop in a lack of places to stop for a coffee or lunch. (We stopped in a tiny town with a knife and fork symbol which turned out to be a corner of a handcraft shop that served coffee and cake. It was quite bizarre—not the coffee and cake, the shop—because of its isolation to size ratio. There was a lot of stuff there. Where had it all come from? There was so much craft there that they had been able to divide the room into colour coded areas. Lunch ended up supermarket supplied, which is fine) Just to be on the safe side, why don’t you have us get hopelessly lost on the outskirts of Oslo (which is where we were purposefully aiming not to go). Then give us only the option of an expensive hotel for the night (nice, but expensive). You could understand then, can’t you, that the feelings we started with this morning may have, well, inverted!
But, just on the bright side, we are now in Norway. The road signs are yellow and white instead of green and blue, the lines in the centre of the road are yellow instead of white, the tight corner signs are yellow and black rather than the Swede’s patriotic yellow and blue, and the way the road signs point is almost one hundred per cent guaranteed to send you in the opposite direction. Oops, seemed to have strayed back over from the bright side again at the end there.
We had dinner in the restaurant next door to the hotel, took a leisurely walk around the shopping centre, abutilised (using something to the level of abuse—just made that one up) the hotel’s wi-fi and watched ‘The Haunting’ which has great hair-raising moments in it. Today was a day where travel is f the sort which cocoons you in a limbo of ‘services’—keeping you one step removed from the reality of the place in which you are travelling.
Rain meant that we spent a lot of time in the car—as the mileage attests. Lots of time in the car isn’t the best way to spend a driving holiday (ironically). Add to that a number of wrong turns and confusing road signs. Pop in a lack of places to stop for a coffee or lunch. (We stopped in a tiny town with a knife and fork symbol which turned out to be a corner of a handcraft shop that served coffee and cake. It was quite bizarre—not the coffee and cake, the shop—because of its isolation to size ratio. There was a lot of stuff there. Where had it all come from? There was so much craft there that they had been able to divide the room into colour coded areas. Lunch ended up supermarket supplied, which is fine) Just to be on the safe side, why don’t you have us get hopelessly lost on the outskirts of Oslo (which is where we were purposefully aiming not to go). Then give us only the option of an expensive hotel for the night (nice, but expensive). You could understand then, can’t you, that the feelings we started with this morning may have, well, inverted!
But, just on the bright side, we are now in Norway. The road signs are yellow and white instead of green and blue, the lines in the centre of the road are yellow instead of white, the tight corner signs are yellow and black rather than the Swede’s patriotic yellow and blue, and the way the road signs point is almost one hundred per cent guaranteed to send you in the opposite direction. Oops, seemed to have strayed back over from the bright side again at the end there.
We had dinner in the restaurant next door to the hotel, took a leisurely walk around the shopping centre, abutilised (using something to the level of abuse—just made that one up) the hotel’s wi-fi and watched ‘The Haunting’ which has great hair-raising moments in it. Today was a day where travel is f the sort which cocoons you in a limbo of ‘services’—keeping you one step removed from the reality of the place in which you are travelling.
June 16th: Läckö (350 kms)
Feelings: Carefree, Uncomfortable.
Grumpiness is pervading me. I can’t account for it. It’s cars and speed and compromise and new but not wonderful underwear, it’s weariness and time and orderliness and its lack. It’s evading my finger tip.
The Scandinavians don’t seem big on the going-out-for-breakfast option. Nothing seems to open until about ten or eleven. We thought we saw a lovely restaurant on the side of a lake a few kilometres before town. We did but it was more like twenty-five kilometres and then it wasn’t open for breakfast so we headed back to Vimmerby and made our way to Astrid Lindgren’s House for one of the best coffees we’ve had so far—with a traditional cinnamon bun. That gave the brewery time to open and it was our next destination. You could smell apples even though it is actually the Abro brewery (beer) and they also make soft drinks—cider seems only a small part of the operation. Tours don’t start on a regular basis until the twenty-seventh, we were told, could we come back then? Or, actually, there is one this afternoon at five if we wanted to join that one. We had a cider to help us decide. It was the seasonal flavour for Summer 2011—wild apple and elderberry. It makes a cider thirteen times more enjoyable to have it on ice I’ve decided. I haven’t decided actually, I’ve experienced. The decision was rather inevitable—we’d forgo the tour and press on.
Our next stop was in Jönköping—a stop much necessitated by the stress acquired driving down a roadwork area on the wrong side of the road (palpable). The stress worked in our favour as we stopped in the middle of town and ate at a lovely pub with an amazing dagens ratt of salmon and boiled potatoes. Maybe it is just watching your life pass before your eyes that makes you appreciate your ability to enjoy a meal.
To try to ameliorate the grumpiness we had decided to try and stop each evening before a certain time—we were going for five-ish. Five-ish found us close to Lidköping but the camping place didn’t look fabulous. We took the chance and drove to the end of a little peninsular that stretches out into the lake. The roads got tinier and tinier and somehow that seemed to suggest to the driver of our vehicle—remaining nameless—that maybe now was a good time to become a rally driver. Alive, again, a short time late, we stopped for the night at Läckö Strand. A tradition of the hytte started here—camping ground huts with basic bedding, shared showers and oodles of character (usually, but not necessarily, in a location also suffuse with character). But maybe their characterfulness is attributable, again, to having lived through a second near-death experience.
Spiken was a little village on the rally track to the Läckö Strand—it’s turnoff had invited comment in reference to ‘the big bad’ being back (see Spike, Season Four, Buffy the Vampire Slayer). We returned there for a dinner of fish from the lake.
Grumpiness is pervading me. I can’t account for it. It’s cars and speed and compromise and new but not wonderful underwear, it’s weariness and time and orderliness and its lack. It’s evading my finger tip.
The Scandinavians don’t seem big on the going-out-for-breakfast option. Nothing seems to open until about ten or eleven. We thought we saw a lovely restaurant on the side of a lake a few kilometres before town. We did but it was more like twenty-five kilometres and then it wasn’t open for breakfast so we headed back to Vimmerby and made our way to Astrid Lindgren’s House for one of the best coffees we’ve had so far—with a traditional cinnamon bun. That gave the brewery time to open and it was our next destination. You could smell apples even though it is actually the Abro brewery (beer) and they also make soft drinks—cider seems only a small part of the operation. Tours don’t start on a regular basis until the twenty-seventh, we were told, could we come back then? Or, actually, there is one this afternoon at five if we wanted to join that one. We had a cider to help us decide. It was the seasonal flavour for Summer 2011—wild apple and elderberry. It makes a cider thirteen times more enjoyable to have it on ice I’ve decided. I haven’t decided actually, I’ve experienced. The decision was rather inevitable—we’d forgo the tour and press on.
Our next stop was in Jönköping—a stop much necessitated by the stress acquired driving down a roadwork area on the wrong side of the road (palpable). The stress worked in our favour as we stopped in the middle of town and ate at a lovely pub with an amazing dagens ratt of salmon and boiled potatoes. Maybe it is just watching your life pass before your eyes that makes you appreciate your ability to enjoy a meal.
To try to ameliorate the grumpiness we had decided to try and stop each evening before a certain time—we were going for five-ish. Five-ish found us close to Lidköping but the camping place didn’t look fabulous. We took the chance and drove to the end of a little peninsular that stretches out into the lake. The roads got tinier and tinier and somehow that seemed to suggest to the driver of our vehicle—remaining nameless—that maybe now was a good time to become a rally driver. Alive, again, a short time late, we stopped for the night at Läckö Strand. A tradition of the hytte started here—camping ground huts with basic bedding, shared showers and oodles of character (usually, but not necessarily, in a location also suffuse with character). But maybe their characterfulness is attributable, again, to having lived through a second near-death experience.
Spiken was a little village on the rally track to the Läckö Strand—it’s turnoff had invited comment in reference to ‘the big bad’ being back (see Spike, Season Four, Buffy the Vampire Slayer). We returned there for a dinner of fish from the lake.
June 15th: Vimmerby (417.4 kms)
Feelings: Quiet, Serious.
Deep and meaningful explorations into the nature of travelling in pairs—mainly from the selfish half of the pair that has been spoiled with the luxury of solo travelling (read: not having to compromise)—accompanied packing up, writing Martin a note about his ghost’s destructive behaviour, walking back to the central station, catching the train to the airport, catching the wrongly advised bus to the car hire place and walking the rest of the way the wrong bus didn’t take us to collect our vehicle. Our Avis representative was having a deep and meaningful conversation too, under his breath, about the fact that he had to do our contract because our actual car company representative (Budget) had stepped out for a moment and arrived back at the point of the proceedings where it was quicker to go forward than back.
Our car was a little Mazda 3 (white for those who care what colour it is). It has clever things like European lights that are always on, magically dimming rear view mirrors that don’t allow the people behind you to blind you with their European lights that are always on, and even rain-detecting windscreen wipers (I’m dubious but I’m told).We strapped Wesley in to the back seat and were away. Destination: Vimmerby. Those of you who have never seen us on the balcony of 4 P— sipping Rekorderlig cider on a balmy evening and playing mega-Scrabble (the one with quadruple word scores and an endless bag of letter tiles) will be unaware of our liking of said cider. Said cider comes from Vimmerby, Sweden. We wanted to see its home, see its brother and sister flavours that never make it down under. It didn’t look far, but as you can see from the odometer reading, it was a decent distance. We finally made it. We had V—‘s first ever tent raising and headed back to town for dinner. There was an Old Town to Vimmerby but we weren’t able to find it. We ended up at a weird little restaurant-slash-pub called Chaplin’s. The Swedish to English ratio is higher here and we have to at least try to get the phrase book out and be respectful, but we were very well attended by some lovely bar staff and enjoyed a meal and a very delicious Norwegian pear cider (irony of not having Rekordelig cider available at bars in Vimmerby hangs heavy here). We also got to enjoy some Swedish karaoke. The crowds started arriving in droves at about nine pm. There were security staff that, if they were in the lifts at work, would be mistaken for SOGies (very tough looking policemen with zero percentage body-fat). There seems to be a subtle difference between Swedish and Australian karaoke though. In Australia the announcement that a male was about to come up and sing Lionel Ritchie’s ‘Hello’ would have (1) made him the laughing stock of his friends and possibly the victim of a violent expression of dislike from other patrons, and, (2) made everyone else cringe at the thought of just how bad this was going to be. In Sweden it seems that only the reasonably talented actually are given possession of the mike. I stopped trying to work out what song I was going to sing.
Zipping ourselves into the tent for the night, V— let me know that in the morning there may be a revision of the gladness, or not, that he felt towards the fact that I had chased him on my bicycle those couple of years ago. Breaths are baited.
Deep and meaningful explorations into the nature of travelling in pairs—mainly from the selfish half of the pair that has been spoiled with the luxury of solo travelling (read: not having to compromise)—accompanied packing up, writing Martin a note about his ghost’s destructive behaviour, walking back to the central station, catching the train to the airport, catching the wrongly advised bus to the car hire place and walking the rest of the way the wrong bus didn’t take us to collect our vehicle. Our Avis representative was having a deep and meaningful conversation too, under his breath, about the fact that he had to do our contract because our actual car company representative (Budget) had stepped out for a moment and arrived back at the point of the proceedings where it was quicker to go forward than back.
Our car was a little Mazda 3 (white for those who care what colour it is). It has clever things like European lights that are always on, magically dimming rear view mirrors that don’t allow the people behind you to blind you with their European lights that are always on, and even rain-detecting windscreen wipers (I’m dubious but I’m told).We strapped Wesley in to the back seat and were away. Destination: Vimmerby. Those of you who have never seen us on the balcony of 4 P— sipping Rekorderlig cider on a balmy evening and playing mega-Scrabble (the one with quadruple word scores and an endless bag of letter tiles) will be unaware of our liking of said cider. Said cider comes from Vimmerby, Sweden. We wanted to see its home, see its brother and sister flavours that never make it down under. It didn’t look far, but as you can see from the odometer reading, it was a decent distance. We finally made it. We had V—‘s first ever tent raising and headed back to town for dinner. There was an Old Town to Vimmerby but we weren’t able to find it. We ended up at a weird little restaurant-slash-pub called Chaplin’s. The Swedish to English ratio is higher here and we have to at least try to get the phrase book out and be respectful, but we were very well attended by some lovely bar staff and enjoyed a meal and a very delicious Norwegian pear cider (irony of not having Rekordelig cider available at bars in Vimmerby hangs heavy here). We also got to enjoy some Swedish karaoke. The crowds started arriving in droves at about nine pm. There were security staff that, if they were in the lifts at work, would be mistaken for SOGies (very tough looking policemen with zero percentage body-fat). There seems to be a subtle difference between Swedish and Australian karaoke though. In Australia the announcement that a male was about to come up and sing Lionel Ritchie’s ‘Hello’ would have (1) made him the laughing stock of his friends and possibly the victim of a violent expression of dislike from other patrons, and, (2) made everyone else cringe at the thought of just how bad this was going to be. In Sweden it seems that only the reasonably talented actually are given possession of the mike. I stopped trying to work out what song I was going to sing.
Zipping ourselves into the tent for the night, V— let me know that in the morning there may be a revision of the gladness, or not, that he felt towards the fact that I had chased him on my bicycle those couple of years ago. Breaths are baited.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
June 14th: Stockholm.
Feelings: Comfortable, Cheerful.
Maybe it is time to grow up. I don’t know. I always got the impression that growing up was over-rated but today I had hoped to be childish and it turned out to be ultimately a little boring. Our destination was a parklanded island called Djurgården. There is something lovely about getting to walk around in green spaces in cities, don’t you think? Like trying to find buildings in the countryside?? We visited—as recommended in the ‘Stockholm for Children’ section of the Lonely Planet—Junibacken, which is a place where ‘tykes and their parents “fly” through the strange and fantastical world of Pippi Longstocking’. I think I can’t remember Pippi Longstocking after all now. Ultimately I just ended up subjecting the poor V— to a long wait in a queue of anxious parents chasing after screaming kids in order to ride a basket over a ‘It’s a small world’ like display of the different stories written by Astrid Lindgren which were all run together into a weird incomprehensible narrative that ended with a disabled brother taking his dying brother on his back and jumping off a cliff. The basket train dumped us at Pippi’s house and a wooden version of her horse. It was not worth the money unfortunately. Sad smiley face.
Dagens ratt is a way to have economical meals in Scandinavia. If I have understood the history correctly, the government originally subsidised the ‘worker’s’ lunch in order that the proletariat ate a decent meal in the middle of the day and continued to be the productive worker in the afternoon. (That is me paraphrasing). It means that for a reasonably reasonable price you can have a hot meal, a salad, a glass of water and a coffee. The meals are usually along the lines of meatballs with mashed potatoes and ligonberry jam (I’m asking for the dagens ratt next time I have that particular meal at Ikea) or a giant meatball on fried potatoes with an egg or fish and boiled potatoes. We had the dagens ratt for lunch.
The rest of the day we wandered around the green bits of the island, had coffee as I complained of my sore knee, and caught the ferry back to Gamla Stan. Laid back, possibly not overly absorbative of all the possibilities of Stockholmian culture, but nice enough. Bought V— a belt to hold up his trousers from the outside and ice-creams to hold both of our trousers up from the inside. Dinner in the apartment again, and sleeping.
I did forget to tell you that there was a ghost in the apartment on the first night. He unscrewed the light fitting over the shower so that it hit the rail and smashed in the sink. He seems to have accepted our presence in the place now, but I still think it may be he who is responsible for the fact that no matter how closely you look to make sure the glass has been swept up, there is always another little piece that inserts itself into the sole of your foot.
Maybe it is time to grow up. I don’t know. I always got the impression that growing up was over-rated but today I had hoped to be childish and it turned out to be ultimately a little boring. Our destination was a parklanded island called Djurgården. There is something lovely about getting to walk around in green spaces in cities, don’t you think? Like trying to find buildings in the countryside?? We visited—as recommended in the ‘Stockholm for Children’ section of the Lonely Planet—Junibacken, which is a place where ‘tykes and their parents “fly” through the strange and fantastical world of Pippi Longstocking’. I think I can’t remember Pippi Longstocking after all now. Ultimately I just ended up subjecting the poor V— to a long wait in a queue of anxious parents chasing after screaming kids in order to ride a basket over a ‘It’s a small world’ like display of the different stories written by Astrid Lindgren which were all run together into a weird incomprehensible narrative that ended with a disabled brother taking his dying brother on his back and jumping off a cliff. The basket train dumped us at Pippi’s house and a wooden version of her horse. It was not worth the money unfortunately. Sad smiley face.
Dagens ratt is a way to have economical meals in Scandinavia. If I have understood the history correctly, the government originally subsidised the ‘worker’s’ lunch in order that the proletariat ate a decent meal in the middle of the day and continued to be the productive worker in the afternoon. (That is me paraphrasing). It means that for a reasonably reasonable price you can have a hot meal, a salad, a glass of water and a coffee. The meals are usually along the lines of meatballs with mashed potatoes and ligonberry jam (I’m asking for the dagens ratt next time I have that particular meal at Ikea) or a giant meatball on fried potatoes with an egg or fish and boiled potatoes. We had the dagens ratt for lunch.
The rest of the day we wandered around the green bits of the island, had coffee as I complained of my sore knee, and caught the ferry back to Gamla Stan. Laid back, possibly not overly absorbative of all the possibilities of Stockholmian culture, but nice enough. Bought V— a belt to hold up his trousers from the outside and ice-creams to hold both of our trousers up from the inside. Dinner in the apartment again, and sleeping.
I did forget to tell you that there was a ghost in the apartment on the first night. He unscrewed the light fitting over the shower so that it hit the rail and smashed in the sink. He seems to have accepted our presence in the place now, but I still think it may be he who is responsible for the fact that no matter how closely you look to make sure the glass has been swept up, there is always another little piece that inserts itself into the sole of your foot.
Friday, June 17, 2011
June 13th: Stockholm.
Feelings: Calm, Worried.
Breakfasted on scones and cream cheese at a Swedish equivalent of a Starbucks. Walking was the order of the day. We started with the Royal Palace—six hundred and eight rooms, biggest operating palace in the world. There was a fourteen year old boy with a gun guarding it. Disconcerting. We walked over to and around the island of Skeppsholmen Being treed and bordered with all things maritime made it a lovely couple of hours of preamble. Holidays would be about thirty-three times easier if it wasn’t for food. I find the process of finding a place to eat, speaking to waiters in Swenglish and deciding on food options a tedious chore. I think holiday-eating options should work one of two other ways: either you get fitted with a drip that supplies all necessary energy boosts for the full duration of the holiday, or, you just have coffee and cakes. I don’t seem to find it hard to have cake. After three sweeps of the Kunstradgården we decided to start easy and chose the TGI Fridays. There is fresh, nice tasting food, and then there is a weird sort of fake level of food underneath. Lunch was the latter.
Wesley, my backpack and my trousers are covered with the smell of the last third of a bottle of spilled perfume. In order that I can also smell a little as good as they, I needed to find some more perfume in one of the world’s most expensive cities. It’s a good exercise actually—forces you to look for a new smell from a cheaper source. I ended up at the Body Shop. Their perfumes are not too bad. We visited the Kulturhuset. I am not sure what the Lonely Planet was talking about though; it wasn’t quite the hive of youth art they made out. It was nice to sit on the third of fourth floor for a while and look out at (the more modern part of) the city. And there was a bit of a buzz of people drawing on the pavement with chalk on the subterranean level, which was in itself a bit funky. We each formulated a plan for the rest of the afternoon, threw the dice and followed this one: Back to Gamla Stan via the Parliament Building on the Island of the Holy Spirit, visit the Nobel Museum and then indulge in the Swedish tradition of afternoon coffee and cake.
The Nobel Museum was actually quite interesting. It was my plan (V—‘s differed in the order of coffee and cakes and museum, and in the actual museum chosen—the Armoury) but I had a few doubts. I was pleasantly surprised. There wasn’t that much to it—films showing in two rooms, some computer terminals on which you could access the web site for the museum and nominate who you thought was ‘admirable’ (Lolli and Bodhi, for being so trusting in a world lacking trust), a kid’s room where we had a puppet show, a dry-cleaner-esque rail on which pictures of all the recipients of the Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature, Peace and Economics prizes circled the ceiling of the room, and a rather strange collection of items donated to the museum which had belonged to the recipients. Perhaps it is a sense of voyeurism that makes the last bit so intriguing. There were letters and diaries and artworks, visual notebooks, carvings and baseball gloves, instruments of experimentation and reminders of times when Google wasn’t our professor and discovery was the result of plain, hard graft and lots of numbers on large pieces of paper. Very nice blueberry crumble and coffee finished the plan.
My tolerance levels seemed to be bottoming out though and there were eek moments in the teeny supermarket where we were buying groceries for dinner as the aisles were filled with what appeared to be the key note speakers of several conferences. We had hot dogs for dinner an again fell asleep in an instant.
Breakfasted on scones and cream cheese at a Swedish equivalent of a Starbucks. Walking was the order of the day. We started with the Royal Palace—six hundred and eight rooms, biggest operating palace in the world. There was a fourteen year old boy with a gun guarding it. Disconcerting. We walked over to and around the island of Skeppsholmen Being treed and bordered with all things maritime made it a lovely couple of hours of preamble. Holidays would be about thirty-three times easier if it wasn’t for food. I find the process of finding a place to eat, speaking to waiters in Swenglish and deciding on food options a tedious chore. I think holiday-eating options should work one of two other ways: either you get fitted with a drip that supplies all necessary energy boosts for the full duration of the holiday, or, you just have coffee and cakes. I don’t seem to find it hard to have cake. After three sweeps of the Kunstradgården we decided to start easy and chose the TGI Fridays. There is fresh, nice tasting food, and then there is a weird sort of fake level of food underneath. Lunch was the latter.
Wesley, my backpack and my trousers are covered with the smell of the last third of a bottle of spilled perfume. In order that I can also smell a little as good as they, I needed to find some more perfume in one of the world’s most expensive cities. It’s a good exercise actually—forces you to look for a new smell from a cheaper source. I ended up at the Body Shop. Their perfumes are not too bad. We visited the Kulturhuset. I am not sure what the Lonely Planet was talking about though; it wasn’t quite the hive of youth art they made out. It was nice to sit on the third of fourth floor for a while and look out at (the more modern part of) the city. And there was a bit of a buzz of people drawing on the pavement with chalk on the subterranean level, which was in itself a bit funky. We each formulated a plan for the rest of the afternoon, threw the dice and followed this one: Back to Gamla Stan via the Parliament Building on the Island of the Holy Spirit, visit the Nobel Museum and then indulge in the Swedish tradition of afternoon coffee and cake.
The Nobel Museum was actually quite interesting. It was my plan (V—‘s differed in the order of coffee and cakes and museum, and in the actual museum chosen—the Armoury) but I had a few doubts. I was pleasantly surprised. There wasn’t that much to it—films showing in two rooms, some computer terminals on which you could access the web site for the museum and nominate who you thought was ‘admirable’ (Lolli and Bodhi, for being so trusting in a world lacking trust), a kid’s room where we had a puppet show, a dry-cleaner-esque rail on which pictures of all the recipients of the Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature, Peace and Economics prizes circled the ceiling of the room, and a rather strange collection of items donated to the museum which had belonged to the recipients. Perhaps it is a sense of voyeurism that makes the last bit so intriguing. There were letters and diaries and artworks, visual notebooks, carvings and baseball gloves, instruments of experimentation and reminders of times when Google wasn’t our professor and discovery was the result of plain, hard graft and lots of numbers on large pieces of paper. Very nice blueberry crumble and coffee finished the plan.
My tolerance levels seemed to be bottoming out though and there were eek moments in the teeny supermarket where we were buying groceries for dinner as the aisles were filled with what appeared to be the key note speakers of several conferences. We had hot dogs for dinner an again fell asleep in an instant.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
June 12th: Stockholm.
Feelings Flash Cards: Tired; Annoyed.
The feelings were inevitable results of the twenty-two hour flight in economy. I’m not going to say who was which—just let you know that the order is always the same, and let you see if there is a pattern to be discerned. Qatar is bigger; I would have to say it is true. And possibly not just by millimetres. I had the middle seat on the thirteen hour flight and while it was never, ever, ever, going to be enjoyable, it was bearable (-ish). I did have movie disappointments. I watched Rango (okay, I really thought the goldfish would figure more), Just Go With It (mmm, predictable and deja-vued/viewed, but with a couple of funny moments) and Unknown (not bad, good twists, but is it a re-make of something like it?), but couldn’t do anymore. Possibly because there was not anything I wanted to see enough to stay awake—not implying here, however, that I actually slept in the truest sense of the notion.
We arrived in Stockholm about two in the afternoon, Sunday, breezed through immigration, waited for our bags forever and then caught the train into town. That was a little exciting—it combined the maritime feel of wooden window frames with the technological advances of a train that travels effortlessly at two hundred and five kilometres an hour. In twenty minutes we were in town, and twenty after that we were greeting Martin at the door of the Old Town Apartment we had booked. It is the cutest and tiniest little apartment you ever did see. Stockholm is made up, as its nickname (Venice of the North) suggests, of a number of islands (did I read somewhere there are fourteen?), joined by an even larger number (fifty-seven?) of bridges. The Old Town Apartments are on Gamla Stan, on a cobbled street lined with cafes and pubs and antique shops; tacky tourist shops and old bakeries; ice cream shops which beckon with waffle smells to die for; funky fashions and beautiful craft; even shops where chain mail armour or Viking headgear (authentic and in-) is to be had. Anxiousness, unfortunately, plagued me on our afternoon and evening soirees into the streets because although I have looked and read and tried to memorise a few choice phrases of Swedish, I am completely useless and succumb to allowing myself to find the easy way in the Swede’s superior grasp of my language over mine of theirs. I feel guilty. It’s part of the weird transition into holiday-in-a-foreign-country mode and will hopefully not last long—or will be perceived differently soon.
Aside: Lots of people wear very bright green, and the sound of the wheeled suitcase is ubiquitous.
We spent the afternoon walking the island of Gamla Stan, followed by beer, dinner in an Italian restaurant and ‘home’. Shattered didn’t begin to describe it, and sleep was easy to find.
The feelings were inevitable results of the twenty-two hour flight in economy. I’m not going to say who was which—just let you know that the order is always the same, and let you see if there is a pattern to be discerned. Qatar is bigger; I would have to say it is true. And possibly not just by millimetres. I had the middle seat on the thirteen hour flight and while it was never, ever, ever, going to be enjoyable, it was bearable (-ish). I did have movie disappointments. I watched Rango (okay, I really thought the goldfish would figure more), Just Go With It (mmm, predictable and deja-vued/viewed, but with a couple of funny moments) and Unknown (not bad, good twists, but is it a re-make of something like it?), but couldn’t do anymore. Possibly because there was not anything I wanted to see enough to stay awake—not implying here, however, that I actually slept in the truest sense of the notion.
We arrived in Stockholm about two in the afternoon, Sunday, breezed through immigration, waited for our bags forever and then caught the train into town. That was a little exciting—it combined the maritime feel of wooden window frames with the technological advances of a train that travels effortlessly at two hundred and five kilometres an hour. In twenty minutes we were in town, and twenty after that we were greeting Martin at the door of the Old Town Apartment we had booked. It is the cutest and tiniest little apartment you ever did see. Stockholm is made up, as its nickname (Venice of the North) suggests, of a number of islands (did I read somewhere there are fourteen?), joined by an even larger number (fifty-seven?) of bridges. The Old Town Apartments are on Gamla Stan, on a cobbled street lined with cafes and pubs and antique shops; tacky tourist shops and old bakeries; ice cream shops which beckon with waffle smells to die for; funky fashions and beautiful craft; even shops where chain mail armour or Viking headgear (authentic and in-) is to be had. Anxiousness, unfortunately, plagued me on our afternoon and evening soirees into the streets because although I have looked and read and tried to memorise a few choice phrases of Swedish, I am completely useless and succumb to allowing myself to find the easy way in the Swede’s superior grasp of my language over mine of theirs. I feel guilty. It’s part of the weird transition into holiday-in-a-foreign-country mode and will hopefully not last long—or will be perceived differently soon.
Aside: Lots of people wear very bright green, and the sound of the wheeled suitcase is ubiquitous.
We spent the afternoon walking the island of Gamla Stan, followed by beer, dinner in an Italian restaurant and ‘home’. Shattered didn’t begin to describe it, and sleep was easy to find.
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