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Work, Swedish class, and concern that tonight’s hail storm was gonna turn into a repeat of the 1999 hailstorm.
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Melodfestivalen 2011 – Andra Chansen
As the people of Sweden slept, we sat and waited and waited and waited.
From time to time, as we enjoyed the brilliant conversation, excellent company and a soundtrack of both this and last year’s “Melodifestivalen”, we checked online from time to time without success. Even by late afternoon there was still no sign of “Andra Chansen”.
This was the third year in a row a group of us have gathered at a Sydney pub to watch Melodifestivalen, the Swedish finals leading to Eurovision.
Last year I was, of course, in Sweden for actual final and called my friends long-distance at about three o’clock in the morning. “Here, Patrick, you talk to him… he sounds drunk” was a phrase I recall from the night.
This year it was all a bit different with Gustav visiting us from Sweden. And so we decorated the pub with yellow and blue streamers and balloons.
Six hours of Swedish pop was about enough, with festivities ending up about seven, and still there was no sign of “Andra Chansen” showing up.
In the grand scheme of things, I guess it didn’t matter so much, since we all had already heard the songs, and most of us knew the result.
And the real point of the day was a fun catch-up with friends, anyway.
Stockholm by Night
It’s two weeks today since I left Sydney and it’s been a day of meeting Australians. I met a lovely couple from Melbourne on a tour today and we had a good old chin wag. And now I am sharing a room with a nice bloke from Sydney. I also met a bloke from Finland whose son lives in Sydney.
The couple from Melbourne were retired, and told me they’ve had the travel bug ever since. This time around, they’ve been to the United States, Canada and the UK, and now they’re in Stockholm for just one night before heading off to Finland. I gave them some advice about Stockholm and Helsinki, and they gave me some advice about some cheap accommodation in the centre of London. “You know the other secret we’ve discovered?”, the old bloke said. “Couriers. We’ve become couriers. We have to travel on planes separately, but we take things on planes as couriers”. “Oh my God”, I thought to myself, “I’ve met a couple of geriatric drug traffickers”. They assured me it was mostly fabric samples and such, and they’d seen the ad for couriers in “The Age”, but I still couldn’t help but wonder. “It’s so nice to hear an Australian voice”, the older woman said. “We’re on a tour with all of these Americans and English people. And they’re so loud and boring. And rude, you wouldn’t believe how rude they can be”.
They were a lovely couple and it was great to have a good old chin-wag with them. We met in the courtyard of the Hallywlska Museet, located right in the centre of Stockholm. The Von Hallwyl’s were a very rich couple, we were told, who had a dream (well, she more than he) of creating a museum from scratch. She was the daughter of a rich industrialist couple, he the son of Swiss aristrocracy, but without much fortune. She was an avid art collector, and inspired by Skansen and the Nordisk Museet, loved the idea of taking things from every day lives and preserving them for the future. Well, as “everyday” as you might imagine that to mean for a very rich and influential couple. I also got the impression there was something a little bit odd about the couple. They had separate beds, and he went to bed each night wearing a hair net and with a moustache crimper. He was apparently much better dressed than she was. Make of that what you will. She employed a companion called Miss Ede or something like that who looked after her day to day needs. There’s a wonderful photograph of the two women in their private gymnasium together. When I saw the photograph of these two very austere looking women doing exercises I just laughed, much to the amusement of our tour guide. The tour guide, by the way, was also quite interesting. She spoke English with a slight Eurovision touch, though I get the feeling she may have also lived in the United States for a while. She was very dressed in a very glamorous manner, and wore lots of jewelery. Put simply, I thought she was “fabulous”. She was very knowledgeable about the house, and you just got the impression she did the tours for personal interest sake, more than anything.
I went for a late-afternoon tour thanks to the Swedish public transport system again. Today, I ended up on the island of Lidingo, which I’d say was Stockholm’s equivalent to the “leafy North Shore” quite by accident. I thought I was heading back to Stockholm, but wasn’t. You get that I guess.
I moved into my new hostel tonight, Skanstull Vandrehem which is very nice. I especially like the free wifi.
I took a walk around the area and had a hamburger for dinner at an outdoor dinery. A bloke from Finland asked if I minded if he shared my table, and so of course I said, no, not a problem. We spoke about travelling, about how he had a son in Sydney and a daughter in New Zealand, and I mentioned to him that I’d been to Helsinki. He told me his son said Australia was a very beautiful place, but there was “something about the place that was not quite right”. He couldn’t exactly put his finger on what his son meant by this, though.
And now, of course, I’m sharing a room with a bloke from Sydney. He’s been travelling for about two months now, and has two more months ahead of him. “I got a bit tired at about the six week period”, he told me, emphasizing the importance of having a couple of days rest here and there, and balancing out the cheapness of hostels compared with the comfort of hotels.
We went out for a beer tonight. Well, four actually. A mate of his had recommended Cafe Opera as “the hip place” to go in Stockholm, though when we arrived at about 9.30, there was hardly anyone there. We wandered around for a while, decided it was pointless, and went instead to the tourist haven of Gamla Stan. After a couple of beers, we decided to give Cafe Opera another go. This time the place was a little busier, though not too much more so, and not exactly the hip and happening place to be on a Friday night. The crowd looked a bit ordinary. The clincher for us was the cover charge of 180kr (about $30). We looked the crowd up and down, decided there was little chance Madonna was inside, and so went looking for somewhere else to have a drink. We looked at two further bars, both of which had a cover charge in the price range of 150-200kr ($30-40), but neither of which looked exciting enough to justify money which could otherwise be spent on drinking. The coup de grace was the Irish pub which was charging 100kr (about $20) on the door. To my eyes it looked like any other Irish bar anywhere in the world, possibly full of Australian expats and backpackers. “They should be paying us to enter an Irish pub”, we both agreed. In Sydney, nowhere would dare charge such a high cover charge unless there was a special occasion or some entertainment was included. In Sydney, of course, the staff know that you just need to let an Australian into a bar and they’ll drink more than several cover charges in a flash. Finally, we found a resonably nice looking bar, Cafe Jarl which didn’t have a cover charge. The bouncer looked us up and down briefly, and ushered us in. We even managed to find a table, and the staff were very nice. The bar service, though, was extremely slow. It took AGES to get a drink. And when I finally did manage to get close enough for a drink a young Swedish woman jumped in front of me in the queue. She looked at me and smiled, in that, “I’m just a girl” kinda way, which of course meant absolutely nothing. I had, by this time, caught the eye of the barman who recognised what had occured, and asked me for my order at the same time. Then when the Swedish woman offered to show her drivers license as evidence she was of drinking age, I leant over and whispered in her ear, “You’re dreamin’ love”.
Of course the great thing about being a native English speaker in a country where it’s the second language is that you can say things you wouldn’t otherwise. She thought I was charming, when in fact I was totally sarcastic. And so long as you smile, all is okay.
If you had to classify the crowd, I’d instantly say “older yuppie”. Earlier in the night it would have been a restaurant, but by this time of the night (close to eleven o’clock) loud music was playing and there were many pickups to be had. But if you had to be honest about the makeup of the crowd, and what we all had in common, you’d have to say “non cover charge payers”. I’m still not sure about the make-up of the group at the table next to us, though. At first I thought it was three middle-aged (or older) gay guys out with a female friend. And then I noticed one of the blokes had a wedding ring on, and kept putting his arm around the woman. They also seemed to know quite a few people entering the bar, leading to the conclusion, “it’s a very Stockholm crowd”. Later in the night, the group sitting next to us got a little snap-happy with a disposable camera. In the midst of their snap-happiness, they took a photograph of me for which I duly smiled. So there you have it, long after I’ve left Stockholm, I’ll still be here, as “anonymous guy” in someone’s photo album.
Beautiful Day
It’s one of those beautiful autumn days, with just a slight chill in the air. As we approach winter, the leaves on the trees in my street have begun to fall. And yet, there’s still a warmth in the air, and so there’s an odd combination of people walking around in shorts and jeans, t-shirts and jackets.
It’s been a reasonably busy and social week, catching up for drinks on a couple of occasions. I joke with people at work that I have friends who are alcoholics and that I only have a drink with them to keep them on the straight and narrow. “So it’s like you’re providing a community service?”, joked one of my colleagues, adding “You should get an Order of Australia Medal for all the community service you do”.
Some of the things I planned to do this week, I didn’t, mostly through a lack of enthusiasm. I also had a sick day from work, hoping to head off a bug which has been making me feel lethargic all week. Work as usual remains busy.
Today and tomorrow are mostly days for house cleaning ahead of hosting my Eurovision bash tomorrow night which sounds like it will be well-attended with a fun bunch of people.
Hello from Berlin
After an early evening nap, I headed back to the Amstel Tavern last night. The same barman from the other night was there again, and after chatting for a while, I found out he was actually Scottish. You would never know from his accent that he was from Aberdeen; I thought he was Dutch and had learned English from American television. Anyway, he seemed like a really nice bloke, and we chatted because, aside from me, there was only one other person in the bar.
“Are you choosing the music tonight?”, I asked him, receiving a positive reply. “I know exactly how old you are”, I then told him, as he had played music that mostly matched my own history and tastes.
When the bar closed, I went to the nearby Mix Cafe, which had a strange crowd (so I moved on), and then to The Red Spot Cafe (or something like that). On entering, I was almost instantly befriended by a group of five Spanish guys who spoke almost no English. Still, they were good fun to hang around with, as we shared the common language of European pop music. “Who needs Esperanto when you have schlager?”, I thought to myself.
As it turns out, the two bartenders were also singers, and in between pulling beers, they entertained the customers with their singing. “What do you think of them?”, one of the only two Dutch customers in the bar (and a friend of theirs) asked me in response to their first duet. I don’t know what was going through my mind, but the words, “They’re just like Kylie and Jason”, came out of my mouth in response.
And that’s when IT happened. In a bar comprising only two Dutch bartenders, two Dutch customers, five Spanish customers, and one Australian, it was time for a karaoke sing-along (in Dutch).
As it turns out, it was the final night of residency at the bar for Jason and Kylie, and we were encouraged to sing them a farewell serenade. The words (in Dutch) appeared on the television screen, and without even thinking twice, we all burst into song. I can’t begin to imagine how hilarious it must have been for the locals to watch the Spanish guys and the Australian bloke sing along to a Dutch-language pop song. “I’m singing in Dutch”, I kept thinking to myself in between moments of laughter. So funny.
Anyway, we went to another bar, had a drink, exchanged phone numbers, and I headed back to my hotel for a good night’s sleep ahead of today’s train journey to Berlin.
It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise to discover I’m a little hungover today—not too bad, but enough for a bit of a sleep on the train. I was awake, though, for the “Big Ticket Drama” that happened involving a group of young Italians sitting nearby who had failed to validate their tickets with a start date.
Validation is necessary so you only travel for the amount of time you’ve paid for. There was a lengthy announcement in four languages before we left Amsterdam explaining the reasons why. And, it was explained, if you don’t have a valid ticket, there is a 50 euro travel fee/fine.
As it turns out, this group of kids had already travelled twice without validation, and when asked by the conductor why their tickets weren’t validated, they claimed not to have known it was necessary.
Anyway, as these things do, it all got a little messy, and one of the young guys started saying something under his breath in Italian. “Get out. Get off the train. You don’t insult me. I speak Italian too”, the conductor then told them. “Either you pay fifty euros or you get off the train now”, he added more firmly.
So the upshot of it all was they left the train, and the guy I was sitting next to (who bore a remarkable resemblance to Ian Thorpe) and I suddenly ended up with double seats. It was a win-win situation because one of the guys was using his tray table as a drum kit, which was starting to piss me off.
While on the train, I slept for a while, wrote most of this blog, and read a little of Schlager Bok, the Swedish-language book I bought in Stockholm several weeks ago. Having not spoken Swedish for about four weeks, I was a little rusty and had to consult my dictionary quite a bit. In the end, I gave up and just went back to sleep.
And so here I am in Germany, staying in a hostel in what was East Berlin for many years. Across the road is the Volksbühne, The People’s Theatre, arguably the country’s most innovative theatre. The hostel is clean, the staff are friendly, and it’s centrally located for some sightseeing tonight and tomorrow.
It’s funny being back in Germany after all these years. When I was last in Germany, I was seventeen years old and learning German at school. It’s amazing how much of what I learned then is still with me: the result of having had a great teacher, I suspect, or maybe just having learned it when I was young.
It was funny, though, being on the train, as the announcements and signs at the cafeteria suddenly went from Dutch to German. When the bloke behind the counter said “Bitte schön”, it was actually a bit of a shock. After spending a couple of weeks travelling in places where I understood none of the language, I suddenly found myself confronted (or comforted?) with something I did understand and could respond to. And of course, I still remember that all-important phrase: “Ich möchte ein Bier, bitte.”