Two postcards from Stockholm
…on my desk at work. Everyone has gone to Stockholm this year except me! :(
Similar Posts
Who Killed Kenny?
“So do you think I’m really going to be really, really, really cold?”, I asked a colleague today.
Oddly enough, I work with two women who both have Swedish fathers and Australian mothers, and who were both raised in Sweden.
“Honestly?”, she asked. “Yes, Stockholm is pretty awful in March. Malmo will be much better. It won’t be as cold, but it will be wet”, she added. She then told me the town where her parents live in the far north of Sweden experienced minus 34 degrees this week.
Along the way she offered some good advice such as, “try and keep inside if it goes below minus 15”, and “long johns will save you from just about anything”.
My other half-Swedish colleague gave me advice about double-tying a scarf, about how to protect my shoes from salt and snow, and even suggested – jokingly – I might consider taking up smoking.
Over the last few days I’ve become really quite apprehensive about the weather, especially as I’ve read online stories about the record snowfall, how the government was considering bringing the army in to clear the snow from the train tracks, and how buildings have been collapsing under the weight of the record snow.
I’ve been wondering if a young lad from Northern NSW – and who considers Melbourne far too cold for his liking – may have bitten off more than he can chew in seeking to visit Sweden during March.
But then tonight I got home from my usual Wednesday night at the pub with friends, and went online and looked at the photographs posted by Sandra, and thought, “bring it on”.
Honestly it looks so magical, I just can’t wait to get there… even if I will end up spending most of the month looking like Kenny from South Park.
My new Swedish pop favourite – Anna Järvinen
For the last few weeks I’ve had the song “Lilla Anna” by the Finnish-Swedish singer, Anna Järvinen stuck in my head.
She’s a Finnish-born singer-songwriter who moved to Stockholm at a young age, according to her Swedish-language Wikipedia Entry.
The rest of the entry goes on to say she was in a pop group, “Granada” for a while, but has been a solo performer for about the last decade, and that her solo work has received a number of Swedish Grammy nominations.
The entry also mentions that she’s an art teacher on the island of Lidingö in Stockholm.
I guess what I like most about the song is the whole 60’s vibe to it, and that she looks seriously like a cross between Björk and Glenda Jackson.
Priorities
I don’t care about the intercom. I don’t care about the car-park. I don’t care about the other services. But I do care about the hot-water.
Yesterday morning I had three cold showers, each lasting less than thirty seconds in duration. I got in, I got out. I got in. I got out. I got in. I got out. By the time I got home last night I was desperate for a proper shower and had a lovely warm one. But then, this morning, I had a barely luke warm shower. And tonight the water is cold again.
And so when I saw the note in elevator tonight, the first thing I did when I walked in the door was check the hot water system. Cold.
Yes, this is what they call a “first world problem”: much of the world is starving, often unable to get fresh water. And yet I am lucky enough to have seemingly limitless amounts of fresh water coming into my apartment everyday, and for me the key issue is whether it’s hot or cold, not whether it’s drinkable. When you think about it like that, it kinda puts your level of individual selfishness in perspective, eh?
Especially since I had another really interesting and enjoyable day at work, went out for dinner with colleagues from all over the country, and then caught up with John and Graeme at the pub. It’s a good life, without doubt, even if I don’t have hot water tonight.
Memories of Renmark
I was reminded, briefly, today of my time in Renmark. Although it was more than twenty years ago, I still have strong memories of my time there. I was at a briefing by Genevieve Bell who works for Intel, and who recently did some interesting research about the use of technology in regional South Australia. She’s an anthropologist, and thus her interest is in people, which is something I am really interested too. Although I’m a bit of a “tech head”, it’s the way in which people engage with technology interests me, and also for Genevieve too.
I was pleased that she said radio remains really important in people’s lives. “Everywhere I went”, she told us, “people listened to the radio” (or words to that effect). I was fascinated by the lack of engagement, she spoke about, for many people with technology, as they weighed up the pros and cons of the cost of using the internet as opposed to things like pay-tv. I was also fascinated as she spoke about the engagement of others, such as the bloke in his 70s/80s who had been building computers since the 80s, but still said, “I know nothing about the internet”. Her point was clearly that he was fully-engaged, it was just a definitional issue.
One of the most interesting issues for me, though, and one which was interested me for quite some time is what I’ve called “the politics of proximity”. It’s something I first wrote about in 1992 in the journal, Rural Society for Charles Sturt University,
The phenomenon which I call new localism involves going beyond parochialism: it is a localism based on context. For example, working in Bourke, Western NSW, taught me about the politics of isolation and its inextricable link with lifestyle; Bourke is a community that is both strengthened and weakened by its isolation. Working in Renmark, South Australia, taught me about the politics of proximity; Renmark is a community, likewise, strengthened and weakened by its proximity to Adelaide. Wagga represents the new face of inland Australia: a community more suburban than rural. Old localism would argue that everything that happened in Bourke was fine and those outside failed to understand. New localism would argue that Bourke is a community the same as, and yet different to, many other communities. Ian McNamara’s ‘Australia All Over’ is an example of new localism. There is nothing about it that concedes to specific localities and yet, to the listener, it sounds local. This is the challenge: to produce a sense of localism which is also good.
When I asked about the question of which towns had embraced technology, and which hadn’t, and the many reasons for such engagement – leadership, economy, proximity etc – she spoke about the high level of engagement she found in towns which were on the main roadways.
She also spoke about the notions of distance. “Imaginary distance was just as important as real distance” she told us, She was referring how people in regional SA, at least, often related their perceptions of life/connection with Adelaide, whereas people in Adelaide tended to see life outside as Adelaide as being of the same distance. “It’s all just out there”, is how people in Adelaide seemed to view regional SA, whereas people in regional SA often saw themselves as just outside Adelaide, or a long way from Adelaide, or closer to Melbourne etc.
It’s a perception I’ve noticed in NSW also. Up and down the coast, and inland a few hours is a day trip. Byron is a holiday. Everything else SEEMS to be nowhere in particular, it seems to a lot of people in Sydney. And when you go out of Sydney, it’s either a trip to Melbourne or a trip overseas. When I was in Renmark, a trip to Adelaide was a big weekend away, a trip to Mildura was a shopping excursion, and a trip to Sydney was “almost there” when you reached Mittagong.
Despite our “global world”, the “politics of proximity” remains an important concept, I think.
Glacial Silence
“It’s so incredibly silent”, a fellow traveller said to me as we stood together, as part of a group of fourteen on a two-day bus tour of Southern Iceland. “Sometimes”, I replied with a smile, a reference to the constant chatter from many in the group. She smiled back. “We are standing on a bloody glacier, and all you lot can do is chatter”, I thought to myself. I guess it’s one of the compromises you have to make in going on a group tour: the fact that other people on the tour will probably annoy the crap out of you.
On the positive side: you get to experience something in a safe environment, in comfort, and with an excellent guide. Our guide for the trip through Extreme Iceland has been Berglund. She picked me up from my accommodation this morning. As we chatted before the others joined the bus, I learned a little about her, including that she had visited Australia briefly, enjoyed it, but had found it incredibly expensive. She, of course, had been travelling in the wake of the collapse of the Icelandic economy. She had also been away from Iceland during the eruption of the volcano a couple of years ago.
“What was it like for people here during the eruption?”, I asked as we passed Eyjafjallajökull. “I don’t know, because I was in New Zealand”, she told our group, adding that “It wasn’t so bad for people in Reykjavik and other parts of the island. Just a bit of ash. But it was terrible for people close by. The farmers lost a lot of stock. There was also a lot of flooding, as the eruption melted the glacier”.
The story of volcanoes figured a lot in the first day of the trip. For just about every mountain we passed there was a story of an eruption in the last fifty to one hundred years, often with tragic circumstances. Berglind told the story of the people of the Vestmannaeyjar (Westman Islands) for example, who were woken in the middle of the night by a flow of lava past their houses. As many of the houses were destroyed, and they had nothing to go back to, many people left the islands for good, she told us.
As snow is forecast for tomorrow, the agenda for the trip has been changed slightly. The planned “walk on the glacier” for tomorrow was brought ahead. We probably spent more time on the bus today than would have been normal for this trip. That didn’t worry me so much, as the sights were all very interesting, and the commentary excellent. It was only towards the end of the trip, after a few hundred kilometres, that I put my headphones on and listened to a podcast. By then we had already walked on the glacier, and so for me, I’d already put a big “tick” against the day.
Along the way towards the glacier, we had also stopped in at a few locations, including a gorgeous beach (where the sand was volcanic black in colour), a waterfall on a private property (where I slipped through a hole in the bridge – no damage to the bridge, a bruise for me), and a lunch stop where I was a sucker for the “traditional” Icelandic beef soup. It wasn’t too far from the Irish Stew I grew up with as a child, I thought to myself. And then, of course, we came to the glacier walk.
“Ice and snow” are very exotic for Australians, I told one of my fellow travellers at one point. Putting the clamps on our hiking shoes thus required some careful instruction. Given the dangers involved with walking on the glacier, we were also asked to follow closely in a single line, not to divert from the track, and to always ask for permission if we wanted to take a photograph of something somewhere away from the main path.
There was no need for a diversion, in my view, as we covered a fair bit of ground in the two hours or so spent on the ice. We walked, we learned a little about some of the characteristics of glaciers, and we enjoyed a fantastic experience. For me, it was sensory overload. “This is the oldest thing you’ll ever put to your mouth”, Berglund told us, as she handed us some ice she had dug from just below the surface. “It’s a thousand years old”, she added. Although I’ve seen and experienced ice and snow before, this was on a whole new level.
I enjoyed some wonderful over dinner conversations, including some “Android bonding” with a 60-something American woman. I noticed she had Nexus 7 (as do I) which was a great conversation starter, and she was the first person who has been able to explain to me, and show me properly how to use Swype. Win. She had chosen the fish (which I think she was a little disappointed with) whereas I had chosen the lamb. The lamb was probably the tastiest, most tender lamb I’ve had in my life, and so I asked if she would like to share.
We’re spending the night at a small guest house on the South East Coast of Iceland. “I checked the GPS and can’t believe we’ve travelled this far”, I told Berglind over dinner. Having spent some time living in the Australian Outback, I’m familiar with the sometimes deafening silence of being in a remote area. By deafening silence, I meant the almost constant rumble you can sometimes hear, as your ears which are used to hearing noise, go in search of the most minor sounds. All you hear, though, is the silent rumble of nothing. Love it!
Tour Details: South Coast and Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon
Might that be a smart new digital radio that the photos are propped against? I suppose if anyone should have one, you should.
Andrew, yes it is a digital radio. I’m still not buying one for home yet, though, as I suspect they’ll come down in price, and there’ll be more on the market for Christmas.
Maybe you could do the Royal wedding next year, since you’re the one who speaks Swedish.
Hey Peter, lovely to hear from you. If my trip for next year goes to plan, I’ll be popping into Amsterdam once again. James
You’re always welcome James!
I noticed the radio too… did you blur the display on it so we couldn’t see you were tuned in to Kyle & Jackie O? ;)
The best thing about travelling is the planning and the anticipation, and I’m sure next year will come around quickly and you’ll be making your colleagues envious with your postcards before you know it!
Put me on a lie-detector if you wish, but I swear I wasn’t..