My dream run with the weather came to a brief end today, as it was snowing lightly for much of the morning.
While the rest of Stockholm was probably bemoaning the return of snow, I was nonetheless excited.
But with the arrival of the snow, I’d pretty much resigned myself to a day indoors, and headed off towards the museum precinct which includes the Seaman’s Museum, the Technical Museum and the Police Museum.
The police museum tickled my fancy so I went in there first. Although it’s reasonably small, it’s quite a good museum. It includes lots of detail about famous criminal cases, forensics, and so on. And they also have some police cars and motorcycles, including one police car you can sit in and use the siren. I sympathised with one mother sitting on the seat as her sat in the car and ran the siren for as long as I was there.
If you have a bit of a fetish for men and women in uniform, you would love the museum, especially as they have a looped video of police officers starting off in their underwear, and getting dressed into their uniforms. It’s quite mesmerising. I sat and watched it for at least ten minutes :)
By the time I had finished in the museum, the weather had changed and so had my plans. I’ll be saving other museum visits for the next time it snows or rains.
Because it was now time to go for a walk along the river. Yes, seriously.
For the last week I’ve been looking at the ice and wondering if it was possible to go for a walk along it. As I hadn’t seen anyone doing it, I assumed it wasn’t possible. But then today, I saw loads of people doing just that. Even a few people were ski-ing along what is for at least half the year, a waterway.
And so with confidence that other people were doing it, and hadn’t fallen through the ice to a watery grave, I did the same.
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It was an amazing feeling to walk along the river. “I’m walking along the river”, I kept saying to myself. And everywhere I looked it was either white (the snow), blue (the sky), black/brown (the trees without leaves), or yellow (the houses). It was a really wonderful, magical moment of being in the midst of nature, and experiencing something I’ve never done before.
I was still a little nervous though, and there were a couple of times when I put my foot down wondering if I was going to fall through, but I didn’t, although it did come close.
As I was about to come back onto land, a woman, sitting in the sun enjoying herself nearby, shouted “don’t walk there”, as I was about to put my foot onto what was normally a boat ramp. She could obviously spot the difference between firm ice and snow and that which would have seen me plunge to my watery grave.
“Thanks a lot”, I said to her in Swedish. “You’re welcome”, she replied in English.
Later this afternoon I spent some time enjoying the sunshine, sipping hot chocolate at the Royal Motorboat Club. There was, maybe, a dozen people sitting in the sun warming themselves, enjoying another spectacular day in Stockholm.
After a few months of sub-zero temperatures and grey days, the Swedes love it when the sun comes out.
You could see it in town also, as the streets are packed with people.
I’ve come back to my room to freshen up for a while. It’s Melodifestivalen tonight.
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.
Even though I’m no longer part of the culture of “Friday Afternoon Work Drinks”, I do remember this stage of my life very well. You would go to the pub, talk about work, and then, as the drinks kicked in, you would turn to other topics, and before you knew it, you were in a dodgy karaoke bar singing “Dancing Queen”. Through your “beer ears” you thought you sounded okay, when it fact you sounded pretty awful. And what happened to remind you of this was the appearance on stage of your workmate (who had ditched his tie and jacket) and who suddenly revealed to everyone he had a really great singing voice.
That guy was a contestant in the third heat of Melodifestivalen, the Swedish competition which selects a contestant for the Eurovision Song Contest, and his name was Andreas Weise. When he appeared on stage, I thought he would be another boring old male blonde Swede who would sing something of little consequence, only to be forgotten about minutes later. In fact, his performance was one of the best in this heat.
Along the way there were other tracks such as “Insomnia” by Ellen Benediktson (good, though probably a little too similar to Loreen’s “Euphoria”); “För din skull” (For your sake) by Kalle Johansson (boring); “Living To Die” by Andreas Johnson (the songs title says it all, it’s time for Andreas Johnson to move on); “Don’t Stop” by Isa Tengblad (boring in my view, but popular with the tweens); and “I See You” by Kristin Amparo (gorgeous voice, though I can’t remember the song only half an hour after having watched it).
But my favourite of the heat was “Jag är fri (Manne Liem Frije)” (I am free) by Jon Henrik Fjällgren. He won Sweden’s got talent last year with a song about a friend who died. Though originally from Colombia, he’s part of the Sami community and works by day, seriously, herding reindeer. The song he sang was “rousing” and “catchy” and sung in “Joik” which is a traditional Sami form of song. A big call to make at this stage, since there’s still a further heat to go, and then “Andra Chansen” before the final, but I think he has a really good chance of representing Sweden at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest.
Unfortunately the video of his performance isn’t available online yet, but here’s the video from when he won Sweden’s Got Talent.
Update – The video clip for his song has now been uploaded
It’s Thursday afternoon. Another blisteringly hot day in Lismore. I’ve neither eaten nor drunk water for several days now. There is no moisture left in my body to produce sweat. I am near death. I am sure I will surely die. OK, so maybe that’s a little melodramatic, but it’s still bloody hot in Lismore. The only place providing adequate respite is Lismore Shopping Square. Gotta love that aircon!
Actually, I did get out a bit earlier this week. On Tuesday, Sue, Paul, Kerry and I spent the day travelling around the North Coast on a food and beverage fest. We started off at the Brunswick Heads Hotel. In the last twenty years or so, Brunswick Heads hasn’t really changed that much. While it’s nearby sister-village of Byron Bay has taken off as an international destination, Brunswick Heads remains a quiet family-oriented holiday destination. That said, property values are pretty high.
Brunswick Heads
The Bruno is a good pub with a great beer garden. We had above-average standard pub fair underneath a wonderful shaded tree, although the service was a little slow. I ran into a colleague, Fiona at the pub, and we had a nice little chat before heading off for afternoon tea at a nearby cafe.
While sitting outside the local newsagent we noticed a throng of drunken young men wandering past. With shades of Cronulla, two of them had “AUS” (short for Australian) written on their stomachs. When we realised there was no evidence of violence, we decided they were all too young, drunk and silly for words and didn’t think too much about it. Though we did notice there were no police in sight!
With hunger pains returning, we though the Bangalow Pub would be a good mid-point for all of us to have dinner. Gathering a couple of beers, we headed into the comfortable booths in the backbar to peruse the dinner menu, which, frankly held little appeal. While the menu offered all manner of “jus” and “confit” we were probably thinking more along the lines of “Honey King Prawns”, and so passed up the delights of Bangalow, choosing instead the Mandarin Palace in Lismore.
For people of a certain age, the Mandarin Palace was often their first adult dining experience. With its offer of “Australian & Chinese Meals”, the Mandarin Palace recognises you shouldn’t confuse customers with the choice of cutlery or chopsticks. The menu, the decor, nothing had changed since the last time I went there on Boxing Day three or four years ago. Indeed, the waitress serving us was the same waitress who’d severed us twenty years ago.
But aside from that great adventure, it’s just life at home with the family, although I might wander out tonight to the aforementioned pub, The Winsome. It’s quite good fun, actually, as we have a new child in the family, Sammuel, who is crawling around the house at a rate of knots, is attempting to stand up, and loves nothing more than splashing about (and I mean splashing about) in his little swimming pool.
I’ll be back in Sydney on Saturday night and will post my “Year In Review” then. I’m not sure if it will be anything profound. I’m not sure if it will really live up to the title “Year In Review”. But I’ve been doing it for the last four years on this website, which I guess is far preferential than printing it off and mailing it to all my friends.
Tonight Damo and I went to a really fantastic dinner at Aqua.
Neither of us have been there before, but were attracted by the lure of a dinner featuring wines from Eldridge Estate.
Damien’s connection with the winery goes back seven or eight years when he went there for a day or two of grape-picking. They have an interesting scheme where you go there, help pick grapes, are treated to some lovely food and wine, and receive ongoing discounts on wine sales.
The setting for Aqua, near the North Sydney pool is pretty spectacular. No matter where you look, the view is spectacular.
View from Aqua at North Sydney
Dinner at Aqua
North Sydney Pool as viewed from Aqua
The food and wine were also pretty spectacular.
I’m sure Damo will blog properly about the food and plentiful wine that was on offer, but in the meantime, here are some photographs.
“There’ll be a new book, a fourth one at the end of August”, we were told today by Carin, our tour group leader for the “(Stieg Larsson) Millenium Tour” run by the Stockholm City Museum, Stockholm Stadsmeet. “We don’t know very much about it”, she went on to say, “except that it hasn’t been written by Stieg Larsson”. The author of the new book was a surprise to me. He is David Lagercrantz, who wrote the best selling book about Swedish footballer, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and for whom, Carin told us, there was “sport” in writing a new book with the Millenium characters, more than about making money. She also told us there was a fourth unfinished manuscript, and that Larsson had scoped out several other books.
Millenium Tour Group
Having watched the three Swedish films, and the American one, having read all through books in English, and having slowly started the first in Swedish, I was really interested in undertaking the tour. My friend, Grant, had also been on the tour a couple of years ago, and had highly recommended it. I would recommend it too.
Bellmansgatan 1, the apartment where Mikael Blomqvist lived
Over two hours, as you walk around the streets of Södermalm, you get a really strong sense of the physicality of the places mentioned in the books. Our tour guide, Carin, was also really knowledgeable about the films, and about the places that made it into the films, and those which didn’t. Often the changes were made for practical reasons, such as the inability of a film crew to actually fit into a small one-way street. Other times they were made for artistic and aesthetic reasons, such as finding another location which illustrated a thematic point better.
One of the restaurants featured in the book, though it never featured in the moviesKaffee, a shop which features in the American movie, though not in the Swedish movies.,
Carin has also had some lovely anecdotes about the film. For example, for the American film they needed to recreate a winter scene in Stockholm in the middle of May, and so brought in a great deal of man-made snow. There is, however, a continuity error, as in some of the scenes, you’ll actually see snow mixed with trees with their leaves on, and pot plants in full-bloom.
The tour begins with the home of Mikael Blomqvist, and ends with the home of Lisbeth Salander, which we were told was actually owned by a family who doesn’t actually live in the house, except for their annual New Years Eve Party. What a waste! It has great views.
The top two floors of the apartment block where Lisbeth Salander lived, though also not featured in the movies.
The tour guide, Carin, was excellent. She was clearly knowledgable about the books, and with many interesting insights I’d never considered previously. For example, she notes all of the “good” characters live on Södermalm, Kungsholmen is “neutral ground”, and all of the bad characters live in other parts of Stockholm. She also mentioned the connection with Astrid Lindgren’s work, which I’d never previously knew about. Carin brought a lovely sense of humour to the tour as well, and so it was a really enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours on a Saturday afternoon in Stockholm. Highly recommended.
There was a brief moment today when I thought I’d bitten off more than I could chew. As I looked around the street signs there wasn’t a single word I understood. Unlike other places I’ve visited in the last few years, I was beginning to feel I’d failed to do (what I thought) was adequate background research about the history and geography of the place. “Oh my goodness, I know more about Chinese history, language and culture than I know about Turkey”, I thought to myself, feeling somewhat ashamed. And so there I was standing on a street in Istanbul, not understanding a single word and struggling to remember those high school history lessons about the Ottoman Empire, my only cultural reference for the country I was in outside of the Turkish restaurants on Cleveland Street, near my home back in Sydney.
“You idiot”, I thought to myself as I reflected on the lack of control I was feeling about the situation. But as I headed back to my hotel room to there was a breakthrough moment. The turning point was when I saw the world “Serpil”. Serpil is the name of a woman I have worked with on-and-off over the last few years. I’m not sure if she was born in Turkey or not, but I know she comes from a Turkish heritage. And there, in front of my eyes was a shop named “Serpil”. I know it seems crazy, but it was enough to give me a “cultural footing” to take that one step further.
The shop called Serpil
I was also reminded of the advice I’ve received from a number of people over the years. “Always say yes, you’ll know when to say no”, a young colleague told me about travelling several years ago. “Always take that one step further. Always take that one left turn off the main street”, several other people have also told me. And so just when I was feeling somewhat bewildered about the lack of familiarity about my surroundings, there was a voice inside my head which said, “Don’t worry about being in control, don’t worry if you don’t know where you are, just go for the adventure”. For me, it was a moment of liberation, where I told myself to just go with the flow, to relax and to accept whatever the day would present.
Yes, I’d been told about The Blue Mosque. Yes, I’d been told about the hamas. Yes, I knew I had to go and get my bus ticket to travel to Çanakkale tomorrow. But did I have any idea about where they were and how to find them? The answer is no. So I came back to my hotel room and, using Google Maps, tried to get some sense of where I was, and what was nearby. Armed with this sense of control, I headed back out again.
Sherazade Mosque
The first “thing” I visited was the Sherazade mosque, not far from where I am staying. I’ve only been to a mosque once before, the Gallipoli Mosque back in Sydney. I feel almost ashamed to admit I only have a cursory knowledge of Islam. “What are all the lights about? Is there a ‘front’ to the church, like an alter?” were some of the questions going through my head.
The next “thing” I visited was the Grand Bazaar. I’m not one for shopping at the best of times, and so the endless stalls held little attraction for me. Instead, I looked to the roof and the interesting patterns instead.
“Things” don’t interest me all that much when I’m travelling. I’m far more interested in people. I’m more interested in the way people live. So, as I walked around I started to notice things like the way in which people were dressed. For example, I’d say there are more women wearing the full veil in Sydney than I saw on the streets of Istanbul today. I saw many more women colourfully dressed than I’d expected for a country where Islam is the dominant religion. I saw women dressed in what I guess I would call “traditional clothing”. I noticed the immense physical diversity of the population, reflecting the history of the place. I saw people who “looked” like they were from southern parts of the former USSR. I heard no English, and saw no apparently “Western” tourists, aside from at the explicitly “tourist” spots. I noticed smoking was still reasonably common.
Later in the afternoon, as I wandered around Taksim Square I began to feel that sense of bewilderment again. As part of my “Google Research” earlier in the day, I knew wanted to visit a bar called “Chianti”. I’m a great one for believing you can get to know a city by going to a bar, and hopefully by chatting with some locals. Although I had a map, and had written down the details about where the bar was, I didn’t really know where I was and how to get there. So I went to The Intercontinental (which I knew was closeby) where I figured they would be able to help with some directions. Unfortunately they weren’t much help, aside from telling me it was about a fifteen minute walk. Armed with that information, I caught a cab.
“What will you DO in there?’, the taxi-driver asked me, as we arrived in a rather “dodgy” looking part of town. It’s a question I chose to ignore because, frankly, I had no idea. But armed with the courage that comes from a glass of wine at a 5-star international hotel, I hopped out of the cab and made my way up the stars. The directions said it was on floors two and three. I climbed the steep stairs to the second floor and opened the dark,, heavy door.
Colourful clothing in Istanbul
Inside, in rather grim surroundings there were maybe a dozen people drinking and smoking. “This is my son”, I heard one of the men say, introducing him to a couple of German blokes. The soundtrack (as with the posters on the wall) was from 1990s heavy metal. Although the crowd was friendly, and I chatted briefly to some of them bloke, I never really felt like they were “my people”. After a while, I bid them goodbye, and decided I would head up one more floor.
As I made my way to the third floor (it was actually the second floor, I later discovered), I rang the bell and was welcomed by the barman. Over a couple of beers I sat, listened and enjoyed the company of half a dozen men in their thirties and forties. Of course I had no idea what was being said, and the English language skills of the patrons were very limited. But I liked the place. It had a nice vibe. I liked the way the barman offered bar snacks which went a little beyond what I’m normally served back in Sydney, including chopped up cucumber. I liked listening to Turkish pop music. I sat and wondered what the nearby bloke was doing as he wrote numbers on a sheet of paper. Lotto or a complex horse racing formula?
“I have to go now” I said to the barman, almost apologetically, after a couple of hours mentioning I was travelling tomorrow and needed to be up early. “I’ll be back later in the week”, I told him.
The day ended in a rather weird manner. As I made my way to my hotel I stopped for a moment to listen as a crooner at a nearby club sang a cover version of the Tom Jones classic, “Sex Bomb”. As I stopped, stood and recorded the music, a bloke came up to me and asked if I wanted my shoes cleaned. “No”, I told him, adding they were fine. A couple of seconds later, he threw some crap on them and told me, I assume, “Now, they need cleaning”.
Here’s the actual exchange as it occured, as I was happily recording the music…
