Either the flight from Tokyo to Stockholm (with a layover in Frankfurt) felt endless, or the wait for our luggage at Arlanda Airport seemed to drag on forever. I can’t recall ever waiting thirty minutes for the baggage carousels to start moving here. Even the typically patient Swedes, who usually don’t mind queuing, looked a bit exasperated. When my luggage finally appeared, I made a snap decision: I’d splurge on the high-speed train instead of taking the cheaper, but still efficient, airport bus. After nearly fifteen hours of travel, I was desperate to check into my hotel, shower, maybe enjoy a beer, and then collapse into bed.
The view at 3.00am from Stockholm’s Hilton Hotel
Further frustrations awaited. A Spanish-speaking family struggled to navigate the Arlanda Express ticket machine, and an older American couple fumbled with purchasing a travel card, unsure of their needs and armed with multiple malfunctioning credit cards. “If you’re unprepared, step aside,” I might have muttered under my breath.
One of my favourite places in Stockholm, Katarinahissen.
Finally reaching the hotel around 7pm, I settled into the Hilton for a couple of nights. Although I’ll be spending most of my time in Stockholm at a cozy AirBnB, I decided to indulge in a few creature comforts after the long journey. As you can see from the photos, the views of central Stockholm are breathtaking, and the bed is possibly the most comfortable I’ve ever slept in.
After watching the sunset over Lake Mälaren, I retired around 9:30 or 10:00, keeping in mind I’d been traveling since midnight Stockholm time. Waking at 3:00am, I was greeted by the lingering hues of sunrise painting the city in beautiful colors. A few hours later, I’m fully rested, well-fed from a delicious breakfast, and equipped with a Swedish SIM card. I feel ready to embrace this next phase of my holiday.
Sunset at about 9.20pm in Stockholm, as viewed from the Hilton Hotel
“It was a good class tonight” Grant said to me, and I agreed, as we made our way along the street after tonight’s Swedish class.
Being an inherently lazy person, the one thing I hate about Swedish class are the repetitive grammar exercises.
On the other hand, I LOVE the conversation, I LOVE reading out loud, and I LOVE doing creative exercises.
One of the bits of homework, this week, for example, was to write a short piece about relatives. So I wrote a paragraph about my great-grandmother, Ellen Laing. Interestingly, the exact translation of great-grandmother is “mother’s mother’s mother”. With the way many ways in which Swedes name their relatives, you could also have something like “mother’s father’s mother” or even “father’s mother’s brother”. Etc. etc. etc.
Anyway, this is what I wrote
Jag ar intresserad av släktforskning. Sedan många år, har jag avslutat mina studier. Min mormors mor heter Ellen Laing. Hon bodde i Towamba, en småstad nära Eden i New South Wales. Historien om Ellen var sorglig. Hon hade fyra barn. Alla var illegitima. Två hade pappa, William Rixon, och två hade en obekant pappa. William Rixon var egentligen Ellens kusin. Ellen bodde och arbetade i Bombala många år. Hon var inte gift. Hon bodde en och avled på en utfattig vårdanstalt kvinnor
…which basically means that I am interested in family history and have studied it for many years. My great-grandmother, Ellen Laing lived in Towamba, a small town near Eden. Her story was very sad. She had four children, all were illegitimate. Two mentioned her cousin William Rixon as the father, whereas two listed father unknown. William had a family of his own, whereas Ellen didn’t and she lived for many years alone in Bombala. She lived and died in an destitute women’s asylum.
It’s a great story, eh?
But anyway, that’s the stuff I really love doing. And tonight was a good combination between the creative stuff which I love, and some of the rote learning stuff I know I need to put more effort into.
You know how the weekend is supposed to be when you relax, and catch up, and get your life back in order after working hard all week? In theory at least you should feel refreshed.
It’s now Sunday night and I’m bloody exhausted. This is despite the fact that I had an afternoon nap on the couch. And despite the fact that I didn’t do all that much today except go out for lunch with some friends.
After my recent lunchtime experience at the Tap House Hotel (excellent roast), I invited four friends to join me for lunch there.
Unfortunately today the roast was a little tough. I’m guessing it had been carved a little too early. The rest of the meal – two plates of antipasto and a swathe of chocolate deserts – however, was excellent.
They’ve done a terrific job on the upstairs renovation of this wonderful old pub, without the need to resort to polished boards or faux-Irish fittings.
Tap House Hotel
It’s a very comfortable place where you can have a meal and then retire to some nearby couches to finish off that last glass of wine or beer.
I’m hoping for a good night’s sleep tonight, as the week ahead is reasonably busy.
As I needed to work on Anzac Day, it was an early morning start for me today. Actually, I was there yesterday too, visiting the Anzac Memorial in Hyde Park, snapping some photographs of the Anzac Memorial which, in particular, commemorates the contribution of women to war.
As usual, I won’t blog about work, but I like to think what I do each year, and I’ve worked on Anzac Day for about four or five years now, hopefully makes a contribution to a more thorough understanding of what it’s all about.
Meeting at lunchtime with some friends at the pub, they still seemed to be under the misapprehension it was a glorification of war. Many years ago I felt the same, but attending Anzac Marches, as they don’t, makes you realise it’s not.
As you look at those marching you see the many ordinary working class faces of the families who have given their lives over many generations. The plain faces, the twisted noses, the body frames which are unmistakably working class, remind you the people who give their lives are not rampant right-wing war-mongers, but people who do it for well-intentioned reasons (or sometimes because it’s their only option).
When I reflect on my own family’s history, it tends to be divided amongst those who went off to war in support of “The Empire” and the many Irish Catholics (in particular) who have been opposed to war. Myself, I couldn’t possibly imagine going off to war (I’m probably far too gutless)… but I have total respect for those who do. And it’s wrong, in my view, to minimise and oversimplify the many reasons why they do it.
There’s nothing terribly complex about the annual Christmas Trifle – sponge cake, custard, whipped cream and jelly – but gosh it tastes fantastic.
Ever since mum died forty years ago, Patsy (not her real name, a nickname since she was born on St Patrick’s Day) has been “in charge” of Christmas lunch. It’s a fairly traditional meal of roast meats and vegetables, Christmas pudding and, of course, trifle.
This video was captured this morning.
An interesting an odd combination of things, but trifle has been my favourite desert since childhood.
After a couple of hours in the fridge, the sponge cake has pretty much absorbed the custard and cream.
There were no “seconds” for anyone today.
The only thing that was really different about Christmas this year was Pat’s decision that “everyone can serve themselves”. Ordinarily, she would be quite painstaking in serving everyone individually. But she’s getting a bit older now, and decided cooking the meal was enough this year. As for the washing up? That’s been everyone else’s responsibility for many years.
You remember on “The Vicar Of Dibley” there was the older woman who used to always dazzle the town with her culinary delights? She had the skill/habit of combining the weirdest elements and tastes in the same meal. Mostly, it was ghastly. Well, I reckon she has found a job behind the scenes at a pizza bar in Kiruna.
Last night I ate what was possibly the weirdest pizza I’ve eaten in my life. I know I said a while back, I thought I should stick to proper Swedish cuisine, but last night I had no choice. It was a Monday night in Kiruna. The Irish pub was deserted, literally. The sign says it opened in 1988, but there’s no sign to indicate when it closed. The bistro was also closed. And so I had little choice but to grab a bit to eat at the local pizza joint. And besides, they sold beer, which to be honest, I wanted more than I wanted food.
I must have looked at the menu for a good ten minutes before I found anything vaguely resembling a pizza. They had all sorts of weird ingredients for toppings, in many strange combinations. And while I was looking at the menu, I was also looking up to the nearby television screen which was screening Polish pop videos. “Polish pop videos, at an Italian pizza place (they were all wearing Italian flag t-shirts) in the far north of Sweden”, I thought to myself, is either multiculturalism writ large, or an odd combination of cultures. As it turned out it was the latter more than the former.
Town Centre, Kiruna, Sweden
To my left there was a couple who had also ordered pizzas. When they arrived, I noticed the pastry looked a bit undercooked and topping combinations looked very odd, indeed. And then I noticed every other pizza base in the restaurant also looked undercooked. “That must be how they eat pizzas here”, I thought to myself.’
And then mine arrived, also undercooked, but I gave it a go anyway. And the cheese tasted a bit odd. Kinda cheap, actually. And there were half-cooked onions on the plate. “OK, a new experience in cuisine”, I thought to myself. But there was also a big lump of tzatziki in the middle of the pizza. Now that was actually inedible. Actually most of the pizzas had a kinda weird Balkan/ Eurovision vibe about them. A bit of everything rather than authentically Italian, I concluded. So I ate the pizza, avoiding the centre, and drank my beer, and then went up to pay.
“Did you enjoy your pizza”? they asked. Well, how do you answer a question like that when there are three big boofy Polish blokes behind the counter looking intently at you. “Ah yeah, sure, why not”, I replied in a non-commital kind of way.
As I walked back to my motel room, I startled giggling. It was then I was reminded of a friend who was in Kiruna a few years ago, and who had called me in Sydney to pay her “Ice Hotel” bill, because she had maxed out her credit card. I wondered for a moment if she had also eaten at the same pizza place. Or this was my Kiruna anecdote to match hers?
Over breakfast this morning I stuck to standard Swedish fare. I had some pickled herring, some smoked salmon, cheese, bread rolls etc. And from now on, I think it’s gonna stay that way. One thing I’ve learned from the trip so far is “stick to the local cuisine”.
I had an hour or so to kill this morning before catching my flight back to Stockholm, so I found myself a quiet spot in the town square, enjoyed the sunshine, and watched the world go by.
To my eyes, Kiruna is a bit like Broken Hill or Mount Isa or one of those towns where one company dominates. And you can see that some people do extremely well from the company domination, while others don’t. There were lots of middle-aged men walking around town with nothing much to do. There were lots of very young mothers walking around with similarly young fathers with nothing much to do. There were lots of discount stores, a stall selling cheap clothes in the middle of town, and lots of men with shaggy beards. You could be in any one of those towns I mentioned.
And then you have a Sami population with lots of the same issues facing Aboriginal Australians in terms of identity. I don’t get the same sense of extreme poverty, though. But when we shown through the iron ore museum yesterday, for example, it was explained how important the mountains were to the Sami population, spiritually speaking, and how they objected to mining in the area. But frankly, I don’t know enough about the situation, so who am I to comment?
Maybe the weirdest thing of all was having a conversation with an Iraqi refugee. I was sitting there waiting for the airport bus when all of a sudden a man sat down next to me.
“Do you mind if I sit here”, he said to me in Swedish. “Not at all” I replied. He then asked me where I was from, and when I told him he replied that he was from Iraq. Ordinarily if this was happening in Sydney, I would have given him the big “ignore” stare. But being on holiday, and in a foreign land, you find yourself in a different state of mind. So we chatted.
We talked about the job situation in Australia and Sweden. He told me it wasn’t good in Sweden. He also wanted to know how much people were paid in Australia, and I told him “not as well as in Sweden”.
All the while there was a Swedish bloke sitting nearby looking over at me with that, “do you want me to rescue you?” look on his face. In that non-verbal kinda way, I replied “no, it’s fine”. After a while, it was time for my bus and so I exited. Minutes later I saw the Iraqi man going through the garbage bins collecting cans.
Coming back to Stockholm I felt like I was “coming home” in a sense. Not in that stupid romantic kinda sense, but in the sense that Stockholm gives me a home-base for this trip. As we arrived there was a wonderful sense of familiarity. I began to speak Swedish with a greater sense of confidence. I began to feel that, for the next short part of my life, “this is my town”.
On arriving back in town I bought a monthly public transport ticket ($130 for unlimited travel is pretty good, I think), and an English/Swedish dictionary from Ahlens, the local equivalent to Grace Brothers or Myer.
And then, walking around Stockholm I got lost for a while. Maybe an hour or so, actually. I went looking for a bar in Nytorget, and got confused between Nytorgatan and Nytorget, and ended up in a completely different part of the city. Even with some help, and a map, I still got lost, and so I started to feel a bit stupid for a while.
And I started to feel a little bit down, my first time on this trip, so far. And just when it began to feel a little overwhelming, I decided I would go into the very next bar, have a beer, relax, and gather my thoughts…
What are the odds? Working behind the counter of the bar there were two Australians. It was kinda nice to know that if the trip ever gets a little overwhelming, there’s somewhere in Stockholm where I can go, where they speak Swedish worse than I do!
There is a rare, deep kind of peace that only arrives when your plans are taken completely out of your hands.
Yesterday, an unexpected 24-hour flight delay left me grounded in Melbourne on my way to Bangkok. I had a full day in a hotel with nothing but a single bag, which forced me to simply sit and be present.
I spent the evening watching Feud, the drama retelling the making of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?. After a few episodes, I drifted into a deep sleep, only to wake up a few hours later to that heavy, absolute silence you only ever find when you’re away from home. With the air conditioning humming in the total darkness, I felt a level of relaxation that is almost impossible to find in the usual rush of life.
Often, we head into a holiday carrying a suitcase full of anxiety, worrying if we’ve sorted every last detail at home or at work. But this enforced delay was a gift. It stripped away the “to-do” list and allowed me to just be.
I’ve realised over the last couple of years that the universe carries on just fine without me. Recognising that I’m not the centre of everything is incredibly liberating. That single night in Melbourne allowed me to shed the stress of the “everyday” and truly prepare for the journey ahead.
As I head back to the airport for the second time, I’m feeling remarkably still.
Like this:
LikeLoading…
Related
3 Comments
You are probably wandering Stockholm at the same time as another branch of “The Rixons” – the children are ninth generation, descended from Benjamin!
Thanks Judith! You never know who you’ll run into. I met a guy in Tokyo, an American who knew a couple of my colleagues, and has actually visited my workplace. Totally random.
You are probably wandering Stockholm at the same time as another branch of “The Rixons” – the children are ninth generation, descended from Benjamin!
Thanks Judith! You never know who you’ll run into. I met a guy in Tokyo, an American who knew a couple of my colleagues, and has actually visited my workplace. Totally random.
I lived in Stockholm six years. It’s a wonderful city!