SWEDEN: Stockholm bound

We’re off to Stockholm in the morning for a 3-4 day stay. I won’t have time to post all of this week’s activities before we go, but with any luck will catch up before I leave Sweden at the beginning of June. Gustav will be staying home for the summer to finish off some studies and to pick up his regular summer job here and then he’ll be back on the farm mid-August. I’m sure there’ll be some left-over thistles for him. In the meantime I leave you with some images from his parents’ cottage garden from a little earlier in the season than last year.

SWEDEN: Golden Hugh-bilee

The formal part of the day began with pre-event drinks at a downtown Malmö apartment. I was asked why I was wearing a kilt at a Swedish party, and I explained that in the absence of a formal protocol for an Australian living in France attending the party of a New Zealander living in Sweden that a kilt was perfectly appropriate. The greater challenge was having a malamute around a black tie affair, with all his little white “gifts”.

Upon our arrival at the university research centre where the dinner was being held, I found that I was not alone in the kilt department. Several guests were resplendent in family tartan, but none moreso than Hugh himself who was wound up in the patriarchal picnic blanket and fully accessorised.

Munson didn’t attend the actual party but had a comfortable viewing point in the garden adjacent where many of the guests retired for breaks throughout the evening. It was all a very well put together affair: Hugh had something to say for each and everyone of his guests through the various courses of our banquet and some of his closest friends throughout his decades in Sweden rendered their very idiosyncratic appreciations of their times together.

The final segment of the evening was held at a building down the road “Locus Medicus Malmoensis”. I’m led to believe that is the Latin name for an affliction that can only be cured by an admixture of alcohol and folk dancing. The Swedish name is undoubtedly a tongue twister of a very high order.

SWEDEN: Ancestral dress and diet

Having breakfast each morning at Hugh’s allows me to have a civilised breakfast with all the mite-y food groups that Australians enjoy. OK, there’s no Promite, but that’s just icky. The photo of Gustav faking “Stairway to Valhalla” has been added because his friends think he looks like the second coming of Kurt Cobain, and because I need a benchmark for silliness for the photos to follow.

Inspired by yesterday’s little Miss Mauve’s outfit and by the location of the One Piece store across the road from Lilla Coffee Roasters, I tried this maroon suit. I wasn’t aware that it had a gimp mode until I put the hood up. That was a bit scary but with the millilitres of Scandinavian blood coursing through my veins I had to make a good attempt to fit in with the locals.

Fast forward to the afternoon and I’m finally dressed up for the evening party. This is the first time I’ve worn my kilt to a formal affair and I’m quite pleased that the coat works so well with it. I do have proper long kilt socks on but they keep sagging – my hummingbird tattoo just wants to be seen. I think I have a wee bit more Scots blood in me than Swedish, but I’d have to check my genealogical charts for that. I do seem to remember though that one of my DNA profiles suggested more of the Scots genes had been passed down to me than are proportionate to my mixed ancestry.

SWEDEN: Art Break broken

As we’ve been bussing around town I’ve noticed that many of the bus stands, decorated by the globally ubiquitous JC Decaux have featured a number of doggy pictures tagged as ART BREAK and given a QR code to pursue more details via the web. AFAICT there’s a project to display art rather than commercial advertising for one month each in various Swedish cities. The current exhibition features work by  Per-Ivar Lindekrantz, and has the concept of showing mythical characters and creatures in contemporary environments. Frustratingly the installation site links to a non-existent artist site, and there is no gallery of all the pictures on display. I looked for the artist on other sites but I only found some galleries with tiny thumbnails that launch an image fractionally larger than the thumbnail… a complete waste of time. The images below were found by hunting around on the JC Decaux site. I hope you can enjoy the artist’s work more easily here than that site allows.

SWEDEN: Lund ho!

We had a few errands to run in Lund (twenty minutes away from Malmö) so tied these in with getting me a haircut and sharing a sunny outdoor lunch. While most of continental Europe seems to be still consumed by the rain that thrashed the car during the journey north, it’s very warm in these Scandinavian climes. Malmö is almost exactly the same latitude as Edinburgh. There’s not much to compare with in North America as its most northerly large city is Edmonton, which is 2 degrees south of Malmö’s 55.6N. As Hugh says, thank goodness for the Gulf Stream or no one would be living here! Consider that we’re at the bottom of Sweden, and that the top border is more northerly compared to Malmö than Malmö is compared to our home in southern France. Kiruna, site of the Ice Hotel is 67.85N. Some of the other guests for the Hughlympics have come from Luleå way up at the top of the Gulf of Bothnia running between Sweden and Finland, not far shy of the Arctic Circle.

As you can see above, Munson caught the eye of at least one young fashionista in a svelte* Svensk one-piece. On the other hand, Munson had absolutely nothing to say when I emerged shorn from a salon. Well if you can’t wooo anything nice… *the Swedish word for svelte is slank, from which we get other fashion icons like the slanket. Unfortunately there is no formal slanket that I could wear to Hugh’s quinquagenary event tomorrow.

We were back at Hugh’s for dinner and so another bus-ride or two for Munson. On one journey the back seats were already full up, so he tucked himself in under our feet.

Just before we reached our Riberborg apartment I looked seawards to see that the Turning Torso appeared to be ejecting a stream of gas, of course just an illuminated cloud over the Oresund strait. I was going to return to street level with a better camera but forgot about it in the melee of organising a late meal for Munson. The last thing I remember of this day was trying to teach Gustav some tongue-twisters: while he braved She sells seashells by the seashore and the sixth shiekh’s sixth sheep’s sick, he could only offer me ridiculously easy fare like: Sju sjösjuka sjömän sköttes av sju sköna sjuksköterskor. Seven seasick seamen were cared for by seven beautiful nurses. We got onto the subject of tongue-twisters due to a dinner time discussion about learning Swedish. I’d downloaded a few sample language learning apps onto my phone and everyone was highly amused that the first word or phrase provided by one of these apps was elektrisk riskokare = electric rice cooker.    It might be useful for setting the stomachs of seven seasick seamen, but elektrisk riskokare has not proved so useful in my daily exchanges on the street. What sort of dog is that? He’s an elektrisk riskokare. Look at how fluffy that rice is!

SWEDEN: Central Station Malmö

Over the long Storebælt bridge, past Copenhagen and then over the Oresund bridge we flew, turning into our destination street at one minute after noon. This is my third visit to Malmö, and it’s five years this month since I first came here with Bondi. We’re here for a birthday party and a graduation, but a good sleep is higher on my priorities today. On our last visit, we stayed at the apartment of Gustav’s friend Hugh, a New Zealander twenty years resident in this city and now running one of its most prestigious medical research centres. It’s his birthday that is being celebrated this weekend, and his apartment is rather full so he’s kindly arranged the use of another apartment across town for guests to use through to Monday. Munson is glad to see Hugh’s apartment – his first familiar environment on this trip – and is glad to settle with his head under the coffee table; Swedish skies are just as liable to fall as any other. The Ascension Day holiday is celebrated in Sweden as well as Denmark so there will be no going out to get items to finish my outfit for the black tie event on Saturday. I had a tux some years ago but that disappeared in one move or another. Before I left France I found myself shining shoes for the first time in a year beginning with 2, so the loss is not one I’ve felt deeply. I’m fortunate that Hugh has some extra coats and dress shirts, so I will only need a black tie to complete the ensemble. It’s a little ironic that I already have dozens of beautiful silk ties from a previous life in corporate work  ending in the early 90s, and now find myself having to buy a new one.

We drove over to the other apartment, which is quite close to the sea, and enjoying a good view of Malmö’s Turning Torso Tower. To simplify parking issues we’ll leave the car there most days and shuttle over to Hugh’s on the bus. There’s no charge for dogs and this route seems to be quite popular with dog-owners as there’s an off-leash park close by. A rottweiler is lying under one of the seats further up the front of the bus but you’d never know. It’s a bit like being in an English pub – dogs lying around quietly with no fuss amongst themselves or with other patrons. One day Australia, one day…

Roadtrip to Sweden: Rudkøbing to Malmö

A morning after their rapid introduction, Munson and King were still good buddies, and even indulged in a bit of gentle indoor play.

Our chances of sightseeing on this pretty, remote island were restricted by weather (windy), timing (public holiday) and schedule (things to get done at out destination). Road-weariness, a cold and seasonal allergies don’t really help either. I’ve seen a lot more of the Danish countryside since leaving the highway at Odense yesterday: it’s essentially a flatter, more recently-painted version of the French countryside around the farm. And yes, there are wind-farms everywhere. On the way out we had a short drive around the island’s capital Rudkøbing, which at 4700 people is probably never bustling and is especially quiet this Ascension Day holiday. I’m reminded a little of Ängelholm with the water approach of painted façades suggesting a flattened version of Cobh in Ireland. The bridge scene above the marina here is the one connecting the island to the “mainland”, which is the smaller island of Tåsinge which we passed over quickly from the bigger central island of Funen. From Rudkobing, it’s two hours to Copenhagen, and then another forty minutes to the centre of Malmö.

Roadtrip to Sweden: The King of Langeland

Since we passed through Luxembourg yesterday the weather has been very poor for driving. It’s like northwest Germany  has been divided into a great checkerboard of squares of rain squalls and sunshine. After five minutes of poor visibility, all of a sudden wind and sun have dried off the windscreen and the wipers are dragging rubber. Five minutes later and we’re being lashed by rain again. Before reaching Bielefeld yesterday I stopped to refill the car while sunshine turned to icy winds and small pellets of hail. We were most fortunate this morning that our diversion through Hamelin and the Schloss Marienburg were exempt from this, but as soon as we resumed our journey north on the autobahn, it was back to carwash and bake dry five times an hour.

After you emerge from the long Elb tunnel at Hamburg, the most tedious part of the journey begins. The long northward path through German Jutland and across Denmark is basically several lanes of highway in a wide tree-lined ditch with grey sky above and the occasional strong wind to remind you that you’re alive. There are few glimpses of any countryside or signs of human activity to divert the mind. We stopped just ahead of the Danish border at Flensburg to buy discounted grog and candy. The weather turned sour again just as we emerged from the Calle store with some slabs of beer and a quantity of unsalted liquorice.

From there we had a little over two hours to go to reach the island of Langeland. Five years ago when Bondi and I first visited Denmark, we stayed with Julian and his lovely German Shepherd dog Cindy in Copenhagen. Cindy passed away about eighteen months ago and some time later Julian moved to the quieter rural surrounds of Langeland. I recently received word that Julian had adopted another shepherd – a two year old male, King. There was some apprehension on both Julian and my parts: King was still a bit “raw” from multiple rehomings and we didn’t know how Munson and he would take to each other.

When the two dogs finally met each other in Julian’s backyard there was a lot of piss and vinegar to begin with. The main problem was that being on leashes forces an unpleasant face to face confrontation. To fix this I asked Julian to keep King more or less stationary while Munson had a chance to approach and sniff from the rear. This was done while simultaneously soothing and praising both dogs. The noise began to subside pretty quickly at this point. I let Munson off his leash at this point and he ran around the yard to investigate  a bit more while King looked on.  When Munson approached King again he got a bit of a play bow, and so we felt that King could now be released. King ran off some of his excess excitement in three rapid circles of the yard and then the two began to play like they were old mates. Checking the time-stamps on my photos and some video I can see that the whole introduction took only  5-10 minutes. Julian was ecstatic as the exercise proved that King was quite socialisable. Both dogs were of course very happy; while Munson hadn’t had a play like this in the weeks since Legend died, and had been car-bound for three days, this was probably the first decent play that King had had in months.

Roadtrip to Sweden: German fairy-tales and fantasy

South of Hanover, and about an hour’s drive east of our Bielefeld overnighter lies a small pocket of German fairy tales and fantasy. In lieu of a full day’s break from driving I’ve chosen a morning of sight-seeing in Lower Saxony, and a shorter drive thereafter, leaving us in Denmark rather than ending in Sweden. Our breakfast stop is Hameln, or Hamelin as it is famously known in English through the enduring tale of the Pied Piper.  This mysterious figure began by solving the town’s medieval rat problem and then lured away all the town’s children as punishment for non-payment. Re-interpreted again and again as historical analogy and literary wellspring since the original events of 1284, the most recent I’ve encountered is China Miéville’s debut novel King Rat (1998). An attractive town with many half-timbered buildings, Hamelin seems to be quite prosperous although I didn’t see many, – strike that  - any young people or children on the streets in the hour or so we walked around. Perhaps the Piper has been busy again! Every shop window seems to feature some rat motif, stuffed rats swarming over pharmacy and book-store windows, bread rats and pastry rodents pouring off bakery shelves as if they were helping themselves to all the grain. One of the few places to offer a refuge from the voluminous vermin was a coffee shop on an upper level of a central shopping mall. The barista’s eyes lit up when Munson appeared in the doorway of her small cafe, and when she had finished readying my order came over to inspect him more closely. Munson stood up and swung his rear end around to her knees for a back scratch, and she obligingly sunk her nails into his fur, purring schöne, schöne over and over.

A little distance away from Hameln lies Bodenwerder, home of the real life Baron Münchhausen who told many fantastical tales of his adventures, many recounted in Terry Gilliam’s 1988 film. Our schedule didn’t allow for a stop there, where a museum celebrates these exploits; instead we continued eastwards for about twenty minutes to Schloss Marienburg.

This neo-Gothic castle with fairy-tale turrets and a fresh silhouette for every viewing angle is open to the public for tours, but we were a bit early for any of that, and mostly just wanted to walk around the exterior grounds to stretch our legs. As usual in Germany, no one blinks an eye to a dog in tow wherever you are ( a few gardens excepted ) and we may have stayed for morning cheesecake if the illuminated display beyond the locked doors of the courtyard cafe had been available.

Roadtrip to Sweden: Bielefeld gibt es doch!

We made the mistake of entering Dijon early this morning to look for breakfast – two mistakes really because we got stuck in commuting traffic trying to find what probably doesn’t exist outside Paris, a French cafe open before 10am. So without accomplishing anything other than seeing a swirl of vehicles in the centre of Dijon (which didn’t seem very attractive anyway), we lost a half hour getting in and out. Eventually we found some functionally edible pastries and vending-machine coffee at a roadside rest-stop.

Three uneventful hours on the road through a much more populous zone of France around Nancy and Metz were concluded with a lunchtime stop at McDo’s just before the border. This would be the last place I could check my phone for messages. I’d entertained stopping in Luxembourg city for lunch but the gloriously sunny driving weather had turned to bouts of rain. Thus Gustav and Munson added Luxembourg to their list of visited countries only by virtue of spending twenty minutes in a car passing through its southeast corner. As we entered Germany the weather deteriorated further, just as it had on this trip a year ago. Passing Cologne and Dortmund we finally reached Bielefeld about 5.30pm. When I planned this journey a few weeks ago, I aimed for somewhere in the Hanover-Göttingen area, and this city offered a cheap stopover at about the right distance along the trajectory to Sweden. I felt even more wrecked after today’s journey so we didn’t get to see anything of the city outside of a five minute walk from our hotel to a Chinese take-away. At the very least we can say to German internet users that we are part of the Bielefeld conspiracy; a long running gag that the city doesn’t exist implicates anyone who claims to have visited the city.

Roadtrip to Sweden: Give a dog a BEAUNE

Our first night’s destination is Beaune, wine capital of the former province of Burgundy, close to Dijon the mustard capital. The current department is Côte d’Or which could be translated as the Gold Coast, but any confusion with Australia’s region of that name would make food-loving Beaune to be Surf-and-Turfers Paradise. However côte also means hillside or slope, so it’s better translated as the Golden Hillside, and around the Gers it’s a familiar sight to see billboards advertising the Côtes de Gascogne, which refers to the wine grown side by side with the area’s armagnac. More generally with côte = side, we have côte d’agneau for a side of lamb. We left the farm at 8am, and made our way past Âgen, Cahors and the old volcanoes of the Auvergne. After a few stops we reached Beaune at 5pm, napped for a hour or so and then strode around the town centre looking for a meal. There were many people about and I could hear many languages. We finally settled on a brasserie with an inexpensive beef bourguignon. Seated out on the pavement, Munson was courted by a table full of Japanese and their table full of cameras, who often broke from their meal to circle our table to catch him seated or splayed out beneath some chairs.

Not surprisingly for a region that produces some of the world’s most expensive wines, the town appears to be quite wealthy. The large old town with some of its old walls still intact is well preserved and well-presented. If we were here on more than a hurried stopover I’d be timing the trip for the fine food markets on Saturday.

Tomorrow’s drive is to be about the same distancewhich means 7 hours of driving spread over 9-10 hours. We turned in quite early to our somewhat cramped hotel quarters – Munson was just able to pass through the space between the foot of the bed and the wall which divides the room. The amenities were generally fine but we’ve been given a smoker’s room so everything smells like an ashtray from the shower to the bed linen.