Stockholm

Most delayed post ever.

Classes have started up again and I am back in Portland. As I was in Zürich for two weeks, distracted by lovely people and without my laptop, the Stockholm post never made the leap from paper to blog form. Then there was the whole falling in love with Portland all over again, which demanded my full attention and a good week. Yet I typed up all of this earlier and want to follow through just to tie loose ends. Here is the tardy but just as worthwhile collection of observations and musings from Sweden:

Friday, July 31st
I'm quite satisfied and sleepy at the moment. Södermalm, the area where I am staying, is apparently the hipster hang out neighborhood. The streets are filled with numerous second-hand shops and cafés. I was feeling lackadaisical, so as I worked my way over to a highly recommended, cheap vegetarian restaurant for lunch, I dawdled in front of and within some of these shops, resisting temptation except for a long glass bead necklace and two handmade espresso cups. Walking out of the hostel after dropping off my heavier bag, I felt that loneliness creeping up again and started to miss friends and access to the internet. This is likely because the city reminds me so strongly of London - in terms of price, high fashion, diversity, enormity and a stunning metro system - and I remember what fun I had in London with Monica. Zur zweit zu reisen macht alles viel angenehmer.

Flying in today was remarkable for the view - I had never really processed the fact that Sweden is made up of a land mass and countless small islands. It looked as if a toddler had let globs of wet sand plop into a low tide pool; such was the disorder and frenzy with which they seemed to be arranged.

Vintage, vegetarian, a third V fails me here, but I shall have to do with these for the time being. Seems more than survivable. I saw a lot of this island and the surroundings of Central Station today before pausing at a cemetery with a beautiful church and riding the Katarina elevator up for a glorious panoramic view. It's hilly here like San Francisco or Seattle, and there is a great alternative newspaper that rivals The Mercury or The Stranger in quality and wit. Parts were in English, which was appreciated.

I also explored a small library today and was thrilled with how the rooms were organized by genre, each with its own theme. Sci-fi/fantasy had a dragon lurking in the corner, plush pillows and dark color tones. The teen section included photos by a local photographer of Stockholm youth and their stories to match, while the reading area looked incredibly Seussical, with bold red carpeted steps to sit on and a swirly felt plant to keep readers company. Seeing a flyer for the free film evenings that occur every Friday, I was overcome with the desire to watch many an Ingmar Bergman film back in Portland, making a night of it and taking advantage of Netflix or Movie Madness once more.

Ok. Today shall be full of relaxation and tomorrow of art. Fair deal. People-watching is a marvelous hobby. Oh how cute bikers as well as boys with large-framed glasses and messenger bags flock this city! Further observations of my species today include the outrageous number of blonde pregnant women I have seen today. How many within the span of a few hours, you ask? Thirteen. 13! Industrious people. Perhaps Swedes are taking over the future? Judging from Ikea and Smörgåsbord, it doesn't seem too bleak. This is enough to make me doubt that the birth rate in Western Europe is still falling dramatically... and apparently only 15% of Swedes are blonde and 30% have blue eyes. I need to work with combinations and permutations to figure out why the fraction of pregnant, blonde, blue-eyed Swedish women all pooled together within my line of sight. Yes, yes. Selective perception and confirmation bias, I knowww.

Plans
Saturday: Kulturhuset, National Museum, St. Jakobs Kyrka, Moderna Museet, cafés
Sunday: Street, Grandpa, Judits Second Hand, Stadsbibliotheket, cafés + restaurants
Monday: breakfast! Relax, drink coffee, browse shops and read in the park


Saturday, August 1st
Psst... Swiss National Day! For some reason I felt compelled to record my first thought of the day in terrible morning handwriting: "I often find myself in the initial stages of waking up, when you attempt separate dreams from reality." It's odd how that first thought feels like an epiphany when you awake and like nonsense later on. After this false brilliance (mediocrity is my specialty, really), I set off to overdose on art once again. Later I wrote:


I just gulped down a cappuccino after three hours at Moderna Museet, two at the National Art Museum before that and a significant amount of time ogling the many rooms of the Kulturhuset, Stockholm’s public center for visual and performing arts. They have a noteworthy and extensive graphic novel collection, a modern and inviting layout – it’s an enormous building, but doesn’t suffer any loss of warmth or comfort as a result – and a fantastic space for young people to create all forms of projects, from collaged greeting cards to iron-on patch designs. There are multiple little galleries within the mammoth building, and particularly enthralling is a film piece in the first exhibition room I entered.

The concept used has been applied many times before, but the artist managed to make it feel novel. He affixed a small video camera to his head and recorded his movement all over the city. Occasionally the perspective would switch to show his back, from the head to waist, or pull further out and show him from afar, but the viewer never glimpsed his face. Mostly it had the feeling of a non-violent first person shooter and it felt like seeing what the hit man or the guy from Splinter Cell does on his off day. The video game feel was strengthened when he would pick up an object and it glowed a little – like when you find a health pack in a game, or like when Mario finds a power-up mushroom. One object was a giant red flower, which gradually lost its yellow glowing aura until he gifted it to a passing woman. The transfer was lovely and both she and the flower glowed. At several points, he threw a one-cent coin into a fountain or lake, and with that, the entire area lit up with the same yellow glow. Also, towards the end of the film, he hiked up a remote hill further away from the city, and every time he glanced back at it over his shoulder, the entirety of Stockholm was illuminated.

The visit to the National Art Gallery was a nice and peaceful one, and I particularly enjoyed the exhibits of Swedish design and of the black and white photographs from Hans Hammarskiöld. If you find yourself in Stockholm but without too much money (a right tragedy in this costly city), note that the National Art Gallery has one free exhibit and the Kulturhuset has several free galleries. Now that I reconsider it, I am not disappointed that I didn’t go to Brandström & Steve, a design gallery and showroom, as the exhibit in Kulturhuset on transforming everyday objects and how we relate to design (hi, Objectified) was significant and enjoyable enough. I am still thinking of that glorious treeless tree house in Charlottenborg, in Copenhagen. I want to sew imaginary creatures and create dioramas using postcards and photos of the Swiss Alps as a background. I want to make stop motion films, take beautiful black and white photos, write comic books. I want to scream from having swallowed so much of others’ creative output in these past few days and not producing enough of my own. I could explode with unused ideas and anxiousness. I need to talk talk talk to someone and eject all this rushed, violently loud energy from myself. I continue to read until my brain has grown bloated with images and perfect, exquisite story-telling from “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.” I am devouring so much, a dangerous amount of cultural material and it’s making me anxious to move around rapidly. I will not see the Dance Museum here; I cannot stare at old ballet slippers behind glass and still shots of famously choreographed dances. I need my bike and love and to be surrounded by people until I can’t stand them anymore.

Yes, tomorrow is for markets. Last night I spoke for a half hour with a cool Dutch girl, and earlier with an Argentine guy who studied civil engineering and saw so much of Europe for the first time in the past seven months. In these conversations I liked the articulate, mature version of myself that I presented, but in actuality I am redundant, just recycling ideas discussed with just as much passion but another individual twenty-four hours previous. Oh. My heart just leapt as I glanced over the glass table with postcards, candy wrappers, business cards and flyers wedged underneath and recognized a MACBA ticket stub. The contemporary art museum in Barcelona, a two-minute bike ride or seven-minute walk from where I lived, was a place I frequented heavily in March. I will avoid saying something trite like ‘it’s a small world,’ but now you know I am thinking it and thus I cannot hide from the cliché tackiness of it all. That’s quite all right, really. Uff. It's nearly 5 o'clock. My legs and feet ache terribly from walking miles through museums. I cannot tackle one more today. Peace of mind is required.

Sunday, August 2nd
Last night I opted for socialization with pricks rather than more alone relaxation, drawing or reading time. I still cannot say whether this was the best decision, but I know I would have slightly regretted it if I hadn’t made the effort. I can be by myself whenever. I shouldn’t go out of my way to do so in Stockholm. After a day of museums and seemingly enormous and rapid thoughts screaming through my head, demanding to be expanded on or at least processed, I went out with the Irish rugby team from my hostel. Oh lord. I knew exactly what to expect, though, so I just had two beers (on the team’s tab, which I didn’t argue) and talked mostly with a German girl from the hostel who lives in Munich (!) and will begin studying psychology at LMU this fall (!!). I emphatically recommended professor Öllinger, whom I had Winter semester. The Dutch girls and the Italian guys were also fun, though one of the Italians seemed particularly edgy due to the volume of the team. Some members were actually rather nice – most of them meant well, anyway – and I learned a lot about women’s rugby from a female player. Violent sport but definitely more interesting than football.

It was so good to speak German with the other girl, and we were guilty of using it as a linguistic secret weapon against the Irishmen. The Dutch girls caught some of it and giggled along. When we headed back, we complained breathlessly and not without agitation about one particularly moronic guy. I mentioned how much more I enjoy and appreciate my own friends, now realizing that people with such idiotic behavior exist in the world. But ok, this is not the time or place to linger on such ideas. I am going to a market and then one more gallery (this is a crazy undertaking, I’ve already come to terms with that) and the library today. Sadly, nothing opens until noon, so I am sitting at a picnic table in the fairytale-like Högandsparken now. I’ve taken to breakfasting on trail mix, apples and bread in the miniscule grassy area behind the hostel in the mornings while watching the dog-walkers pass. Ah Street should be open by now… at the early hour of 11! Brief warning if you come here in August or late July: many restaurant owners are on vacation. Three apparently wonderful restaurants I wanted to dine in yesterday were ALL closed. It was somewhat lousy, as each was a backup for the previous disappointment. I was not too heartbroken, though, as I found sushi and cookies at the end of the journey. Also, my navigational skills have become superb, which is great fun and surely a result of frequently traveling alone. Success!


Later:
I am feeling a bit melancholy. Street, the large marketplace and ongoing art fest appears to be hibernating. My shins hurt terribly from too much walking (in practical shoes, however) and I’d like to move on now, but it’s somewhat mandatory to take a break. There is a pretty park here by the water where I tried to lie down before being bombarded with cigarette butts and prickly grass beneath me. Distraught, I followed the river to a place where willow trees skim the water’s surface and there are actual lily pads. It’s just as polluted here, but the sound of the water and tugboats going by is calming. It’s weird getting depressed for no apparent reason. The walls of one café/bar here are covered with giant flower mosaics with fractured mirrors as a background. It’s right next to the freeway, which adds an industrial, concrete feel, like that of North Portland – half gentrified, half mechanical and poor. The factories on the other side of the river make this comparison complete.

12:40pm
So I retract what I said before, though it was accurate in that small window of time. Going into a neighboring café was a lovely move and didn’t feel monotonous in the way I had feared, i.e. too much of a good thing/overdosing in café culture. It happened to be vegetarian, inexpensive and equipped with a marvelously quirky interior. Sitting with my coffee and perfectly sized sandwich while looking out at the water, I am content. Minutes before, I felt swarmed by cigarette buts, bumblebees and empty glass bottles. Now I look out and notice how terrifically the bikes are arranged along the railing, in an above/below, diagonal/straight pattern. What I especially love about these vegetarian artsy and cheap cafés in Stockholm (or about the two I’ve experienced so far is the table where you grab silverware and other items. In addition to napkins and such things, there is a bounty of free food and drink. An extravagantly prepared salad with fresh vegetables, whole wheat and often homemade bread or Wassa crackers, butter, four different pitchers of water, one with lemon slices, another with orange, a third either with cucumber or plain and a fourth dyed red by the raspberries swimming at the bottom. There are generally pots of strong coffee and black tea as well, which is fantastic. You are assumed to require a great deal of caffeine, having come in search of it and all. There is also an implied sense of trust in this, as you are expected not to take advantage of the system and sneak twelve pieces of bread.

Another element that aided in my mood change earlier was noticing a group of four young travelers who looked from their map to the place where Street should be with obvious frustration. Kindred spirits! I just saw them walk by the front window, seemingly less downtrodden. I believe I was also deeply affected by the book (Jonathan Safran Foer’s), as the issues of mortality and loss of family members are constantly addressed, and the characters are impossible not to relate to. This is no Brecht-like non-Aristotelian literature where you are made to observe and ponder the characters’ situations without empathizing, that much is certain.

It’s also becoming my favorite book, taking the place of “Eva Luna” and “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” which are in an ongoing battle of magical realism for first place on the list. As it is my potential favorite book – though I am aware of how pointless it is to set apart any book as more meaningful or good because of my personal liking of it, a person is allowed to have a specific taste – it feels as if I have developed a relationship with it, and I can’t bear the thought of it ending. Just described in the last chapter read was the main character’s grandfather’s experience of the Dresden bombing; how they shot the carnivores that got loose at the zoo, how everything was on fire and soon reduced to rubble, how the bodies were collected by the river - 220 altogether, four of which ended up ‘coming back to life’ after hours of unconsciousness.

I know this is a work of fiction, but this event is real, too real, and my Oma lived it. I have never discussed the bombing with my Oma, but I know she fled soon after, as the Russians came. I know of her childhood and teenage years in Dresden, of her uncle’s farm where she played with her cousin, and of how that farm is now part of Poland. I know the two of them once used the pigs’ feeding trough as a boat and took off at full speed down the creek. She later worked on a farm collective with other women as part of the wartime duty, and she once loved a soldier whose ring she lost on the day he died. I know she slipped into Switzerland despite it being highly dangerous, how she worked as an au pair and housekeeper for her older cousin’s family in the French part of the country, but couldn’t understand the butcher’s bastardized Swiss-influenced French. All of these things have made themselves known to me through her recollection of anecdotes, but I don’t believe I can ever bring myself to ask about the bombings.


The hipsters are all awake and flocking the street. Stockholm doesn’t wake up until noon on Sundays, it appears, so it makes sense that the galleries and libraries should act accordingly. A man just passed clutching eight baguettes in his arms and I mistook them for an infant. There was something so loving about how he handled them. How can I even think to leave this café? As usual, I am hiding behind a wall so that the terribly friendly and stylish barista will neither see me nor judge the length of my stay. I promise I will not abuse the free coffee, as I’ve just had a cup! Someone is adding to the bike pattern. Shame, though, he chose to be conventional and rest it on the ground. The elevated bikes on the railing always seem to be in motion, which I prefer.

Unrelated Aside:
This notebook [in which I originally recorded these musings] is my equivalent to a person to turn to for shared laughter and acknowledgement – “Did you SEE that?” – which, at face value seems rather pessimistic and morose, but I’ll take irritatingly redundant and inconcrete self-reflection over drunken Irishmen any day. Does this seem too selective? I don’t really give a damn if it does and this question is entirely rhetorical, yet it’s becoming increasingly more apparent that I’ve started to look to Susan Sontag as an ideal. Careful now, that will only bring trouble.

Really though, I was without the notebook for several hours in the city and became horribly agitated. It was like like being without my travel companion. Tonight was nice, however, and I explored, went back to Chutney (vegetarian restaurant of my previous raving), window-shopped and spent time in a park.

Monday, August 3rd, nearly 10am
It’s hard to see individuals who are highly self-aware nevertheless let others control their actions. R., the Dutch girl with whom I spoke for such a long time the first night, is frustrated with her friend and travel partner, who keeps going out and partying, then sleeping half the day away. Understandably, R. feels that they haven’t experienced as much of Stockholm as a result of this behavior. She lamented the fact that they have been to the zoo, but not a single museum. “If she wanted a party vacation,” R. said about her friend, “we could have just gone to Spain.” I invited her for coffee and breakfast, an offer which she considered and seemed to appreciate, but ultimately she chose to call her mother and ask her advice on the situation. Naturally I was sad not to be of more help, but there were many other factors, which we briefly discussed, causing her to be upset. I nearly wanted to shake her at one point – you know what you want! Don’t let others push you around!

In other news, I am flitting away my last few hours in Stockholm on a bench at the grassy patch by a plaza. Café? The more I write, the more of my book I save for the flight and layover. It’s so tempting, though! Also, the Kulturhuset is closed Mondays, so my original plan to hang out there until I board the shuttle has been shot. Oh, hell with it. I will read my book until the end, then browse bookshops in the airport and sleep on the plane. I’ve seen a magnificent amount of this city and don’t feel that I missed out on anything crucial I was dying to see. Favorite parts? Second-hand vintage shops, the reflective and sparkling water, Moderna Museet and the two vegetarian eateries. The creative space in the Kulturhuset is surely my absolute favorite aspect, though.

I just wrote four postcards to my aunt and uncle, grandmother, brother and sister-in-law and parents. I feel a dangerous hand cramp coming on due to all the writing. Oh! I can’t wait to bike through the English Garden again! I’ve missed Munich, to be quite honest. It’s not Berlin, but for one year, it was mine. It’s interesting that when I travel and when I am not visiting family, but planning it all out on my own or with friends, I choose only cities. The countryside is gorgeous, of course, but I want to absorb as much culture and history in the few days I have as possible, so cities seem optimal. Plan for the next few hours: pick up food at a grocery store, browse around in shops once more, take the metro to the library, play there, head back to Central Station, take the bus, get to the airport, check in and dawdle until the flight.

As a result of the BCN incident, I have vowed to be absurdly early for flights from henceforth. Rather one hour early than ten minutes late. I’d like to keep what little money I have.

In a stroke of genius, I opted to create my own sandwich instead of buying one of the overpriced, bland, non-vegetarian options and just removing the meat. A half-inch slice of brie and a streak of butter on a droopy, lackluster piece of bread masquerading as a baguette? Appetizing. I bought garlic bread and a wheat role, a red pepper and a small tin of black olives. Pepper and olive slices on garlic bread are inordinately delicious, it would seem. After I ate in the sun, next to the well-manicured flowers, I casually made my way over to the library, as I’d have been somewhat disappointed not to have seen the interior. It was stunning and awe-inspiring, and I so loved the feeling of being engulfed by the immense, rounded shelves. I grabbed a book of Pushkin poems, Douglas Coupland’s “JPod”, a tiny book of drawings and Jack Kerouac’s posthumously published play “The Beat Generation.” I became engrossed in “JPod” and gobbled through 60 pages of it in that marvelous library.

10:25pm
Planes, trains and automobiles. Today has been full of prolonged transportation or waiting to get on the next form of transport. The S-Bahn to Marienplatz takes SO LONG, and I’ve fished my book, read the Herald Tribune cover to cover, drawn, depleted my iPod battery and taken a multitude of naps. The fact that I haven’t eaten anything substantial since a small yogurt in Copenhagen at 6:30pm and the glorified sandwich at 1pm before then is starting to wear on me. Perhaps a friend at Stusta will be awake and willing to feed me? Don’t set your hopes too high, there. There is basmati rice at home, oil and some spices… That may be sufficient, though far from interesting.

Five more stops! The rain beats down the walls and windows of the train.

I miss carrots, avocados and blueberries. Frankly, I miss my mother quite a bit as well, and am anxious about having to share her with Oma and the Bauers soon. Ohjeohjeohje. Baldbaldbald. Bald is soon auf Deutsch. When you rewrite or repeat a word so much, it loses its particular meaning and becomes part of a pattern, visual or auditory. God I am tired, and eager to cease this chaos of constant motion. This doesn’t happen until PDX. Soonsoonsoon.

Zürich and last days in Munich update still to come.