Lucia Dag 2009

Last Sunday, 13 december, was St. Lucia day, which as you all remember from last year is an important holiday in this quite non-Catholic country. The day is marked with singing, and candles, and the consumption of glögg and lussekatter. School choirs earn a lot of money on this day, as they shuttle around from workplace to workplace giving carol concerts. Ours started at 09.30 on Friday the 11th, and this year I went early to ensure a good view in the high-ceilinged, echo-y central stairwell of the evolution museum. The concert was lovely, and was followed by a division-wide fika with the aforementioned glögg (yes, mulled wine at 10.00) and lussekatter (which do ameliorate the glögg somewhat).

The weekend was quite nice, as the sun came out on Saturday, and we took a walk down the road towards the nature reserve, past the horse farms and barns, some of which now have jul decorations. They were also having some sort of horsey meeting, and giving pony rides, so the equine traffic on the path was heavier than usual. The next day, Luciadag proper, I set out to the Soldattorpet, where they were having a Luciafika (Joe had a bit of a sniffle so he stayed home). Inside was extremely atmospheric—the pictures are blurry but I think give you an idea of the atmosphere. There were several families there, and a fire in the hearth and candles on the table, more lussekatter and home-made spice bread and coffee, and carol singing, which I almost dared to join in on, a little (quietly, to myself, don't worry). One kid had an absolute screaming fit at one point, something one doesn't see too often here, but s/he was trundled out into the cold. Looking back at that picture, I think it may have been the little girl in the pink shirt hoisting the Lucia crown. If so, I bet I know why she had a fit: she was made to give back the Lucia crown, and she did not want to.

That, of course, is the ugly downside to Lucia... every year, thousands of schoolgirls have their hearts broken by not being appointed Lucia. I did not have to have to give up my crown (you may remember my artistic triumph (that's a joke) as the departmental Lucia last year—I'll dig out a picture tomorrow), because we didn't have an additional party in the department. The weather has got everyone down, even the Swedes but especially the foreigners (Swiss postdoc G. at fika one morning, as the orange he was trying to peel slipped from his grasp and hit the floor: "It's so depressing even the oranges are committing suicide!"), and somehow, I guess it just didn't feel right this year. Oh well, I guess I'll have to be the titular Lucia for yet another year...

Do straw goats dream of midnight swims?

For those who haven't been keeping watch, the Gävle Goat has managed to survive the season so far. However, according to a report in this morning's Gefle Dagblad, there was something of an incident last night:

Tried to drown the little guy
December 13, 2009
The small straw goat of the Science Association of Vasaskolan, which sits each year a bit from the big goat in Gävle, was exposed on Saturday night to an attack. Just before half past four in the night it was discovered that a group of people were in the process of trying to push it into the creek. When they realized that they were discovered, they ran from the scene. The little goat survived, but is now in the wrong place. The police described it as vandalism.

With apologies to Frost (and a tip of the hat to Jennifer for the inspiration):

Some say the goat should end in fire,
which is not so nice.
Yet every year the goat must retire:
it may as well be on the pyre.
But two goats can perish twice;
So though the little one is dear,
The Gävle river does entice—
It's quite near,
And would suffice.

---

There was another amusing and relatively harmless incident last weekend. Again, here's the report from the Gävle newspaper:

Bock alarm was vandalism
December 8, 2009
The fact that the Gävle goat is out on the Web means that there are many watchful eyes. At two o'clock in the night by beating a person to alert the police about the webcam captured something that looked to be an attempt to set fire to the goat. When a police patrol arrived at the scene, it appeared that someone emptied a powder extinguisher against the goat leg - probably the cloud of powder looked like smoke in the webcam. The police described the incident as criminal damage.

For this one, I also managed to capture a time-lapse video of the incident. There are actually two fire-extinguisher attacks, at approximately 15 and 37 seconds in, followed by the reponse by local authorities:

Have You Any Matches?

Advent is here indeed, and you know what that means: giant straw goat time! Yes, our caprine friend has reappeared in Gävle, and this afternoon I hopped a train (it's only a 45 minute ride) to give him a quick visit, and to check out Gävle itself.

Gävle has a reputation of being a cute little city, with a nice river running through it, and a well preserved old town full of brightly colored wooden houses. Due to the goat's influence on local tourism, they also pride themselves on being something of a Christmas-time destination. So it seemed like Gävle might be a cheerful place to spend yet another grim afternoon. I had forgotten, of course, that Gävle is in Sweden. Expecting tourists to come to your Julmarknad? Time to tear up every street and square in the downtown area! And while we're at it, better dig ditches over two-thirds of Gamla Gefle.

What's more, after finally giving in to popular demand and agreeing to sell plush minibockar, the city ordered only 2000. Naturally, one day into the holiday season, they are all sold out. "More expected next week," I was assured. Surely they could be shipped, right? The response from the tourist info lady:

Many people have asked that. The problem is that everyone wants a goat, so we cannot send them. You would have to beg someone to send you one.

Actually, I was rather under the impression that I already was begging someone to send me one, namely her, but she seems to have thought that I should go and beg someone else. I am reminded of a story I once heard on "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me…": the cafeteria in a Swedish factory served very good food, so good that people who lived in the town started coming there for lunch, which made it hard for the employees to get their lunches. Instead of expanding the cafeteria, or opening an employees only eatery, the factory solved the problem by closing the cafeteria. That'll show 'em!

OK, rant finished. Despite the construction, frustration, constant rain, and the fact that virtually every tourist attraction in town was either (a) closed for the season, or (b) closed on Mondays, I actually had a pleasant afternoon. Said "Hi" to the goat, and to his little brother*, then spent a comical 10 minutes on my mobile phone with Jennifer trying to coordinate waving at the webcams (that's me in the yellow jacket in the video above). Wandered around the parts of Gamle Gefle not too heavily under construction. Visited the big church downtown, and then walked along some of the parks lining the riverfront. All that, and I was back on a train before dark (although it was admittedly getting dark by the time the train actually left the station…)

*Little known fact: there are actually two straw goats built each year in Gävle. In the 80s, the Merchant's Association got tired of dealing with the burning goat every year, and decided to stop building them. So a local student association built a goat for the townsfolk. They started small, but in a few years they were building the biggest goats yet (they still hold the world record). These days, the Merchants build (and promote) the big goat, and the students build the little one.
There was a period of bad blood between the two goats for a while, but now they seem to happily co-exist. After all, who wouldn't love that adorable little guy?

Första Advent

Today is the first Sunday in Advent, and it has come none to soon to a city of people who could really use some cheering up. The darkness is closing in, and the weather has been miserable; even the older, more stoic Swedes of my acquaintance have admitted finally that this has been one of the worst Novembers they remember. But of course this is Sweden, and no one will dare to put up the cheerful jul lights and decorations until Advent. (No one here is religious, but no one will go against tradition either. In the workplace, the Friday before Advent is close enough, so my department decorations went up a little early.) We brought our jul things out around noon, and I was reminded that no holiday is complete without some annoying item that requires assembly—getting these paper advent stars properly bent into shape around a light bulb is enough to make a saint swear. Anyway, we had the tree up and decorated, and all the other decorations up in an hour or so.

Then it was off to town, and the Julmarknad, with people selling jul-stuff from stalls—pine wreaths and boughs and bunches of mistletoe. Other stalls were selling home-made julklappar, like home-knit socks and hats, hand carved pop-guns and animal figurines, jams and preserved fruit, honey, special goat cheese from one of the local dairies... there were also tables of charities giving out cookies and selling hot dogs, and other vendors selling candy and ice cream. We got our traditional stektströmming och potatismos med lingon from the fancy restaurant, a bargain at 45SEK.

Then we walked up the hill to the castle to watch the fireworks (start time at kl. 16.30, by which time it has been safely dark for an hour at least), which are set off from the Botanical Garden. They have fireworks every year on first advent, but this was the 20th year in a row that the local newspaper was sponsoring them, so it was advertised that this year's display would be quite special. Did I mention that the weather has been bad? Well, it would have been much worse for spectators if it were raining hard, but I can only imagine that the fireworks engineers were frantically discussing whether to carry on, on account of the fog we had all day, and which was getting noticeable worse as the evening cooled off. They went ahead with the show, and it was very good indeed, though some of the higher mortars were quite lost in the murk. They coordinated everything to music—the first was something classical that I can't remember, than a catchy pop tune from last year, then finished off with "It's Raining Men," which struck me as funny, especially when the 6-year-olds behind us started singing along to the chorus. The finale included a long row of short-height magnesium stars that lit the place up almost like real daylight for a few glorious seconds, and was probably the highest number of bursts I have seen in the sky simultaneously. Even the Swedes hooted and hollered in appreciation. A fine end to a quite lovely day. Happy Advent, everyone!

Bowling night

Our social committee here at the Evolutionary Biology Centre decided to have bowling as the Autumn Event. For some reason, bowling has become popular in Sweden in the last few years, and Uppsala dutifully has its 9-lane bowling alley, a place called bowlaget. The bowling here is strictly for entertainment purposes—lanes are somewhat shorter than regulation, the place is black-lit with flashing lights and relentless remixed hits from the 80s, and the bar is slick and swanky and staffed by black-clad thin young men who are much cooler than you are (80SEK for a beer). It makes quite a contrast to a place like Kelley's Bowl in St. Joseph (where I worked for a few months in order to earn cash for my first trip to Europe, 'way back in 1985), with its serious people who brought their own balls, and dozens of well-lit lanes that were nevertheless totally obscured by cigarette and cigar smoke by the end of the evening.

There's also an attached restaurant, which serves a traditional three-course bowling menu. The autumn offering is wild mushroom toast, steak with celery puree, and cloudberry pannacotta for desert (395SEK, including an hour of bowling). Or you can go for the luxury meal (475SEK), which gets you brioche for an appetizer, lightly smoke venison sirloin with port wine and cranberry sauce, and chocolate fondant with berries and ice cream. These offerings are also just a wee bit different from the snack bar at Kelley's, where for I think $1, your snack bar attendant (that's me) would throw a pre-packaged sandwich into the microwave for you.

Bowling techniques ranged from a pure power (from a tall botanist, who threw the ball so hard that it didn't even hit the floor until half-way down the lane) to attempts at finesse (student E., who stood carefully at the line, but consistently hit the alley). Highest score I saw was 160, the lowest was under 20. Everyone had a good time—after all, the point of bowling, as far as I can tell, is to share a beer with friends, and a laugh about how bad you are.

(The name "bowlaget" is a sort of a pun. "Systembolaget" is the name of the state-run liquor monopoly, where one goes to buy all alcoholic beverages, and this name often gets shortened to "bolaget" which sounds a lot like "bowlaget.")

Shopping for… pumpkin?

A couple of weeks before Halloween, Jennifer's office mate tipped us off to a grocery store that was selling pumpkins. I rushed across to town, and indeed there was a small wooden crate in front of the store labelled "Pumpor." Its contents? Three pie pumpkins, about half a dozen small decorative squash, and one perfectly good looking acorn squash. As these were the first pumpkins I'd found this year, I quickly grabbed the two most likely looking, as well as the acorn squash, and headed into the store. Once I got to the counter, though, things started to go wrong. The clerk peered at my squash assortment suspiciously for a moment before going off to consult with a coworker, returning shortly with a frown on her face.

"They were right outside the door," I volunteered.

Suddenly understanding, the clerk replied, "Jaha. You must buy these next door. Here they are not recognized," gesturing illustratively at the register.

What's next door? Why, a flower shop, of course. I tell you, I have never felt so much like an immigrant as I did at that moment, having just attempted to purchase a decorative plant for my dinner. Swallowing my explanation ("But, I'm going to eat them!"), I quietly made my way to the flower shop and bought my pumpkins.

Flash forward four weeks. The carving pumpkins I did eventually manage to locate have long since been carved, displayed, cooked, and eaten (mmmm, pumpkin bread!); with the passing of the holiday, all the winter squash have vanished from the stores (even, alas, from the flower shops). This afternoon, though, I went to a large, somewhat distant grocery store, which I do not normally frequent, in search of sage leaves, and was shocked to be confronted with a sign advertising "Pumpor — 16:90/kg." And the pumpkins in question? Here are the two I purchased:

Cold fusion

This was a holiday weekend in Sweden, for this year's observance of All Saints Eve. The exact date of All Saints varies from year to year, as it is celebrated on whichever Saturday evening falls between October 31 and November 6. On this day, Swedes remember their dead, and visit graves and leave on them flowers or pine branches or other small memorials. They also leave lit candles or little firepots, and the sight is quite beautiful.

Of course, this year All Saint's coincided with Halloween, an American holiday that seems to be gaining a foothold in Sweden, even since we've been here. Compared to last year, more stores have Halloween stuff, more people seemed to be going to a Halloween party, there was more standard Halloween imagery in the media, and so forth. After all, Halloween is an excuse to dress up, go out, eat candy, and have a party at a dark time of year. What could be more Swedish?

For ourselves, we got the best of both holidays by having a jack-o-lantern carving party on Friday night, then going out on Saturday to wander through Uppsala's scenic old graveyard. I was led to wonder whether the two holidays will remain separate, or will they someday fuse? My question was rhetorical, but we found a clue to what the future might hold, as we neared the end of our chilly ramble. Take a look again at the picture of a grave at the top of the post...

Unclear on the Concept

The second class period of the semester started here yesterday. One of my stated goals for this term is to sell off the least useful of the textbooks that I bought last fall. This isn't as straightforward a proposition here as I've come to expect in the States; the University doesn't have a bookstore, and neither of the bookstores in town with textbook sections bother to cater directly to the current course schedule, instead just maintaining a general collection of texts used in classes over the years, loosely arranged by subject. And, more to the point, neither of them deals in used books. There are a handful of online textbook exchange services; all are in Swedish naturally, and none of them appear to be frequented by the computer science students, so they aren't really useful to me.

Instead, the foreign students run their own informal textbook exchange over a more general purpose departmental chat group, which works pretty well (and does tend to fetch the seller a slightly better price). I've managed to part with all but one of my intended sales so far (and only been reduced to haggling once), and I have a prospect for the remaining volume. There are, nonetheless, vagaries inherent in such an informal system, such as the e-mail I received this morning regarding my remaining text:

Hej Joe,

I saw your advertisement selling "Designing Interactive Systems". If you haven't sold it, would you be willing to lend it for one week for 25kr? I need to use it for around a week but won't need it after that I think. You can still sell it during the week that it's lent out of course. I'll put collateral of a library book I'd borrowed, let's say. Yes, it sounds like a little like how stock markets work! But I don't need to own the book, just to borrow it for a specific use for one week. Of course I'll treat it like a library book and shall not write
on it.

[name deleted]

I would tend to say that this sounds more like the way that stock markets fail to work, but I'm willing to set that aside for now. I'll also not bother with the absurdly low offering price of 25 SEK (my sale price is 400 SEK, on a book that was originally priced at 1050 SEK), or even the fact that promising "not to write on it" fails to inspire much confidence in the condition the book might be returned in. And I've spent enough years working in bookstores to not be surprised by the "but I just want a few pages, couldn't I just borrow it and copy them?" line of reasoning from prospective customers.

No, the part that cracks me up is offering a library book as collateral. Sure, there's a downside for [name deleted] if he destroys my book and I refuse to return his library book as a result, but where's the upside for me? I have this vision of trying to ransom this kid's library book back to the University library…

Falling back

We had to change all our clocks today, as Sweden has just gone off Summer Time, a week before the US goes off of Daylight Savings Time. This time change is the one we always used to like, because for a day, it felt like a stolen hour, like getting away with some sort of minor indulgence, with no consequences. In Michigan, Joe and I would look at each other and laugh, and say things like "Can you believe it's only noon? haha!"

This year is different. Today over lunch, we looked at each other, then outside at the grismal day, and I sighed and said "I can't believe it's only noon." Joe agreed and added that this time change is too bad, as it makes it feel like there's an extra hour in the day.

As I write this, it's about 4:40pm, and it's quite dark outside. Clearly there's only one thing to do: make chocolate chip cookies. If that doesn't cheer us up, nothing can!

Suomenlinna

Our goal today was simple: we wanted to get out to Suomenlinna, the island fortress which guards Helsinki's harbor. This is not actually a difficult thing to accomplish from Helsinki, so we opted for a slow start to the morning. Consequently, it was just gone 9 when we showed up to the hotel breakfast buffet. We've never actually had a Finnish breakfast buffet, butof course it was not too different from what we've come to expect everywhere else. There were no waffles or pancakes, which isn't so unusual but worth noting, and the only additions were some very dark flatbread, some Karelian rice pastries, and a crock pot of hot porridge. The Karelian pastry is a thin pastry shell wrapped around some cooked rice; say what you will about the Karelians, but they don't appear to be big fans of the concept of flavor.

Breakfast ended at 10, after which we mosied back up to the room and were back downstairs for checkout by 11. The depressing discovery of the morning was that sometime the yesterday I appear to have lost my gloves and my favorite hat. I had a backup hat along, so no immediate harm done, but I really liked the other one. Oh well. Having checked out, I took a minute to walk the luggage the two blocks to the ferry terminal, where in exchange for the 4 EUR I placed in the locker I got a really cool old key. The temptation to exchange another 4 EUR at the end of the day for a souvenir key was strong, let me tell you…

The terminal also has a HKL ticket machine, from which I bought us a pair of one day tourist tickets. Then we hopped a number 4 tram into town, hustled across Kauppatori (the Market Square) and managed to catch a ferry to Suomenlinna with approximately 3 seconds to spare (they run only about every 40 minutes or so).

Suomenlinna (or Sveaborg if you're a Swede (which transliterated into Finnish becomes Viapori)) is a massive fortress. Built at the command of Gustav III Vasa, it was the largest construction project Sweden had ever undertaken. It actually spans a series of five islands at the mouth of Helsinki harbor. In more than one sense, it is the reason for the existence of Helsinki. Gustav's order also created the city (as an attemp to wrest the Baltic Sea trade away from Tallin, and hence the Hanseatic League)—the fact that neither the city (originally sited too far upriver, it had to be moved forcibly within decades of its founding) nor the fortress (while it did survive the first two attempts by the Russians to take the city, this was mostly due to the fact that the invasion fleets were turned back by the pack ice) proved particularly successful was but a temporary setback. After the fortress surrendered to the Tsar Alexander in 1808, he declared Helsinki the capital of the Grand Duchy of Finland, and the 17,000 troops he stationed there immediately turned Helsinki into a massive garrison town which led to its rapid expansion and ultimate success.

The ferry docks at the most built up quarter, so for a while we followed rough cobblestone streets as the wound between the old wooden warehouses and the Orthodox church and lighthouse. Past the museum and visitor center the walled town gives way to more serious fortification; another kilometer beyond that there's nothing but stone walls and abandoned artillery staring forlornly out across the Baltic. In the summertime the islands are crawling with people, locals and tourists both, clambering over the grass covered dunes and exploring the rabbits warren of tunnels and casements beneath, interspersed with a swim off the rocks or a picnic. For my money, though, we had it better in October: the outer reaches had a sort of wind-swept allure, and the courtyards and alleyways were mostly populated by eddies of yellow oak leaves, with the occasional human visitor thrown in for good measure.

At 3:40 it was time to catch the ferry back to the mainland, and from there a tram out to Katajanokka, there to trade in our key for our luggage. As we walked down the (absurdly long) gangway to the ship, we were treated to a parting view of the city—those parts of it not lost behind the sudden downpour we had been dreading all day.

Time to get out of Helsinki.

Back to the Baltic

It's 4:45 PM, and we're sitting on the sun deck of the Viking LIne cruise ship Gabriella on a cold, dark, somewhat misty afternoon in Stockholm harbor. The last time we took this trip was a year ago July, and like bad generals throughout history, we've learned the lessons of the last war a little too well. We hustled to the gate to board as soon as possible, in order to deposit our stuff in our cabin and grab a seat on deck before the mad hordes descended—only to find that we were the only people on deck, and all the chairs have been put away for the season. Eventually we wandered down to the aft sun deck, which last time was crowded with Swedes busy taking advantage of the tax free liqour to get schnockered—today, there were just a few lonely smokers. But now we're getting underway, and a few hearty souls are starting to show up to lean over the aft rail and watch Stockholm slide into the murky distance.

There's a phenomenon at work here that we've encountered before. Swedes are proud of their life in the north, and are pretty well adjusted to it; oh, the lack of light gets them down as much as it does anybody else, but the cold and the snow don't keep them from walking in the woods or having a run or riding their bike to work, and winter sports are nearly ubiquitous. But while all of this wintery outdoorsy-ness does entail a certain heartiness, we're constantly surprised at how strictly curtailed that heartiness is. A Swede who sees no problem at all with having a January jog through the woods over a coating of ice broken only, and frequently, by huge nearly frozen puddles, will also most likely simply refuse to contemplate sitting outside for a beer on a sunny but cool evening in September. Harsh conditions are fine (with the proper gear, naturally), but a little discomfort? I think not.

And so, in the time it took me to write that, we're back to being virtually the only people on deck, despite the fact that it isn't realy all that cold, and the view is pleasant (if a little dim). Ah well, I guess we'll just have the aft deck to ourselves this trip.

6:07 PM: Having moved (indoors) to the restaurant deck, am now quite pleasantly warm again, thanks in no small part to the Irish coffee in front of me (good thing it happens to be "Irish Weeks" on the Gabriella). As a person who blindly balks at expectations, it's annoying living in a society where everyone expects me to do the reasonable thing—it forces me to be unreasonable.

Despite having joined everyone else inside, we're still having an easier go of it than in July. We got a table by a window, just next to the bar, in a corridor that on our summertime cruise we couldn't even squeeze into due to all the people crowded in to sing along with the cover band. And the duty free shop, which last year at this time looked to be in violation of its maximum occupancy, was virtually empty. Yup, there's nothing for it: it's time to go buy some chocolate.

9:00 PM: We were delayed somewhat when the smells of the tapas bar near our window table made us aware that we had seriously underestimated our hunger level for the evening. Then, fortified with some smoked salmon, potato wedges, and olives, we decided to take a quick stroll around the deck now that it's quite dark out. It had seemed like it might be clearing slightly as the sun set (at 5), but it seems to have been a passing fancy at best. We made our way up to the foredeck, which is quite untenable when the ship is at speed out in the Baltic, but since we were still in the outer reaches of the archipelago, and therefore going much more slowly, it wasn't too windy to manage. It's a misty, still night, and combined with the relative silence of being so far forward of the engines, it made for a somewhat eerie experience, with the lights of stugas situated on invisible islands glowing off to each side, and the mist glowing in the ship's lights ahead of us. Unfortunately, we weren't out there long, as after a bit a crewman came along to close the top decks up for the night. I don't think the top deck ever closed in the summer—certainly we were up there after midnight. Ah well, we'll just have to make it out a little earlier on the return.

9:20 PM: Finally made it to the duty free. While it isn't as packed as we've come to expect, we're hardly alone; there's a young woman in a Pippi Longstocking costume shopping for wine, and a group of heavily tattooed French speakers trying to figure out which is the cheapest rotgut whisky available. The duty free alcohol is an important part of the Baltic cruise, as there's a VAT of at least 25% added to all alcohol in Sweden (the exact tax varies with the strength of the liquor); we certainly intend to stock up on a few items, but mostly on the return trip. For now, we'll settle for a few snacks for the morning: small cheese sampler, a bottle of wine for Wednesday night's dinner, and some Swiss chocolate. We had our eye on a real rarity—genuine, American beef jerky!—but but we balked at the price tag (80 SEK for 100 g).

It's been a long day, so we're off to bed. Tomorrow, Helsinki!

P.S. Why no pictures? Apparently I forgot to pack a cable for the camera, so they'll just have to wait until we get home. Sorry! I'll update posts after we get back, I guess.

Not Quite Dag Hammarskjöld

The other day we went down to the main university building to hear Ban Ki-moon give a brief speech. He was, no doubt, in country on some sort of official business (probably to do with the fact that Sweden holds the presidency of the EU at the moment…), but I'm sure that no Secretary-General of the U.N. could visit Sweden without stopping to pay respects at the grave of Uppsala's most beloved son: Dag Hammarskjöld, the second Secretary-General, who died in a plane crash in Rhodesia while trying to broker a peace treaty.

The half-hour speech itself was about what you'd expect, a call to fix the problems of the world, err, somehow. At least, the part before I dozed off at the end was pretty standard, and I assume it kept going in that vein. There was one amusing bit, though. In what must have seemed a guaranteed crowd pleaser, the Secretary-General mentioned that he liked the university motto, engraved over the entrance to the hall he was speaking in: "Tänka fritt är stort men tänka rätt är större."

Ignoring the fact that this isn't actually the school's motto ("Gratiae veritas naturae"), the truth is that most local Swedes are somewhat conflicted about this statement—hence the response Ban Ki-moon got, which I can only describe as "nervous laughter." The problem is that, while Swedes pride themselves on living in a modern and free society, the fact is that it is also a society where there is a right way to do things—and they'll never admit it, but the drive to fit in is particularly strong in Sweden.

Admission was free, but you had to get tickets in advance for security reasons, and the tickets were accounted for within a few hours of becoming available. We got there perhaps not quite as early as we should have, but before the real crush, and quite innocently managed to avoid all the security by coming in the back door (if they didn't want us to come in that way, then that nice young man shouldn't have opened the door for us, now should he?). Anyway, the upshot is that we managed to get seats up in the balcony shortly before the last minute crush of students, who mostly wound up standing in the aisles through the whole speech. How does one say "fire marshall" in Swedish?

The red badge of courage

My ex-officemate S., who is into various sorts of gaming, started a mångkamp last year for students and postdocs in our department. The idea is that every participant comes up with some sort of event for everyone to compete in, and this then gives people a chance to share their interests (and also provides an excuse for people to stick around after work and socialize). Past events have included things like ping-pong (there's a table in the basement), poker, egg-balancing, cake-baking, Guitar Hero, Pentago... you get the idea.

Occasionally the contests have been direct combat. S. himself chose stick-fighting, and today was post-doc G.'s event, fencing.

To make a short story shorter, my informal and long-ago training in the sport, courtesy of my father, did me well against people with no experience at all and I actually beat my new officemate X. I came very close to beating another student, B., who danced and swung her epee about quite wildly. Now as you see from the picture, I declined to wear a glove on my crutch-hand, so that my grip would be better. And sure enough, B. fetched me a nice swat on the hand, no more than a sting, but when I looked down when we were finished, it was bleeding. I congratulated her on drawing first blood (I think she was horrified), then accepted my consolation shot of arrack punsch, and then had to run off to do an errand in town.

It wasn't until I was on the bus that it hit me: I have been wounded—nay, I have had my blood drawn—in a sword fight at a 500-year-old European university. How cool is that?

(I am such a geek.)

(Da, I hope you are green with envy! tack för hjälpen!)

A pleasant, lazy weekend

I am taking an online class this term about the life of Linnaeus. It occurred to me suddenly last week that I hadn't done any work yet, and it is already three weeks into the term, so I decided that this weekend would be devoted entirely to catching up with the reading, a good task for what I had thought would be a rainy, coolish couple of days.

Of the course the weather was gorgeous.

Well, no help for it, I still had to do the reading, so off I went on Saturday to the large lawn near our place, walking just a few steps further than I usually do, and found a nice nook in a rock that I had never noticed before, which looks as if it were made specifically for someone to sit and read in. I sat and read all afternoon in the sunshine, while people strolled around on the path behind me, walking their children or dogs or both, and a couple of young fellows fooled around with a soccer ball by the goals on the lawn. Someone went by on horseback once, and every now and then one of the sheep at the soldier's holt would bah-ah-ah, probably begging for sugary snacks from visitors. It was so very pleasant that I went back to do the same thing today. Happily the nook was unoccupied... again, the people strolled, the dogs barked, the horses whinnied, and I held still for long enough that a butterfly landed on my ankle and stayed for a time. What a very lovely situation, for reading about a botanist who believed that the best happiness is to be found outside:

Viewing nature gives a taste of the celestial bliss, a constant delight of the soul and the beginning of the complete revitalization that is the peak of human happiness.

An Afternoon at the Castle

With the sudden approach of Autumn, we've been left scrambling to manage a few last second acts of tourism. Things were looking grim after a tiny transportation snafu ended our planned trip to Finland ("What, exactly, do you mean by, 'The ship is out of service for September'?"), but then fortunately our friends G. and D. called last weekend to ask if we'd like to go to Drottningholm for a picnic.

Drottningholm is one of the several castles/palaces1 currently owned by the Swedish royal family, situated as the name implies on a medium-sized island 11 km west of central Stockholm. It used to be a country retreat, but its close proximity to Bromma Airport has assured the gradual encroachment of the city in modern times. Even so, the palace itself is set on the water in the midst of a substantial bit of parkland, so it's much more laid back than the Royal Palace in Stockholm itself; it was for precisely this reason that the King and Queen made Drottningholm their official residence in the early 80s, not wanting to raise their kids in the middle of one of the city's busiest neighborhoods. It's still the family's residence for most of the year (except in high tourist season, when they retreat to an island in the Baltic), although they obviously tend to stick to the private wing, so there's little chance of running into them when you visit.

Well, most days, anyway. By chance, we happened to go on a day when some of the Queen's relatives were having a christening in the palace chapel, with the family in attendance. The downside of this was that we couldn't tour the top floor, as they were using it for the reception; the upside was that, as we waited for the English language tour to start, Princess Madeleine and Prince Carl Philip walked right past us on their way to the chapel, followed a few minutes later by the King and the Crown Princess herself, Victoria2. No sign of the Queen (doubtless hanging with her visiting family members), but Victoria smiled at us and waved, so that was nice.

Anyway, the palace and the grounds were nice, if somewhat anti-climactic after all the royal-spotting that started the afternoon. Our tour guide, Lotta, impressed Jennifer by explaining that Marie Antoinette and that chap she was married to obviously deserved to have their heads cut off; the tour was interrupted as it approached the end of its allotted time when another functionary came in to tell Lotta that she would have to keep us busy for a while longer, as no one was allowed to leave the building for a while (apparently so that Madeleine and Carl Philip could stand around the back entrance holding candles for a bit). Other than that, the palace itself was home a fairly typical collection of baroque bric-a-brac.

More interesting was the theater, a restored 17th century opera house. It's a working theater, but the stage and interior have kept their original style and function, so they still use all of the original special effects machinery (they have had to update the lighting a bit, although they've done a good job replacing the candles with some impressive fakes). The seating hasn't changed, either, so it's remarkably uncomfortable; what's more, when the theater was built the seating capacity was limited by the size of the ladies' hoop skirts, which means that now it seats twice as many people as it was designed to do, with no concomitant increase in oxygen flow. A four hour opera watched from uncomfortable seats, with no temperature control and nothing to breathe? Where do I sign up?

1 The Swedish word is slott, which unfortunately covers a sort of broad range of concepts in English. The massive royal palace in Stockholm is Kungliga Slottet, but it can also mean 'castle.' It's also used to describe the manor houses which dot the southern Swedish countryside, some of which are large and impressive enough that they might merit being called a small palace in English; more often than not, they're what I would call 'big houses.'

2 Some time ago the law was changed in Sweden so that the royal couple's oldest child became the heir to the throne, irrespective of sex. So despite having a younger brother, Victoria is set to become Sweden's first reigning Queen since Ulrika Eleonora abdicated in 1720. Leaving Carl Philip free to spend his time driving race cars and taking pictures of flowers.

Time of the season

What with our short vacation in early August, and the visit from Joe's parents, and the hustle and bustle to start the school year this week, our posts have been a little sparse of late. Meanwhile, summer is over and autumn is here.

Last year, this change happened quite abruptly. On the last day of the break, 29 augusti, my department had fika outside and the weather was quite fine for post-doc G.'s wedding the next day. Then, on the first day of school, 2 september, the temperature dropped, the wind picked up, and no one would even consider going out for fika. That's not quite true—I did go out once that first week, and was joined by a fellow foreign post-doc, but we were alone and did not repeat the experiment.

This year, exactly the same thing happened. Last day of vacation, 28 aug, nice and warm. First day of school, 31 aug, 12C, and windy: Joe, who is now back to riding his bike to school every day, notes that last part especially. It happened as if a switch had been turned. But last year, autumn was nice and sunny, if not exactly warm, so I and everyone else at work is hoping for a good season. Happy Fall, everyone.

Heinous Blog Failure!

…or rather, "heinous blogger failure," as I fear I cannot blame our recent disappearance on technical difficulties. No, just a combination of getting ready for my parent's visit (they arrived this morning), and the horrible Norwegian Flu (just a cold, really) that we brought back from our trip to Östersund in late July… which, unfortunately, hasn't even been written up yet! Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, this simply will not do. Well, pictures of our recent trip will go up today, and hopefully some explanatory text as well, although I hope you'll forgive me if it's all a little rushed. As with Göteborg, I'll backdate entires to when they happened for the sake of clarity.

Mora or Less; or, "Vasa the matter w' you?"

Suddenly it seems that the summer is nearly over, leaving us with a long list of things we meant to do and little time left in which to do them. With that in mind, we set off this past weekend to check one item off our list: a trip on the Inlandsbanan railway through central Sweden. So on Friday morning we got up bright and early (note to self: 8:30 AM only seems an acceptable departure time when one does not remember to consider the two hours of prep and transport that lead up to it…) and hopped a train to Mora, the southern terminus of the railway.

Mora is three hours northwest of Uppsala by train, and almost immediately we could tell we were heading into a different area of Sweden. Up until now we've mostly stuck to the coasts—not counting Uppsala itself, but Uppland is sort of an oddly flat and agrarian portion of Sweden. Mora lies in the heart of Dalarna, the Swedish heartland, and true to its name it is a place of valleys, lakes, and rivers.

Mora itself lies on the northern shore of Lake Siljan, and it immediately felt a lot like we were in a northern Michigan lake town, with one major thoroughfare right along the lakes edge, and then a more pedestrian-oriented, slightly touristy shopping quarter spreading back from the lake. One thing it was not was peaceful: we had shown up just in time for some sort of classic American car festival, with concommitant speed boat race, and the periodic roaring of the boats in the distance made it sound as though we were being pursued b a particularly annoyed cloud of wasps.

Inlandsbanan may have been the reason for our visit, but it is not one of Mora's twin claims to fame, and our first stop in town was inspired by one of these. To most Swedes, Mora is with Vasaloppet, which ends in the center of town, under a permanent finish line marker right next to the spot where Gustav Vasa addressed the good people of Mora so long ago (for details see our Vasaloppet post of last year). Jennifer, true member of the proletariat, took one look at Gustav and declared, "Well, he looks like a prat." After taking the requisite photo of Jennifer crossing the finish line (complete with skis, pole, and bib provided by the city for just such an occasion), we headed across the park into the Vasaloppet Museum, where you can learn pretty much everything there is to know about the race while sipping your complimentary cup of hot blueberry soup.

My vision of this weekend had been a simple one. We would take the regular train to Mora, camp for a night, then the Inlandsbanan to Östersund where we would camp another night before taking the train home. With cheap transportation, hotels make up most of the expense of a trip like this, and in both cities there are large, well-equipped campgrounds with restrooms and showers available. Unfortunately, the campgrounds in Östersund turned out to be a long bus ride outside of town (with spotty weekend bus service, at best), so my three nights of camping got whittled down to one, and then the weight and bulk of our tent, bags and sleeping pads began to seem somewhat excessive. Especially considering the Inlandsbanan's official luggage policy: we recommend traveling as lightly as possible—which sounds like Swedish code for big bags not allowed. So in the end we wound up getting a room in a Pension in Östersund, and one night in a camping cabin in Mora.

It's possible that before the trip I may have grumbled somewhat about our inability to camp, and even gone so far as to price out some lighter weight camping gear, but as I hauled our luggage to the campsite late Friday afternoon amidst light sprinkles I had to admit that I was somewhat pleased not to be setting up a tent just then. By the time we had settled into our tiny room for the evening with our grocery store dinner, the heavens had completely opened up and the tent field was rapidly coming to resemble a new bay of Lake Siljan, and I was quite happy to sit drily on my bunk and marvel at our foresight.

Despite our dry surrounds, though, by morning Jennifer had the makings of a nasty little cold, which was to dog her steps for the rest of the trip (and mine shortly thereafter, but that's another story). Still, the morning was relatively dry and clear (in other words, it was only pouring down rain for the first couple of hours after we woke up), and we were determined to make the most of it. We checked out of our cabin and headed into town, depositing our luggage at the tourist info office for 20 SEK (!) before grabbing breakfast at a coffee place, called Kaffestugga, in Mora's pedestrianized shopping district. Not the most unwelcome cup of coffee I've had in my life.

Our train didn't leave until 2, so we had just enough time left to visit Mora's major cultural attraction, the Zorn museum and home. Anders Zorn was born in Mora, and went on to become such a successful artist that he died one of the richest men in Sweden. After his wife's death, their home in Mora and all it's contents were donated to the Swedish State, and became the basis for the Zorn museum. We split up for this part: Jennifer checked out the museum of Zorn's work, while I took the tour of the home. The tour was fascinating, I'm sure, from the little bits of it I understood, as it was alas entirely given in Swedish. Nevertheless, tromping around Zorn's turn of the century home with little plastic covers over my shoes was an entertaining way to spend an hour. What did I learn? Zorn had one of the first private telephones in Sweden, and his phone number was 4. He had the best billiards room I've seen, and he liked collecting stuff. Did I mention that the tour was a little hard to follow?

On our way back to the tourist info to collect our belongings, we stopped off to buy one of the two things you are supposed to buy when you visit Mora, a Dala Horse. The worst of the tourist traps sell the 3 cm tall horses for 150 SEK, but we managed to get a 6 cm horse for less than that. (The other thing you are supposed to buy is a Mora knife, but I already have one sitting in a box somewhere in Michigan.)

Smultron!

Here's another Swedish specialty: smultron, or the woodland strawberry. I had been hearing of this fruit ever since I got here. Swedes adore them. Advertising that wishes to convey a sense of summer often shows a bunch of them strung on a piece of grass. I first asked about them a long time ago: what are those tiny strawberries I see in pictures? "Oh, those aren't strawberries, those are smultron. They are very very good." Where can I buy some? "You cannot. Some people claim there are cultivated varieties but those are not real smultron." Where can I find some? "They are very rare, and quite special. You might not find any."

Or, alternately, there might be a big patch of them growing about a hundred meters from my apartment.

I wish I could say that I found them myself, but truthfully I had to have them pointed out to me. I was walking to the bus stop yesterday morning, when a guy approaching me suddenly made a 90-degree turn to the right and stepped off the sidewalk and into the rough. I thought that was perhaps taking Swedish shyness a bit too far. I mean, I know now that when passing people you do not make eye contact, you do not say good morning, and so forth, but really, leaving the sidewalk to avoid someone? So I kept an eye on the fellow as I passed, and noticed that he was staring intently at the ground, then bent down to pick something up. I resolved to check it out on my way home that evening... and there they were.

The berries are tiny, about the size of a pea, and a very dark red with red seeds. The flavor of them is extraordinary: intense, and strawberry-ish, but sweeter, and with additional notes that are unique. The aroma is heavenly and well worth the mosquito bites one picks up while standing still to breathe it in. Were it feasible, I would suggest that any fellow fruit fancier out there stop what they are doing right now and come visit... except that then I'd have to share. And I'm already behaving like the natives, checking furtively that no one's watching when I go to get some, pretending to be tying my shoe when someone does happen by, answering questions like "Where did you find them?" with a guarded "Oh, you know, just in the woods..."

(See the same nickel starring in last year's post about bilberries.)

By the way, if you Google "smultron," probably your first hit will be to a OS X text editor of that name, written by (you guessed it) a Swede. The icon for the program should look familiar by now.

BAGECO and my night at the castle

I've covered now the FEMS conference in Göteborg, but I should also mention the conference that I went to June 15-20 in Uppsala. The name of the conference was BAGECO, which stands for Bacterial Genetics and Ecology. This conference was quite a bit smaller than FEMS, maybe 400 people or so, and geared more specifically toward my interests than was FEMS (which included lots of clinical and industrial stuff), and I met some potential future collaborators. Post-doc E. from my department also attended, and we had a good time talking at lunch and during the breaks.

BAGECO was quite rigorous, time-wise (starting at 08:00, lasting until 19:00, fortunately only a single bus ride away), but it was also quite plush. It included an opening reception with food drinks, two lavish coffee breaks per day, lunch every day that was quite good, and more drinks on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, which was probably intended as incentive for people to stick around for the poster sessions (a strategy that worked quite well, and perhaps had the added bonus of making people a little bolder about approaching and talking to strangers).

The highlight of the conference, though, was the official dinner on the evening of June 17. At 500SEK, it wasn't exactly cheap (my department paid), but it was worth every öre. The dinner was held in the big hall at Uppsala's castle, and no expenses were spared. There was a pre-dinner glass of sparkling wine, and a modern troubadour with a guitar singing to us (including "Sweet Home Alabama!"). Empty wine glasses were quickly refilled, and the food included smoked salmon, lobster mousse, tuna ceviche, large shrimp with mustard sauce, duck breast, Parma ham... "I want to try a little of everything," I said to the handsome young waiter who had been assigned to carry my plate. "I like the shrimp best," he said. "Then I'll have a couple shrimp," I said. (I hate shrimp.) (But he was right, they were delicious.)

My dinner companions were newlyweds F. and R., who were treating this conference as part of their all-around-Europe honeymoon. F. is Italian, a young professor now in Australia, and R. is American. It was fun to talk to a stranger American, and the older British professor to my left, C., also had fun goading all three of us about being "colonists". R. and I nattered on about Barack Obama; F. and I, who do similar sort of work, discovered a mutual affection for the movie "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert"; C. brought me a plate of cheese and crackers after dinner. Our talk ground to a halt around 10pm as the troubadour turned into a DJ, and the disco started up mere meters from our table. (I'm very glad to be able to say that I have now seen people dancing to Abba in a Swedish castle, but it's hard to talk over.)

As I wandered out of the dining hall, intending to head home, I ran into M., another postdoc, whom I had met at the poster session. She insisted that I at least see the famous portrait of Queen Kristina (who abdicated from this very castle in 1654) before leaving. M. is Swedish, but she works in Norway, where she's happy to be so close to nature and outdoor pursuits; she dreams of going to work in Antarctica. We sat in a candlelit nook, with a view of the city, and talked about Antarctica, and kelp forests, and lakes, and bacterial ecology. Around midnight we looked outside at the constant twilight, and I mentioned how difficult it was sometimes for me to get to sleep when it never gets dark. "I grew up with it like this, and it didn't bother me at all when I was young," said M., "but as I get older, I find that all the daylight makes me nervous and unsettled." We chatted until almost 2am, well past the time that the last bus had left, and I ended up calling a taxi for a ride home.

What a great evening; Romantic with a capital R. Of course it's true that I get fascinating conversation and a handsome young man bringing me delicious food all the time at home, and I like my home very much, but it isn't a castle, now, is it?

FEMS, fun, and handball

I presented my research at two conferences in June— I'll take the second one first, which was the FEMS conference in Göteborg. FEMS stands for "Federation of European Microbiological Societies," and the group has a conference every other year, much as ASM ("American Society for Microbiology") does. (Some of you may remember that I went to Toronto in 2007—that was for the ASM conference.) The meeting is big, with an announced attendance of 1700 participants. The participating countries were a little differently distributed than they were at ASM—FEMS had far more African and Middle Eastern delegates, but perhaps fewer from the Far East. Since I hail from a Swedish university, I officially counted as a European delegate (I had my picture taken with the US flag as well, see the gallery). The conference ran from Sunday afternoon to Thursday; I dutifully stood by my poster during the Monday afternoon coffee break, then gave a short oral presentation about it on Wednesday. I got some good questions, and caught the interest of some other microbial ecologists, so I will count this conference as a success.

The meeting was held in Svenska Mässan, a large convention center that is part of the hotel complex. Modern convention centers all look rather alike, and there was nothing particularly Swedish about this one, although the views of the nearby early-20th century brick buildings was quite nice. The hotel itself, Gothia Towers, is Scandinavia's largest, a glass-and-steel sort of place that fits in surprisingly well, possibly because the high reflectivity of the glass makes it almost disappear against the sky. It's a modern business hotel that also does a brisk tourist trade, as the large amusement park Liseberg is just across the street—families with young children probably outnumbered conference goers when we were there. In the picture to the right, I am standing on the balcony of the convention center and waving hello to everyone.

The most visible component of hotel guests this week, though, were the handball teams. The block that the hotel is on also includes an indoor sports arena, and an international youth tournament, the Partille Cup, was going on at the same time. Every morning we had breakfast right next to the men's team from Turkey, and the youth national teams of Norway, Finland, Morocco, and Austria were also staying in our hotel. It usually wasn't too hard to tell who was here for the FEMS conference, who was here for the amusement park, and who was here for the handball...

The most fun I had, though, was probably going the soccer game right before the conference started, and I finally managed to write up a game summary and little travel log for my soccer blog.

Tiny Boats

Wednesday afternoon found Jennifer with some unexpected free time, so we decided to make a trek to Göteborg's Sjöfartsmuseum. This is a very different affair from Maritiman: the Maritime Museum looks and feels like it was built by money from the industries of the harbor, back when there was money to be made there. It's full of exhibits about fishing, shipping, and the harbor itself, none of which appears to have been updated since the early 80s (at best). In other words, it's a fascinatingly quaint museum, with room after room of lovingly crafted little dioramas, most without a shred of English explanation.

The elevator (which also dates from a number of decades ago) took us direct to the third floor, despite our rather explicit instructions to the contrary (unless that button labeled "2" holds some other meaning on the west coast…), so we started our tour in the fishing exhibit. Here the history of Swedish fishing was recounted in a series of display cases demonstrating in miniature commercial fishing techniques over the centuries; each case had a few model boats up near the top, while the bulk of the diorama showed the configuration of the fishing nets under the water. These were strangely compelling, but they in no way prepared us for the Wes Craven-worthy horror which lurked at the far end of the hall: an automatic cod filleting machine (image may not be suitable for younger readers).

The shipyard displays were complete with functional models of large ship engines constructed here in the past, and layouts showing the way the shipyards looked before they all got turned into housing developments (I suspect a number of decades of urban decay fell between the former and the latter, but no need to dwell on that I suppose). The harbor room had not just models of all the individual quays, but also maps of the harbor dating back to the mid-1800s—showing, incidentally, that the "Red Stone " I mentioned in the gallery for the Älvsborg fortress post has been called that for at least the past 170 years.

The museum also has a somewhat notable collection of ships' figureheads, but these are displayed without comment along the walls of the temporary exhibition space. The current exhibition was interesting, though. It was a collection of reminiscences by the gay men employed by the Swedish-American cruise line as stewards and waiters during the middle part of the century. Apparently it was something of an open secret at the time, the line going out of its way to hire attractive young men who were clean, interesting to talk to, and unlikely to get any of the wealthy young female passengers into a family way.

The museum also touts its aquarium—the literature includes the line, "For many people it is the most memorable part of the exhibit!"—but there the passing years have not been so kind, I fear. No doubt I was influenced by having spent that very morning at Universeum, the city's new science museum with its own impressive aquarium. The older aquarium looks quite distinctly as though it's been looted of all its more interesting inhabitants to stock the new one, leaving it just a sad, oddly overlarge couple of rooms (the first room was thoroughly blessed with air conditioning though, which may have caused us to linger a bit). My favorite exhibit: a large tank displaying the "bounty of marine life in the Baltic," currently occupied by a single rather bored looking trout.

frutti di mare

We didn't actually know much about the area we would be staying in before our arrival in Göteborg, beyond the fact that Liseberg was located just across the street. Fortunately, sometime on Tuesday Jennifer noticed that our location at Korsvägen put us just a few short blocks away from one of the city's more famous spots: Götaplatsen, a square surrounded by the art museum, symphony hall and city theater, with the broad Kungsportsavenyn running down hill from it towards the old town.

What Götaplatsen is most famous for, however, is the large statue of Poseidon at it's center. It's a Carl Milles statue (the same fellow responsible for the fountain on Rackham Mall at U of M) in which Poseidon crushes a large fish while the rest of the ocean's denizens cavort about him. When the statue, which is a nude, was revealed in 1931, the good citizens of Göteborg were a little put off by his, erm, somewhat oversized attributes. So much so, in fact, that they eventually had his… attribute replaced with a rather more modest one.

Coincidentally, Götaplatsen was featured in Sunday's Göteborg-Posten, as number five on the list of Göteborg's best buildings, in which a local architect wrote, "Götaplatsen är det Göteborg Göteborg drömmer om att vara." After we had sat there for half an hour or so, we were led to the conclusion that, if that's so, Göteborg has fairly modest dreams. The art museum is certainly on a grand scale, but not what you might call appealing, and the city theater seems oddly out of balance. The concert hall, tucked away in one corner, is a little better, with some great lion statues high up on the facade facing the square.

By this time, what I was dreaming of was food, so we wandered off down Kungsportsavenyn in search of a good meal. The street is lined with restaurants on both sides for blocks, so it seemed like a good bet, but we had, naturally, picked the most expensive street in the city. We eventually wandered a couple blocks to the south, where the streets were also full of eateries, but where the prices were significantly lower. We finally settled on a promising looking Indian place which was not terribly busy, and tucked into a nice meal of curried fish and crab (having ordered the crab, the house specialty, why was I not expecting to be presented with a whole crab?), along with a pepper chutney that was easily the hottest food we've encountered since arriving in Sweden. By the time we were done it was quite late, and the temperature had finally begun to drop, which was a relief after the combination of hot sun and hot food. We wandered back over to the avenue and sat for a while, people watching mostly, before catching the tram back to the hotel.

City Museum

My plan for the afternoon was to go to the Aeroseum, a relatively new aircraft museum located in what had been a secret, underground hangar on the (now ex-)military base outside Göteborg. It was also on the north side of the river, if somewhat further outside of town, so it seemed like a good idea to combine the trips. I had a carefully orchestrated route between the two museums, involving two city buses and a regional bus in between, which should have gotten me there in just under an hour. Unfortunately, I cut one of the connections a little too closely, and missed the last bus by a minute. Since the next bus wouldn't be along for an hour, I decided to pack it in and catch the next tram back into the city.

So I wound up spending the afternoon at the Göteborg city museum, instead. There was no photography allowed, hence the lack of gallery. It was a decent museum, though, housed in the former headquarters of the Swedish East India Company, about which… OK, I know nothing, because the wing with the 17th and 18th century exhibits is closed for renovation until next spring. So I browsed the prehistoric room, looked at the remnants of the only Viking ship ever recovered in Sweden, and read about the founding of Göteborg. The problem with that last bit is that the city is staggeringly young: it was founded only in 1621 as a fortified trading city, replacing a couple of earlier settlements further up river which had become a little too isolated. The museum did have a nice model of the city from the time before the defensive embankments were demolished, which helped to give a better feel for the way things are laid out. Oh, there was also a somewhat bizarre exhibit of the 700 chairs the museum has collected over the years.

They're boxy, but good

My Tuesday morning destination was the Volvo Museum in Arendal, at the extreme western edge of Göteborg's working harbor, which lines the northern bank of the Göta. According to our guidebook, "you really need a car to get there," which was not strictly true—a tram to the middle of a residential neighborhood north of the river, followed (after a brief but lovely sit in an air conditioned waiting room) by a half-hour bus ride into the harbor itself, left me just 100m from the entrance.

The museum sits on the wharf, with a view of the harbor and, that morning at least, a cool breeze off the water. As for the museum itself, well, this is not the Ford Museum. The Volvo Museum is a decent size, but easy to cover in some detail in a few hours. It does have the one thing the Ford Museum lacks, though: amidst Ford's sprawling jumble of Americana, there is no coherent history of the company itself. The Volvo museum starts from the beginning, moving from the desk of the founders to the very first model produced, and then going on to a nice collection of cars organised by decade, mostly displayed in little scenes reminiscent of the times (a street scene from the 30s, a gas station from the 50s, a soulless display room from the 80s… you get the picture). There was also a nice collection of concept cars, and some coverage of Volvo's tractor and truck divisions.

I was, by the way, the only non-staff person in the museum who was not speaking German. Sweden is a popular tourist destination for Germans, and Göteborg (being just a 30 minute ferry ride from the continent) has Germans aplenty in the summer, but even so this seemed like a high concentration. A few of them seemed to be Volvo groupies, all decked out in Volvo t-shirts and hoodies. It takes all sorts, I suppose.

Boats in the Sun

We're back in Uppsala now after a busy week in Göteborg. Obviously I didn't manage to keep the blog up to date for the bulk of the week, so I'll just have to play a little catch up now. Incidentally, I've decided to cheat, and backdate the next few posts to the days they happened on, not when they are being written—it just seems like they'll make more sense that way. Anyway, when we left off, it was Monday afternoon…

By the time I had taken the boat back from Nya Älvsborg, it was 2 in the afternoon. Seeing as I was already in the harbor area, I decided to indulge my inordinate fondness for maritime museums by making a quick stop at Maritiman, Göteborg's floating ship museum. It also claims to be the world's largest floating ship museum, with as many as 20 ships available for viewing at a time, but I suppose we'll just have to take their word for that. The twin highlights of the collection are two Swedish naval vessels: the destroyer Småland, and the submarine Nordkaparen.

There happened to be an English language tour starting just as I got there, so I spent my first 45 minutes following the unfortunate Swedish tour guide, who was not only visibly wilting in the heat but also fighting off a cold. It was a good tour, nonetheless. My favorite moment came as he was explaining that the patrol boat they had on display was one of three which used to be responsible for both patrol and civilian rescue for the entire west coast of Sweden. They weren't enough to handle the job, but unfortunately all the rescue money goes to Stockholm, leaving the Göteborgare on their own. "So," he explained, "any boat captain in the west of Sweden who plans to have an accident soon learns to call the Danish coast guard, because the Swedes are not helpful." Oh, the ignominy.

I spent a couple of hours wandering around the destroyer, which is almost entirely open to visitors. You can go all the way up the control tower, and then all the way back down to the lowest deck and crawl through the space between the boilers. The below-deck areas were wonderfully cool compared to the rest of the ship, or even to the rest of Göteborg, which perhaps made me more inclined than usual to sit in one of the seven mess areas and watch a black-and-white film from the 50s which explained the care and feeding of your new Bofors 40mm anti-aircraft turret. As I wandered from one ill-lit, cramped room with no easy escape route to the next, I found myself thinking about each one in turn, "Well, that would just be a horrible place to die."

The submarine is a post-WWII affair, so it had all the charm (and head room) of a sardine can. More interesting was the lightship Fladen, basically a floating lighthouse for those places where you need a signal but can't build one. The guide's description of life aboard the Fladen was less than appealing: awake all night to keep the lamp lit, anchored firmly in one place, so that when the seas were rough the natural rocking of the ship was continually broken by the anchor chains snapping taught at seemingly random intervals, sending everything on board rocketing about. Soup, anyone?

So, by the time I'd poked around all of that, it was nearly 6, and I was hot, exhausted, and well sunned–definitely time to call it a day. As always, more pictures are available in the gallery .

New Elf Mountain

On an island at the mouth of the river Göta lies Nya Älvsborg Fastning, where I spent a pleasant few hours wandering about this morning. It's the "new" fortress only in relative terms, as it was built in the 17th century to replace the old Älvsborg fortress, which the Swedes had recently decided they needed to tear down. The old fortress, unfortunately, was good for nothing except as a revenue source for the government of Denmark: when the Danish king was running low on funds, he'd simply send his navy over to capture Älvsborg fortress, and then ransom it back to the Swedes for a lot of money (indulging in an age old Viking tradition, there). So in the end the Swedes decided the cheapest thing to do was just tear the place down and build a new one. To this end, they hired the leading fortification expert of the day and set out to fortify the island of Kyrkogårdsborg. Alas, construction took so long that by the time the fort was in service, it was also completely obsolete. Despite this fact, the new fortress worked out much better than the old one, fending off not one but two Danish invasion fleets.

Nowadays, of course, it's a tourist attraction, complete with comedic actors in historical garb. The comic troupe has also done the informative audio guide for the island, which is a nice change of pace. Instead of lot's of rambling on about what was built when, the audio guide is a series of historical conversations that could have happened in various locations about the fort. In one, King Vasa demands enough warm, sweaty cheese so that he can bathe in it, and when he is told there is no cheese on the island he vows instead to invade Denmark, give away Finland, and kill every Swedish male under the age of 26. In another, the erstwhile commandant of the fort mistakes a passing seagull for an aerial Danish invasion fleet.

I don't know how much I learned, but it did make for an entertaining morning. If you care to see more pictures of overgrown fortifications, check out the gallery.