monday. nyckelharpa lessons.
The train ride to Sala went smoothly on Monday, despite my carrying the nyckelharpa with me for the whole day. The problem isn't that it's heavy, so much as that the wooden case is quite awkward to tote around comfortably.
Met an old couple at Central Station as we waited for the train toward Borlänge. The man was quite curious to know what I carried, and stared at it for a long time before addressing me. "It's a nyckelharpa," I told him in Swedish, and his face lit up.
"Aha, a nyckelharpa!" he repeated, "I thought at first it was a model airplane! Look," he turned to his wife, who was trying to convince him to shut up and sit down on the bench, "she has a nyckelharpa!"
The woman then looked at me and said that either she or somebody she knew had played nyckelharpa when she lived in Dalarna; I didn't catch the beginning of her sentence because it was a bit noisy in the station, since the trains were arriving and leaving.
This time, during the lesson, I learned two polkas: Byss-Calles Slängpolska and Båtsman Däck Bondpolska. Both are well-known Swedish folk songs, and I was told that any nyckelharpa player would recognise them and be able to play along if I happened to meet someone and start playing. I'm not really sure of the chances I'll meet another nyckelharpa player while I have the instrument with me, but perhaps if I attend a folk music festival, I might.
Above: A little kid accidentally dropped the paper Burger King crown as she passed by the Odenplan station, and so it remained in the pathway for at least as long as I stood there. It even retained its shape as a light rain began for a time.
It was my friend's last day visiting Stockholm, and so we agreed to meet in the evening at a small restaurant known as Lilla Ego (in English, "little ego"). The name comes from a Kent song called "Stoppa Mig Juni (Lilla Ego)"; on a side note, Kent is one of Sweden's biggest bands, with the most recent album being Tigerdrottningen (The Tiger Queen).
The restaurant was unfortunately closed that day, despite what we had read on the website. It had begun to rain by then, and so we scuttled back to the tunnelbana station so the nyckelharpa wouldn't become soaked. We ended up returning to T-Centralen to look for food around the area without going out in the rain.
Above: View from Odenplan tunnelbana station.
We went to Gallerian to see if there were any food places nearby. As my friend went upstairs to the information booth, I waited downstairs with the nyckelharpa.
Another man approached me as I stood out of the way of pedestrians with the harpa upright. "What is this, a suitcase?" he asked in English, eyeing the case curiously.
"A nyckelharpa," I replied, and he, too, became excited.
"A harpa? Fantastic!" he grinned, and we spent some time discussing music and various types of harpas. "In Uruguay and Paraguay, they play a special type of harpa. The Indians," he explained. "But it is nice to see that young people still learn to play this instrument."
With a smile and a friendly nod, he continued on his way out of Gallerian.
My friend returned to me shortly after, only to report that there was a disappointing lack of selection for restaurants in Gallerian, and so we went back into Central Station and ended up (disappointingly) ordering fast food. The man sitting next to us asked what was in the box, and if it was a musical instrument. I told him it was a nyckelharpa, and he nodded and then lost interest. Perhaps he only was curious, or even didn't know what a nyckelharpa was (most people don't).
The night ended well, and my friend and I promised to keep in touch with each other. Perhaps she'll visit Stockholm again someday, as she really liked it. She left me some souvenirs from her hometown in Poland, so my penguin has a new friend now :)
tuesday. kth.
Tuesday was lesson day again. I had only Swedish in the evening. I found the following soap dispenser in the WC- clearly, someone had a decent sense of humour :P
There was quite a bit of background noise during Swedish class, as there was to be a fireworks concert the next night, and so some of the performers were practicing their orchestra pieces and their opera singing outside on the stage area.
I discovered that the local grocery store had plenty of surströmming for me to choose from, if I felt brave enough. The Swedish word sur means "sour", and strömming is Baltic herring. Surströmming is a very... Swedish... delicacy, if one can call it that. It's fermented herring in a can, basically rotten and sitting preserved in its own juices. Some say it has health benefits, but there doesn't seem to be much that can be gained from rotten fish. Many airlines ban bringing cans of surströmming on board due to the highly pressurised can. Because of the bacteria that cause the fermentation of the fish, the pressure inside the can rises. As a result, when the can is brought onto an airplane that flies at high altitudes, the cans occasionally explode.
And, trust me- nobody wants to be trapped in an airplane that reeks of surströmming.
wednesday. the fireworks concert.
I arrived early for the fireworks concert after I had gotten dinner and organised my affairs. At the front of KTH were a group of musicians, somewhat disbanded at the moment. I'm not sure that all six were standing there when I arrived, but it was supposed to be a sextet, according to the brochure we had been handed on the concert schedule: Upplands-Brosextetten.
There was still plenty of space to sit when I got there, fortunately. I met up with friends and joined them where they had staked out a decent place to listen, although the bushes in the middle all but completely blocked our view. Later, more people arrived, and then the view of the stage was completely gone. But we were there for the music and the fireworks, not so much to see the stage at every moment. Unfortunately, the first few acts were not so loud, and they were difficult to hear over the din of the crowd.
It was actually nice to hear some of the local (and non-local) musicians from around the area. Most came from somewhere in Stockholm county, with the exception of the sextet from Uppland. I'm not sure if there was any other group that was from outside of Stockholm.
At some point during the concert, I noticed a few people standing up on the roof of one of the buildings. Since I didn't have the guts to perch precariously on the edge of a windowsill like many were doing from the sidelines, I thought maybe I could make it to the top in time for the fireworks. I bade a temporary farewell to my friends and fought my way through the mob of people on the staircase, but I stopped where there was sufficient space at the top centre of the steps. And so I remained there for the last song before the fireworks show began.
The first few fireworks were all small, not much more than a spark and burst of light, but as the music became more intense and reached the peak of the song, the larger fireworks were shot off into the night sky.
It was a very unique and cool experience. I've never seen a fireworks concert before (fyrverkerikonsert), and this orchestra has been performing for quite a while. They were also formed in Stockholm, if I understood correctly, and they perform every year at KTH. Stora Fyrverkeriorkestern, as they're known, which translates to "The Great Fireworks Orchestra". Technically, stora can be translated as "big/large" or "great" in the same sense, so take your pick for how you'd like to translate it.
Above: I don't know if this video will work, but you can try clicking on it to see if it will play. Just a short clip from the concert.
I thought both the orchestra and their pyrotechnic(s) did a phenomenal job. It's not something you have the opportunity to see every day. I believe the pyrotechnics come from the Royal School of Pyrotechnics or something... I don't remember exactly what it's called, nor do I know of anyone who attends there.
The subway station was, of course, jam-packed with people heading back, and so I squeezed my way through and headed back to my dorm.
thursday. matlab.
I had lab for the Matlab course on Thursday morning. Luckily, people were outside the tunnelbana stop with a cart full of promotional raspberry cottage-cheese-like yoghurts- I hadn't had the time for breakfast before I left, so I gratefully took the sample and ate on my way to class.
Found an easter egg in Matlab... For anyone who uses Matlab and is interested: if you type in "why", it generates random answers. And you can keep doing so, too. You can generate an exact answer if you type "why(number)" to access a specific "why" in the database :)
It turns out the teaching assistant speaks Romanian (I could tell from his name), and so I thanked him in Romanian on my way out of the classroom at the end. He seemed pleasantly surprised.
I went to the cafeteria within my department building, since it was so close by.
Above: The department restaurant menu. If you look really closely at some of the English translations, you'll see some understandable but incorrect words :P
I feel as if that should be an adjective that can be used to describe people, too: "Stop being so vegetably!"
The food was actually pretty good for its price, considering I didn't have a student card or anything with me that day.
Toward evening-tide, I went out to walk to Ulriksdal castle with a friend. The setting sun streaked lines of red and orange through the dense forest, and my phone photos don't do it justice.
I went to get soup from the Thai restaurant for dinner.
After dinner, I headed back to my building. On the way, I passed by some small animal shuffling around on the concrete outside one of the buildings. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a hedgehog, or an igelkott in Swedish. The poor little thing was confused and walking into the complex, so once I had determined that it wasn't rabid, I approached it in an attempt to shoo it away.
Like a rabbit, the hedgehob simply froze in place and twitched its nose a little at me, too afraid to move. So I waited patiently and tapped my foot against the wall to see if I could get it to run, but it still wouldn't budge.
Finally, I stepped back and it began waddling toward the inner part of the complex again. Then I approached it from more of a distance, and it turned around and scurried in the opposite direction. I was only afraid it would end up in the middle of the area where all the children are, and someone might be scared and try to touch it or kill it.
And so, I felt somewhat successful once I had gotten it to move back into the wilderness.
friday. östermalmstorg and a chance of northern lights.
I decided to do a little walk around Östermalmstorg. I ended up at that restaurant where they speak svengelska (Swenglish, whatever you want to call it) again. This time, they were open for their (incredible) lunch buffet. As one of the employees put it, they had a number of dishes available, and also the day's "vegetarisk food". I paid up front, and there was no reason to växla pengar this time ;)
Their buffet really was impressive.
Two guys with violins were outside by the time I had finished eating. They sounded American by their English, although I couldn't be absolutely sure, and they talked with each other about what they were supposed to play or how they were supposed to do it. One of the residents who must live in the apartments above the ground level was sitting in his windowsill to listen to the violinists.
There was even more surströmming at another grocery store I went to. Still nope.
Because of the solar flare a few days ago, there was a high chance of seeing the northern lights (norrskenet) from as far south as Denmark. Central Stockholm has too much light, so a group from my building decided we would go out to Ulriksdal castle at 2 in the morning to see if we could spot the aurora.
Unfortunately, it was too overcast to see much of anything, even if the lights were directly overhead, and there was still a fair degree of light pollution from the city across the water (not central Stockholm, but a city nonetheless). However, I did get a decent photo of the moon for my efforts. I also got to meet the other people who live in my building, which is a sort of nice way to be social (since I really haven't spoken much to anyone outside of my corridor, and barely even that).
I decided I would go to the loppis at one of the other housing complexes, the one closest to Stockholm University. It's really not so close to the tunnelbana station by way of walking. I walked there and only then did I realise how far out it is. It is also huge, as people have told me, and it's fairly easy to get lost if you aren't paying attention.
By the time I arrived, the loppis was already finished, and so I caught a bus back. I had to hope it was the right one, since I had absolutely no clue where each bus line ran from there, and that happened to be the only bus line running from that stop.
Fortunately, I ended up in the right place in the end, and took the subway back to my dorm.
A friend was visiting in town, so we had pizza and watched some episodes of Welcome to Sweden for a while. I also probably disturbed my neighbours by demonstrating the nyckelharpa late at night (sorry, guys! förlåt!)... Although I generally don't play nyckelharpa past 20.00 or so, for obvious reasons.
sunday. hötorget.
Since I'm at the Hötorget loppis every Sunday, the guy from the CD/DVD booth knows who I am :P This time, I managed to find four box sets of Beck for 100 SEK ($15 in the US) and that pretty much made my day.
There's a funny assortment of things you can find at Hötorget. Most of the time, it's the same sellers, but occasionally someone new shows up.
The painting below is NSFW if you're in a particularly conservative country, but it was the front display painting at the market, so. :P Welcome to Sweden.
There was a man selling a violin at an antiques booth. I asked him how much it was, and he told me it was 1500 kr, and a very old violin. So I looked at the label inside, where it read Nicolaus Amatus fecit Cremona 1680. I did some Google-research on it, and was able to determine that 80 was most likely the copy number (not part of a date), and that the violin was likely made in either the Czech Republic or in Germany in the mid- to late 1800s. As such, it would not be an original Amati violin, which is held at a value of $35000 today.
Another prospective buyer came by the violin and picked it up and tried to play it like a guitar, at which point the seller yanked it backed and shouted that it was no longer for sale.
Sometimes, I can't help but wonder if the people in my complex who get their laundry stolen should come to Hötorget to see if they can find their clothes... Not that I don't trust the guys who are selling these used clothes, but... I have no idea what else one would do with someone else's laundry, other than sell them.
There was a new booth this time- a man who was of Zimbabwean origin, but had been living here for quite some time. He was perfectly fluent in English and very fluent in Swedish as well. He was selling stone amulets that he would string onto cords and add beads at the customer's request to make necklaces. "Each charm symbolises something different," he told us. "The tortoise, for example, stands for wisdom. If you have one you like, I can translate it for you."
I asked him where they came from, out of curiosity. "I carve them myself," he said, holding up some of the carving tools sitting on the edge of the table. "I go back to Zimbabwe every two or so years, and bring back this stone with me. And then I carve them here and sell them. They each come in different colours. I polish them with wax so the true colour of the stone can come out. As you can see here, some are brown and some are grey, and some are more black."
I ended up buying a black scorpion amulet necklace from him. "The scorpion is a protector," he told me. "It is a symbol of protection."
Incidentally, I took a photo or two of the booth as he finished making the necklace for me. However, those photos have completely disappeared from my phone, so I'll make do with just this story, instead...
For dinner, I decided to try the place called Holy Monkey! in Central Station. The dumplings were pretty good (but pretty expensive).
I went back up to Sergels Torg to find a café where I could sit for a while and work on Swedish homework, and saw a boot plastered to the other side of the glass. I'm not really sure what was holding it to the window, nor did I particularly want to know, and so I took a photo and left :P
Have a great week, everyone, and I'll post again next week!
Mvh
/The Swedish Fish
P.S. The Swedish elections finished on 14 September, and the results of the tallied votes were a majority for Socialdemokraterna (the Social Democrats), with Nya Moderaterna (the New Moderate Party) and Sverigedemokraterna (the Sweden Democrats) coming in at second and third most votes. For more information on the current change in office, see the following article: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/15/sweden-social-democrats-election-victory?CMP=twt_gu
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