före veckan
I forgot to post about my late-night poetry session last week when I was driven- out of desperation- to search for food rather late at night. By the time I got there, most places except for McDonald's had already closed, and McD's is definitely not my first choice.
But Stockholm is beautiful at night, and I wrote a poem on the ride back based on what I'd observed when walking around.
These have got to be some of the freakiest mannequins I've ever seen. They're cute in a way during the daytime, but at night they simply look creepy.
Somehow, despite the ever-vibrant air, Stockholm seems different at night. Not a small contribution is the fact that I now know where the homeless sleep. I thought perhaps some property owners allowed some of them to stay inside, especially during these colder times(and it will only get worse for them), but I was proven wrong that night.
WHERE GYPSIES SLUMBER*
The darkness swallows the day,
Engulfs it in a sombre cloak;
Vitrines shine brightly, invitingly,
With pinprick lights to illuminate the lifeless mannequins within.
Folks out for an evening wander
Roam the ever-cheery streets of Stockholm,
Passing by lightless windows and locked doors.
Electronic advertisements dance and frolic to inaudible music,
Tapping their fleeting feet in tune with the city's heartbeat
As alleyways spiral and tunnel into the murk,
Far from the bustling sidewalks:
This is where gypsies slumber.
Patterned cloths of vibrant hues
Thick enough to warm the heart,
But not the body
Drape heavily over their somnolent forms.
Somewhere below where they lay,
The metro rumbles them to sleep,
Spinning a blur of hazy dreams into their heads.
Somewhere below their makeshift beds,
Echoes of the underground rails
Sound throughout the intricate network
That lies beneath the city.
This is where gypsies slumber.
Footfalls land on the damp pavement
Outside the gates of a church.
Only the watchful statues
Are witness to the never-ending activity,
Their gazes ever frozen
And cursed to look onward
Toward a place that, for them, is never attainable,
And yet so near.
This is where gypsies slumber.
Photo and poem by the writer of this blog © 2014
denna vecka
I have a random assortment of photos from Week 41, as nothing particularly out of the ordinary happened, besides the folk music concert on Monday again. I will caption as needed :)
The week was dreary and damp every day, often raining or drizzling; and even when it was not raining, the ground was wet, and fallen leaves clung to the pavement.
I took a photo of a tiny leaf on the ground outside one of the buildings in my complex.
As aforementioned, the music school had another folk music concert. This time, it was the students who performed. They chose various songs from the Finnish writer Adolf Iwar Arwidsson's Svenska Fornsånger, a compilation of Swedish music in a series of three parts (books) from the mid-1800s, and performed unique interpretations of the pieces. (Look up Arwidsson on Wikipedia for more information about his life, if you are interested; he was primarily known as a political journalist.)
Almost the entire student body in the folk music department was present at the performance, and they did a beautiful job with their renditions of Arwidsson's compilation. After the concert, I talked to one of the nyckelharpa players (surprisingly, there was more than one- three, in fact) and she told me that she teaches at the Sensus centre at Medborgarplatsen. She offered for me to join her nyckelharpa course as well, at one of the intermediate levels, and so I thought I would give it a try.
Nobody minded when I practised nyckelharpa outside of Nymble one the afternoon. One person walked by and actually smiled at me, and two others ignored me. Nobody else was out there, and so I had plenty of time to work on my playing a little before the nyckelharpa course that evening at Medborgarplatsen (which went surprisingly well; I'm the only non-Swede and the youngest in the class, and there are only five of us, but I did perfectly fine with the level we were required to have in terms of playing skills).
Fall leaves are changing colours everywhere, not just at KTH. Some people have been posting vivid tree colours from Djurgården, so I have a mind to go down on a decent day and take some photos before all the leaves fall off.
Thursday was freebie day. I got yoghurts on the way in and out, as well as on Friday on the way in and out from campus. I was to meet up with a friend at Nymble on Thursday, but there was something like a media technology career fair, and so we ended up talking to employers and grabbing goodies from the tables for half of lunch break instead :P
Even my penguin and owls got goodies from the career fair. They had no complaints.
I went busking on Friday. But I was too sheepish to go out and play the nyckelharpa loudly, since I was afraid of embarrassing myself. It actually would have gone fine, if I hadn't interrupted myself so many times by looking up from my spot to see who was actually paying attention. I also didn't pick the most public spot where I'd make any money whatsoever (and so I didn't). But a friend and I agreed to go later to Gamla Stan to see if I'd gain a bigger audience (and I switched out for a guitar).
At least I figured out that it is indeed possible to fit the nyckelharpa in the guitar case for portability purposes. It's just a lot easier because the guitar case has backpack straps, and it's padded enough that the nyckelharpa is decently safe (I added extra foam just to be sure).
The radical contrast in the leaf colours on the side of the KTH buildings are likely due to the urban environment, as aforementioned. It may also have to do with which side of the buildings face the sun for the most part of the day. Either way, it's gorgeous.
And so, I lugged my guitar to Gamla Stan, passing other buskers (one guy with pedals to loop his electric guitar tracks, so I tried not to stand too close to him because he was loud and obviously attracting more attention than I would).
I never noticed how many people leave padlocks on the bridge gates in Gamla Stan. Mostly couples, and I can't help but wonder if they ever come back to check, or if they come back to cut off the locks if/when they break up. Most of the dates were recent, within the past year or two. So maybe they are regularly removed.
Met up with my friend by the station, and then we went off to find a decent place that wasn't already taken up by another busker. Not having a strap for my guitar made the situation a bit more difficult, and I've since bought a strap so I can stand wherever I want and play the guitar, without having to lean against a wall or sit down.
By a bit under two hours later, I'd made just under 100 SEK, so I was proud of myself. I got paid for standing and holding the guitar for a moment while I checked my phone, too, which was pretty funny. My friend joked that I could simply stand there and hold the guitar and use my phone all day, and still make money.
He played a few numbers, too, and honestly I would have paid him if I'd been passing by. Perhaps he didn't go long enough, or during the crowd flow (it was rather late in the day already).
Later that night, we returned to Gamla Stan to listen to some blues and jazz performances at some of the bars. The first one was too crowded to get far inside, so we moved to another bar and listened for most of the remainder of the performance until we decided to head to the subway. And then, we had to wait half an hour for our train, so we went back to the first venue to hear the end of that performance instead. :P
I quite liked the songs we heard, although some of the guitar solos were admittedly a bit too long (three guitars, one bass, drums and a singer, and each of the two electric guitars took a solo for five minutes). Toward the end, the drummer got to solo, too.
Art supply stores will be the death of me. The one in central Stockholm has a fantastic selection of everything I could possibly need.
I even found some angel wings at the art store, so I used a wire fastener to hold them onto my penguin :) Now he has a Halloween costume.
I tested out a set of pens I bought at the art store :P Scribbled something like a ship.
Sunday was the day where the Citybana station in central Stockholm was to be shown, the tunnel itself starting in Blasieholmen and extending to Vasastan. Odenplan is the next station to be built, and the entire system is estimated to be done in three years from now.
Our tunnel walk went around in a small circle and only took an hour, but we got free fika and a free balloon at the end (for those of us who pretend we're children, anyway) :P I went with two friends.
The queue was quite long at the start, although I think it was longer behind us than in front. We were given hardhats and reflective vests for safety purposes. The little children were given vests that said, "When I grow up, I'll take the Citybana to work!"
Although the construction plans did not involve algae growing on the walls, it snuck in (airborne, I'm guessing) and grew in the damp parts of the tunnels. There was even a note about it at some point.
Free coffee/tea/cinnamon buns, and we ran into another friend here. By now, there was no queue at all, despite that the tunnels would be open for another three or so hours of entry. I suppose we all assumed it would be a ridiculously long wait later in the day, and so we all showed up around 10.30. The actual viewing began at 11.00 and would end at 15.00.
I thought the Miyazaki graffiti here was actually pretty awesome, and I'd be hesitant to even call it graffiti.
As you can see, it was a good day for strolling underground, as opposed to above-ground. It rained later in the day.
I had actually brought my penguin in my backpack to the tour, and completely forgot to take any photos with him. So I made do with a photo of him in front of the balloon I got, instead. :P
And so, I'll conclude this post with a close-up I got of some valves in the Citybana tunnel :)
/The Swedish Fish
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