Springtime in Sweden

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It is June in Sweden, which means that optimistically it is summer and so the heat has been turned off.  This does not mean, however, that it is warm.  I know that they are selling cute sundresses in all the stores, but that is mere hopefulness.  It has been cold enough that my hands have gone numb in the morning while working.  Well, technically that has happened in Hawaii too, so it doesn’t say much.

Still, it gives me an excuse to wear my very handy furry gloves that I bought in Taipei even though I knew I would never have many places to wear them in Hawaii.

I did wear them once there, to a themed birthday party at a bowling alley where we were all supposed to come dressed as a vegetable.  Well, I thought we were supposed to come as vegetables.  So I came as a carrot – and these gloves were my stem, which I could demonstrate by putting my hands above my head while wearing an orange dress and wiggling my hands around.

Sadly, it turned out the theme of the party was to come as your favorite drink. 

I only discovered this much later because nobody could figure out how my costume related to the theme. 

Anyway, I am wearing my green fuzzy hand warmers for a real purpose now.

Spring also means graduation. 

The University graduation was quite formal – and by quite formal I mean really formal – men in full tuxedos and women in formal gowns.  It has caused an enormous traffic jam for many days since people don’t bike in formal wear and so they have to rent taxis and limos and drive cars and get dropped off and stuff.

High school graduation was even more celebratory.  The first indication I had that something was going on was the music outside my office window that was so loud I thought it might break the glass and then I would have to explain it wasn’t my fault that the glass broke and you could tell because the glass was on the inside.

I was a bit puzzled initially about the cause of the music –multiple dump trucks blasting dance music, driving in circles around the city center filled with young people in suits, wearing white hats like the one the Captain on the Love Boat wore, and blowing whistles. 

I really had no idea what was going on.

So, it turns out that in Sweden you celebrate graduating from high school by dressing up, getting into a dump truck, driving around town with dance music and blowing your whistle and waving at people while wearing a white hat like the one from the Love Boat. 

Warning: Evidently this says something obscene I have been told, but I was not told what it says. 

 

Sometimes you do this in cars too. 

Everyone has hats. 

And whistles.

I’m guessing there might have been a bit of drinking going on too … but that is just speculation.

This past week also marks the final presentation for the DigiTrust group and we had a nice turnout for the seminar.  It was mostly in Swedish, so I contented myself with translating the powerpoint slides using Google translate as people spoke so I could sort of figure out what was going on.  My part was of course in English and then we had a group conversation in English at the end.  

Also a very nice fruit tart.

I went into Malmo with one of my colleagues on Friday and we took her 11-year old son to the climbing gym.   I don't have pictures from the gym, which was in an indoor soccer (football) stadium, but I did take some pictures of Malmo graffiti.  Besides rocks, doors, lampposts, I like taking pictures of graffiti. 

I got to see a bit more of Malmo, take the bus, and go to a Cuban restaurant where they served us each ½ a chicken.  Getting ½ a chicken is turning into a theme for me.

The menu said it came with vegetables....

Earlier in the week I had decided I was going to take a day trip to Gothenburg on Saturday because 1) I really like taking the train and 2) I had heard Gothenburg was an awesome city and I wanted to see it for myself.  Also, 3) I figured there was a chance I might be able to buy some sailing shoes there since it is near the water and seems like a sailing type of city.

I had learned my lesson about getting to my destination too early after arriving in Ystad at 7:00 am, so I arrived at the much more civilized time of 10:30.  Things were open and the information center was conveniently in the mall across the street from the train station. 

I asked about where to buy sailing shoes at the information center.  This might be the first time anyone asked this particular question.

The nice woman who was helping me didn’t know, but the sent me to the North Face Store, which had the advantage of not being in the mall.

So I left the mall and wandered towards the North Face Store, which I knew wouldn’t have sailing shoes but might be more likely to know where to get them.

The nice woman at the North Face Store sent me to the outdoor street mall with no particular store in mind. 

I found a local sailing clothing company but they didn’t sell shoes, only really expensive jackets, probably to non-sailors and rich people.  Though to be honest I would have bought one if I could have convinced myself I needed a jacket, which I don’t.

The nice woman there sent me to a non-existent competitor.

I finally wandered into the local equivalent of an REI.  I knew there would be no sailing shoes here, but I feel at home in climbing stores and I like to look at climbing stuff.

I talked to a very nice clerk who convinced me not to buy the rubber boots they had as sailing shoes.  Reminding me again that Sweden isn’t so good at the capitalism thing.  Someone else who worked there thought he knew of a sailing store somewhere and was able to draw a little dot on my map to give me a sense of where I should look.

We talked about climbing for a while and I bought some socks and stuff because they were nice to me.

Then I was hungry.  It takes a lot of effort to wander around shopping areas talking to strangers.

So I went to a nice café and ordered a salad by pointing to someone else and saying I wanted what they were eating.  Otherwise I probably would have ended up with ½ a chicken.  I got a glass of wine and sat there and enjoyed the sun.  

 It was a beautiful day.

Where I ate lunch

After my lengthy lunch I set out to find the sailing store.  After all, this goal provided a direction to my city wandering.

There is a canal system running through the city with a nice park and bike paths along it because like all the other cities in Sweden so far, it is very bike and pedestrian friendly. 

Middle of Gothenburg

Major road

This is a fishmarket in a building that looks like a church

I think all cities should build these lounge chairs

And I found the sailing store!  And it had boots!  But it had closed 10 minutes earlier, at 2:00 PM.  Not so much about capitalism here.

Freed of the need to buy anything, I continued to wander through a really neat little shopping district I think was called Haga, then up some stairs to a castle structure on a hill overlooking the city.   

I had to take a picture of this -- a small park dedicated to "Mr. Flower Power"

This is Mr. Flower Power's park...

How could you not want to know where this went?

View of the city from the top of the stairs

More view

Turns out this is where I was...

The fine print

It had military applications of course, being on a hill and all

I just added this because of the spiral staircase

Then past the University and back towards the main city center and down to the harbor and back to the mall by the train station and then back to the train station where I ended up buying more books to weigh down my luggage.  

I just love the street views....

View from below

University I think...

Clearly the University

I like taking pictures of public are too... along with the other things I like taking picture of

Light Post

Canal

This is by the train station -- more public art

Human habitrail

Opera House

Big Boat

I feel they will regret this architectural choice in about 10 years...

I would have a GPS map of the entire walk but since I left it on during my extended lunch break it ran out of batteries around the sailing store.

Gothenburg was not a city to see in one day but my time was up and I headed for home because Sunday was for bouldering!

I have not climbed outside yet because I don’t have any climbing gear, bouldering pads, a car or a climbing partner.  Earlier this week I had been talking to Jan, one of my new climbing buddies, about wanting to go outside and he had said he knew someone who had a car and knew where the bouldering area was.

However, that fell through.

Then, we were at the gym and he wandered off and talked to some folks about going outside.  There was a group going on Sunday and we were all of a sudden part of the group.

It turned out we could borrow bouldering pads from the climbing gym.  I didn’t know exactly who Jan had talked to, but evidently this mystery person had access to a car – his Dad’s car.

The trip would have to start after lunch on Sunday because the person with access to the car had to help his Dad with the lawn in the morning.  Not in the sense of “I’m going by my parent’s house to help them out with their yardwork,” but in the sense of, “You can go climbing once you finish the yardwork.” 

Now, one of my colleagues here who is my age just got her driver’s license.  Lots of people don’t have cars.  It wasn’t necessarily the case that I had just signed on to a bouldering trip with a teenager, but it was looking likely.  

I was really not sure how to feel about this.

But I didn’t have a car and I really wanted to go bouldering. 

So, Sunday I arrived at the climbing gym and sat outside in the sun waiting for everyone to get there.

Swedish kitty

Jan biked up and went inside and came back out with Simon – who was the guide/car owner. 

 He looked like he is maybe fourteen. 

I had assumed the car would be at the gym, but we had to go get the car.

The “plan” was that all three of us would go get the car, but I said I would stay and guard the bouldering pads which were now sitting outside the gym because I couldn’t think of a reason why all three of us need to go get the car and I could think of lots of reasons why I wanted to go nowhere near Simon’s house.  

Bouldering Pads

When they returned, Jan was driving a minivan.

It did not take me long to figure out why Jan was driving and not Simon, even though it was Simon’s dad’s car. 

Simon is not old enough to have a driver’s license. 

At least I avoided meeting his parents who must be relatively relaxed and seemed ok with a total stranger showing up, taking their car and their teenager and going to a bouldering area in the woods an hour outside of town.

This tells you something about what the climbing community is like. 

Aside from the age spread (we had one person from every decade starting with teenager up until 40), it is a symbiotic group.  Simon needed a driver, we needed a guide; it all worked out.

I should also mention Simon is a kick ass boulderer.  

 Jan and Henry, the fourth in our group, have never bouldered outside, and I don’t really like bouldering, so we all represented older and less talented bouldering skills.

So, we all pile into the car and head off.

The bouldering area is in a nature preserve on the other side of Southern Sweden called Kjugekull.  

It is a really nice nature preserve with, evidently, over 1,000 bouldering problems, most of which are virtually impossible.

We worked it out so we went to Simon’s projects and then the three of us climbed the easy problems nearby.  Simon came and did ours too in between his, mostly to show us how to do them. 

I will admit they were quite fun and I had a blast. 

Simon was doing impossible things.

Jan, Henry and I played around on all the baby problems demonstrating that chronological age and bouldering skills can be inversely related. 

I was trying not to be the giant chicken I am when it comes to bouldering.

Too easy to even have a rating....

Labeled a "5" -- as a climb it was probably a 5.7

At one point after I had been standing on a slab with my foot positioned over a small smear for like 10 minutes, Simon just said, “come on, it isn’t that hard.”  Easy for him to say since he is a teenager with no fear of death and in possession of gecko hands and feet. 

Still, I understood this objectively and I wanted to prove to the teenager that I wasn’t completely useless as a boulderer. 

So I sucked it up and did it and of course he was right – wasn’t hard at all.  

It really was much more scary than it looks....

There were a lot of mosquitos, but fortunately they like Germans better and just ate Jan and Henry. 

As we were leaving, Simon declared how excited he would be to get his driver’s license so he could come here whenever he wanted to which Jan asked, “how old are you?” 

16.

We didn’t let him pay for gas, which because he is Swedish and has an innate sense of fairness made him uncomfortable.  I’ve learned that one of the important cultural markers of being Swedish is a sense of balance and fairness, which is obvious once it is pointed out to you. 

That being said, we did use his Dad’s car, his bouldering pads, and he had to put up with a bunch of bad adult boulderers for a day.

The things teenagers have to do to go climbing!  At least I managed to avoid meeting his parents, who were guaranteed to be my age.