Daniel Ek, Ulrika Bodén, Sofia Sandén, Niklas Roswall
Olle Linder and Ulrika Bodén
Niklas Roswall on the moraharpa
And now on the nyckelharpa
Friday, December 19, 2008
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
The end of Mum and Emma's visit:
Manon was kind enough to take us on a drive, after another delicious lunch at Öfre Slotts! So out we went under another grey sky, heading toward Viks Slott for an unexpected second visit.
My future home:
The two greatest people on the planet:
Later that night, while the present 2/5 Sando went to a (late) Luciadag concert, I went with Manon and Kyle to a goodbye party that the Japanese girls (L-R, Hiroka, Kino, Mari) were hosting. It was really sweet, an enormous amount of home-made Japanese food and desert.
Öfre Slotts Cafe, fika place of my idolatry.
So, the next day Mother and Emma decided to stay in Uppsala and we went to Naturreservat (Erik's Barrow). There was so much frost that day and it covered everything up to the trees. Very beautiful. I was glad that the sun finally decided to make it's token weekly appearance so that my family got to see Sweden in the sun.
On Erik's Barrow, we met a small old man pacing the top of the barrow in a circle. As soon as we hit the top, he steered right for us and began to ramble in Swedish about the history of the tomb. Apparently, it was built in the bronze age, roughly 1000-1500 years before the Gamla Uppsala mounds, and there was an excavation done on the mound in 1902 (? maybe...) and they found a lot of bronze objects and a sword. So, below, mother Olsen and Emma with Erikshög in the background: (I believe you can even see the old man on the top!)
Manon was kind enough to take us on a drive, after another delicious lunch at Öfre Slotts! So out we went under another grey sky, heading toward Viks Slott for an unexpected second visit.
My future home:
The two greatest people on the planet:
Later that night, while the present 2/5 Sando went to a (late) Luciadag concert, I went with Manon and Kyle to a goodbye party that the Japanese girls (L-R, Hiroka, Kino, Mari) were hosting. It was really sweet, an enormous amount of home-made Japanese food and desert.
Öfre Slotts Cafe, fika place of my idolatry.
So, the next day Mother and Emma decided to stay in Uppsala and we went to Naturreservat (Erik's Barrow). There was so much frost that day and it covered everything up to the trees. Very beautiful. I was glad that the sun finally decided to make it's token weekly appearance so that my family got to see Sweden in the sun.
On Erik's Barrow, we met a small old man pacing the top of the barrow in a circle. As soon as we hit the top, he steered right for us and began to ramble in Swedish about the history of the tomb. Apparently, it was built in the bronze age, roughly 1000-1500 years before the Gamla Uppsala mounds, and there was an excavation done on the mound in 1902 (? maybe...) and they found a lot of bronze objects and a sword. So, below, mother Olsen and Emma with Erikshög in the background: (I believe you can even see the old man on the top!)
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Kiruna
Kiruna is a town of about 25000 in Swedish Lapland that lies well within the arctic circle. It's a mining town but attracts a lot of attention from outsiders as well. The impression that it leaves can't easily be put into words, but undeniably it's one of the most visually extreme places in the world. We arrived at one in the afternoon as evening was rolling in, closing off their two hours of daylight (this itself a pale evening). Immediately impressive was the sheer amount of snow, impossible to imagine, that encases everything there. The branches of tree carry mounds of snow and a fan-like, broad-crystalled frost that runs the entire length of the trunk. The place felt like something that shouldn't possibly exist in reality - there was an aspect of it that felt, for an outsider at least, purely imaginative.
The mountains from the plane:
At Kiruna airport:
We arrived under a full moon and an utterly clear sky. During the night, the combination of moon and snow made for a lovely, pale world, especially when we were in the forest.
The forest from a distance:
That night, we went out dogsledding, in roughly 25 below, celsius, -13 fahrenheit. Our guide was a pleasantly gruff Swedish man generally disinclined to speak but, when asked about sledding, was perfectly willing to offer anecdotes about the various races he'd ranked in. I really liked him. As for the dogsledding itself, I'd been apprehensive but it proved a pretty tight operation and certainly a new experience. The guide seemed used to slinging tourists about and treated us sort of like baggage, in a nice and blunt way.
Day two:
A cloudy day. It snowed for the next twenty four hours and the cloud cover darkened the day further. A ski tour, sweet but far from strenuous. Below, pine branches.
Forest on the hill.
On the ski trail.
Mamasita and Emmalinda.
Inside the warming hut.
More forest...
The third day we headed out on a snowshoe trip and were lucky to be the first on the trail, broke downhill past a quarry in the half-light and bent around a stubby, bald hill, then through some pine woods and further up hill until we lost the trail and then headed back. Walking around in the woods, one feels complete immersion in the surroundings. My sister spotted a large bird land on a hillside and when it passed over us again, we could see it was a raven. The actual sight of the black bird passing across a numb, grey-white sky makes one understand, on a purely impressionistic level, why it appears in the pantheon of almost every arctic indigenous culture. Anything that disturbs the stillness and whiteness registers so strongly.
So, home we went that afternoon. Upon landing alongside the damp, snowless Uppland forest, I felt a pang of familiarity. I don't know if I could live a functional life here, but this is definitely my home in a way outside of society. Particularly as I've begun to think about folklore and the oral/narrative history of the area, I've become close to it in a highly imaginative and very personal way. Although the notion of simply returning to the states has now shifted from unpleasant to frightening, I'm far more frightened of loosing the many inspirations I've taken from this place, whether it be specific ideas of the general sense of indepence, control and happiness that I've felt in being here. Although I'll give myself time to bitch and moan, I don't want my desire to be back in Sweden to turn into something that hinders from me remembering the things I'm taking from the experience.
In any event, more frivolous airplane photography:
Kiruna is a town of about 25000 in Swedish Lapland that lies well within the arctic circle. It's a mining town but attracts a lot of attention from outsiders as well. The impression that it leaves can't easily be put into words, but undeniably it's one of the most visually extreme places in the world. We arrived at one in the afternoon as evening was rolling in, closing off their two hours of daylight (this itself a pale evening). Immediately impressive was the sheer amount of snow, impossible to imagine, that encases everything there. The branches of tree carry mounds of snow and a fan-like, broad-crystalled frost that runs the entire length of the trunk. The place felt like something that shouldn't possibly exist in reality - there was an aspect of it that felt, for an outsider at least, purely imaginative.
The mountains from the plane:
At Kiruna airport:
We arrived under a full moon and an utterly clear sky. During the night, the combination of moon and snow made for a lovely, pale world, especially when we were in the forest.
The forest from a distance:
That night, we went out dogsledding, in roughly 25 below, celsius, -13 fahrenheit. Our guide was a pleasantly gruff Swedish man generally disinclined to speak but, when asked about sledding, was perfectly willing to offer anecdotes about the various races he'd ranked in. I really liked him. As for the dogsledding itself, I'd been apprehensive but it proved a pretty tight operation and certainly a new experience. The guide seemed used to slinging tourists about and treated us sort of like baggage, in a nice and blunt way.
Day two:
A cloudy day. It snowed for the next twenty four hours and the cloud cover darkened the day further. A ski tour, sweet but far from strenuous. Below, pine branches.
Forest on the hill.
On the ski trail.
Mamasita and Emmalinda.
Inside the warming hut.
More forest...
The third day we headed out on a snowshoe trip and were lucky to be the first on the trail, broke downhill past a quarry in the half-light and bent around a stubby, bald hill, then through some pine woods and further up hill until we lost the trail and then headed back. Walking around in the woods, one feels complete immersion in the surroundings. My sister spotted a large bird land on a hillside and when it passed over us again, we could see it was a raven. The actual sight of the black bird passing across a numb, grey-white sky makes one understand, on a purely impressionistic level, why it appears in the pantheon of almost every arctic indigenous culture. Anything that disturbs the stillness and whiteness registers so strongly.
So, home we went that afternoon. Upon landing alongside the damp, snowless Uppland forest, I felt a pang of familiarity. I don't know if I could live a functional life here, but this is definitely my home in a way outside of society. Particularly as I've begun to think about folklore and the oral/narrative history of the area, I've become close to it in a highly imaginative and very personal way. Although the notion of simply returning to the states has now shifted from unpleasant to frightening, I'm far more frightened of loosing the many inspirations I've taken from this place, whether it be specific ideas of the general sense of indepence, control and happiness that I've felt in being here. Although I'll give myself time to bitch and moan, I don't want my desire to be back in Sweden to turn into something that hinders from me remembering the things I'm taking from the experience.
In any event, more frivolous airplane photography:
Four days ago, Mother and Emma Sando bravely crossed the Atlantic for the sake of visiting their estranged kin in Uppsala. After meeting them the day before, we briefly toured Uppsala and then headed for Stockholm.
On the hill by the castle:
Some nice buildings in Stortorget on Gamla Stan:
Mother and Emma in G:la Stan.
We spent until night in Stockholm, "doing" very little, mostly absorbing the city. Then in the evening we went to a concert given by the greatest folk band in history, Ranarim, who had just released a new album. I was astonished and pleased to hear how much of their speaking I understood. Below, my future husband:
On the hill by the castle:
Some nice buildings in Stortorget on Gamla Stan:
Mother and Emma in G:la Stan.
We spent until night in Stockholm, "doing" very little, mostly absorbing the city. Then in the evening we went to a concert given by the greatest folk band in history, Ranarim, who had just released a new album. I was astonished and pleased to hear how much of their speaking I understood. Below, my future husband:
Stockholm
As our collective time here winds down in Sweden, Kyle, Manon and I have sought adventures closer to home, including a recent overnight trip to Stockholm. We slept on a boat!! And fortunately, this boat (permanently docked) was on Södermalm, which allowed us the chance to explore another part of the city we had previously only seen across the bay.
Below, from Skansen. I had heard many great things about Skansen, and ultimately these reports tempted me out of my touristically misanthropic hole and we went there, but I found it claustrophobic and uninteresting (beyond being a tourist trap). The attraction consists of recreated or directly transported Swedish homes from across the country, some three hundred years old. These themselves were beautiful, but pretty odd detached from their original context. One had the feeling of being in a mildly more mossy story-land. In any event, I really like this house and am going to live in one like it one day:
The square between Riksdag and the palace (neither in this shot).
Buildings on the side of Gamla Stan that faces Södermalm.
A view of Södermalm from G:la Stan.
Gamla Stan from Södermalm
The morning view from our porthole in the cabin:
Stockholm by night - one of my favorite things to see so far. The water that separates the sections of the city allows one to see it from a distance and be in it at once, a wonderful sense of perspective and immersion. This is up to Kungsholmen, where Stadhuset stands, and the mainland of Stockholm.
Stockholm lights. Certainly all shopping streets (and more) are hung with varying kinds of lights and the blue buildings on the right are actually lit and shift color over time.
Although this Christmas tree is huge, we wouldn't have found it if, walking along the south eastern rim of Gamla Stan, I hadn't caught sight of its reflection in the window. And, although enormous Christimas trees generally don't interest me, the reflection of the lights in the windows of the building (the tree itself out of sight) was really lovely - at first there was no guessing what made the lights there and it looked like gems in the windows. Anyways, for the christmas trees out there, this tree is the tallest christmas tree in the world.
Gamla Stan at night seen from Södermalm.
Our evening view when we arrived the first day.
Strömsborg
Prästgatan in Gamla Stan.
The boat is sighted from across the water! (Kyle gestures!)
Sundry Uppsala:
Domkyrkan in the fog.
Julmarknad at Halusalen
Domkyrkan during the Julmarknad
The christmas tree in the square below my window.
As our collective time here winds down in Sweden, Kyle, Manon and I have sought adventures closer to home, including a recent overnight trip to Stockholm. We slept on a boat!! And fortunately, this boat (permanently docked) was on Södermalm, which allowed us the chance to explore another part of the city we had previously only seen across the bay.
Below, from Skansen. I had heard many great things about Skansen, and ultimately these reports tempted me out of my touristically misanthropic hole and we went there, but I found it claustrophobic and uninteresting (beyond being a tourist trap). The attraction consists of recreated or directly transported Swedish homes from across the country, some three hundred years old. These themselves were beautiful, but pretty odd detached from their original context. One had the feeling of being in a mildly more mossy story-land. In any event, I really like this house and am going to live in one like it one day:
The square between Riksdag and the palace (neither in this shot).
Buildings on the side of Gamla Stan that faces Södermalm.
A view of Södermalm from G:la Stan.
Gamla Stan from Södermalm
The morning view from our porthole in the cabin:
Stockholm by night - one of my favorite things to see so far. The water that separates the sections of the city allows one to see it from a distance and be in it at once, a wonderful sense of perspective and immersion. This is up to Kungsholmen, where Stadhuset stands, and the mainland of Stockholm.
Stockholm lights. Certainly all shopping streets (and more) are hung with varying kinds of lights and the blue buildings on the right are actually lit and shift color over time.
Although this Christmas tree is huge, we wouldn't have found it if, walking along the south eastern rim of Gamla Stan, I hadn't caught sight of its reflection in the window. And, although enormous Christimas trees generally don't interest me, the reflection of the lights in the windows of the building (the tree itself out of sight) was really lovely - at first there was no guessing what made the lights there and it looked like gems in the windows. Anyways, for the christmas trees out there, this tree is the tallest christmas tree in the world.
Gamla Stan at night seen from Södermalm.
Our evening view when we arrived the first day.
Strömsborg
Prästgatan in Gamla Stan.
The boat is sighted from across the water! (Kyle gestures!)
Sundry Uppsala:
Domkyrkan in the fog.
Julmarknad at Halusalen
Domkyrkan during the Julmarknad
The christmas tree in the square below my window.
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