My Summer Vacation - Part V - Art

There's a lot of public art in Stockholm. So I'm about to hit you with some photos.

We found ourselves at Sergels Torg a lot. It's in the middle of the city where there's a lot of bustling.


This is underneath the fountain at Sergels Torg:


Sodermalm is Stockholm's Brooklyn. With more time, we'd have spent more time exploring. There was a lot of cool there. This fountain was sorta weird:


The subways (Tunnelbana) aren't afraid to get in on the art action. All of these are underground, just on and around the platforms. The piano keys are on the ceiling of the escalator.





Not to be outdone, the Lutherans paint up their churches:


The Moderna Museet thinks this guy's art is pretty good, too!

My Summer Vacation - Part IV - The Light

This picture was taken in the archipelago about two hours north of Stockholm at 11:00pm. Dude. 11:00pm.

(I return to you, dear B&E readers, after what I will refer to a "Harry Potter break.")

The light is crazy in Sweden. And Swedes are understandably obsessed with it. In the summer, many Swedes are over-sunned and suffer from damage caused by UV rays. But they have to soak it up to prepare for the long winters.

The days were officially waning during our time (being after the summer solstice and all), but the sky never lost at least a little glow while we were there. The sun would dip below the horizon at about 11:00pm, hover out of sight for a few hours, and come back up by 3:00am. It's full-on daytime by 4:00am.

One morning, the missus and I woke up at 4:30am, convinced we'd slept the day away. Another day, we assumed it was again that early, and it turned out to be after noon. The light is confusing, dear B&E readers, and hard to get your head around, even when you're there.

Obviously, on the flip side of the summer days are the winter nights. Our kind Swedish host informed us that, on Christmas day, the sun barely peeks over the horizon to say hello before heading off to warmer climes.

From what I could gather, the Swedes are drunk and partying all summer. And they're drunk and suicidal all winter long. Sweden has the highest suicide rate in the world. But Finland has a higher rate of alcoholism. Maybe that'll be our next holiday.

My Summer Vacation - Part III.I - More Swedish Food

I forgot two little foodie tidbits. The missus and I spent about 24 hours in the archipelago north of Stockholm (more to come, dear B&E readers! And don't worry! I haven't forgotten to tell you about the Swedish ladies!). While there, we were in the company of a five-year-old. The five-year-old simply referred to us (in Swedish, of course) as "the guests." I think he liked us. He kept calling me a "thief" and putting me in "prison" (the kitchen pantry), and then he made this picture of the missus during dinner. I can assure you that the likeness is uncanny.


Actually, now that I think about it, maybe the five-year-old hated our guts.

The other little foodie tidbit also relates to the archipelago. In the woods behind our cabin lived about as many wild blueberries as I've ever seen in one place. They looked gorgeous, and ate even gorgeouslier.

My Summer Vacation - Part III - Swedish Food

While I didn't get to try a proper Swedish smörgåsbord (that shit's expensive, dear B&E readers, and the we were on a budget, yo), the food didn't disappoint. When the missus and I travel, we're as much about the food as the sights.

Thanks to the missus' mother (and the generosity of a friend of hers), we were hooked up with an apartment in Stockholm, so we even did a little grocery shopping. Gravlax, mustard dill gravlax sauce (sauce for gravlax!), herring in various sauces, pickled beets, potato salad, salami, turkey, cheese, flat bread, knackbread, mini-pancakes, blueberry jam, and yogurt drink.


A perfect plate of food:



An evening out resulted in some delicious traditional food: oysters, salmon, and meatballs in cream sauce.




When one gets excited about the meats found in a country, one is bound to feel a bit short on greens after a few days. So we got these salads (and gazpacho!) at the Moderna Museet (that's the Modern Art Museum in Swedish).


Not only were they fresh and delicious, but the cafe at the museet ("museum" in Swedish) offered fantastic views of Stockholm.


We learned that the band got its name from a readily available brand of herring.



We had dessert, too, of course. Violet ice cream, homemade waffle cones, chocolate balls (mm... balls...), and a fresh strawberry and butter cream pie with hardened meringue crust were the sweetish Swedish highlights. No pictures, though. We were too in-the-moment to think to break out the camera.

My Summer Vacation - Part II - The Stans

I broke a rule I've long lived by during My Summer Vacation. I visited one of the Stans.

There are many reasons to avoid traveling to the Stans. Civil war (and an unfortunate lack of vowels) in Kyrgystan. Al Qaeda camps and war in Afghanistan. Earthquakes and America-haters in Pakistan. Borat in Kazakhstan. God knows what in Uzbekistan and the Otherstans.

But there, in the middle of Stockholm, is the lovely Gamla Stan. In Swedish, it means "Old Town" or something seemingly non-threatening, but underneath the veneer of picturesque cobblestoned squares, there's darkness, dear B&E readers.

The missus and I shielded ourselves from whatever that dark cloud might be, for we rubbed the bald head of Stockholm's smallest public statue. It stands (sits, actually) at six inches, and in winter, ladies from the church (the statue is in the church's courtyard) knit caps for the little bugger to keep him warm. He kept the missus and I protected from the usual dangers associated with the Stans.

I simultaneously rubbed my own head for good measure.


Thanks to the protection of our duo of bald domes, we had a lovely day walking around the "Old Town." Yes, dear B&E readers, Gamla Stan seemed OK to me.

My Summer Vacation - Part I - Dreadlocks

The missus and I have returned from Sweden, and yes, dear B&E readers, there's much to report.

I think that white people who wear dreadlocks look ridiculous.

In college we sometimes called them Jafaicans or, more often, Trustafarians. But even when I had my luscious head of blond almost-locks, I thought white dudes in dreadlocks looked ridiculous.

As a bald man I still do. I assure you it's not jealousy. I really hate how they look on white people. I've known some very nice dreadlocked white boys (and occasional girls), and it's no reflection on who they are as people. They simply made an unfortunate decision that became a big enough commitment to keep them from being able to cut the fuckers off. Please, dreadlocked white people: cut the fuckers off.

If my lack of acceptance of dreadlocks on white people makes me a fuddy-duddy, so be it.

But what does this have to do with Sweden?

Even though one small town in southern Sweden has taken in more Iraqi refugees than the entire United States, Sweden is decidedly white. Not solely, of course, but when one lives in a diverse place like Queens, one notices overwhelming whiteness. And Sweden is overwhelmingly white. Sort of like Vermont.

And like the hippies in Vermont, many white Swedes have dreadlocks. Of the seven or so black people we saw in Stockholm only one had dreadlocks, and I would have to say that the same 7:1 ratio applies to the white Swedish boys.

Yes, exaggeration, etc., etc. But suffice to say there are a lot of white Swedish boys with dreadlocks. I had a different observation about the white Swedish women (stay tuned!).

You will have noticed that there's no dreadlocks-related photo to accompany the Part I report of My Summer Vacation. That's because there is one photo I wish I had been quick enough to capture on digi-film, but alas was not.

At a cross walk near Nybroplan (where one catches ferries to Djurgarden, etc.), a blond man biked by. He had dreadlocks. He was also balder than me. Shiny shiny shiny up top. Then shooting out of the sides of his head were bright blond dreadlocks.

As I found myself repulsed by the dreads and empathizing with the baldness, I was riveted by this vision of shiny-headed knotted hairdom. My feeble mind cannot grasp the contradiction and complexity of this Swedish cyclist.

Lycklig Juli Fjärde!

That's Swedish for Happy July Fourth. It's a literal translation from an online dictionary, so I fully expect that it won't make sense to an actual Swede.

You may be wondering why there's a Swedish tint to my Independence Day greetings. It's partially because Sweden is a year-and-a-half into its fifteen-year plan to remove oil from its economy. And it's partially because former Soviet spies live to be very old in Sweden.

But the primary reason, I admit, is that the missus and I will be traveling to Sweden in the relatively near future (not quite near enough for me), and I'm so excited I'm writing about it on our nation's birthday. Fireworks? Flying flags? John Philip Sousa? All terrific stuff. But my mind's already on the herring, venison, and smörgåsbord.

I've heard rumors that Stockholm is more than the sum of its food. Confirmation to come, dear B&E readers!

I have a hunch you can all look forward to seeing some delicious photos of Stockholm in the relatively near future.

For the Birds

If I had more time, I'd go into detail about the hypocrisy of President Bush's statement to the press regarding his commuting of Scooter Libby's prison sentence. After all, I don't think he had much concern for the families of all those death row inmates he killed while governor of Texas.

Instead I'll just point out that our kind president has now commuted the sentences of exactly six turkeys and one shitbird.