I’ve been home for a week now. I know, this is going to become confusing. I am not done with the travel stories, presently I’m writing on day 22. I will not be done for a couple of days yet. And I don’t want to confuse things by adding texts that are chronologically completely wrong. So, I will publish this once I’ve finished everything else, which means that the now here actually happened a couple of days ago. It’s Tuesday night, if that helps.

I’m at the summer house. Last Wednesday night, I got a fever. A very strange kind of fever, without the typical sore throat and nose issues. Just a fever, and the tingling ache in my entire body. It must have been the exhaustion from the trip, all that lack of sleep finally having caught up with me. But, excepting for those two days that it took for me to recover from the fever, I’ve been studying (glaciology, guys, life would be so easy if I wanted to become a glaciologist – but then, maybe that’s what it feels like with anything you could do, but don’t want to).  Hanging out with mom, and on Saturday I met both Jenny and Kirke. But now I’m at the summer house and the plan is that I should get some rest too, beside the continued studying.

Well, this just became boring. I had some kind of plan with this post, I was going somewhere, but I don’t know anymore. I guess I’m too tired. I can’t think straight. So I’ll sleep now.

I had big plans for my first day back home (23/7). I was going to study and unpack and pay bills and make lists. But, instead I spent it lying on my bed, reading the second book in the series about the teenage witches. It made me remember other summer days, spent with Harry Potter, Alanna, Aeriel and Bella Swan. There is something very relaxing about these days, spent in a bubble in imaginary worlds. And today also enlightening – that I am 25 and can still read myself into that kind of bubble. It’s good to know. In case I ever feel the need to escape, but have no TV shows available that seem to be worth my while (to be honest, they rarely are).

Lina has taken wonderful care of my basils and my parsley. The cilantro looks weird, like a weed, but still tastes as it should. I picked up my baby brother’s old phone, and now I’ve managed to collect the most important phone numbers.

Tomorrow, I’ll be good. Tomorrow, I’ll start with the studying and unpacking and bill paying and the list making. I promise.

I’m so tired, I think I’ll be able to sleep half the day away tomorrow. My bed is so wonderful. My sheets are so nice. My room is so quiet. And Lina made me dinner.

But, coming home: I realized, when the train was approaching, just before the central station, that Stockholm must have one of the most beautiful first impression glances of a city through the train windows when approaching the central station. The train tracks arriving from the south run straight through the heart of Stockholm, on the low bridge crossing the Lake Mälaren with the Old Town on one side and City Hall by the water on the other. Especially if it’s a sunny day like today, the colorful houses of the Old Town shine and the waters of Mälaren glitter. It might just be my local patriotism speaking, but from all the train arrival views that I’ve seen during the last five weeks (and they are MANY), Stockholm is the most beautiful. In most other cities, the train tracks run through industrial areas and the first impression of a city through the train windows is often pretty bleak. But in Stockholm, you can see our very best already from the train tracks.

Arriving from the north (for example from the airport) is not at all as agreeable. There, you get the industrial bleakness like in any other European city. No, I recommend anyone who has the choice to arrive to Stockholm by train from the south.

Markus’s street in the 7 o’clock Monday mist.

We crossed the bridge. The big bridge. Öresundsbron. The fields and cities of Skåne were replaced by the Småland forests and meadows with cows. I guess I should go through my photos or write stuff for the blog, but I didn’t sleep well last night (I was worried that Markus’ phone wouldn’t wake me up and that Markus wouldn’t wake either and that I would miss my train and when would I be able to return home then?) and I just want to read the easy, entertaining fantasy novel about a group of teenage witches in a small central Swedish town. I feel that it’s OK if I postpone everything. To tomorrow. Everything. Going through my photos. Writing about the rest of my trip for the blog. Studying for the glaciology paper I have to turn in in three weeks. Worrying over the fact that I’ve managed to double-book myself during the last week of August: I’m supposed to be up in the north at the glacier research station at the same time as the introductory week for the Master’s program starts. How was I supposed to know that the Master’s program, that I didn’t even think I would get accepted to, starts one week before the fall term officially begins? I’ve already paid for the accommodation and transportation to the glacier research station. Why can’t things just work out for once? Why can’t I just have everything I want? I don’t think climbing on a glacier and still making it to the Master’s program introduction is too much to ask.

There is something wrong with the couch I’m sitting in, because it shakes almost all the time, as if there was pebbles on the rails, or something creating irregular friction. Or something. I don’t know what could make a train couch shake. I just know it’s annoying.

The woman sitting next to me has a terrible cold to. Her constant coughing and sneezing and blowing her nose is starting to annoy me too. Better just return to the excitement of the book.

The escalators at the Skarpnäck tube station. Soon, I’ll be home!

Waiting for the train to Stockholm to arrive, we bought breakfast. Tea and a danish.

And the funny thing is, in both Swedish and Danish, a danish is called wienerbröd, which more or less translates to ‘Vienna pastry’. This is due to the pastry being an invention of Austrian bakers that were brought to Denmark during a baker’s strike. So, in a sense, it’s a true cosmopolitan creation, being Danish but with Austrian origins.

On Sunday afternoon (21/8), Markus took me on an adventure. You see, Markus is a major football fan and the team that he supports is called Brøndby IF. This Sunday, Brøndby IF was to play their first game of the season, and instead of sending me off to do something else in Copenhagen, he invited me to join him and his friends to the game.

I’ve never been to a real football game before, and even though I by birth and geography support the Swedish team Hammarby, I actually don’t know how they did last season. But I’m pretty sure that Hammarby, being a Stockholm team and all, is The Swedish team that has the biggest fan base in relation to how terribly bad they’ve been doing these last couple of years in the Swedish football league.

As for my personal experience of football, the most lasting impression is a game we played during PE in first grade, my class against the other class in our year, and I was standing in the middle of the field, minding my own business, when the ball suddenly came charging at me. Of course I protected myself with my hands. Apparently, though, this is not allowed behavior in football. So it led to the other team getting to do a free kick or something, and a guy in my class screaming at me that I was STUPID. I was a shy little girl and he was one of the more aggressive boys in my grade, and getting the ball in my face really hurt. I was traumatized. Ever since, I’ve been scared of balls. All through school, I was one of the best girls in my year in sports (I even won stuff), my strengths being running and overall fitness due to my riding – but I could never learn to handle any ball sports. 

So, football has not been a favorite activity of mine for multiple reasons. But I’m all about trying new things. So, even though watching football for me seems like an even more incomprehensible activity than actually playing it, I agreed to go with them.

I have so many prejudices about young men who watch football. That they drink buckets of beer, that they communicate by screaming, that they after the game meet up in a back alley to pound each others faces. And, boy, did my prejudices get confirmed. Except for the fighting part, it was exactly like I thought it would be. Guys guys guys and beer beer beer and constant screaming. But there was also this incredible energy, all these people engaging so wholeheartedly in the same thing, concentrating all their energy, their hopes and dreams for this short moment in time on that tiny ball being kicked up and down the field. I couldn’t help being swept away by the game, even though I part of the time had no idea of what was happening and why. It was intoxicating.

 

I did end up having a lot of fun. Somehow, mugs of beer and slices of pizza appeared in my hands. It was a very nice way to spend a hot Sunday afternoon.

Unfortunately, the game ended 1-1. But it’s right in the beginning of the season, Brøndby has plenty of time to win games. And on the way back home, I kind of promised to take Markus and his friends to a football game when he comes to Stockholm to visit. Let’s hope Hammarby has managed to win something by then.

It matches nicely with the pattern of his fabric. Mr. P likes matching things, too. The hot dog was good, for being a hot dog.

I gave Markus’ Sunday morning off from his guide duties and took the metro to the Copenhagen Botanic Garden.

It was a wonderfully calm place, with greenhouses, a pond and people sitting on the grass, reading in the sunshine. And the entrance was free – so, if I lived in Copenhagen, this would definitely be one of my favorite spots in the city. To just come here on a sunny day and spend a lazy afternoon lying on the grass, reading a good book. Unfortunately, I didn’t have that kind of time now. But I’ll come back to Copenhagen. Living in Stockholm, I won’t be able to avoid it.

 

A statue of Athena being tempted by Marsyas. Isn’t it kind of refreshing that for once, the woman is fully dressed and the man stark naked? And remember the white sphinxes at Belvedere in Vienna that had gotten grey breasts from all the people touching them? Well, here the entire statue was corroded green, except for Marsyas penis, that was shiny and coppery red. People are such perverts.

They also had a beautiful old greenhouse.

 

 

 

 

And butterflies in one of the rooms! I sat there, in the humidity, while the Swedish families tried to catch the flighty butterflies on camera, listening to an interview with an old idol of mine, the Swedish author Bodil Malmsten. It was very nice, just to rest my feet and breathe in those wonderful greenhouse smells. Copenhagen has a lovely botanic garden.

 

The corner just across one of the garden entrances. There are flowers growing in the streets of Copenhagen too.

Copenhagen was a pretty city, with so much color and the canals – but I think I was completely over-stuffed with European cities and couldn’t take in more. Except for the library, I didn’t really get excited about anything.

But when we felt done with the city, we went back to Markus’s part of the city, I bought strawberries and sweet peas and then Markus took me to the beach. Because, there it was, a proper beach by the sea, just walking distance from Markus’s house. I got to use my bikini for the first time on my trip, taking a swim in the sea while longingly looking at the Swedish shore sticking up on the other side. It was a great way to end the day. They do have something special, the Copenhageners, being able to go swimming at a beach like this, basically in the middle of the city.

Markus at the beach, with a cruise ship and the air plants in the background.

 

Mr. P at the beach, with the Öresund Bridge in the background.

The Royal Danish Library, situated just by the water, was extended with a new building which was finished in 1999. It is called the Black Diamond, and it’s an exquisite piece of modern architecture.

The entrance hall is huge and airy.

 

And by a roofed in bridge, the old library building could be accessed, filled with huge reading rooms. I didn’t feel I could force Markus to stay there with me, going through the library’s collections, but just walking through the halls made me feel impressed. Again, a city that spends money on their public library is a city that I respect.

 

Outside in the sunshine, people were sitting in the deckchairs, drinking their coffees from the library café.