Watch out for the poo!

Preethi and I had a great time on Saturday, helped in part by the reliable public transport system in this country. We caught the train to Stockholm, which has seats similar to those in a plane (though much more roomy than economy class!) and arrived in Stockholm 40 minutes later. There was a strange fellow on the train for a while, dressed up as some sort of animal and appeared to be collecting money for something (in a plastic bag which seemed a bit dodgy) and he had another person following behind him with a stereo playing strange noises. Not quite sure what that was all about but you seem to see a lot of strange things round these parts. I think it's due to the large proportion of students. Strange people, these students. Got nothing better to do that dress up as unidentifiable animals and wander around trains.

The Stockholm train station is enormous. Seemed more like an airport to us! We jumped on another plane to head up to where the viking markets were held. After catching a bus we arrived around 11am and followed the signs up to Gunnes Gard which is a reconstruction of Viking homesteads in the early years of the 11th century. It was great! You had to watch out for the poo though, as they evidently keep a number of animals there.


We wandered around the market stalls, checking out the goods made of leather and iron and wool. There was also a great collection of wood instruments and I would have loved to buy some for gifts but they were very pricy. There were what appeared to be some sort of homemade jams or sauce or something, and some homemade soaps too. We even found some eucalyptus soap!

I was particularly pleased at being able to try on some chain mail, regardless of the look on my face in the photo. Apparently this type of chain isn't what they used to wear in battle though. That stuff had rivets joining all the links securely, while these were just closed around each other. The leatherworker who it belonged to said that they had hung up a similar one in a tree and shot an arrow at it, and the links just popped open. Just as well there wasn't a battle on Saturday then I guess.

I couldn't help but think of the people at UWA that you see on Oak Lawn somedays with their wooden swords and shields, fighting whilst the damsels look on in their hot dresses. These people looked much more authentic! They staged some fights but we always seemed to be in the wrong part of the market.

We had a look inside the houses, and I was instantly taken back to Rick and Sandie's house at the farm, as it smelt just the same with the wood and the fire. We couldn't seem to find the animals that had left presents for us everywhere but did find some chickens and chicks.
I have put more photos up on my flickr page if you're interested...

After catching the bus and train back into Stockholm, we made it to a cheap pizzeria for enormous pizzas. Looking out the window we saw a horde of people wearing signs over their shirts, and carrying papers and bags. Preethi thought the signs on their shirts looked like some sort of meat, and so we thought maybe they were meat inspectors or something. Strange logic I know. I thought that maybe it looked like tomato and mushrooms. Every time another lot of them walked past we said "oh look, more meat inspectors". After we finished our pizzas and escaped from the pizzaman who seemed like he would be happy to talk to us for the rest of the afternoon, we made it out into the street to check out the shops! It didn't take long before we were met by the 'meat inspectors' who were actually people promoting some sort of boxing match. The picture on their shirts was a pair of boxing gloves! Too funny.

Stockholm was full of people everywhere. I whinge about the number of people you have to battle with in Perth but that is nothing compared to this. There was also rubbish everywhere, which we weren't expecting. I've later heard that they are having some sort of problem with that - perhaps a strike or something.

It was quite a cold day but all the shops had the heating cranked up so we were forever taking off and putting on our jackets. I should get used to it I guess! After wandering around for a few hours we decided to head back to the train station, and passed by a souvenir shop on the way to pick up a few cheesy items for pressies. A common item you can buy which is a typical Swedish souvenir is a painted horse. I'd like to buy some but they're so damn expensive. Am considering taking up whittling as a hobby while I'm here.

Still no headway on how I'm going to watch the grand final this Saturday, but seeing as it starts about 6.30am and I will be spending Friday night at my first gasque, perhaps this won't be such a dilemna after all. Heard that Ben Cousins got the Brownlow. I think they may have to give him a new guernsey to fit his head through.

I'm now used to the traffic travelling on the right (wrong) side of the road, but it's still quite disconcerting to see a car driving down the road with what I consider to be the driver's seat empty! The number of people that you see driving or riding their bike whilst talking on a mobile is also quite worrying. Particularly when they're driving and you're wanting to walk across the pedestrian crossing.

Preethi, Kate, Niels and I went to the Hans Blix lecture held at the university Monday night. He was a great speaker and had lots of interesting things to say, discussing UN reform and world disarmament. After the lecture, questions, and performances however we were quite famished and quickly headed off to V-Dala nation for dinner. This is the third nation I have tried the vege burger at, and I must say it was the best I've had so far! Cost me about $8-9 for a burger, wedges, corn chips and salad, and $4-5 for a pint of beer. V-Dala is the nation that the international gasque is held at this Friday, so hopefully the food will be as good for that. Am a little concerned as the gasque starts at 5.30pm and I've heard that dinner doesn't finish until 10pm. Given the amount of singing that this Swedes fit into a meal I can't say I'm too surprised. At the SNerikes dinner we had the pleasure (hmm) of attending, it seemed that every time you tried to get a spoonful of soup in your mouth you had to put your cutlery down and sing a song.

Anyway best get off to bed...have lots of uni work to get done tomorrow.

Love Conor

P.S. Had my first Cherry Ripe yesterday since I got here. Mmmmmmmmmm thanks mum!