Funny... I had this dream last night where a bunch of angry people came climbing in through our window demanding that I post to my blog. Today's word, boys and girls, is megalomania.

Anyway. Apologies for not writing the promised last part of the Walpurgis description yesterday; I had to write this job application... We woke up at about 9:30 this morning, consequently we have neither champagne breakfasted nor watched the boats. But it is still Valborg!

When Orphei Drängar have finished singing, the day continues with aimless wanderings and mingling; bumping into friends you haven't seen for years and not managing to find the people you have decided a rendez-vous with -- in short, it is a time for care-free strolling. Or for hurried running through the rain to the nearest shelter, of course. Many people picnic or have barbecues, again depending on the weather of course; after all it is still April and some years it snows.

At 9pm, there is more singing; this time it takes place by the castle, under the Gunilla belltower. The student choir Allmänna sången comes out from their ball in the castle to perform, and the head of the student unions holds a speech about spring. Very rarely it is a worthwhile speech, once in a while it is downright embarrassing but usually it's merely predictable, which is not such a terrible thing after all. Also in the evening, the bonfires are lit, and for those who don't care so much about the traditions of academia, they are the main symbol of the magical evening of Valborg, Walpurgis, whose name comes from Saint Walburga.

But not everybody finds Valborg attractive. As I have hinted at several times already, it is a very alcohol-fuelled day, which of course means that too many people will be drinking too much. For a lot of teen-agers, Valborg is the first occasion they get really drunk, which I find sad indeed. And many students also have too, too much to drink, because it is tradition, and end up sleeping under a shrubbery at 11am, or throwing up and miserable while around them the joyful celebration goes on. The merry picnickers often just leave their litter behind; Castle Hill is a disgraceful sight at the end of the day.

Despite this, I still love this day. Even if I don't do much of what you are 'supposed' to do (today I believe we'll probably just go to the cap-waving and singing, and then stroll around for a bit -- oh, and we'll eat herring of course, but not in any organised form with schnapps ditties) the mere fact of its arriving despite the cold darkness of the preceding winter is enough.

Labels: Swedish stuff

 
The lunch at Walpurgis is a celebration of the wonder that is pickled herring. Served with potaties, sour cream and chives, various kinds of pickled herring form the basis of a thousand luncheon parties in Uppsala on the last day of April. Children, brothers-in-law, foreigners and other sensitive people may be excused from the herring; it is a pity though, for it really is very nice fare. It is also traditional to drink schnapps, and this is where the singing comes in: for each toast, a ditty is sung; just about everybody knows the more common schnapps songs, and learning new ones is always a fun pastime if your tastes lean in that direction.

Now, the most important event of the day takes place below the university library at 3pm. Tens of thousands of people gather in the street and all the way down the hill, as well as on Castle hill and the street leading to the Cathedral. On the stroke of 3, the university chancellor, who is standing on the library balcony, waves his white student cap; his greeting is returned by the sea of people below waving their caps for a minute or two and then putting them on. All of a sudden the brown, blonde, black throng of heads turns into a mass of white; it is really quite extraordinary. For me, this moment is when spring arrives, regardless of how warm it has been in the preceding weeks or if it is snowing on the day...

You have donned your white cap; now where do you go? There are two alternatives: you can join the mass of students running down the library hill towards the centre of town ("running" may not be the best word for it -- it is an inexorably moving mass of humanity, the pace is slow but they are not to be stopped; this is the 'champagne race' to the student pubs) or you can join the more sober crowd going to listen to the male choir Orphei Drängar greeting spring in the auditorium. You won't get a seat inside, but there are huge loudspeakers outside the university building, and the court in front of it fills with cheerful people all intent on hearing the traditional, well-worn but well-loved songs for an hour or so.

Tomorrow: The evening's festivities -- and the reverse of the medal.

Labels: Swedish stuff

 
Apparently not everybody is familiar with the concept of Walpurgisnacht; let me hasten to remedy this situation in three easy lessons.

Walpurgis (or Walburga, or Valborgsmäss as we say) is the day we celebrate spring. Living in a country with a long, dark and cold winter makes you rather partial to the time of year when the days get longer and warmer and the world starts living again. On Walpurgisnacht this is celebrated throughout Sweden by the lighting of bonfires in the evening; in Uppsala however the whole day is a feast-day, mostly for the students but the rest of us get to join in as well.

There are several traditional components in a Real Walpurgis Celebration. Many of them I haven't done personally... you can pick the ones you fancy. The day starts with breakfast at early o'clock; this is supposed to contain porridge and champagne, and sometimes also herring. The porridge is there because it is an alcohol-fuelled day and you really need a good breakfast... At 10am, the silly boat parade down the river Fyris commences. Students have built boats, rafts and other floatation devices and go down the two waterfalls to the cheering of the masses -- people line the river five or six deep on both sides and from every window hang bunches of onlookers. I used to watch this religiously every year but haven't made much of an effort to do so these last few years despite the fact that we lived very close to the river; waiting for an hour in that sort of crowd is not all that fun after all, and when you've seen 30 boats capsize in the waterfall by the old mill, you've really seen them all.

Thus endeth the first lesson. Tomorrow: Singing for the herring, waving the cap and running down the hill. . .

Labels: Swedish stuff

 
And tomorrow, Miranda is coming to stay overnight -- my cup runneth over...

Labels: family, personal

 
Reasons to be cheerful today: Sunshine, Long-Winded guestbook entry, massage. . . ah, bliss! And my freckles are coming out. Apologies for going all Pollyanna, but this is a good day.

Labels: personal

 
And now a guest book! Am I going all trendy? I'll try to make it look better, though.

Labels: blog meta

 
Happy World Book Day, then. Have you hugged a book-shelf today? Or read a book?

I'm reading Jurgen which is a very wonderful story; I can see why people of exaggerated morals might have disliked it 100 years ago. I don't often read as slowly as possible to make a book last longer; now, however, I do... More later, when I've finished it.

Labels: books

 
We got rid of the birch that was standing too close to the house; its roots probably went into the drainage from our house which is a Bad Thing. Dad was over with the power saw and had it down in a jiffy; we'll have plenty of firewood from that tree once we cut it up and cleave the logs! The fumes from the power saw invoked my childhood -- so many good memories of working in the forest returning! Feeling like professional house owners now. After all we've lived here for almost seven months.

We keep making new discoveries in the garden, too. The red mushrooms coming up in the strawberry patch are rhubarblings! Not quite as cool as if they had been The Shooting Star (Tin-Tin) type fungi but much nicer on the whole.

Labels: house or garden, personal

 
Just a brief note before going to bed: The cats didn't stay hostile for long; as soon as they calmed down a bit they started to recognise each other and returned to normal. I know I worry too much. . .

Labels: cats, personal

 
Enmity between the cats! They chased a strange cat out of the garden, tails all bushed up, and then they were suddenly snarling, hissing and growling at each other. I think it was Cassandra who started by growling at Bonadea in the general excitement and confusion of having her territory invaded, and Bonadea responded by hissing, of course. It seems to have calmed down a bit, they have sniffed each other's noses and aren't walking stiff-legged around the house any longer; still, they do eye each other with a new wariness which I can only hope will go away. Question: Am I being a silly over-protective human, reacting like this to something that will pass? I notice that Cassandra's eyes have resumed their normal colour -- that has got to be a good sign. . .

Labels: cats, personal

 
The chat room at MCiOS was invaded by Slovenians yesterday; CdM wanted to demonstrate an Internet community during a lecture and so asked me to be there for a few minutes. It was fun, though I have no idea what kind of weird impression I made. . . still, they didn't know me, and won't be returning to the room so I guess it's ok. As I say, it was great fun. Certainly not your ordinary chatroom experience.

Labels: friends, fun, Internets

 
Also a few days ago, I finished Kim Stanley Robinson's Blue Mars, after having spent the last several months with the Mars books as occasional reading. I have read them before, some 4 years ago, so there was no hurry this time even if I didn't really remember much of the plot; the plot isn't really what's important anyway in these bricks.

The premises are superficially simple: a few decades into the third millennium, one hundred people travel to Mars to start a colony; they are soon to be followed by more, many more, people and a whole new society grows on the red planet. The making of a new world on an uninhabited planet is complicated on many levels: the physical world must be made inhabitable, for a start -- but how much should Mars be made to resemble Earth; don't the red rocks and lifeless plains have a right to remain untouched for future generations to marvel at? Politics enter into the decisions immediately, when the colonists from different countries group together (or don't) and when basic differences in viewpoint are brought out by the newness of everything. And when the population of Mars is no longer one hundred but ten million people, when overpopulated Earth screams for somewhere to ship its citizens (there is one additional, important factor here which I won't reveal. . .) , when the second- and third generation Martians are born, grow up and have no affinity with Earth, the possibilities for complication become endless. Robinson has put a lot of thought into this work, as well as 17 years of research, and he has many theories on politics, economics and psychology as well as insights in the intricacies of ecological and medical matters.

The problem for a layman reader is to know how much of all this is indeed plausible; what matters is of course that it works in the framework of the story but it isn't unimportant whether Robinson's vision of the future is founded on fact or fantasy. He does have something of an exaggerated reliance on technology, not that he envisions technological solutions to all the world's problems, rather the opposite in many cases; but his gadgets almost always work, and for me living in a society where the bus time tables are thrown into confusion every time it gets below freezing, the image of a cadre of robots unassisted building factories for extracting minerals from the bowels of an asteroid seems far more remote than a mere 50 or 60 years.

Not that the technology is what makes the books memorable, or indeed worth reading. That is accomplished by the characters, the people, sympathetic and unsympathetic, who populate the books and Mars. The novels are written from a variety of viewpoints, a device I find very successful and that conveys the intricate complexity of any human society and particularly a brand-new one. Every person who moves to Mars brings his or her cultural baggage from Earth, and may be more or less willing to shed it. Seeing the same society, sometimes the same incidents, through different eyes makes it all the more vivid. And Robinson doesn't shy from letting the bad guys talk either; personally I couldn't stand Frank or Zo, for instance, yet somehow it is possible to understand them when you see how they look at things, how they think about matters. It is not a bright and happy future that is painted in this story, but nor is it hopeless. It is striking how much Robinson believes in the power of people working together; through the two-and-a-half thousand pages or so people discuss, argue, debate and talk, making things happen, making the new society work. Yes, in the end it is a hopeful picture in spite of every disaster that have befallen and shaped the Martians through the course of the story.

The three Mars books are long, overlong even; still, I do not regret re-reading them and I am sure I will read them again in a few years' time.

Labels: books

 
I finally got round to reading The Inkeeper's Song by Peter Beagle the other week. It was a very beautiful tale; it seemed like a fairytale but had the most unexpected twists, the author made very good use of the shifting points of view, and the language was very wonderful, very beautiful indeed. I must read more books by Peter Beagle.

Labels: books

 
Dags att deklarera -- men jag har redan gjort det! Ha! Johan gjorde grovjobbet så förtjänsten är egentligen hans. Det är förmårrat skönt att ha det gjort, hursomhelst.

Labels: personal

 
And now, hooray hooray, I must do my taxes. I know I ate Squigglypills when I was a wee tot -- shouldn't that insure me from this...?

Labels: personal

 
I set a record in microsleep this morning -- fell asleep five times in approximately four minutes (between three bus stops.) I know I was asleep each time, for I had different, distinct dreams; very weird experience.

Labels: personal

 
Good Things have been happening: flerdle is going to Europe in June, and she's coming to visit us -- yay!! Am really looking forward to that, and planning things to do and see. Good Thing no 2 is that Dunx and Jen got engaged, which makes me very, very happy. Double yay (one for them each!)

And it's only 2 weeks until Walpurgis!

Labels: friends, personal

 
Sudden musing: What is it with bloggers and capital letters, or rather the lack of same, anyway? So many weblogs/web journals I've seen don't use capitals at all; is it because they are written by people who care more about the graphically symmetrical look of things than I do? I have to admit, I don't like it at all personally in running text. Capital letters are there for a reason -- remove them and the text becomes difficult to read. Headlines are different though: I can understand and sympathise with the usage there, but, well, grump.

Labels: Internets

 
Today we went on our first flipist walk since moving to Storvreta. A flipist walk is the kind you make armed with a die, and for every crossroads or fork you roll the die to see which way you should go (bearing in mind that you can't take a road that leads back to where you have already been.) It's good fun, and a good way to learn the layout of a place and get to spots you haven't seen before. There will be more flipist walks; soon, probably, if the weather stays nice.

We watched Whisky Galore this evening; it is a very funny film, and no worse for being watched whilst drinking whisky, either. Which means bedtime. Now.

Labels: fun, personal

 
Bonadea caught a bird today! No parents could be prouder of the first steps of their toddler than we are of our wee fur-head -- why, we'd more or less expected her to turn tail and run when confronted with a live bird! She's getting an extra treat tonight, not because we dislike birds (it was a yellowhammer, so rather a beautiful bird, too) but surely she deserves it, particularly as she wasn't allowed to eat it. Let's see if Cassandra manages to catch something too, one of these days. . .

Labels: cats

 
Sten sent me a list of the various spellings of the "sh"-sound in Swedish. Some of them only occur in loan words and thus don't really count if you're a purist, but it is nevertheless a most interesting and impressive list, and it makes me happy to contemplate it.


ch chef
che apache
g geni
ge bagage
gi religiös
ige beige
j jour
je damejeanne
sc crescendo
sch schack
sh shunt
shi fashionabel
si division
sj sju
sk skön
skj skjorta
ssi mission
ssj ryssja
stg västgöte
sti suggestion
stj stjärna
ti station

Labels: fun, Swedish stuff

 

Today I lost my -- our -- mobile phone on the bus. Yes, yes, I know: being that careless makes me a candidate for autodarwinism; still, the happy outcome made me happy, too, even though it meant missing my choir practice.

It began with me not finding the infernal device in my pocket, coat or bag. Borrowing someone else's phone, I called my number and found that there was indeed no Néaphone present; no Mr Beveridge's Maggot was heard.

Bother.

I did know I had had it while I was waiting at the bus stop, though, so at least I had something to go by: it must be on the bus, which probably meant that someone had heard the signal as I phoned and pocketed the phone. Double bother -- but there was nothing to it, I had to put on my coat again and run off to try to find a way to retrieve the mobile. I stopped the first bus I saw and jumped on board, telling the driver about my dilemma and getting a number to call.

At the payphone on Stora Torget, I was very relieved to find that my ancient phone card, which I don't think I have used for 3 years, still worked and had over 20 periods left. The number the bus driver had given me didn't work, but the one printed on my travelcard did, and I got to talk to a very helpful person at the comm central: she called the bus and lo and behold! the driver had had my phone handed in to him!

So I set of at double speed down to the bus HQ, and arrived slightly out of breath, to be told that the driver in question hadn't yet arrived, giving me half an hour's wait in the rest area. Bus drivers came and went, to hand in what I believe was some sort of time card; the scene was a little like an airport with people arriving and departing independently of each other, yet weaving patterns like a pavane as they walked in and out and upstairs to their changing rooms.

As I walked away with the recovered phone, I was feeling happy, for no real reason that I knew. Yes, of course it had to do with getting the mobile back, but more, I think, with the real friendliness in the bus drivers' greetings, the ready helpfulness from the people I'd enrolled in my search, and the fact that I kept my head fairly level even when I was stressed. And I got a glimpse of a world that I would not otherwise have seen, which should be enough to make anybody content with their day.

Labels: personal

 
A new beginning, as my first blogging attempt was unsuccessful. Enough said.

Labels: blog meta