I sit writing this in the inspiring main hall of Stockholm library. it is a circular room with 3 floors of stacks surrounding the outer walls.. as I type this a couple of guys discussing which position they can get the best photo of the room from. I can't, unfortunately, upload a photo of it so I suggest you have a search for it on line. Despite this, this room is in the shadow of the rest of Stockholm. From its many bridges the city provides stunning views in all directions, similar to those you'd see on the Westminster embankment.. only with more varied and attractive architecture, stretching in all directions, covered in snow and with less tourists.
I can only briefly summarise my travels of the last week in this post as I have a limited session on the computer here in the library but I will do my best to paint a good picture as I type. I hope you understand that between travelling from the dramatic Lofoten Islands to Stockholm I have found little opportunity to find time to sit down and take rest to type up my experiences. This is mainly due to the varied activities I find myself doing. In Kabelvåg I spent time with Roy - a self titled music technician who spends his retirement creating midi files of whichever one of his favourite songs to play in his band. I still get a digital rendition of 'Coutry Road' spinning round my head if I don't keep my mind preoccupied with other entertaining thoughts.
Entertaining thoughts were not hard to come by after I took my second, and more uncomfortable, trip on the Hurtigruten. I arrived in Bodo at 2 am with the promise from a number of people that the train station would be open for me to sleep in before my connecting train.. it was closed. After a bit of wandering I found a hotel that would allow me to spend the rest of the night in their lounge - and almost immediately a fellow traveller followed me in looking for the same arrangement. They, however they are, say that there is a fine line between insanity and genius and I this fellow traveller balance precariously on that line. He was a 40 something Norwegian who spent the next 9 hours telling me of his plans to run for Norwegian Parliament based on the risk of foreign invasion to Norway, discussing his encyclopedic knowledge of World politics and history and sharing his stories of how he managed to change Norwegian law when he was 10. For a while I thought I was hallucinating for sleep deprivation but he was not an apparition but in fact very real.
I'll have to finish this post at some other time as the countdown on my computer session has reach a disappointing low number of minutes but I can tell you I had my go at Cross-Country skiing and a sport called El-Innebandy...
I can only briefly summarise my travels of the last week in this post as I have a limited session on the computer here in the library but I will do my best to paint a good picture as I type. I hope you understand that between travelling from the dramatic Lofoten Islands to Stockholm I have found little opportunity to find time to sit down and take rest to type up my experiences. This is mainly due to the varied activities I find myself doing. In Kabelvåg I spent time with Roy - a self titled music technician who spends his retirement creating midi files of whichever one of his favourite songs to play in his band. I still get a digital rendition of 'Coutry Road' spinning round my head if I don't keep my mind preoccupied with other entertaining thoughts.
Entertaining thoughts were not hard to come by after I took my second, and more uncomfortable, trip on the Hurtigruten. I arrived in Bodo at 2 am with the promise from a number of people that the train station would be open for me to sleep in before my connecting train.. it was closed. After a bit of wandering I found a hotel that would allow me to spend the rest of the night in their lounge - and almost immediately a fellow traveller followed me in looking for the same arrangement. They, however they are, say that there is a fine line between insanity and genius and I this fellow traveller balance precariously on that line. He was a 40 something Norwegian who spent the next 9 hours telling me of his plans to run for Norwegian Parliament based on the risk of foreign invasion to Norway, discussing his encyclopedic knowledge of World politics and history and sharing his stories of how he managed to change Norwegian law when he was 10. For a while I thought I was hallucinating for sleep deprivation but he was not an apparition but in fact very real.
I'll have to finish this post at some other time as the countdown on my computer session has reach a disappointing low number of minutes but I can tell you I had my go at Cross-Country skiing and a sport called El-Innebandy...
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