Europe Trip: Part 1 of 3 - Lund

Skårby Stone - Lund Kulturen Museet Originally uploaded by abostick59.

In June my partner Debbie Notkin and I traveled to northern Europe, to visit her brother David Notkin, who had been on sabbatical for a year at the University of Lund in Sweden, and David's family: Cathy Tuttle, his wife, and their fourteen-year-old daughter Emma Notkin and their nine-year-old son Akiva Notkin. Debbie and I also spent some time in Copenhagen, in Denmark, and the better part of a week in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, staying with Julie Phillips, her husband Jan van Houten, and their son Eise and daughter Jooske.

Kathy Walton prodded me into putting this trip report together, lightly edited from my daily journal.

Europe Trip: Part 2 of 3 - Copenhagen
Europe Trip: Part 3 of 3 - Amsterdam

6-17-2007

It's 7:00 AM British summer time, which means that it's 11 PM yesterday in San Francisco.

The flight from Boston to London was uneventful, but rather more comfortable than the leg from San Francisco to Boston. One surprising thing about it was that the cabin crew ran out of afternoon snacks before they served the rear of the cabin. They'd had an accurate head count; it's just that the airline hadn't provided enough food. The flight attendants seemed genuinely mortified, so it did not appear to be a regular event.

We had a long wait in line at Immigration at Heathrow, but everything else was nominal. We took the shuttle bus to our airport hotel, checked in, had a late meal, and went to bed at 11:30 PM local time. Up at 4:30 AM to make our flight to Copenhagen.

Debbie had made a major blunder of memory: she remembered our flight as being on SAS when in fact it was on British Airways. The bad news was that this meant we had to make haste from Terminal 3 to Terminal 4. The good news was that because Terminal 3 is legendarily slow, we had arrived in plenty of time to get to the right place and checked in. All's well that ends well; now we are on the plane, waiting to depart, while the ground crew double-checks the baggage. There was a discrepancy in the bag count, apparently, and the security protocol requires them to double-check, matching bags to people on the manifest. It means that we sit here and wait until the cross-check is complete.

I am feeling tired and frustrated and irritable. I got at most two hour's sleep on the overnight journey from San Francisco to London, and only five hour's sleep in our layover. I want to rest.

I'm in a middle seat here, and Debbie is on the aisle. I'm feeling a bit cramped, largely because I'm writing. If the computer were put away, I would have more room and be more comfortable. Once I'm done here, I will try to get some more sleep.

Apparently at the Copenhagen airport we go downstairs to take a train — the train to Malmö — which goes over a bridge from Heligoland to Scandanavia. That should be interesting.

I made one crucial omission when packing: I did not remember to include the charger for the battery for my camera. That means that I only have so much battery with which to take pictures. I have not been in a picture-taking mood, but I do well on vacations, and I would like to document this trip at least some.

Reading Michael Pollan on an airplane leads me to make the connection between Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) and American airline seating configurations. This British Airways plane is comparably spacious to the American Airlines flight to London — which was a miracle of spaciousness compared to the AA domestic flights I have taken recently. Comparing beakless chickens in egglaying cages to people crammed into tiny seats — the similarity seems to me to be the indifference to the possibility that the crammed subjects suffer. Another thought that comes to mind are the "stress positions" used by abusive police and military authorities with the excuse that it isn't really torture.

Hotel Room View Originally uploaded by abostick59.

6-18-2007

We are in Lund, Sweden. Yesterday was a very long day.

The flight to Copenhagen was an easy one, once the ground crew found a way to sort out the luggage situation. I tried without success to sleep, and then took my book out to read, finishing it. When we got off the plane, the airport seemed deserted. The short line at the passport control checkpoint was just people ahead of us from the plane — our seats were close to the front. We made our way to the baggage claim area and waited while bags began to appear on the carousel.

My name was paged, in English, but in an announcement that didn't quite make sense. After a few moments' confusion we found the proper baggage handling desk, behind which was a woman who told me that my bag had not arrived with the plane, and that British Airways would arrange to have it delivered to us in Lund. I filled out a form that included my home address and phone, and our hotel address, plus David Notkin's mobile phone number.

We found our way to the train station where we would catch the train to Sweden. Just as Debbie had found a telephone and was attempting to use a credit card to call her brother, a train pulled into the station, and I called Debbie away from the phone. In that moment of confusion, apparently, she left behind the credit card. The train's arrival turned out to be a false alarm — the annunciators told us not to board. Four minutes behind it was the train to Malmö, which we caught with no problem, and learned would take us to Lund. Forty-five minutes later, including a ten minute stop in the central Malmö station, we were in Lund.

We were in Lund without any Swedish kroner, and unable to find a telephone, and when we did find it Debbie was unable to make it work with another credit card — it was at this point that we discovered that the previous card was missing. At length, Debbie went to an ATM and withdrew two thousand kroner with her ATM card. She bought me a sandwich in a store across the street, and while I sat with it, eating, she used the change to try the phone again, and reached David. After a brief wait, David, Cathy, and Emma came to meet us and escort us to our hotel.

I was in something of a state at this point, feeling too sleepy to think straight. The sandwich helped some, and so I imagined that Debbie could use food too.

Cathy and Emma went off on an errand to a pharmacist, while David took us to the hotel to get us checked in. We got our room keys, but it turned out that we had to wait a while for our room to be ready. We went outside and up the street a bit to a cafe, where I got some iced tea, and Debbie got a Greek salad. We talked with David some. At length, Cathy and Emma showed up, and Cathy passed me a box of loratadine — generic for Claritin — which was a great relief as my sinuses had been clogging and my eyes itching in reaction to the local pollen.

Debbie and I took our stuff to the room, and I fell over. Debbie went off to the family's apartment for a while. Then she came to doze with me on the bed.

At 7:30 PM, we met the family for dinner at another cafe, around the corner in a different direction. This time both Emma and Akiva joined us. Afterwards we walked to the apartment.

We returned to the hotel at approximately 10:00 PM, and went straight to bed. I read for a while (Half-Life by Shelly Jackson, one of this year's two Tiptree winners) and then went to sleep.

We woke up early, about 4:00 AM. We lay in bed for a while, and then at about 5:30 we got up and put one of the DVDs I had brought along into Cinnamon, and sat on the couch to watch. The DVD was Walk the Line. It was a smart thing to do, being relatively restful. Debbie took a shower, and I organized the money in my belt pouch. Then I got to my morning writing, which was interrupted by a woman from the hotel delivering a very nice breakfast of tea, toast, boiled eggs, yogurt, juice, and cheese. It was quite satisfying to eat while I wrote.

Lund Street Scene Originally uploaded by abostick59.

6-19-2007

Tuesday morning in Lund. Debbie and I spent the day taking it easy. After breakfast we went out to look at the nearby farmer's market, and walked to the train station so that Deb could buy a phone card. She used it to call the credit card company to report the missing card. We were walking towards the family apartment when we encountered David and Akiva. David was taking Akiva to the train to go meet some friends somewhere. Debbie and I waited a few minutes in a park by a fountain while David dropped Akiva off. When he rejoined us, we walked to the apartment, passing by the clinic where Emma had recently gotten medical help. David stressed how simple and cheap it was for her to get medical care, comparing it to someone in a similar situation visiting in the USA.

we got to the apartment and got settled in. It was easy hanging out at the Villa Nottle. People came in and out during the course of the day: a friend of Emma's; a colleague of David's, and so on. People went out on various errands, e.g. Debbie and Emma to the library. I went out in the afternoon to get a lunch. The place I had intended to go closed at 3:30 PM, and I had gone out at 3:20. So I wandered for a bit and found a pizza place where I got a smallish whole pizza to myself.

Afterwards, I went back and got some Internet time.

Cathy prepared a lovely dinner for the six of us: spaghetti with a variety of sauces to choose from to top it. The prize was one of garlic cloves that had been marinating for days in and sauteed in olive oil. There was also a tomato sauce, a jar of pesto that I didn't get a chance to try, and plenty of cheese to be freshly grated upon the pasta. Also bread, peas, carrot sticks, and fresh tomatoes. It was quite tasty, and the family company was pleasant.

Our suitcase is still missing. The British Airways' Web site luggage tracker indicates that it has been "located, awaiting confirmation." Debbie says if we don't get it by 2:00 PM this afternoon, she is going to turn into a flaming bitch, directed towards the airline.

We got back to the hotel room in the middle of the evening, about 8:30 or so. I washed my T-shirt, socks, and underwear in a bathroom sink and hung them over the radiator in the room to dry. We awoke at the time the clock said was 3:00 AM ... but after resting for a while and getting more sleep, the hotel maid knocked on our door at about 6 by that clock, which was really 8:00 AM. That clock was running slow, and so we got about two hours more sleep than we had thought.

6-20-2007

It's early Wednesday morning in Lund. I woke up between 4:30 and 4:45 AM and got up to piss, and have been unable to get back to sleep.

Yesterday after a leisurely breakfast, I took a shower (but not washing my hair) and we headed up to the Villa Nottle. We caught up on the Internet and made plans for the day. At length, Debbie and I accompanied David and Akiva to a bus stop across the street, waiting for the bus on which to put Akiva to visit friends. Then David pointed us to a museum in which we were interested, the Sketch Museum, and then headed off to his office. Before we went to the museum, though, we ate lunch at a falafel-and-kebab place on the edge of the University campus. I had a falafel plate that included french fries and a salad. Debbie got a falafel wrap that was too big for her. She wound up eating only half, wrapping it up, and stashing it in her belt pouch.

The Sketch Museum is a collection of drafts and sketches made by a variety of artists of work displayed in public places such as city halls, auditoria, public parks, and so on. I thought its organization was too overwhelming, with lots of things packed together, making it difficult for me to pick out something at which to look closely. If a person really cared, one could spend days and days in that museum working through it, getting a feeling for its contents. My eyes were glazing over after something like an hour, so where Debbie's.

Afterwards, we walked towards the apartment. Debbie changed course to check out church on the corner opposite to the apartment, while I went straight back. I got caught up in working out a sudoku puzzle that on the comics page of a local newspaper laying around the living room. Emma sat in a corner, reading and net surfing.

The family gathered together again in the early evening. David went to the bus stop to meet Akiva, and the rest of us started out to the same pizza restaurant where I had lunch on Monday. We reunited on the walk there. The conversation over dinner revolved around a topic that Akiva brought up: why are actors in a film more notable and famous than the director?

We returned to the apartment after eating, and Emma set up the laptop she uses so that she and Debbie (and anyone else who was interested, including me) could watch a favorite movie of hers: She's the Man, somewhat loosely adapted from Twelfth Night by Shakespeare. It was basically entertaining, but parts of it were painful, and it was imbued by a particular sort of gender essentialism that runs contrary to the cross-dressing fun that is the heart of the story. I found it interesting that the lead actress looked kind of boring to me when she was presenting as a girl, but done up as a boy she looked really hot to my eye, in ways that the born-boys in the film simply did not.

I was moved by the ending, which surprised me. Perhaps I was moved by the ending of the movie I wanted it to be.

We got back to the room shortly after 10:00 PM, which was good. Unfortunately, my sleep schedule hadn't adjusted yet, and I was awake (as I said) early in the morning.

6-21-2007

After finishing yesterday's breakfast, I showered and — at last! — washed my hair, which badly needed it. Debbie was ready before I was, and went down to the cafe outside.

I went out and found David and Debbie at the cafe. Deb was ordering her drink and ordered a cappucino for me. We sat and talked for a while, drinking our respective drinks. When Debbie and I had finished, we went for a short walk to the Tiger 10-kroner store to see what sort of tchachkes might be available. I didn't see anything I wanted enough to buy, but Debbie found a couple of things for house gifts

We returned to the cafe and saw that Emma had joined her father. I joked, "Jeeze, David, we leave you for five minutes and come back to find you with a hot babe!" We sat for a little bit, then went on our separate ways, with Emma leading Debbie and I to the grounds of her school. The school had been there and in continuous operation since the eleventh century, although none of the buildings were that old.

From there, Emma led us home, and we hung out there (me on the Internet) until David rejoined us. Debbie and I ate lunch of leftover pizza and falafel from the day before.

Lundagard Fountain Originally uploaded by abostick59.

David showed us where the Kulturen museum was located, on the far side of the Lundagard, then headed off on his own business. Debbie and I went into the museum, which seems to be a historical museum of the region with a vast collecion of archaeological material. They had special exhibits of modernist art (which we didn't see) and on the art of sexual desire (which we did). The desire exhibit struck me as lukewarm as an art exhibit, but I was entertained by the way in which the exhibition was fairly explicit (with giant drawings of erect penii as direction markers) and at the same time having young children — some accompanied by parents, others not — passing through it.

Interior of Lund Cathedral Originally uploaded by abostick59.

After we were museumed out, we went to the old cathedral to catch the English-language tour, but found that we were early. Debbie was grouchy and unhappy, and I decided that both of us were better off if we went our separate ways, so I returned to the apartment, where I poured over a sudoku puzzle for a while until I fell asleep, waking at around 5 PM when Debbie returned.

The family (sans Cathy) went out to dinner at an Indian buffet. We returned to the apartment to play Apples to Apples, but I kept nodding off, and bowed out of the game. At eight Debbie and I returned to our hotel, where I, at least, fell over into bed. I woke for a while around 3 AM, but got back to fitful sleep until Deb woke me at 7:00.

6-22-2007

Thursday morning in Lund. It is Midsummer Day, and the rain is pouring down. It rained all night.

Yesterday, after finishing my morning writing, we headed up to the Villa Nottle. The day was to be an expedition to the Swedish countryside. We were to go in two cars, accompanied by Emma's friend Laura and Laura's mother Eva. Debbie and I rode along with Emma in the car driven by David; Cathy, Akiva, and Laura rode in Eva's car.

It was our first chance to see how the city of Lund fit into the surrounding landscape. We have hitherto been walking around what is actually a fairly small area, lined with cobblestone streets and filled with old buildings. Following the main road out of town let us see how the medieval town center related to the more modern outskirts as well as the surrounding farmlands. Sweden is not heavily populated: it is about the size of California, and is occupied by some nine million people. Once we left the city, which took only about five minutes of driving, we were in the open countryside.

Viking Figurehead Originally uploaded by abostick59.

Our first destination was Foteviken, a restoration of a Viking settlement just outside Höllviken, a town on the coast whose name translates into "Viking Hall." Officially, Foteviken is an active restoration and museum of Viking lifestyle, akin to Old Sturbridge Village or Colonial Williamsburg in the US. People dress in Viking clothing and carry out typical daily tasks — smithing, fishing, making clothes, and so on. There is also, though, a strong element of the community members having chosen this lifestyle, as if they were opting out of larger society and choosing to live a simpler life as Vikings. I didn't think of it then, but the word coming to my mind now is "byworlders" (from the Poul Anderson story of the same title). Opting out is on my mind, because of Michal Pollan's profile of the grass farmers in The Omnivore's Dilemma.

Cathy Tuttle has been studying sustainable living while she has been living here. I feel as if I am missing an opportunity to learn something about it from her.

Thinghöll of Foteviken Originally uploaded by abostick59.

We were given an English-language tour of Foteviken by the community's leader. He showed us a couple of houses and the main hall — the Thinghöll — as well as some of the structures where work was done: the smithy, a wool-working area, and so on. He told us of the Viking Market that would take place the next week when Vikings from all over the world would gather at Foteviken. The gathering Vikings would be much more like Creative Anachronists than the dedicated byworlders here. I thought of the stories I had heard from the 1975 Aussiecon, where Vikings, described as the Australian analog of the SCA, put on a fighting demonstration.

After the tour, we visited the burial mound of King Fote, who gives Foteviken its name. Then we had a picnic lunch.

From there we drove to Skanör, a fishing and beach resort town a few kilometers away, and sat on the beach for a while. I took my sandals and socks off and wet my feet in the Öresund, then sat for a while on the sand with Cathy and Eva. Debbie and David sat on the seawall and talked alone, and the kids played in the water.

Färsk Fisk Originally uploaded by abostick59.

All day, the weather was grey and overcast, which made the beach tolerable, as at that time of day I don't think I would have lasted long under the full strength of the sun.

At length we got back together again, and drove back to Lund. I was nodding off in my seat by the time we got back.

The late afternoon and evening was spent in the Villa Nottle. I copied photographs from my camera to my PowerBook, and uploaded the best of them to Flickr. From there, I used one to anchor a brief vacation-blogging post to As I Please. Cathy prepared a lovely meal of salmon, with rice and peas to go along with it. I nodded off over the computer until it was time to go back to the hotel, where I went straight to bed.

Posted by abostick at August 2, 2007 02:22 PM