Första advents helgen: Björberget och Jamska Ordboka

Today I stopped by the ski stadium on my pilgrimage to the grocery store to watch an IBU Cup biathlon race. It was fun to watch, despite the weather--it was really windy. Here are some pictures.

Still no real snow. It's incredible how well the organisers prepared the track considering meteorology over the past weeks,

Björn Ferry på Björnberget

I got some squashes at the grocery store to celebrate Advent. I wish I got this:

A dictionary for Jamska, the crazy dialect native to these parts. If Jämtland had an army, Scandinavia would have  a sixth language. Orlboka it's called. In proper Swedish it should be "ordbok" or "ordboken." Wonderful.

Of Reindeers & Runestones

There is a Samí culture museum just out of town that I visited last week. It's called Jamtli. Besides the reindeer, there we some really awesome Viking artifacts excavated from Frösön; remnants from the good old days. Frösön (Frös--"Freyr," Norse god of the phallus & fertility, also nomenclatural patron to our fifth weekday; "ön" island) is the island across Storsjön from Östersund. Ten centuries ago it was a Viking settlement; today there's an airport with daily flights to Coppenhagen & Oslo.  

Arabian silver-dollars. Some Vikings went West, others went Middle-east...

A thousand-year-old tapestry; contemporary with the Norman Invasion.

Yesterday I chanced upon a Viking rune-stone so I took a picture. Östersund lit by the 3 o'clock sunset in the background.

That's all I have. Sorry if the posts are comparatively meagre. I've had a lot to read & write for school. It's like this: as more prolific på svenska, then less so in The Rumpus Room. Inverse relationships are a tragic fact of life, I suppose; a stamp of the God of Justice, who demmandeth sacrifice.