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Grattis på födelsedagen

New Blog Post! Featuring Roman Triumvirate & Other Friendlies

We have had Introductionsveckan here at the university. One lady gave a presentation about Östersund, and it sounds really nice--maybe I should visit sometime. One distinction it has is the title of Gastronomical Capitol of the World for 2011; an honour it shares in Roman-like triplicity with two other cities, both of which boast populations of several million. At roughly 60.000, the immutable mathematics of the universe dictate that Östersundarna get more mat (food) per capita. This is happy equation in that the cheese, fil, meat, herring, & root-vegetables are super-tasty, ergo, "the more the merrier." An important component of the "gastronomical" interest is a clear movement for local and sustainable food-production.  This movement might be understood as a tentacle of a broader commitment to energy-efficiency, but I think somehow that the latter is actually more fundamental to the city. In any case, Östersund, again together with two other cities--Trondheim & Sundsvall--created "The Green Highway" for coast-to-coast travel. Nabotaget is a train that connex the coasts, but there is also a green (figuratively) highway (literally) that does the same thing by providing electric-recharge stations for battery cars along the route so the electric-powered pilgrimage need not be impeded by your lack of juice.
Östersund ligger vid Storsjön. The latter is a lake, but it might as well be "the Pond" by the mood of't. Today I wandered down the cobbled streets to the water for some reflexion, since I'm profound and this is what profound people do. Across the water is Fröson, an island.
Another cool thing is the superabundance of bike-paths. It's almost overwhelming. You find, for example, bike-paths ever when you are looking for them.
I have been collecting svampar like a mycological manic. I have to say, it doesn't take much effort here. (Nicco, fjällig bläcksvamp is "wobbley-toppe" rendered in Swedish.) Another project I have been undertaking is picking currants. There aren't very many, but I found a couple patches and I have been harvesting them. They're a little different than American currants in that the stems don't so willingly part with their  rubies, but I have been taking them home togather and then spreading them out on the table to do the operation while I listen to P1 on the radion to try to learn Swedish. Another thing I am doing is collecting fil cultures. My plan is to purchase raw milk from the woman I met at last week's market and inoculate the latter with the sayd friendlies.

Some pictures from down by the water.

...And up at the University, på studentplanen. Mowing the grass...a normal day.

A Fowl Feast

Burnt almonds, dried breadcrumbs and chopped turnip garnished with baked eggshells.

Jämtens Marknad

Saturday, lördag, was a modest market at Stortorget. The vendors vended berries, jam, tunnbröd (flat-bread, like Vasa), vegetables, sausage, dairy products, etc.... It was fun to see all the local produx. I got to talk to an old cheese-maker about pasteurisation (all her products, including milk, hard-cheese, moldy-cheese, & fill (cultured milk) were made from unpasteurised milk). 

Präsgatan. There's something about cobblestones... 

If carrots are as tasty by any other name, it would have to be morötter.

This morning, Sunday, is really quiet in Östersund. Allegedly, all the pious Lutherans are in church, but an experience during my pre-provender promenade i morse ("in the matin/early-morning) corroborated my suspicion that this is "bulshit;" a characterisation which I quote verbatim from a young Swede named "Thomas," whom I happened to meet on the sayd walk. Besides his oral dissent, this fellow himself embodied the alternative hypothesis for the Sunday serenity in that, at 6:30 AM, he and his friend "Johan" were still drunk in the streets. 

Their company could easily have become tråkigt--tedious--but instead it was pretty fun to talk with them. The best part was that they didn't realise I wasn't Swedish. I told them before too long though, just to end the charade on my terms. The best part was first they thought I was from Umeå. Anyway we walked along the cobblestones by the harbour for a while before the two decided to go home and go to bed.

Fruits of the 'Shroom-forest & Calf's-liver Stew

Right now I'm at Länsbiblioteket right down the street from my apartment in Östersund. It's rainy, there are tons of mushrooms (I picked up some boletes this morning and stewed them with Swedish beats this morning. Add some chunx of ungnöttslever--calf's liver--and some local raw-milk cheese and that's a memorable breakfast), I ate some, I want to eat some more, so I came to the library to checkout Hitta rätt i svampskogen--"Find right in the 'shroom-forest. I can't wait to put it to use. I realised that with my methodical updating, I was writing only marginally faster than I was living, so I wouldn't be caught up until Thanksgiving. For that reason I decided to jump to the present with this entry with the intention of colouring the interrim as time permits.

Ret the Rumpus Recommense!

I intended to kick off this composition last night after dinner while I was listening to a Finnish reporter on Sveriges Radio speak his strangely-accented variety of Swedish. But I had to buy some groceries so instead I walked down to the Coop and by the time I got back it was eight o’clock and I fell asleep instead. Now it’s around midnight and instead of sleeping I’m writing…(to indicate temporal discontinuity). The truth of the matter is that I probably wouldn’t be writing this at all, and and my multintudinous promises of “blog-updates” from Östersund would have remained unfulfilled for sheer indolence if not for the circumstances of my trip up to this point, among other consequences whereof is that I finished my journal so I’ve got no place else t’ write!

To explain, a skeletal account: bright-eyed at Ted Stevens International on Sunday, having deliberately cleared up all thitherto unresolved matters and properly made all my farewells, I could not have been more ready to start my “adventure.” PSYCH! The flight to Europe is cancelled because somwhere a stewardess pulled a level and broke an airpline. After five hours standing in queue, I have this message to show for it: “come back tomorrow” with this corollary: “be four hours early.”

After “wandering around like a graveyard ghost” during the awkward interrim, my stint as a temporal refugee was concluded. So, in “the same procedure as yesterday,” I stood in a five-hour line. This time instead of ending in the Baja, I found myself on a jumbo-jet sitting next to a very friendly Schwizerdeutscherin named “Alessandra.” Another key difference was that instead of Frankfurt, this flight was to Zürich. This is significant, among the obvious reasons such as the fact that the two metropolii (Nicky, do you do Greek plurals—I’m unsure on this one!) lie in different countries, Frankfurt was only to be an intermediate stop for me, as I had further flights that would take my first to Stockholm and finally to Östersund. And I though I the sayd flights could have been useful even after your average Verspätung, and still even after such a prodigious one as seven hours (such was my scheduled layover in Frankfurt), twenty-six hours were enough to compell their forfeiture. So instead of arriving in Frankfurt on Monday with a clear route to my destination, I arrove in Zürich on Tuesday with no clear prospects. Upon learning the details of the flight to Frankfurt for us that Condor had arranged, "the huddled masses," I was in a position to buy tickets to Sweden...again. Even now, my streak of fortune continued to manifest itself. For example, there was one payphone in the entire terminal that accepted my international calling-card. I determined this fact through a methodical process of trial and error (even this phone didn't warm up to me until the second try).

I realise this is becoming tedious. One more observation before I wrap this up: it's funny how such experiences cultivate so distinct a sense of comraderie among the individuals involved, as though one randomly becomes friend with everyone involved simply by default. I exchanged emails with about half a dozen fellow travellers, including a Notz-like German family, several other Germans, and a Switzer. But my favorite instance of this sort of thing was in relation to a group of elderly Slovenian couples. They were very nice, and thought it was especially funny that I had been to Slovenia and could remember a handful of words. I particularly hit it off with several of the older men, one of which so well and literally that we were slapping each other on the back with every occasion thereafter. I was extremely fond of that fellow.

In short, I made it to Östersund only one day late, with all my parts and it is very nice to be "alive" instead of "travelling."

Solens Uppgång i Östersund

Mittuniversitet

Breakfast first day, before I could get into my apartment

Can't see to excape the Googlemobiles...

Rubus idaeus

Between God and Adam's outstretched crooked fingers, lit by the silver sun, I have always imagined a raspberry. Its form is unlikely, even in our earthly world; a tapered chalice forged from plump droplets, each containing a crucial seed. And red like blood. Not like the blood of martyrs--the dark stain spreading across the tunic--but red like the blood of life that flows through us all and brightens our cheeks when we steal a glance across the room and our eyes are met by a playful smile.

I see God int the raspberry's unity; I see man in its forms. Whether selected for size or flavor, sheen or hue, the raspberry remains true and incorruptible. This Creation, sculpted and scattered by the human hand, is ultimately freer than you or me or the Lord in the sky because it has a more important blessing: the Wild. When we are gone, and our God with us, the raspberry will let nature take her back into her fold, changing form and flavor to please birds more princely than we.