Snow! ... The adventure in Scandinavia continues

I come to you from sunny Oulu, Finland. By "sunny" I mean occasionally blue and sunny, but mostly overcast with grey-white clouds that produce this white fluffy stuff that lands on the ground and is cold. That's right: snow! Snow in October! And snow that even lands on the ground and stays there, not melting, for some time - the parking lot outside the window was white when we woke up and has slowly been revealing its true colour (grey) over the course of the day. We are on the fourth floor though, so we get a nice show from the large flocks of birds(migrating apparently) and squirrels playing in the trees. And snow! Still novel enough for me to ignore the fact that outside it's kinda cold: a balmy -2.2 degrees C. But inside it's toasty warm. And I have been enjoying many a cup of hot tea or coffee.

I am staying in Oulu with my long-time good friend Marnie, who is doing an exchange at the uni here. It's very nice to be staying at someone's place, after so many hostels! No more snoring roommates or communal kitchens or revolting toilets or door slamming in the middle of the night - less of that and more of leisurely sleep-ins, balanced meals, the afore-mentioned cups of tea/coffee, listening to music (oh, how I've missed listening to the Cure! Nice, also, to reacquaint myself with Missy Higgins and The Cat Empire for a bit of a Melbourne fix!) ALSO, Johnny Depp. He's her flatmate! ... ! ... Ok, that's a lie. But he was here last night. In 'Sleepy Hollow'. Which we watched while eating Czech Oplatky (wafer thin wafers) and 85% Lindt dark chocolate. Now there's a combination for you ...

[I pick up this post after some time has passed since writing the above.] We just had a traditional Finnish dinner with Marnie's friend Hanna and her family. Delicious: home-smoked salmon, karjalan piirakka (yummy little pie things: made with rye flour with a "salty rice porridge" filling - yummier than that makes them sound!), salad and cheese and Finnish rye bread, and then Arctic Cloud Berries - which are these incredible yellow-orangey sweet Finnish berries. Delicious! All of it. I am now so full. Then we came back here and had to eat the lemon tart that Marnie made during the day, so we enjoyed that while chatting with two of her Italian friends here - I now have contacts in Florence!

Ok, I should tell you about Stockholm, eh? Just briefly, before I fall asleep. Stockholm itself is made up of a whole series of islands - 14 I think, but I could be pulling that number from the air. I was staying on the island of Skeppsolmen which is right in the centre - so quite conveniently close to everything, but you still have to cross bridges and walk round bits of water (sometimes biggish bits of water too!) to get to places. Well, namely the place I wanted to get to was an incredible vegetarian restaurant called Herman's. If ANY of you get to Stockholm, you really must go to this restaurant; carnivore, herbivore or whatever you are! It has an amazing buffet of vegetarian dished: curries, rice, salads, all yummy yummy yum stuff. Oh baby, I'm doing a Pavlov's dogs just thinking about it! And they have a great selection of scrumptious looking cakes, but I was too full after my vegetarian feast to try any of these. But next time I'm in Stockholm. (Tell me if all the italics are annoying - I've only just worked out how to do them!!)

Aside from eating, I also checked out the Moderna Museet (Museum of Modern Art) which made me happy with it's massive Matisse cut-out picture called 'Apollo' (the size of a wall and gorgeously colourful - I thought about buying a postcard of it but the postcard does not do it justice). And also some Picassos, always enough to make me happy, which included some giant Picasso sculptures in the gardens - great slabs of stone with sketches of the giant figures on them: my favourite one was the giant woman with great pendulous breasts. On the grounds there were also some Tinguely sculptures (the machines that do things, remember my post from Basel way back in August?) and also many colourful ones by Niki De Saint Phalle. And all these surrounded by beautiful Stockholm Autumn trees with their leaves turning yellow and orange and red and then defenestrating themselves in the most graceful, poetic way possible.

I also went to the Historiska Museet (Historical Museum) and saw a whole lot of Viking stuff, like runes and skeletons (human and horse) and gold. In fact, they have a whole room called The Gold Roooom - not just Viking stuff but lots and lots and lots of gold from all over. Though I didn't get gold fever like I've heard some people get in such museums (...Rachel!?). Also there was no mention of Viking cats, so I have no new information to report to one Norwegian Skogkat back in Melbourne about his Swedish ancestors. I also bought myself a Picasso poster (of a faun!) which, in hindsight, will go very nicely - because it's blue and yellow - with the Rolling Stones poster I got in Paris (which is blue). Because, did you know, I'm being followed by the Rolling Stones.

Being followed. Or following. It's a fine line ...

;-)
xxx

(PS. I took a sauna! A first in my life. And so relaxing ... and then a glass of Aussie wine ... Ah!)