Operation Aurora - Circles and Ribbons

The road to Tromsø is a long one, especially since I chose to take the more scenic route up the Norwegian coast instead of back into Sweden and then north. When either route is over 20 hours, a couple extra hours seems inconsequential. The part that is of consequence is how narrow and twisting the roads are, and how the road conditions vary from clear, to slushy, to covered in ice. I don't know where jurisdiction for maintaining the roads lay---in the towns, the states, or the country itself---but regardless of who is responsible they do a surprising job of sanding and plowing and keeping the drifts from enveloping the roads. I can't imagine the veritable army that the Scandinavian countries employ in keeping the major roads open for as long as possible. That said, I'm just an American from the part of the country that shuts down with a reasonable threat of snow and this is a part of the world where they don't feel like winter has really started yet. To quote one hotel reception receptionist, "You've caught us at a bad time. It's the dark days, but no snow." He's saying this as snow is falling and plows are going by.

Despite the short days, it's absolutely beautiful country while you can see it. The roads hug the jagged fjords as they jiggle back and forth like they were drawn by a nervous cartographer. Vast planes of snow, narrow bays and rivers of ice, sharp explosions of black rock tempered by white snow---it's a photographers dream. Except the roads have little to no places to pull off and allow me to be a gawking tourist. There are pull-offs and parking spots to allow backed up traffic to pass if you're going slow or need a break, but they're few, far between, and in the least opportune places for gawking. Most of the time there is no shoulder on the road, making parking and walking back to a viewpoint rather dangerous. The memories will have to serve for the most part, and after all that's what vacations are really about anyway.

This far north the sun rises late and stays low in the sky and sets early. It gets mostly dark quick, but then takes hours to get full dark. But once it does, it's an all encompassing darkness if it's cloudy. You can see bits of civilization far into the distance as it casts a soft glow in the low clouds above, but in between it's dark---fucking dark. But when the clouds part and you get a glimpse of the naked night sky it's breathtaking. Stars shine with an intensity that acts as a dull night light and clusters of stars I've never seen are bright and clear. The moon rises early and gets higher in the sky than the sun, but not my much. In contrast to the darkness it's a blazing light that casts a soft light, creating soft shadows even when it's not quite in its first quarter. It's a good thing that is its own kind of beauty, because most of the day is spent at night, as dumb as that sounds. At one point the sun didn't break over the horizon until just after 11 and it was back down before 1. Not counting the long tail of dawn and dusk light, the entirety of the day was less than 2 hours.

My first night heading north was in a small town called Grong, where it was a windy but balmy 40ish degrees. When I woke up it was below freezing, setting the stage for a colder, more winters day of driving. As I got further north the roads were more frequently icy than not, which I honestly preferred to the mixed and patchy roads because I didn't have to wonder what I was driving on at any given moment. Not to sound bored, but it was just hours and hours of absolutely beautiful, rugged countryside. About 3 hours into the drive I passed a massive sign that spanned the road declaring I had entered Nord Norge, or Northern Norway. It was presented as if I had just entered some grand kingdom or a winter-themed amusement park. Maybe in a month or two when the real snow sets in and the skiing lodges open it is exactly like an amusement park. About an hour after entering Nord Norge I crossed the Arctic Circle.

This was significant for two reasons. One, I've just always wanted to be able to say I've been north of the circle. And two, even though Tromsø was the goal I considered anything above the circle prime aurora viewing area. As a result, the moment darkness engulfed the land and I saw a clear blanket of stars above, I started looking for signs of activity in the sky. Hours went by, but finally around 10pm, about an hour south of Bognes I saw something. It started as a pale, sickly gray glow that looked at first like a long stands of odd clouds catching some unseen light. A little more time went by and the glow became more green than gray, and the strands become a little more cohesive and wild. Splitting into a series of greenish veins and then merging or separating even more the next time I looked up. I was craning my head as I drove, trying not to crash, and smiling like a kid.

By the time I reached Bognes the strands were vibrant, but not quite neon, the moved visibly in the few seconds I had to look up. There hadn't been a good place to stop for a solid hour until I reached the ferry at Bognes. I arrived just as the 2nd to last ferry for the night was loading and immediately pulled in. The moment we pulled away from he bright lights of the ferry terminal I was on deck, completely alone. Above me ribbons of color were swirling, warping, wavering---some lazily, some frantically. There were a lot of lights on the deck, but I noticed a set of staff stairs up to another deck and hopped over the gate. It turned out it led to another deck, that after hopping another gate was totally publicly accessible, rendering my little rebellion pointless. Again I was alone, but it was away from all the lights and above me the aurora were dancing. The brightest ribbons were a rich, but slightly ethereal green. Others were ghostly and weak. Directly above me was a tangled knot of green ribbons with tinges of yellow at the edges that were swirling around violently. Occasionally a ribbon would break and bright pinks and and hints of blues would leak from them.

I stood out on the deck for about half an hour watching giddily as the winds rose and the temperatures dropped. It reached a point where the wind was blowing so hard I could barely stand and the few bits of my face exposed to the elements were sore and I could barely keep my eyes open. Eventually I had to admit defeat. I had stuff better suited for the elements in my car, but they locked access to the vehicle deck until just before we reach shore again. When I drove off the ferry in Lødingen it was almost midnight, I was tired, and there was a small hotel less than a kilometer from the terminal. My viewing had ended sooner than I had wanted, but already I was beyond happy and I slept the kind of sleep only fools and children do.

Operation Aurora - Juxtapositions Part II

I had only been on the road for about 20 minutes after leaving the Car Cemetery before hitting the Norwegian border. It was a pretty simple affair, though being a tourist in November seemed to single me out for a few extra questions. The agent had me pull over to the side, and I was expecting to have him go through my stuff like the guy parked next to me. Instead he asked me a few questions about my trip, how long I had been where, and then suddenly asked me if I smoked weed. It was clearly meant to be a Gotcha! question, and I seemed to pass cause he smiled and just waved me on. It seemed odd after the "Canadian marijuana" conversation outside the Mastodon show and makes me wonder about any other hidden American stereotypes. I blame Colorado.

Crossing into Norway it was almost immediately obvious they had gotten more snow than Sweden, but the roads were well enough traveled that it wasn't an issue. It also seemed that Norway liked building tunnels more as well. A dozen or so tunnels later and I was on the outskirts of Oslo, where there were even more, longer tunnels. I'd only run into the issue once while in Stockholm, but my phone doesn't even try to act like it knows where I'm going once it gets into a tunnel. This wouldn't be too much of a problem if it weren't for the fact that there are several exits and branches inside the tunnels and traffic circles immediately upon exiting tunnels. As a result I took a slightly more scenic route to my accommodations for the night, a hostel just outside the downtown area.

About an hour after leaving the Car Cemetery my wrist was at peak "ouch" and I was driving one-handed (it's my left wrist and I'm left handed). By the time I got settled in my room I wasn't really in much of a mood for exploring. The only thing that finally got me out of my room was my growing hunger. I mentioned this in the first part, but I've been eating more McDonald's meals than I care to admit. While in Stockholm I came to the realization that Swedes don't really seem to eat out much. They mostly eat out for lunch, and it's mostly shit food. Aside from the ubiquitous McDonalds and a handful of Burger Kings (the fast food, not the boat) there were also tons of little grills and kebab shops situated at busy intersections, near metro stations, outside every shopping center---just everywhere. They aren't little carts on wheels or food trucks like you might see in major American cities, but small four-walled brick shops---they have permanence. They are, relatively speaking, cheap places to eat in a city of expensive food. The few places of quality I found in looking around seemed geared more toward special occasions or tourists. I did come across a fantastic vegetarian restaurant at the top of my 144 stairs in Stockholm, but I didn't find it until the end of my stay and never found time to get back there.

Instead of ruining all the hard work I've done over the last 7 months of losing a not-insignificant amount of wait, I decided when I got to Oslo that I would start stocking up on things I could keep in my room, and keep cold on my window sill, from local grocery stores. Much like Stockholm, Oslo has little grocery stores all over the place. Indoor shopping centers almost always have one or more that usually have some kind of options or fresh takeaway food as well. Being on the outskirts of the downtown area there aren't any of those shopping centers near the hostel, but there was a small discount grocery store (think Aldis) that had a surprisingly  good selection of baked goods and even more surprisingly good quality sushi (I have no idea where it's prepared, but it said it was that day and it was better than any grocery store sushi I've had before). It wasn't boldly exploring the heart of a new city, but there is something decidedly adventurous about grocery shopping in another country. You get to see what foods and items people at home value and prefer. The wide variety of fish wasn't surprisingly, but the variations of salt and salmon, or salt and cod tell you a lot. The surprise in people's voices at an English speaker in the grocery store, where there was never a sound of surprise out in the city or even on the road, was telling as well. I wasn't exactly a trailblazer, but I was definitely taking the road less traveled.

The next morning I woke up to a light but steady snow that got heavier as the day went by and didn't relent until well after dark. I took my time at breakfast, trying out a small selection of brined cod in various sauces (I identified a sweet mustard one and a tomato-based one, the other I don't have a clue) and cod and peppercorns in brine alone. I killed some more time in the common room of the hostel working on the pictures from the previous day. Finally I had to decide whether I was going to completely squander my time in Oslo or deal with the snow and head out. I went with venturing out, though I cheated and took the car downtown instead of trudging down the street trying to find Oslo's metro (the T-bane here). I parked out of the way so that I could walk a big loop around the city center. I was immediately solicited by a prostitute, though I didn't realize she was a prostitute until I came back later that evening and two women who were most definitely prostitutes were in the same spot offering "suck suck."

It was much colder than my days in Stockholm, being somewhere around 24 or 25F, and although the snow wasn't as tiny and sharp, it was windy and constantly blowing in my face. I didn't make it far before holing up in a coffee shop with a good view of Karl Johan gate, the main shopping district of Oslo. The streets weren't as busy as Stockholm, and there weren't quite as many people on bicycles, but I don't know if it was the weather or if Oslo isn't quite as gung-ho as Stockholm is when it comes to walking and riding all over the goddamn place. I eventually left the warm safety of the coffee shop and went around the corner where I was first drawn by a large ferries wheel into what turned out to be a large Christmas market. It was full of seasonal foods and vendors selling delicious smelling meats and sausages cooked over large grills or open fires. There were stalls selling a variety of handmade cold weather items, a few selling what were apparently high-end Norwegian brands of gloves, sweaters, and hats that seemed to be of questionable provenance. Considering a pair of lamb skin gloves at the Fjallraven store (a very popular Swedish brand of outdoor gear, even in the US) was over $100, the dubious gloves at something over $40 weren't bad regardless of where they came from.

Random ambling and the sound of bells led me to the Rådhus, Oslo's blocky, Functionalist style city hall. I thought I was heading toward the domekirke, the Oslo Cathedral, which is the flagship of the Church of Norway. Instead of was greeted by a massive, rectangular facade of large bricks, with a minimalist bell tower, some burtalists looking sculptures, and then a giant ornate-by-comparison astronomical clock. Wrapped around it like curved arms in the style of the square in front of St. Peter's Basilica are two open-air galleries with sculptures carved in wood depicting several scenes from Norse mythology. Had it not been 10 minutes before closing I would've gone in and explored some, but timing was not on my side. After wandering about the Rådhus some I walked around and finally saw my first glimpse of the waterfront as the last bit of the day's hazy light disappeared. An old fort protects one side of the harbor while mid-century buildings and new construction sit on the other. But the cold was getting to me, the snow whipping harder, and it seemed like most things were closing up for the day so I meanderingly made my way back to the underground parking garage where I met the Suck Suck Girls, politely declined their services, and spent an hour trying to make the 15 minutes drive back to the hostel.

I was returning in what I assume was rush hour traffic, the snow was starting to win out over the plows and sanding, the tunnels were totally fucking with my phone. I got within a kilometer of the hostel only to be thwarted by a steep, ice coated hill that I was doing a surprisingly good job of climbing until a bus slowly started to spin counter-clockwise, Google Maps did not like my failure to follow directions and sent me in a series of circles, repeatedly trying to make me go up that damn hill, before I started making executive decisions based on my limited knowledge of the area and finally made it home where I enjoyed another trip to the grocery store.

I woke up today to find the snow having changed over to rain and I immediately slipped and face planted into the ice. My only saving grace was that I had both arms full of crap so I couldn't instinctively screw up my wrist any more. The ridiculously slippery parking lot, the wind and rain, and the creeping feeling that I'm running out of time and opportunity to get north and catch the Aurora only solidified my decision not to spend extra time in Oslo. In just a few minutes I will hop back into my car and head north. It will probably take me two days to get to Tromso, leaving me very little time to get lucky.

Operation Aurora - Juxtapositions Part I

Getting out of Stockholm was a lot easier than getting in. I was sad to leave, as I'd come to enjoy my time there, which is a good thing since I ended up spending a couple days more than I had first planned---the timing of the Mastodon concert threw things off a little. Regardless, it was time to move on so I did. The snow of the day before had put a nice, light blanket of white across the countryside. The road wound around low hills and cut through some of the bigger ones. It actually reminded me a lot of driving through areas of Kentucky. The foreign road signs and lengthy place names full of umlauts and overrings dispells that illusion pretty quickly.

The drive from Stockholm to Oslo is only about six hours, a relatively short drive compared to several of my roadtrips, but I quit for the day in the small town or Årjäng, Sweden. Just outside of Årjäng, in the tiny community of Båstnäs, is the Båstnässkroten---it literally means the Båstnäs junkyard, but it's more commonly referred to in English as the Båstnäs Car Cemetery. Directions to this place absolutely suck. Most sources give an address that's about 10 or more kilometers off. I spent nearly an hour driving back and forth across the same three roads trying to find this place. I decided to venture down the main road until me and a logging truck slid to a halt as we nearly became one. I gave up and stewed over my failure while eating yet another McDonalds meal (notice I haven't been talking much about food this trip? Yeah, there's a reason.) I took advantage of the free wifi while eating my sad Quarter Pounder (A QP with cheese, though the boxes clearly say Quarter Pounder) and found that Google Earth had a different address, and called it Ivan's Junk Yard (Ivan and his brother supposedly own the place) and decided to give it one more try. I went down the same road, passed the skid marks from where I nearly became one with the trees, and about 4 kilometers further I saw the first definitive signs of the dead.

Across several acres of densely wooded Swedish countryside are the final resting places for hundreds, if not thousands, of old Scandinavian cars from the 40s, 50s, and 60s. There are two common stories for the origins of these cars. The most popular is that Båstnäs was the resting place of car from US soldiers leaving Europe after World War II. There are several problem with this story, mainly that Sweden did not have a US base or contingency of US soldiers at the time and Sweden is a stupid place for everyone to leave Europe. The other story is the cars were cast aside when the country switched from driving on the left side of the road to driving on the right. This has its own issues as many of the cars, including some of the oldest, are correctly configured for driving on the right. At the time of the change, in 1967, 90% of Swedish drivers already drove vehicles with steering wheels on the left. Why, I'm not entirely sure, though Norway and Finland already drove on the right so that may have something to do with it.

Regardless of the reason, the forest and a large, open field are full of classic cars rotting and rusting away and slowly being reclaimed and overgrown by nature. Some are stacked three high in rows creating industrial walls, some are thrown in piles haphazardly, some have fallen into small recesses of water, currently frozen and dusted with snow. Some have trees and shrubs growing through them, many have thick, lush carpets of moss or are covered with liken like forest barnacles. I've  seen pictures of the car cemetery in the summer and it's a seemingly benign, almost pleasant juxtaposition of nature and mechanics. In the winter, with a coat of snow and long shadows from the low sun it becomes somber, gothic, even melancholy. Ever since I was a kid I would see faces in the fronts and backs of cars. Tail lights making the eyes while grills and bumpers make mouths. These rotting, rusting vehicles often had ghastly faces. Some resembling metal skulls seemingly shocked to find themselves dead, some even managing to look grotesque with headlights hanging out like dangling eyeballs and grills that looked like pained grins. I found it all oddly beautiful and spent well over an hour walking through the frozen forest. I likely would have spent longer had I not slipped while trying to climb down a large, snow covered rock and landed on my wrist trying to break my fall. I continued on for another 10 or 15 minutes before it became painful just to hold the camera or try to navigate around the stacks of cars. Finally I called it quits, packed some snow in a plastic bag that I wrapped around my wrist, and cussed continually for about two hours as I made my way to Oslo. (Continued in Part II)

Operation Aurora - Weathering the Weather

My last two days in Stockholm were marked by weather unbecoming of a vacation destination. First it was rain and wind, and then it was cold as hell, windy, and snowing sporadically. The rain alone wasn't bad, but the wind kept blowing it into my face so I kept retreating into places to sit out the worst of it. The result was sitting in one of the shopping malls people watching and eating lunch at McDonalds (which are all over the place) and then ducking into the Historiska Museet, the Swedish History Museum when the hold on my coat decided to stop being a hood. My destination had been the Vasamuseet , but free admission and being there when I needed a place to dry off solidified the detour.

I didn't go through the whole museum because I still had aspirations of reaching my initial destination, but I did find the history musuem quite interesting. Amongst other exhibits chronicaling the history of Sweden is an extensive one on Swedish Vikings. A trove of artifacts and information make it worth a visit on it's own. But once I was dried and warmed up I headed back out, and continued on my way to the Vasa Musuem. A coffee detour later I arrived.

The Vasa was a 64 gun ship intended to be the flagship of Sweden's navy and a show of force in their war with Poland. The ship set sail on its maiden voyage in 1628 and sank a few minutes later in the middle of the harbor after encountering a minor squall. The ship was built to specifications of the king by a private group and as such its hull was too shallow, it's ballast too light, and was known to be unstable yet ordered to set sail by the king regardless. It would sit on the ocean floor sinking into the mud for 333 years before being resurrected largely intact in a complicated salvage and preservation operation that began in the late 50s and is technically still on-going (the ship is actually still drying and requires constant upkeep).

The Vasa Museum is a one trick pony and knows it. But as far as ponies go, it's a pretty badass pony. Where most single-subject museums tease and tempt you deeper into the building before unveiling its prized possession, usually to disappointment, the forgoes the cocktease and shows it all up front. Once you buy your ticket and enter the museum proper you are immediately confronted with the fully resurrected ship in all it's glory. The weathered but reconstructed ship sits front and center, it's bowsprit juts out toward you, its masts towering over you at full height. You can hardly go anywhere in the museum without the imposing ship sitting there in its dark, brooding glory staring you down. The museum it a wide open building with levels up and down from ground level to allow you to view the ship from every angle but on-board. Around the outside edges are exhibits about the ship's history, the recovery efforts, the on-going preservation, and skeletons and accoutrements of several of  those who died when it's capsized. It's quite possibly the most impressive museum I've ever been to. It may not be able to compete with the sheer wealth of artifacts and exhibits something like Smithsonian or Louvre does, but it more than makes up for it with presentation. Visiting the Vasa was pretty much the only thing I accomplished that day and I was fine with that.

The next day I woke up to bitter cold, sharp wind, and tiny flakes of snow that whipped at my face and occasionally blinded me. It wasn't anything close to a white out, but it made walking around town very uncomfortable. So much so that I actually left the Burger King, realized I was vastly under-dressed for the day, and had to make another go at it. There was only one thing I planned on doing that day, and it wasn't until later that evening. With no real goal in mind, I wandered a part of the city I hadn't gone to yet and stumbled onto a great view of Stockholm at the city's natural high point known as Skinnarviksberget. If I thought it was cold at sea level, it was fucking cold and the wind was painful at 53 meters above sea level. After about 10 minutes of enjoying the view I was frozen and set out to find a coffee shop and kill a couple hours.

Finally it was time to head to the whole point of the day, a heavy metal concert at a formerly brewery where the bands Mastodon, Red Fang, and Russian Circles were playing. I arrived a little earlier than I intended, for no reason other than I got antsy and left the coffee shop too soon. As a result I ended up standing outside the venue for a little over an hour, accidentally broke in line (I mean, the head of the line...not just stumbled somewhere mid-line), and was shivering and my teeth were chattering by the time we were let in. The guy who was actually first in line was really cool about it and instead of rightfully sending me to the back he just decided to start talking to me about music and Canadian marijuana. The concert was great. I've been a fan of Mastodon and Red Fang for a while but never able to see them, and Russian Circles was new to me but pretty good. It was around midnight when I  got out and close to 1am when I made it back to my room. Tomorrow I leave Stockholm to head toward Oslo, Norway.

Operation Aurora - The Underworld

I read something shortly before leaving for Sweden about the subway system, the Tunnelbana. Just about every one of their 100 stations was treated as an art gallery. It's something Stockholm touts as the worlds longest art gallery. This is a bit of a misrepresentation---selling themselves short in a way. Not every station is an art gallery. In fact, many stations are the canvas itself, forcing you to walk through the work of art. I imagine it's much like waking up to a beautiful mountain view every morning in that eventually, the majority of people no longer see it. I've never quite been normal---I still look up at the moon at night, find myself momentarily awed at the brief glimpse of mountains off in the distance on my way into work. Still, in the rush of trying to get from point A to B I can understand becoming oblivious to the art. It just slows you down. Despite that, I decided to spend the day checking out Stockholm's subway system.

Not all stations are created equal. One above ground station is more cutie pop-culture reference than grand statement. Covered in small square tiles it becomes an 8-bit video game landscape that cries out Super Mario without ever, as far as I saw, actually crossing into overt copyright violation. Another station looks like it could've been transplanted out of any major American city with it's central platform covered in traditional white subway tile and abstract lines and squiggles of of neon lighting mounted on the ceiling. There are some stations where the artist took the project literally and covered the walls of the station in panels of art to liven up the place.

The underground stations in general are carved into the bedrock below Stockholm and left rough-hewn and natural. This alone creates an impressive juxtaposition of nature and technology, but turn that into a canvas and it transcends gallery altogether. One station, T-Centralen (the heart of the system where all T lines meet), is covered in blue and white, with contrasting vines of some sort of fern or ivy sprawling on the walls and ceiling and the silhouettes of scaffolding and workers building the whole thing. Kungstradgarden is abstractly painted in slightly muted greens and reds in a style that could be a collaboration between Mondrian and Miro, but is also sprinkled with actual artifacts from the old palace (on loan from one of the museums) and presented as an archaeology dig. Solan Centrum is a painted a stark black and vibrant, 70s-horror-movie-fake-blood red.

I spent the entire day in the metro and only saw a fraction of the stations, mostly those of the red and blue line and only one or two on the green line. Ok...I didn't spend the entire day in the metro. I also used to metro as a tool to visit small sections of a large swath of the city. At most stations I would get off and go top side to see what life was like above ground. One trip took me out of the city and into one of the suburbs where there seemed to be nothing but high-rise apartment buildings and highways. Another took me into the heart of the downtown where the beginnings of a Christmas market were going up and an ice skating rink had been setup in one of the squares as the statue of some old Swede looked down at kids and adults sliding around on little blades of metal. Nearly every stop was within a block of some beautiful old church. Many stations exited into shopping malls full of grocery stores and clothing retailers.

Sitting around the malls and watching people do something as mundane as shopping for food was an interesting glimpse into what the average Stockholmian's life is like. But watching them travel through the subway lets you see what they are not. And what they are not is helpful or terribly friendly. They're not outwardly rude, but they aren't approachable or prone to simple acts of kindness. Holding doors and giving way to rushed travelers with more important destinations than me earned me odd, sometimes confused looks, and seemed to out me as a foreigner even more than being fat and carrying a camera. While standing in T-Centralen taking pictures there was a frustrated young woman that looked on the verge of tears. I had seen her stop a few people asking for help only to be rebuffed or ignored completely. She came up to me, but when I replied in English she looked disappointed, said something along the lines of "You wouldn't know" and walked off. A minute later she came back, more frustrated and apologized for asking me something she knew I wouldn't know...but didn't I know how to get to the train station. Not the T-bana or the light rail trains...the trains out of Stockholm. And surprising to both of us, I actually did know.

T-Centralen is the beating heart of the T-bana, but above it's also the beating heart of just about everything in Stockholm that travels on rails. Top-most in this hierarchy is Centralstation where trains to and from Stockholm branch out all over Sweden. In my exploring the station and the above ground area immediately around the station I had been through Centralstation and a brief section of the network on tunnels leading to the trains. I knew how to get to where she was going, but I had no idea how to tell her---so I showed her. At most this took 5 minutes of my time, but on several occasions she thanked me, commented on how a Swede would never do this, and even laughed when I was polite to people. At one point she said "Don't ever change." And then like that we both smiled, I wished her luck, and we went our separate ways. Now this was an extraordinary example of people not being helpful, but on several occasions I found myself in possession of knowledge of the T-bana that people from outside of Stockholm didn't have, and someone that had only been in the city 48 hours was helping direct lifelong Swedes. And at least half the time they made comment about how no one else would help or would feign ignorance.

I'm not saying Swedish people or Stockholmians (I really have no idea if that's a word) are bad, just that they're different. There have been many studies on happiness, the biggest being the World Happiness Report. Year after year, the Scandinavian countries are consistently the top countries---trading places with each other from year to year, but always making up the top ten. In fact, most years if the list was only a top 5 it was just be the Scandinavian Happiness Report. There have been many attempts to understand and interpreted this phenomenon and something interesting typically surfaces. Contrary to what you might think, the Scandinavian people are actually some of the most selfish individuals in the world. The key here is "individuals." As a people, they are rather united and have made sacrifices for the better of the whole and the end result is free healthcare, higher education, a low unemployment rate, economic stability. All of this has given them the freedom to be selfish. They don't need the kindness of strangers, so they don't offer it. It's just...different. And after my initial disappointment I realized it's actually critical to the Scandinavian identity. The people wouldn't be who they are without that. Random aside---the Kiwis typically rate as the most generous in the world.

Operation Aurora - Beginnings Part II

Stockholm is hard to describe geographically. It's not a single city sitting on the edge of the Baltic Sea, but a conglomeration of fourteen small islands situated where Lake Malaren empties into the Baltic. Some basic information about Stockholm, and somewhat of Sweden in general. Most everyone speaks English. I don't know why they do, but it's really convenient. English and the Scandinavian languages all come from Germanic, so there's a lot of similarities. They also seem to devour English media as well-the radio is full of American and British hits, the movies are predominantly American, and . The currency is the Swedish Kronnor, or crown, and it's roughly 10 SEK to 1 USD. Stockholmians are super fit. People walk or bike all over the goddamn place. There are bike lanes on most roads in the city, and lot of bike/walk lanes and bridges to get everywhere you need to go. I was outpaced by pretty much everyone, even those who were easily 20+ years older than me. Being slow, fat, and carrying a camera probably clearly marks me as a tourist---probably as an American tourist. Hopefully replying to everyone I don't understand with "Sorry?" Makes them wonder if I'm Canadian.

 Another fun fact, Stockholm is cold in November. Not Antarctica cold, but colder than South Carolina. I knew this...this wasn't a surprise. But coming from the mid 60s of home, and the freaking 80s in Ft. Lauderdale during my layover, I was surprised to see a good coating of ice on the windshield of my rental car. I was equally surprised by the approximately $100 parking ticket on the windshield. In my sleep deprived state the night before I had forgotten to check with reception to see if the cruise line parking lot was fair game, despite trying to remind myself several times, and found out that it was not. Lesson learned, I moved the car into a parking garage that was at the top of the massive cliff that is immediately across the road from the little harbor where the Burger King is...moored? Then I walked down the 144 steps of the switchback staircase that led back down and played my first game of chicken with the traffic of Stockholm.

My first stop was really one of convenience, even if I am actually interested in the subject, because it's basically right next door to the Burger King---the Fotografiska, or the Photography Museum. The bulk of the museum's exhibits, all of which I believe are temporary (I don't believe they have a permanent collection like most museums), is primarily from Scandinavian photographers, but there are a few small exhibits of American and other artists. The biggest exhibit at the moment is that of a Swedish photojournalist named Paul Hansen. His works span the majority of the different international crises of the last 10 years - earthquakes in Haiti, civil wars in Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, and others, Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and the fight against ISIS. He has a heavy emphasis on refugees in particular, and the innocent victims of these atrocities in general. The photos and the stories that accompany them are heartbreaking and horrifying, but he captures them with such reverence and respect (and talent) that it's hard not to admire the bleak outlook they portray.

 Between sitting at the breakfast table for a couple hours trying to work on my own photos, and taking about two hours to go through the exhibits at Fotografiska it was pretty much lunch time when I finished so I headed up to the museum's rather slick looking restaurant. Supposedly they've won an award for Museum Restaurant of the World. Now I don't know if you've spent much time in museums, and in turn museum restaurants, but they tend to kinda suck so it could be a dubious award if it weren't for the fact that food really is quite good. Even though I only had a salad, the centerpiece of which was a beetroot tartar (yeah, I don't really know what that means), it was a really good salad and the restaurant has a phenomenal view of the Stockholm harbor. I would complain about the fact that it was a bit expensive considering it was a salad but all Museum food is expensive, and all food (and just about everything else) in Stockholm is expensive too.

 After leaving the Fotografiska I decided I was just going to walk around and explore the parts of Stockholm that were within easy walking distance. It turns out that the majority of Stockholm proper is within distance, depending on your limits. My walk first took me into the historic district of Stockholm, known as Gamla Stan (literally Old Town) which is primarily on the island of Stadsholmen, nestled in the water between the main land masses of the city. Gamla Stan seems to be the main haunting ground of tourists to the city, which is understandable considering it's quaint, old-world narrow streets filled with shops and restaurants inside buildings hundreds of years old. Gamla Stan is dotted liberally with beautiful old churches and the Kungliga slottet, or the Royal Palace, where Sweden's monarchs still live (their government is very similar to the UK with a monarch but also a parliament).

 I wandered through the open areas of the palace where armed guards stand at attention and march along short, seemingly symbolic routes and bought a ticket to go inside. For whatever reason I only went through a small section, namely the old treasury, but the ticket is good for a week so I intend to go back and check out the rest. The treasury is small, but houses some well preserved Crown Jewels from reigns of the past; A dozen or so golden crowns, crusted with jewels and backed by beautifully woven and richly colored fabrics; several ceremonial swords with detailed etchings on the blades and pommels encircled with pearls; and various accoutrement that make up the royal regalia like intricate keys of state, globes cruciger, and scepters. I'll cover the rest when I go check it out.

 Once I continued on my meandering through the city I continued walking around the waterfront and ended up stumbling on a museum of modern art, the Moderna Museet on the island of Skeppsholmen. Now I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with modern art. Most of my favorite artists are modern...they're still alive and producing work. But most of my least favorite artists are modern and appear in many museums of modern art. They produce the kind of art that makes me feel like an asshole just looking at it. They take a pair of soccer balls and stick one each in little half-round pieces of Home Depot junk, set them on the floor, and call it a statement on our interaction with objects and the world around us. Yeah...that's the kind of asshole stuff in Moderna Museet. Granted, they have a decent selection of some of the lesser known pieces by Picasso, Mondrian, Matisse, Edward Munch (a Norwegian), and even a Dali. They also have old, weather-faded soccer balls in half circle things. They have an exhibit where a computer mines bitcoins, and when it's earned enough bitcoin it prints out a giant poster of an ancient form of currency on a large format printer. There's a large room wallpapered with used burlap coffee sacks the artists got from coffee farmers by exchanging them for new ones. It is slam full of Grade A asshole material and I enjoyed my time in the Moderna Museet. It's the kind of place where you wonder if the grumpy looking old woman sitting at a table reading a magazine is actually an exhibit. I still don't know for certain she wasn't.

 Once I left the museum, walked back because I realized I lost my phone, and left again after finding it in the bathroom it was well past dark (which doesn't mean much since it's dark by 4:30) and I was exhausted after doing a bit more walking than I was used to (about 8 miles all told) so I walked back around the large half-circle route I'd taken until I got back to my Burger King home and had a tasty dinner of fish and chips (not exactly quintessential Swedish fare) and a couple pints of Hoga Kusten, a decent but not amazing amber beer named after the High Coast of Sweden. And then I slept on my Burger King bunk bed.

Operation Aurora - Beginnings Part I

There's not much that can be said about the beginnings of a trip that make it any less boring or any more glamorous than it is or isn't. There was a hotel in Atlanta so I didn't have to wake up at 4am to drive down. There was a long layover in Ft. Lauderdale that involved leaving the secure area to get my luggage cause I took one of those super cheap airlines that don't connect your luggage through to your destination only to find I was 5 hours too early to check back in for my next flight. Even then there was another 5 hours of waiting in the concourse. There was a long, 8-ish hour flight where even though I've lost a lot of weight recently I found that I'm still a massively fat fuck in the eyes of the airline industry. But after about 20 hours of flying and waiting and flying I arrived in Stockholm sleep deprived but intact and with all my luggage in hand. 

I'm going to blame the sleep deprived bit on my inability to follow directions or make sense of the narrow, weaving, convoluted roads of Stockholm and turning the last 10 minutes of the drive to my hotel into over 30 minutes. I also don't know when rush hour is in Stockholm, but to make me feel better we're going to say it starts early in the afternoon at about the exact time I made it into the downtown area. But again I arrived intact at the floating hotel that will be my home in Stockholm for the next 4 days, the M/S Birger Jarl. I don't know what a Birger is, but a jarl is a chief or a king, so I've been mentally referring to it as the Burger King (it turns out Birger Jarl was a statesman from the early 13th century). The Burger King is a small cruise ship, it's relative size made plainly apparent when the neighboring cruise ships that dock each morning-which in turn would be dwarfed by the full sized cruise ships the likes of Royal Caribbean or...whoever the hell else has giant aircraft carrier sized floating bars. When it's not out on very short excursions the Burger King is a floating hostel, hotel, restaurant, cocktail bar, and probably some other things in the summer months like a discotheque or a bingo parlor (everyone I've seen get on the larger cruise ships next door have been in their...uh...twilight years). 

My room, though private with its own bathroom (not as common as you'd think), is more hostel than stateroom. Presumably they have better appointed, proper berths on the floors above for people who aren't better suited for steerage like myself. However, the bed is solid, the toilet is functional (though it flushes with this initially terrifying jet-engine sucking sound), and I have a porthole of my own that looks at the granite wall of the harbor where I can see the feet of people walking by if I'm laying in bed. It is my own basement apartment away from home. The walls are entirely old 60s/70s wood panel wainscoting, I sleep on a simple but comfortable enough bunk bed, and the bathroom is a tiny multi-purpose room where you could easily sit on the toilet, brush your teeth, and shower all at the same time. Again...it does the job. As proof, I slept 13 hours after I got to the hotel and had food that didn't come from an airport or airplane microwave. Though, to be fair the "hot" vegetarian sandwich I had on the long Norwegian Airlines flight to Stockholm was fine, even if it was still cold in the middle. 

Half a day of sleep did a surprisingly good job of getting me back in action and resetting my very jet lagged clock (Stockholm is 6 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time). I woke in time to grab breakfast, included in the dirt cheap room rate, which was simple but did the job. There was an assortment of breads, meats and cheeses I assume are for some kind of hearty breakfast sandwich that includes pickles, as well as jams, caviar, and a pate of some sort. The caviar was salty and fishy but not bad, the pate was nasty and disgusting as fuck and I think I was the only person who tried any. There were also little shot glasses of sour milk and raspberries. The sour milk is essentially a tart yogurt (and pleasantly reminded me of the skyr I had in Iceland). For free I can't complain and it was more than enough to get me going out on the town for my first Swedish excursion. (Continued in Part II)