I was on vacation for the last two weeks. I met up with Mr. Wirzi and we started to do some travelling. First we headed to Stockholm. Of course we had to get some fuel in our car, which we did in lovely Vänersborg:
The first destination was the infamous Åmal. We were quite disappointed. It was one of the most picturesque towns you can possibly imagine. Not too much party going on, but also none of the terrible socialist style housing that hit sweden in the 60ties. We learnt later that the film was actually shot at Trollhättan.
Finally we arrived in Stockholm, where we spent a fortune on parking and fancy clothes. Here a picture of myself (disoriented as usual) on Klarabergsgatan with a view of Åhlens department store, which is one of the nice 1960ties buildings in Sweden. In the distant background you can see Sergels Torg – a place that is definitely worse than Nordstan and the Lipstick combined.
We spent the first night at the Hotel Nelson which sports a Ship in Bottle in every room. The marine theme persisted as we spent the next night on a Ship reused as hostel on Söder Mälarstrand. Of course this inspired a certain amount of dirty jokes.
On our way back to the west coast we had a spontaneous stop at Gripsholm and Mariefred, which was even more picturesque than good old Åmal. It’s also the place where the German writer Kurt Tucholsky is buried.
The next week we spent in a summerhouse on the west coast north of Göteborg – the proper Swedish way. The house was nicely located between rocks and the waterfront.
Given all those rocks Mr. Wirzi made me do some climbing. (Un)fortunately we didn’t have heavy equipment, so we did only the easy stuff.
The view actually justified the effort:
Far from home I thoroughly enjoyed the proper Riwwelkuche that has been crafted by Mr. Wirzi. It went extremly well with the abusive amounts of coffee we had.
Finally we decided to pay Oslo a visit. There we spent even more money on parking, but refrained from shopping. First we made friends with the tiger.
Then we went to Nasjonal Galleriet and the Museum for Contemporary Art. The Nasjonal Galleriet is excellent and the Contemporary Art is also worth a quick visit – both are free (i.e. included in the parking fee)! After that we went on to have another coffee at the thriving Grüner Lökka student district. We stumbled across this very nice student housing project:
Finally me and the young W. both in desperate need of a haircut, but this has been taken care of by now – thanks too lovely Johanna and Maria.
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