Conrep 1: Rancon, Stockholm and Sweden
Nov. 22nd, 2003 12:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lprovenThis has been sitting around unfinished on my laptop for months, but I've hastily bashed it into some kind of shape.
Be warned, it's 5,666 words long. But you do get a few pictures.
Conrep 1: Stockholm and RanCon
Oh, lord, where to begin? Despite the absence of the planned cross-Scandinavian road trip, which I bitterly regret, it went well and I had a great time.
Getting there: Thursday
Right. No cross-country tour for me. You read about that at the time.
Instead, a return to the Bad Old Days - up at 4am to get a taxi to Liverpool St. and the train to Stansted. Except it was even worse than before: I was too early for the train! It was a bus instead. It was to be the first of many.
I arrived at Stansted, which I'd gone past at an illegal speed a scant 8h earlier, at 6am. Check in in Ryanair, just like all those many trips to Oslo. Buy some essentials and head for the gate, where I sat quietly, miserably thinking how this was MUCH too bloody nostalgic for my own good, when I was approached by a squaddie. Not just any squaddie, though, but the real, original![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
squaddie. We couldn't board together, but bless him, he found a seat and kept it for me. It was to be the first of many times we would sleep together over the next week.
Västerås
We arrived at Västerås - for me, at least, to be greeted by a shock. This place is even smaller than Torp! It doesn't have so much as a cash machine or a gift shop. Instead I bought bus tickets for both of us on a credit card and Neil gave me cash for his. He at least came prepared for his first foreign holiday ever: he'd brought some Swedish cash.
The bus trip was frankly rather tedious, without even southern Norway's scenery to enliven it. When she first heard about my plan to come by bike, RanCon co-chair Ylva said "you'll be really sick of trees by the time you get here." Well, coming in from Västerås, which is about halfway between Köping and Enköping, is a very different route, but it's relatively flat, tree-dotted farmland compared with the low rocky mountains, green valleys and sudden glimpses of fjord and sea afforded by the road from Sandefjord in Telemark to Oslo. The bus trip is, however, only half as long; even so, I slept through most of it.
Stockholm
Stockholm is something else though. I'd only visited it once before, on a business trip some decade earlier. That time, I was taxied in straight from the airport to my employer's offices on Birger Jarlsgatan, spent 8h in meetings - then was driven straight back to the airport. I sent a bunch of postcards to my nearest and dearest from Arlanda (the proper, expensive airport, to which real airlines fly) on my way back: "Look at the front of this card. You've now seen more of Stockholm than I have."
T-Centralen T-Bana station
This time was more leisurely. We arrived at T-Centralen about 11am and made our way on foot to Gamla Stan, Stockholm's old town. Stockholm is a big city and like any other capital it has districts: the difference is that in Sweden's capital's case, each district is its own island. Whereas Oslo has a fairly small, clearly delineated centre and some outlying districts, Stockholm has many; the result is an imposing mess of main streets, one or two or three per island, with only the centre of the rail and tube networks defining any kind of primary centre. After just one week, I refuse to attempt any overall definition, it's too diverse.
Gamla Stan is where the city's - nay, the country's - main science fiction bookshop, SF Bokhandeln, is located. This was more of a walk than it looked on my overpriced tourist map. "Let me guess", said Neil. "does 'Vasterlangatan mean vast long street?" "You're close," I said, confidently, "Västerlånggatan is West Long Street, interpreting (i.e., guessing) freely.
My confidence was to deteriorate over the next few days. I learned Swedish long before I ever tried to learn Norwegian. Starting in 1993, I worked for a Swedish stockbroker for three or four years and it was the unofficial language of the company. But nowadays, Norwegian has pretty much utterly displaced Swedish in my memory, and while they are very similar, they're not nearly as alike as I would prefer. An example: "window" in Norwegian is "vindu", displaying clearly the Anglophone influence. but in Swedish, if I remember correctly, it's "fenster", from the German instead. Still, I got by; I can pronounce the names and ask simple questions and usually understand the answers too.
Bookshop found, along with my planned host for the weekend, the very splendid Lennart "mr_hedgehog" Uhlin, Neil and I dumped our stuff and wandered. We had lunch in the old town square, washed down with some lettöl – distinctly stronger than the Norwegian variety, especially on no sleep to speak of - then we hit the pubs for some serious drinking.
This continued for some hours. The weather was astonishingly good for the time of year, warm, sunny and balmy without being uncomfortably hot. This meant that it was perfect for sitting outside bars and ogling passing totty. (He who drinks with a soldier thinks like a soldier. Or something. Could just as well have been me, really.)
My gods, the women. I have never in my life seen a city in the world with so many utterly beautiful women in it. Now, yes, I cannot deny a certain fondness for over-tall, under-weight women, especially blondes, but still, for about one in every dozen or two to be a perfect 10 is undeniably impressive. This pattern was to be repeated for much of the week that followed. It was most distracting and I can only apologise to my local hosts for any unseemliness that resulted. (I'm not going to apologize to foreign males; they were doing it every bit as much as I was.) I really couldn't help myself, I swear.
Neil and I spent a very pleasant afternoon discussing relationships and women, their evil allure and why we can't avoid them even so. All right, it may not be entirely fair, but that's how we felt at the time.
As we staggered through the streets, we were found by a roving Anders "suaveswede" Holmström. This also was a pattern that was to be repeated. He led us back to the bookshop for closing time for us to retrieve our stuff, then off to a local hostelry – just for medicinal purposes, you understand. This was Grågåsen, the Grey Goose, a mediæval-themed basement bar staffed by the remarkable Martin and Jens. Both are large, loud and ebullient, not to say bullshit merchants of the highest order, 'cos I wouldn't say a thing like that. We started on the evening's drinking.
If you consider the sort of day that this had followed, you can see where this is going, can't you?
As we sat in the bar, various errant Brits and con-members gradually appeared. Guest of Honour Robert Rankin and his lovely girlfriend Sally; later, Tobes and Max, then Con chairwoman Ylva Spångberg. At some point, Lennart dropped in and announced that he was going home, not being quite such the party animal. Since he didn't have a spare key and I didn't know where he lived, this meant that accepting his hospitality became somewhat problematic. Being a man of action, I decided to drink on it and come to a decision later.
The recent arrivals then deserted us on the feeble pretext of taking for a meal. At a prebooked table without enough seats for Neil and I. Undaunted, we nobly volunteered to await them. And continued drinking.
We befriended a couple at a nearby table when they asked for a light: a Kiwi (who had grown up in Sweden and spoke perfect Swedish) and his local girlfriend. He'd been back there working on a contract and this was his last day: in the morning he flew back home. His lady friend seemed distinctly interested in acquiring a replacement. Noting how, ah, tired and emotional Neil and I were becoming, she recommended a local herbal tea as a hangover cure. She procured a teabag from the barman and carefully wrote her name (Andrea) and mobile phone number inside the flap of its little envelope before handing it to an utterly oblivious Neil and making him promise to keep it safe in his wallet and drink it the following morning. A cunning plan; I was impressed.
(He was even more impressed, when the next day he found a teabag of which he had no recollection whatsoever in his wallet. His bemusement turned to joy when he opened it and recollection flooded back.)
Neil and I decided to sample the historical fayre available in the Grey Goose. He was impressed with his fish; I confess I was not with my vegetable soup, consisting of a few boiled tubers in hot water. Still, there was always beer. It's amazing how quickly you forget it costs nearly £5 a pint.
The exiles returned, fed and watered and somewhat more enthusiastic.
Martin suggested we move on to flagons, the bastard. EIGHT LITRE flagons. At Swedish prices.
Worse still, we accepted his suggestion.
Time passed. So did water.
By the end of the evening, severely sleep-deprived and utterly bladdered, I found conversation somewhat challenging. Well, except with Neil. We eventually left and I was rescued by the very kind Ylva. I dimly recall nattering for some time after we got to her flat; I have no idea at all how I managed this.
RanCon day 1: Friday
I awoke groggily at about 11am and after a shower resumed work on my talk on my laptop. My hostess appeared a couple of hours later. I like this relaxed attitude to time. You can always spot a freelancer. Some time after that, another Anders, Reuterswärd, appeared, and gave us a lift to Tre Backar (Three Barrels), the con venue. This apparently used to be Stockholm's premiere alternative music pub, but it was forced to stop after repeated complaints from some particularly obstreperous neighbours. Now it's attempting to remake itself as an alternative comedy venue, with somewhat mixed success, I gather. The basement was large and cavernous, with a bar, a large dining room, performance room with a small corner stage and a seating area by the bar – a good layout for a small con. We unloaded some stuff and my luggage and I wandered off to play tourist.
Neil had elected to spend his first night in a decent hotel – the Art Hotel, where Robert and Sally were staying, not to mentiontobesv and hawkida. This was a strangely Spartan place, built from a couple of old town houses, with an austere aspect. "How did you find us?" enquired the patron, in incredulous tones. He seemed even more bewildered when told he was accommodating the guest of honour at a convention.
I roamed the streets, vaguely. Stockholm resonated in my consciousness; it has many aspects of Norway about it – and memories of Norway evoke very powerful emotions in me yet. Still, many things are also very different. It's odd. The architecture is similar – tall city townhouses, many designed as apartment blocks, with single main doors and central courtyards. Old, dignified shops. Buses and trams everywhere, and mainly clean streets with little vandalism. Many familiar shops, too, from Rimi and ICA through Hennes & Mauritz to Expert and ubiquitous 7-Elevens on almost every block. Even the font on the streetsigns is the same plain, overspaced sans serif.
But sinks tend to have separate hot and cold taps, rather than Norway's universal mixers. Though power sockets are European, phone sockets are weird local things rather than Norway's American ones.
With all the water everywhere, the streetplan is Byzantine. I was glad I was on foot or being driven; I am sure I'd have quickly become badly lost if I'd been on the trike.
The upside of so much water is that Stockholm has miles and miles of waterfront: everything from quiet tree-lined paths and waterside bars to roads paralleling the shore, where you can walk underneath the prows of vast Baltic ferries and cruiseliners, or next to dignified old tall ships and humble skiffs and barges for cargo. But with its fractal coastline, there's little feel of a particular docks zone; it's distributed. Round a blind corner might be another block or a hundred-foot wall of white-painted steel spackled with portholes. Many of the waterfront vistas that face out over an open expanse – as opposed to the many narrower channels between crowded islands – are a riot of restrained colour, with gable-ends painted yellow and red and pink and brown and blue and green. And as with so many great European cities outside of humdrum old Britain, the rooftops are edged with neon frills, advertising multinational corporations and obscure Swedish personal hygiene products.
Later, I rendezvoused with the others, and Anders led me off to another part of the city where he knew a place which did good cheap vegetarian kebabs. Friday evening marked the start of the con, so Anders had to return in some haste to organize or something. I ate alone then made my way back to Tre Backar, where we watched the opening ceremony a talk by the irrepressible Mr Rankin.
Then the drinking started again. At some point,reverendjim appeared. More beer was consumed. Then, bright and early at 10:30pm, I was on, for a talk on weird deaths. This was a sequel of sorts to my talk on "Death by Sex" at Damn Fine Con, and it seemed to go down fairly well. Ask me nicely and I'll post the script, and copyright violations be damned.
I had planned, with the assistance of my mate Moira from CIX, a freelance translator with a near-native facility at Swedish, to introduce myself and the talk in Swedish. I'm not up to doing this unaided except in pidgin, but it would have amused me to watch expressions of growing consternation on the English faces in the crowd as I cheerfully rabbited away på svensk for a few minutes, with any luck raising a laugh or two. However, I decided this was just too cruel. Seemed to go down OK anyway.
After that, I have no idea what happened. I have conferred with Neil and Anders and we've completely lost the rest of Friday night. I hope I had a good time; the absence of evidence would appear to support this.
RanCon day 2: Saturday
Anders had managed to procure the guest flat in his block for some of the visitors, and Neil and I gladly grabbed it. It had two single beds and a twin bunk, a TV and a kitchenette of which we made no use whatsoever. Actually, on reflection, I tell a lie; I found a cuppasoup left by some former resident and made it. Another difference from Norway, too: the Swedes have kettles and know how to use them.
We took the T-bana, Stockholm's excellent underground railway, into the city centre to Tre Backar for Saturday afternoon. Sadly, almost all of the programming for Saturday was in Swedish, which was a shame, as some of the talks looked fascinating. I know my limits and trying to follow them was utterly futile, so we wandered off to explore a little instead.
We wound up in Akkurat, a splendid real-ale pub and restaurant down near Slussen. Anders selected it on the basis of its excellent food, and was incredulous to learn that mussels are not vegetarian. "They are just… things that grow on rocks! They're not animals!" he exclaimed. I corrected his vague zöological knowledge and had a warm salad and chips instead, which was splendid. Jim had a steak and Neil dug into a vast bucket of mussels, which he judged excellent.
In the evening, we returned to the con for a splendid panel on weird music and Robert's one-man unaccompanied musical DIY, with memorable singalong about "doing it with his old screw-scriver." You had to be there, I fear, but you can sample its lyrics on RanCon's homepage.
Then there was much drinking, until Neil and I eventually, after much struggling and more than an hour, forced a few reluctant volunteers to come clubbing. On Anders' recommendation, we went to the Cave Club, a small and friendly and almost totally empty goth/alternative club. There was another, much bigger goth night on elsewhere, apparently, but it was advanced ticket sales only. Shame. My roommate and I were both much distressed by the absence of large numbers of young single local women.
After this, we adjourned to the flat of a charming couple from the con, where we fondled ferrets and talked bollocks into the early hours. Suffice it to say that the guest of honour fell asleep and it was not only daylight when we left, the subway was running. A pleasant evening.
RanCon day 3: Sunday
By Sunday morning we were flagging a little. One of the side-effects of giving up caffeine is that more or less regardless of when I go to sleep, I tend to wake up in the morning. I'm not used to this and find it most uncomfortable. If I sleep early, I'll sleep 6 or 7 hours, but if it's late – and it usually was very late – then I wake up by 10 or 11, shattered.
By the time I dragged myself into Tre Backar, I was not a well man. I gave in and had a pint of Coke. Really truly for medicinal reasons. Then another. After that, I felt much better. Not bouncy – I've done too much caffeine over the years to be affected that easily – but semi-alive. Neil and I were too late for Robert's guest of honour talk, sadly, but we hung around for a while before heading out to eat, returning in the evening for the auction (I acquired The Book of Heroic Failures and narrowly missed out on a copy of Think! A biography of IBM, since a surprised Anders Bellis seemed to have thought no-one would have wanted to bid on this and gave it to the first bidder -thette's Karl-Johan, I believe. There was also the All-Anders panel and other entertainments, then the closing ceremony, after which we adjourned upstairs for the Dead Raccoon party. I'm told the food was pretty good, though by the time I developed an appetite it was too late and I had to scurry over the road for a slice of quiche from a handy 7-Eleven. Ongoing entertainment included a friend of Anders' who makes chainmail, who joined us in the pub and fabricated rings, bracelets, anklets and other items of bespoke adornment. He even has a mobile advertisement – chainmail-tipped dreadlocks plaited into his beard. He affixed permanent signs of membership to the three Third Level Brothers of the Coypu who were present (reverendjim, tobesv and suaveswede) in the forms of non-removable chainmail bracelets, sealed with bronze links, plus an associate anklet for Partner of Coypu hawkida. People gradually disappeared over the course of the evening, but regrettably, by the time the final hardcore drinkers left, no-where else was open. Neil, Jim, Anders and I had no alternative but to retire to Chez Holmström and continue drinking Anders' beer.
And tequila.
And overproof rum.
Until dawn.
This was to set the pattern for much of the rest of the week, so I shall abandon my day-by-day narrative, as they all blurred into a long round of bars, restaurants, and shops, eating, drinking and talking the night away. My plans of playing tourist were thus utterly scuppered, and it wasn't really until my last day that I went specifically sightseeing. Any references to actual times and days in the following is a fictional construct for narrative purposes. Or something.
The post-con blues: Monday to Friday
The days did not start particularly early. On Monday and Wednesday, I wandered lethargically up to the T-Bana station at Husby to visit Anders' local ICA (no, not the Institute for Contemporary Art). Again, this was hauntingly reminiscent of the one on Thorvald Meyers Gate in Grünerløkka where I used to regularly shop. It must be said, though, that the Norwegians are ahead of the Swedes on bread – no freshly-baked loaves here, just packaged stuff. It's still almost infinitely better than any bread I've had in England that I didn’t bake myself, mind you.
Then we returned to Anders' flat for breakfast. In my case, cereal and bread and jam washed down with mint tea, and in Anders', a minimalist and unappealing repast of natural yoghurt with crumbled crispbread. Rather him than me. At first, we toasted the day with tequila. I still shudder at the memory.
Then, in the early afternoon, we would crawl into town, potter around a few shops, then head off to a pub for drink and sometimes also food.
Monday night
I had planned to return on Tuesday, but I was having such a good time that I phoned Ryanair and changed my ticket over to Friday for a nominal fee. Still, Monday would have been my last full day, so the chaps had decided to humour me by accompanying me to a vegetarian restaurant. Anders could think of several, but he chose Hermans Hojdare near Slussen. This is at the top of a steep climb up Fjallgatan, perched on a clifftop above the harbour, but it's worth the hike for the spectacular views across the harbour towards Gamla Stan and Djürgården. It's a buffet-type place with a vast range of salads and a choice of hot meals. Neil, who had never been in a vegetarian restaurant in his life before, was initially a little taken aback, but he rallied and pronounced himself impressed by the food. For me, it was the best meal of the trip and I stuffed myself silly.
We then decided to go to a pub for a change. Neil and I somewhat unfairly remonstrated with our host for his failure to supply hot and cold running Swedish women for us - and damn my eyes if he didn't oblige. We ended up in a splendid ale pub called Oliver Twist, where we met a couple of Anders' mates –Thomas, an entertaining chap, a half-Polish engineering student with a Nokia Communicator, a booming voice and a filthy sense of humour, and Thomas' friend Sanna, a strikingly lovely, rather gothy 18 year old rock chick. She fit the bill perfectly: 6' tall in a miniskirt that must have been nearly 20cm long – well, not more than 5cm shorter, anyway - long blonde hair, blue eyes, the subtlety of a well-aimed half-brick and a fondness for flirting outrageously. She'd just returned to Stockholm from London after splitting up with her boyfriend, who despite being a goth seemed to never take her to anywhere I know in London. No Slime, no Purple Turtle, No Dev. She knew the Electric Ballroom but hated it. Go figure.
In her native Stockholm, though, she led us to a variety of haunts. After Oliver Twist, it was Kelly's, a cheap dive with loud rock music where she was well-known; then a late-night casino bar near T-Centralen; and finally back to her parents' flat, to meet her hamster, her guinea-pigs and to be invited to sleep on her floor. That's myself, Anders and Neil. She flitted out to the bathroom to return sans tights, then dug out some blankets and in the process somehow mislaid her blouse, then found pillows but lost her skirt – to reveal a fetching leopardskin-print thong. Finally, she snuggled down under a duvet on the floor and wriggled around, after which one arm emerged holding a black Wonderbra (about 36C or D, I'd say, but I'm no expert) and delicately flung it in the general direction of her wardrobe. I will give no details of what else I saw except to say that her colouration supports her loud claims, earlier in the evening, of platinum-blonde pubic hair, even if I never did get direct evidence of this. Alas.
Enticing as this display was, she had made it abundantly clear to us that there was to be No Touching. However, since it was now gone 7am, broad daylight, and her mother and sisters had all got up and were wandering around the flat with expressions of mingled bemusement and resignation, Anders and I felt that it might be best if we retired elsewhere. Propriety and all that, you know?
This enticed her out from under her duvet. She managed to hold onto it as she reached into her wardrobe but failed to retain it while donning a filmy negligée. Which tragically lacked a belt. All in all, it was most impressive. She proceeded to rummage around in the kitchen, trying to tempt us into staying for some breakfast. Instead, Anders and I dragged a violently-protesting Neil away to the T-Bana and off back to Husby. In the process, I realised I'd left my wallet in her room.
Tuesday
Sanna was significantly less perky the next day when Anders and I went into town. Mind you, I was myself; it took two cappuccinos before I was really awake. Anders and she had arranged to meet in a
Kebab King near the city theatre. Regrettably, though, they had been thinking of different Kebab Kings. Eventually, I texted her the coffeeshop where I was waiting, and she appeared, looking distinctly hung-over. She returned my wallet but declined to join us for the evening. Anders and I went off to yet a third kebab shop for a cheap but filling late lunch, then a wander round some shops.
Predictably, we ended up in a bar. This one was a fascinating change – a Czech bar, round the corner from Saturday's goth club. It offered a large range of excellent crisp draught pilsner lagers on tap from authentic porcelain bartaps. I'd like to have spent more time there. I have a notion to take a beer-drinking tour of the Czech Repubulic now. Should be cheap! Anyone fancy joining me?
Come the evening, it was Neil's turn to choose the cuisine - and he wanted seafood. Anders suggested a bar we'd already visited - the Ardbeg Rooms, near SF Bokhandeln in the old town, and Ylva joined us for dinner. The Ardbeg Rooms is another fine real ale pub which also sports over 200 malt whiskies – and no vegetarian entrées on the menu whatsoever. On enquiry, though, they could supply "stuffed zucchini" (a sigh here for the pervasive influence of American English, so close to the language's home country), which was not too bad at all. Neil was delighted by the choice of lobster – and chips. This combination of luxury and prosaic foodstuffs was rather lost on the Swedes.
After the meal, we remained to sample the place's excellent range of stouts and ales, including some very decent Swedish ales. The only free seats we could find were sitting in the pub's window, which led to a surreal moment for me when a passer-by peered in and said "I know that voice! That's Liam Proven!" It proved to be Don, former head marketing honcho for Connectix UK, with whom I'd spoken several times while reviewing that firm's excellent Virtual PC – now acquired by Microsoft. He was in town for a graphics conference.
Through a now-unclear sequence of events, we ended up in a late-night bar on the Gamla Stan seafront, drinking complimentary beers with Jens from Grågåsen. Home at nearly dawn again.
Wednesday
Today, Neil was to be otherwise engaged. He was meeting up with Andrea early in the day for a walking tour of Stockholm followed by lunch. In the early evening, she had to go to work, then they planned to meet up again for a drink.
Anders and I tried to tempt Sanna out once again, but she had made other plans involving a night out with her cousin. We ended up in the Grey Goose again, since Anders intended to try to extract some money from them for some bar-work he'd done there. As these things do tend to happen, we ended up staying some time. The Suave Swede even decided he liked Martin's vile horseradish vodka, which the latter claimed he had invented to clear guests' palates during their Yule dinners. I personally favour the theory that it was an evil joke. It's the sort of thing that would vastly amuse him, as did the information of who I'd planned to be seeing that evening.
His mirth was redoubled when Sanna and her cousin tracked us down, working from the evidence that my mobile phone wasn't accepting calls so we must be underground. We stayed there for some time, then adjourned to a rock pub called the Anchor up in the north of the city near Tre Backar. The music was good and the Carlsberg relatively cheap (only about £3 a bottle), but it was almost empty and too loud to talk easily.
I'm getting quite familiar with the Stockholm night-bus system.
Thursday
Neil's last day - he had to catch the bus to the airport at 7:30pm, leaving no time for dinner. He grabbed a couple of hasty korvena (sausages, as opposed to the Norwegian polse - see, this is the stuff that throws you) from a kiosk in the station and set off. I fancied pasta, myself. Anders was a little hesitant – as a devoted meat-eater, I suspect he objects to paying as much for boiled dough as he could spend on the muscle tissue of an endangered species. However, he humoured me, and led me to a newly-opened, painfully-stylish restaurant near Oliver Twist. After he'd put myself up for several days, as well as arranging cheap accommodation for the convention itself, buying him dinner was the least I could do. The food was splendid, but in lamentably small portions, but at least the accompanying bread was tasty and plentiful. We went back to Oliver Twist after this, where Thomas joined us, but the locals prefer Akkurat, so we headed off down there.
After sampling various fine British, Swedish and German beers for several days, it seemed time for a change. I note with mild surprise that Akkurat's website claims it to be a "belgo bar". Well, it's much more agreeable to me than London's Belgo chain, but it does offer a lot of Belgian beers. I asked the barman to recommend something. He quizzed me as to my preferences and then led me on a tasting tour of a wide variety of fine brews. I have revised my opinion on Belgian beers – which is to say, they're not all weird syrupy things or taste of fruit - and will try more.
And for once we headed for home at not too much after midnight.
Friday
My last day, and a final desperate effort to do some actual tourism. I wanted to get outdoors, on the water, and see something uniquely Swedish. I wandered down to near the royal palace, where all the tourist boat tours go from, but my plan was to see the wreck of the Vasa, the great 17th century warship which sank on its maiden voyage. This meant sailing to Djurgården, which the tour boats don't do, so I walked around to Slussen – getting lost in the process, naturally – and took a ferry across the habour. All paid for by my travelcard, too.
On the island I wandered almost at random 'til I found the museum. It's well-signposted and obvious if you approach overland, but not if you came by boat.
The Vasa is truly an awesome sight. Built awry due to a mixture of incompetence and last-minute changes of plan, she's vastly top-heavy. Early trials revealed this caused drastic instability – so the government ignored them. As a result, she sank on her maiden voyage, the second time she encountered a gust of wind. She was only partially crewed and armed, but nevertheless, over 60 lives were lost.
Apart from an incredibly heroic effort to salvage her guns a few years later, she lay untouched for 333 years. Finally, a lone surveyor found her in the 1940s and she was raised, intact, in 1951. Even most of the dead-eyes in her rigging have been recovered; most of the lost parts are decorative paintwork and the ends of the masts and bowsprit. She is a hugely moving sight, sitting there, dark-stained from cold mud and seawater but otherwise almost pristine, straight out of history.
And that was it. I scurried back across the city by foot, bus and T-Bana, discovering large shopping districts I'd not even known were there, packed my bags and with my host legged it for the airport bus. Thomas met us at T-Centralen to bid me farewell, I grabbed a hasty burger and boarded. If all went well, I would make it back in time for B-Movie or possibly the Electric Ballroom with the cix.goths.
All did not go well. My flight was delayed 2h, meaning that I missed the last train from Stansted. I bussed it into Victoria – though they did honour my train ticket, which is a novelty. Then I bussed it from there to Trafalgar Square, then from there to Colliers Wood, then finally a taxi home to collapse into bed at nearly 5am. A shabby end, alas.
RanCon was great fun and I'm very glad I went. It's the smallest con I've ever attended – less attendees than even a Picocon, for example – but it was friendly, well-organized and entertaining. I only wish my Swedish were up to following the native programming. Stockholm, meanwhile, is a beguiling city, large, complex and varied; suffice it to say that I'm half-considering trying to find a job there for a while.
Be warned, it's 5,666 words long. But you do get a few pictures.
Conrep 1: Stockholm and RanCon
Oh, lord, where to begin? Despite the absence of the planned cross-Scandinavian road trip, which I bitterly regret, it went well and I had a great time.
Getting there: Thursday
Right. No cross-country tour for me. You read about that at the time.
Instead, a return to the Bad Old Days - up at 4am to get a taxi to Liverpool St. and the train to Stansted. Except it was even worse than before: I was too early for the train! It was a bus instead. It was to be the first of many.
I arrived at Stansted, which I'd gone past at an illegal speed a scant 8h earlier, at 6am. Check in in Ryanair, just like all those many trips to Oslo. Buy some essentials and head for the gate, where I sat quietly, miserably thinking how this was MUCH too bloody nostalgic for my own good, when I was approached by a squaddie. Not just any squaddie, though, but the real, original
squaddie. We couldn't board together, but bless him, he found a seat and kept it for me. It was to be the first of many times we would sleep together over the next week. Västerås
We arrived at Västerås - for me, at least, to be greeted by a shock. This place is even smaller than Torp! It doesn't have so much as a cash machine or a gift shop. Instead I bought bus tickets for both of us on a credit card and Neil gave me cash for his. He at least came prepared for his first foreign holiday ever: he'd brought some Swedish cash.
The bus trip was frankly rather tedious, without even southern Norway's scenery to enliven it. When she first heard about my plan to come by bike, RanCon co-chair Ylva said "you'll be really sick of trees by the time you get here." Well, coming in from Västerås, which is about halfway between Köping and Enköping, is a very different route, but it's relatively flat, tree-dotted farmland compared with the low rocky mountains, green valleys and sudden glimpses of fjord and sea afforded by the road from Sandefjord in Telemark to Oslo. The bus trip is, however, only half as long; even so, I slept through most of it.
Stockholm
Stockholm is something else though. I'd only visited it once before, on a business trip some decade earlier. That time, I was taxied in straight from the airport to my employer's offices on Birger Jarlsgatan, spent 8h in meetings - then was driven straight back to the airport. I sent a bunch of postcards to my nearest and dearest from Arlanda (the proper, expensive airport, to which real airlines fly) on my way back: "Look at the front of this card. You've now seen more of Stockholm than I have."
T-Centralen T-Bana station
This time was more leisurely. We arrived at T-Centralen about 11am and made our way on foot to Gamla Stan, Stockholm's old town. Stockholm is a big city and like any other capital it has districts: the difference is that in Sweden's capital's case, each district is its own island. Whereas Oslo has a fairly small, clearly delineated centre and some outlying districts, Stockholm has many; the result is an imposing mess of main streets, one or two or three per island, with only the centre of the rail and tube networks defining any kind of primary centre. After just one week, I refuse to attempt any overall definition, it's too diverse.
Gamla Stan is where the city's - nay, the country's - main science fiction bookshop, SF Bokhandeln, is located. This was more of a walk than it looked on my overpriced tourist map. "Let me guess", said Neil. "does 'Vasterlangatan mean vast long street?" "You're close," I said, confidently, "Västerlånggatan is West Long Street, interpreting (i.e., guessing) freely.
My confidence was to deteriorate over the next few days. I learned Swedish long before I ever tried to learn Norwegian. Starting in 1993, I worked for a Swedish stockbroker for three or four years and it was the unofficial language of the company. But nowadays, Norwegian has pretty much utterly displaced Swedish in my memory, and while they are very similar, they're not nearly as alike as I would prefer. An example: "window" in Norwegian is "vindu", displaying clearly the Anglophone influence. but in Swedish, if I remember correctly, it's "fenster", from the German instead. Still, I got by; I can pronounce the names and ask simple questions and usually understand the answers too.
Bookshop found, along with my planned host for the weekend, the very splendid Lennart "
mr_hedgehog" Uhlin, Neil and I dumped our stuff and wandered. We had lunch in the old town square, washed down with some lettöl – distinctly stronger than the Norwegian variety, especially on no sleep to speak of - then we hit the pubs for some serious drinking.This continued for some hours. The weather was astonishingly good for the time of year, warm, sunny and balmy without being uncomfortably hot. This meant that it was perfect for sitting outside bars and ogling passing totty. (He who drinks with a soldier thinks like a soldier. Or something. Could just as well have been me, really.)
My gods, the women. I have never in my life seen a city in the world with so many utterly beautiful women in it. Now, yes, I cannot deny a certain fondness for over-tall, under-weight women, especially blondes, but still, for about one in every dozen or two to be a perfect 10 is undeniably impressive. This pattern was to be repeated for much of the week that followed. It was most distracting and I can only apologise to my local hosts for any unseemliness that resulted. (I'm not going to apologize to foreign males; they were doing it every bit as much as I was.) I really couldn't help myself, I swear.
Neil and I spent a very pleasant afternoon discussing relationships and women, their evil allure and why we can't avoid them even so. All right, it may not be entirely fair, but that's how we felt at the time.
As we staggered through the streets, we were found by a roving Anders "
suaveswede" Holmström. This also was a pattern that was to be repeated. He led us back to the bookshop for closing time for us to retrieve our stuff, then off to a local hostelry – just for medicinal purposes, you understand. This was Grågåsen, the Grey Goose, a mediæval-themed basement bar staffed by the remarkable Martin and Jens. Both are large, loud and ebullient, not to say bullshit merchants of the highest order, 'cos I wouldn't say a thing like that. We started on the evening's drinking.If you consider the sort of day that this had followed, you can see where this is going, can't you?
As we sat in the bar, various errant Brits and con-members gradually appeared. Guest of Honour Robert Rankin and his lovely girlfriend Sally; later, Tobes and Max, then Con chairwoman Ylva Spångberg. At some point, Lennart dropped in and announced that he was going home, not being quite such the party animal. Since he didn't have a spare key and I didn't know where he lived, this meant that accepting his hospitality became somewhat problematic. Being a man of action, I decided to drink on it and come to a decision later.
The recent arrivals then deserted us on the feeble pretext of taking for a meal. At a prebooked table without enough seats for Neil and I. Undaunted, we nobly volunteered to await them. And continued drinking.
We befriended a couple at a nearby table when they asked for a light: a Kiwi (who had grown up in Sweden and spoke perfect Swedish) and his local girlfriend. He'd been back there working on a contract and this was his last day: in the morning he flew back home. His lady friend seemed distinctly interested in acquiring a replacement. Noting how, ah, tired and emotional Neil and I were becoming, she recommended a local herbal tea as a hangover cure. She procured a teabag from the barman and carefully wrote her name (Andrea) and mobile phone number inside the flap of its little envelope before handing it to an utterly oblivious Neil and making him promise to keep it safe in his wallet and drink it the following morning. A cunning plan; I was impressed.
(He was even more impressed, when the next day he found a teabag of which he had no recollection whatsoever in his wallet. His bemusement turned to joy when he opened it and recollection flooded back.)
Neil and I decided to sample the historical fayre available in the Grey Goose. He was impressed with his fish; I confess I was not with my vegetable soup, consisting of a few boiled tubers in hot water. Still, there was always beer. It's amazing how quickly you forget it costs nearly £5 a pint.
The exiles returned, fed and watered and somewhat more enthusiastic.
Martin suggested we move on to flagons, the bastard. EIGHT LITRE flagons. At Swedish prices.
Worse still, we accepted his suggestion.
Time passed. So did water.
By the end of the evening, severely sleep-deprived and utterly bladdered, I found conversation somewhat challenging. Well, except with Neil. We eventually left and I was rescued by the very kind Ylva. I dimly recall nattering for some time after we got to her flat; I have no idea at all how I managed this.
RanCon day 1: Friday
I awoke groggily at about 11am and after a shower resumed work on my talk on my laptop. My hostess appeared a couple of hours later. I like this relaxed attitude to time. You can always spot a freelancer. Some time after that, another Anders, Reuterswärd, appeared, and gave us a lift to Tre Backar (Three Barrels), the con venue. This apparently used to be Stockholm's premiere alternative music pub, but it was forced to stop after repeated complaints from some particularly obstreperous neighbours. Now it's attempting to remake itself as an alternative comedy venue, with somewhat mixed success, I gather. The basement was large and cavernous, with a bar, a large dining room, performance room with a small corner stage and a seating area by the bar – a good layout for a small con. We unloaded some stuff and my luggage and I wandered off to play tourist.
Neil had elected to spend his first night in a decent hotel – the Art Hotel, where Robert and Sally were staying, not to mention
tobesv and hawkida. This was a strangely Spartan place, built from a couple of old town houses, with an austere aspect. "How did you find us?" enquired the patron, in incredulous tones. He seemed even more bewildered when told he was accommodating the guest of honour at a convention.I roamed the streets, vaguely. Stockholm resonated in my consciousness; it has many aspects of Norway about it – and memories of Norway evoke very powerful emotions in me yet. Still, many things are also very different. It's odd. The architecture is similar – tall city townhouses, many designed as apartment blocks, with single main doors and central courtyards. Old, dignified shops. Buses and trams everywhere, and mainly clean streets with little vandalism. Many familiar shops, too, from Rimi and ICA through Hennes & Mauritz to Expert and ubiquitous 7-Elevens on almost every block. Even the font on the streetsigns is the same plain, overspaced sans serif.
But sinks tend to have separate hot and cold taps, rather than Norway's universal mixers. Though power sockets are European, phone sockets are weird local things rather than Norway's American ones.
With all the water everywhere, the streetplan is Byzantine. I was glad I was on foot or being driven; I am sure I'd have quickly become badly lost if I'd been on the trike.
The upside of so much water is that Stockholm has miles and miles of waterfront: everything from quiet tree-lined paths and waterside bars to roads paralleling the shore, where you can walk underneath the prows of vast Baltic ferries and cruiseliners, or next to dignified old tall ships and humble skiffs and barges for cargo. But with its fractal coastline, there's little feel of a particular docks zone; it's distributed. Round a blind corner might be another block or a hundred-foot wall of white-painted steel spackled with portholes. Many of the waterfront vistas that face out over an open expanse – as opposed to the many narrower channels between crowded islands – are a riot of restrained colour, with gable-ends painted yellow and red and pink and brown and blue and green. And as with so many great European cities outside of humdrum old Britain, the rooftops are edged with neon frills, advertising multinational corporations and obscure Swedish personal hygiene products.
Later, I rendezvoused with the others, and Anders led me off to another part of the city where he knew a place which did good cheap vegetarian kebabs. Friday evening marked the start of the con, so Anders had to return in some haste to organize or something. I ate alone then made my way back to Tre Backar, where we watched the opening ceremony a talk by the irrepressible Mr Rankin.
Then the drinking started again. At some point,
reverendjim appeared. More beer was consumed. Then, bright and early at 10:30pm, I was on, for a talk on weird deaths. This was a sequel of sorts to my talk on "Death by Sex" at Damn Fine Con, and it seemed to go down fairly well. Ask me nicely and I'll post the script, and copyright violations be damned.I had planned, with the assistance of my mate Moira from CIX, a freelance translator with a near-native facility at Swedish, to introduce myself and the talk in Swedish. I'm not up to doing this unaided except in pidgin, but it would have amused me to watch expressions of growing consternation on the English faces in the crowd as I cheerfully rabbited away på svensk for a few minutes, with any luck raising a laugh or two. However, I decided this was just too cruel. Seemed to go down OK anyway.
After that, I have no idea what happened. I have conferred with Neil and Anders and we've completely lost the rest of Friday night. I hope I had a good time; the absence of evidence would appear to support this.
RanCon day 2: Saturday
Anders had managed to procure the guest flat in his block for some of the visitors, and Neil and I gladly grabbed it. It had two single beds and a twin bunk, a TV and a kitchenette of which we made no use whatsoever. Actually, on reflection, I tell a lie; I found a cuppasoup left by some former resident and made it. Another difference from Norway, too: the Swedes have kettles and know how to use them.
We took the T-bana, Stockholm's excellent underground railway, into the city centre to Tre Backar for Saturday afternoon. Sadly, almost all of the programming for Saturday was in Swedish, which was a shame, as some of the talks looked fascinating. I know my limits and trying to follow them was utterly futile, so we wandered off to explore a little instead.
We wound up in Akkurat, a splendid real-ale pub and restaurant down near Slussen. Anders selected it on the basis of its excellent food, and was incredulous to learn that mussels are not vegetarian. "They are just… things that grow on rocks! They're not animals!" he exclaimed. I corrected his vague zöological knowledge and had a warm salad and chips instead, which was splendid. Jim had a steak and Neil dug into a vast bucket of mussels, which he judged excellent.
In the evening, we returned to the con for a splendid panel on weird music and Robert's one-man unaccompanied musical DIY, with memorable singalong about "doing it with his old screw-scriver." You had to be there, I fear, but you can sample its lyrics on RanCon's homepage.
Then there was much drinking, until Neil and I eventually, after much struggling and more than an hour, forced a few reluctant volunteers to come clubbing. On Anders' recommendation, we went to the Cave Club, a small and friendly and almost totally empty goth/alternative club. There was another, much bigger goth night on elsewhere, apparently, but it was advanced ticket sales only. Shame. My roommate and I were both much distressed by the absence of large numbers of young single local women.
After this, we adjourned to the flat of a charming couple from the con, where we fondled ferrets and talked bollocks into the early hours. Suffice it to say that the guest of honour fell asleep and it was not only daylight when we left, the subway was running. A pleasant evening.
RanCon day 3: Sunday
By Sunday morning we were flagging a little. One of the side-effects of giving up caffeine is that more or less regardless of when I go to sleep, I tend to wake up in the morning. I'm not used to this and find it most uncomfortable. If I sleep early, I'll sleep 6 or 7 hours, but if it's late – and it usually was very late – then I wake up by 10 or 11, shattered.
By the time I dragged myself into Tre Backar, I was not a well man. I gave in and had a pint of Coke. Really truly for medicinal reasons. Then another. After that, I felt much better. Not bouncy – I've done too much caffeine over the years to be affected that easily – but semi-alive. Neil and I were too late for Robert's guest of honour talk, sadly, but we hung around for a while before heading out to eat, returning in the evening for the auction (I acquired The Book of Heroic Failures and narrowly missed out on a copy of Think! A biography of IBM, since a surprised Anders Bellis seemed to have thought no-one would have wanted to bid on this and gave it to the first bidder -
thette's Karl-Johan, I believe. There was also the All-Anders panel and other entertainments, then the closing ceremony, after which we adjourned upstairs for the Dead Raccoon party. I'm told the food was pretty good, though by the time I developed an appetite it was too late and I had to scurry over the road for a slice of quiche from a handy 7-Eleven. Ongoing entertainment included a friend of Anders' who makes chainmail, who joined us in the pub and fabricated rings, bracelets, anklets and other items of bespoke adornment. He even has a mobile advertisement – chainmail-tipped dreadlocks plaited into his beard. He affixed permanent signs of membership to the three Third Level Brothers of the Coypu who were present (reverendjim, tobesv and suaveswede) in the forms of non-removable chainmail bracelets, sealed with bronze links, plus an associate anklet for Partner of Coypu hawkida. People gradually disappeared over the course of the evening, but regrettably, by the time the final hardcore drinkers left, no-where else was open. Neil, Jim, Anders and I had no alternative but to retire to Chez Holmström and continue drinking Anders' beer. And tequila.
And overproof rum.
Until dawn.
This was to set the pattern for much of the rest of the week, so I shall abandon my day-by-day narrative, as they all blurred into a long round of bars, restaurants, and shops, eating, drinking and talking the night away. My plans of playing tourist were thus utterly scuppered, and it wasn't really until my last day that I went specifically sightseeing. Any references to actual times and days in the following is a fictional construct for narrative purposes. Or something.
The post-con blues: Monday to Friday
The days did not start particularly early. On Monday and Wednesday, I wandered lethargically up to the T-Bana station at Husby to visit Anders' local ICA (no, not the Institute for Contemporary Art). Again, this was hauntingly reminiscent of the one on Thorvald Meyers Gate in Grünerløkka where I used to regularly shop. It must be said, though, that the Norwegians are ahead of the Swedes on bread – no freshly-baked loaves here, just packaged stuff. It's still almost infinitely better than any bread I've had in England that I didn’t bake myself, mind you.
Then we returned to Anders' flat for breakfast. In my case, cereal and bread and jam washed down with mint tea, and in Anders', a minimalist and unappealing repast of natural yoghurt with crumbled crispbread. Rather him than me. At first, we toasted the day with tequila. I still shudder at the memory.
Then, in the early afternoon, we would crawl into town, potter around a few shops, then head off to a pub for drink and sometimes also food.
Monday night
I had planned to return on Tuesday, but I was having such a good time that I phoned Ryanair and changed my ticket over to Friday for a nominal fee. Still, Monday would have been my last full day, so the chaps had decided to humour me by accompanying me to a vegetarian restaurant. Anders could think of several, but he chose Hermans Hojdare near Slussen. This is at the top of a steep climb up Fjallgatan, perched on a clifftop above the harbour, but it's worth the hike for the spectacular views across the harbour towards Gamla Stan and Djürgården. It's a buffet-type place with a vast range of salads and a choice of hot meals. Neil, who had never been in a vegetarian restaurant in his life before, was initially a little taken aback, but he rallied and pronounced himself impressed by the food. For me, it was the best meal of the trip and I stuffed myself silly.
We then decided to go to a pub for a change. Neil and I somewhat unfairly remonstrated with our host for his failure to supply hot and cold running Swedish women for us - and damn my eyes if he didn't oblige. We ended up in a splendid ale pub called Oliver Twist, where we met a couple of Anders' mates –Thomas, an entertaining chap, a half-Polish engineering student with a Nokia Communicator, a booming voice and a filthy sense of humour, and Thomas' friend Sanna, a strikingly lovely, rather gothy 18 year old rock chick. She fit the bill perfectly: 6' tall in a miniskirt that must have been nearly 20cm long – well, not more than 5cm shorter, anyway - long blonde hair, blue eyes, the subtlety of a well-aimed half-brick and a fondness for flirting outrageously. She'd just returned to Stockholm from London after splitting up with her boyfriend, who despite being a goth seemed to never take her to anywhere I know in London. No Slime, no Purple Turtle, No Dev. She knew the Electric Ballroom but hated it. Go figure.
In her native Stockholm, though, she led us to a variety of haunts. After Oliver Twist, it was Kelly's, a cheap dive with loud rock music where she was well-known; then a late-night casino bar near T-Centralen; and finally back to her parents' flat, to meet her hamster, her guinea-pigs and to be invited to sleep on her floor. That's myself, Anders and Neil. She flitted out to the bathroom to return sans tights, then dug out some blankets and in the process somehow mislaid her blouse, then found pillows but lost her skirt – to reveal a fetching leopardskin-print thong. Finally, she snuggled down under a duvet on the floor and wriggled around, after which one arm emerged holding a black Wonderbra (about 36C or D, I'd say, but I'm no expert) and delicately flung it in the general direction of her wardrobe. I will give no details of what else I saw except to say that her colouration supports her loud claims, earlier in the evening, of platinum-blonde pubic hair, even if I never did get direct evidence of this. Alas.
Enticing as this display was, she had made it abundantly clear to us that there was to be No Touching. However, since it was now gone 7am, broad daylight, and her mother and sisters had all got up and were wandering around the flat with expressions of mingled bemusement and resignation, Anders and I felt that it might be best if we retired elsewhere. Propriety and all that, you know?
This enticed her out from under her duvet. She managed to hold onto it as she reached into her wardrobe but failed to retain it while donning a filmy negligée. Which tragically lacked a belt. All in all, it was most impressive. She proceeded to rummage around in the kitchen, trying to tempt us into staying for some breakfast. Instead, Anders and I dragged a violently-protesting Neil away to the T-Bana and off back to Husby. In the process, I realised I'd left my wallet in her room.
Tuesday
Sanna was significantly less perky the next day when Anders and I went into town. Mind you, I was myself; it took two cappuccinos before I was really awake. Anders and she had arranged to meet in a
Kebab King near the city theatre. Regrettably, though, they had been thinking of different Kebab Kings. Eventually, I texted her the coffeeshop where I was waiting, and she appeared, looking distinctly hung-over. She returned my wallet but declined to join us for the evening. Anders and I went off to yet a third kebab shop for a cheap but filling late lunch, then a wander round some shops.
Predictably, we ended up in a bar. This one was a fascinating change – a Czech bar, round the corner from Saturday's goth club. It offered a large range of excellent crisp draught pilsner lagers on tap from authentic porcelain bartaps. I'd like to have spent more time there. I have a notion to take a beer-drinking tour of the Czech Repubulic now. Should be cheap! Anyone fancy joining me?
Come the evening, it was Neil's turn to choose the cuisine - and he wanted seafood. Anders suggested a bar we'd already visited - the Ardbeg Rooms, near SF Bokhandeln in the old town, and Ylva joined us for dinner. The Ardbeg Rooms is another fine real ale pub which also sports over 200 malt whiskies – and no vegetarian entrées on the menu whatsoever. On enquiry, though, they could supply "stuffed zucchini" (a sigh here for the pervasive influence of American English, so close to the language's home country), which was not too bad at all. Neil was delighted by the choice of lobster – and chips. This combination of luxury and prosaic foodstuffs was rather lost on the Swedes.
After the meal, we remained to sample the place's excellent range of stouts and ales, including some very decent Swedish ales. The only free seats we could find were sitting in the pub's window, which led to a surreal moment for me when a passer-by peered in and said "I know that voice! That's Liam Proven!" It proved to be Don, former head marketing honcho for Connectix UK, with whom I'd spoken several times while reviewing that firm's excellent Virtual PC – now acquired by Microsoft. He was in town for a graphics conference.
Through a now-unclear sequence of events, we ended up in a late-night bar on the Gamla Stan seafront, drinking complimentary beers with Jens from Grågåsen. Home at nearly dawn again.
Wednesday
Today, Neil was to be otherwise engaged. He was meeting up with Andrea early in the day for a walking tour of Stockholm followed by lunch. In the early evening, she had to go to work, then they planned to meet up again for a drink.
Anders and I tried to tempt Sanna out once again, but she had made other plans involving a night out with her cousin. We ended up in the Grey Goose again, since Anders intended to try to extract some money from them for some bar-work he'd done there. As these things do tend to happen, we ended up staying some time. The Suave Swede even decided he liked Martin's vile horseradish vodka, which the latter claimed he had invented to clear guests' palates during their Yule dinners. I personally favour the theory that it was an evil joke. It's the sort of thing that would vastly amuse him, as did the information of who I'd planned to be seeing that evening.
His mirth was redoubled when Sanna and her cousin tracked us down, working from the evidence that my mobile phone wasn't accepting calls so we must be underground. We stayed there for some time, then adjourned to a rock pub called the Anchor up in the north of the city near Tre Backar. The music was good and the Carlsberg relatively cheap (only about £3 a bottle), but it was almost empty and too loud to talk easily.
I'm getting quite familiar with the Stockholm night-bus system.
Thursday
Neil's last day - he had to catch the bus to the airport at 7:30pm, leaving no time for dinner. He grabbed a couple of hasty korvena (sausages, as opposed to the Norwegian polse - see, this is the stuff that throws you) from a kiosk in the station and set off. I fancied pasta, myself. Anders was a little hesitant – as a devoted meat-eater, I suspect he objects to paying as much for boiled dough as he could spend on the muscle tissue of an endangered species. However, he humoured me, and led me to a newly-opened, painfully-stylish restaurant near Oliver Twist. After he'd put myself up for several days, as well as arranging cheap accommodation for the convention itself, buying him dinner was the least I could do. The food was splendid, but in lamentably small portions, but at least the accompanying bread was tasty and plentiful. We went back to Oliver Twist after this, where Thomas joined us, but the locals prefer Akkurat, so we headed off down there.
After sampling various fine British, Swedish and German beers for several days, it seemed time for a change. I note with mild surprise that Akkurat's website claims it to be a "belgo bar". Well, it's much more agreeable to me than London's Belgo chain, but it does offer a lot of Belgian beers. I asked the barman to recommend something. He quizzed me as to my preferences and then led me on a tasting tour of a wide variety of fine brews. I have revised my opinion on Belgian beers – which is to say, they're not all weird syrupy things or taste of fruit - and will try more.
And for once we headed for home at not too much after midnight.
Friday
My last day, and a final desperate effort to do some actual tourism. I wanted to get outdoors, on the water, and see something uniquely Swedish. I wandered down to near the royal palace, where all the tourist boat tours go from, but my plan was to see the wreck of the Vasa, the great 17th century warship which sank on its maiden voyage. This meant sailing to Djurgården, which the tour boats don't do, so I walked around to Slussen – getting lost in the process, naturally – and took a ferry across the habour. All paid for by my travelcard, too.
On the island I wandered almost at random 'til I found the museum. It's well-signposted and obvious if you approach overland, but not if you came by boat.
The Vasa is truly an awesome sight. Built awry due to a mixture of incompetence and last-minute changes of plan, she's vastly top-heavy. Early trials revealed this caused drastic instability – so the government ignored them. As a result, she sank on her maiden voyage, the second time she encountered a gust of wind. She was only partially crewed and armed, but nevertheless, over 60 lives were lost.
Apart from an incredibly heroic effort to salvage her guns a few years later, she lay untouched for 333 years. Finally, a lone surveyor found her in the 1940s and she was raised, intact, in 1951. Even most of the dead-eyes in her rigging have been recovered; most of the lost parts are decorative paintwork and the ends of the masts and bowsprit. She is a hugely moving sight, sitting there, dark-stained from cold mud and seawater but otherwise almost pristine, straight out of history.
And that was it. I scurried back across the city by foot, bus and T-Bana, discovering large shopping districts I'd not even known were there, packed my bags and with my host legged it for the airport bus. Thomas met us at T-Centralen to bid me farewell, I grabbed a hasty burger and boarded. If all went well, I would make it back in time for B-Movie or possibly the Electric Ballroom with the cix.goths.
All did not go well. My flight was delayed 2h, meaning that I missed the last train from Stansted. I bussed it into Victoria – though they did honour my train ticket, which is a novelty. Then I bussed it from there to Trafalgar Square, then from there to Colliers Wood, then finally a taxi home to collapse into bed at nearly 5am. A shabby end, alas.
RanCon was great fun and I'm very glad I went. It's the smallest con I've ever attended – less attendees than even a Picocon, for example – but it was friendly, well-organized and entertaining. I only wish my Swedish were up to following the native programming. Stockholm, meanwhile, is a beguiling city, large, complex and varied; suffice it to say that I'm half-considering trying to find a job there for a while.
