For lunch (well, breakfast+lunch), I tried to find a place I had read about online called Glass Fabriken, which was supposed to be both delicious and cheap. Unfortunately, I couldn't find it. I had written out very clear directions for how to get there, but I couldn't see it to save my life. All the time I had been looking for it (and a little before) it had been raining, from light sprinkling to moderate amounts of rain. Wet and hungry, at this point I was looking for anywhere to eat.
If Ölkaféet was 'anywhere to eat,' then anywhere to eat in Sweden is delicious (this may in fact, be true, keep reading!). It was also in Ölkaféet that I learned a lesson on the difference maybe between European and American restaurants, but definitely between Swedish and American restaurants. Unless someone comes out to greet you, just sit down. I sort of stood for a while inside the Ölkaféet before one of the servers finally looked at me as though I wasn't wearing any pants and asked me something I didn't understand. Luckily, he also spoke English, and I was able to order grilled chicken, which was tender, succulent, and very filling! While the lunch was more expensive than I had expected, it was easily worth every kronor.
Definitely cheered me up after my soppy defeat in trying to find Glass Fabriken
Thankfully, after lunch, the rain had cleared up, and it was fairly nice for the rest of the day. I headed off to explore one of the sites recommended to me by one of the people who helped me to find my apartment: Malmö's Konsthall (art museum). It is apparently a contemporary arts museum which constantly rotates its exhibits between various artists. Two artists were being shown, both coming from the Minimalist tradition. It wasn't exactly my cup of tea, but two works in specific really caught my eye. Two large books, which appeared to be made out of wood and marble respectively. When I looked closer, I saw that each page had been painted to look like it was made out of wood or marble. In their very consistency (the fact that the artist painted every page) I thought that was pretty cool, and they definitely convinced me from far away.
The front of the Konsthall
Books?? The artist is Tauba Auerbach (b. 1981)
On my way out I noticed on one of the open doors a glyph through the picture of a camera. Oops. Oh well, I hadn't known, and at least the art they were showing didn't look like it would have really suffered from light expose (I didn't even use flash).
Afterwards, I went back to the Pildammsparken. Last time I went I figured I had only scratched its surface. I was right. There was another whole side which I had not yet explored. As it was a weekend, lots of people were out with their children feeding the birds. In addition, I explored one of the gardens which bordered the park. On my way back to the side of the park closer to my hostel, I passed an avenue of enormous pruned trees! Maybe it wasn't that remarkable, but these large cube-like topiaries made for a cool photo.
One of the garden areas in Pildammsparken
How would you like to be responsible for this pruning job?
Crossing back to the other side of the pond, I saw (well, I'd seen it all along, but I decided to investigate) a large tower, also within the borders of the park. Inside, there was an exhibition of photos of cats. The title of the exhibit was called Katten i Tel Aviv (which is what it looks like it is: Cats in Tel Aviv). The were certainly interesting pictures, but my mistake at the museum made me wary of taking a picture of anything inside the tower.
The tower. It certainly looks imposing. I was a little disappointed that, because of the photo exhibition, access to upper floors was closed.
Sadly, I don't really have any more pictures from Saturday. I ended up finding Glass Fabriken for dinner. I looked on google maps for an 'on the street' image of the restaurant and recognized immediately the building I had been continuously passing that had no conspicuous signage indicating that it was a restaurant. My dinner there was, again delicious! I really do think there is a generally higher standard of restaurant food quality in Europe. It may get boring to hear that everything I'm having is delicious, but it's the truth, and this meal was quite cheap (only about $5.30!). I had a toasted ciabatta with green pesto and fresh vegetables, including lettuce, avocado, tomatoes, and onions. Most of my family can attest that at least half of those ingredients aren't exactly on my push list, but I ate the whole thing and loved it. It all tasted so fresh and clean. No pictures of Glass Fabriken, unfortunately, though I did meet a very interesting person there. I am still deciding whether I hope to see him again. While I was eating at Glass Fabriken there was a man sitting not too far away in the restaurant who looked remarkably like Hagrid from Harry Potter. Very large with a long beard and long black hair. As if to complete his Potter-esque image, he had his pet rat sitting on his rather voluminous belly. I have to say, for a little rodent the rat was pretty cute. We had a broken conversation. Obvious, I don't speak much Swedish and understand less than I speak. His accent was thick so it was hard to understand him even when he spoke a word in English. And it didn't help that he waved away my handbook every time I brought it out to consult it. Apart from being unique encounter, it confirmed for me one of the resolutions I have made about my trip.
One of the things I have resolved to do while I'm over in Malmö is to find a conversation buddy of sorts. I can regurgitate phrases from a handbook, and while that can take one a certain extent, I'd also like to have some idea of what people are saying to me. I posted on the website which helped me find an apartment, and someone responded that there are plenty of local cafes at which conversation buddies meet. There was one she suggested which met on Tuesdays. I think I will go.
One of the things I have resolved to do while I'm over in Malmö is to find a conversation buddy of sorts. I can regurgitate phrases from a handbook, and while that can take one a certain extent, I'd also like to have some idea of what people are saying to me. I posted on the website which helped me find an apartment, and someone responded that there are plenty of local cafes at which conversation buddies meet. There was one she suggested which met on Tuesdays. I think I will go.
Sunday: 6/3
I called Saturday the day of rest because I slept until 1 PM, which is pretty much unheard of for me. Really. Sunday was a little par for course. I unfortunately stayed up later than I had meant to, as I was finishing up copy-work on my friend and colleague Michael Alec Rose's wind-band piece Sun-Coaster, and I woke up earlier than I had intended. I was able to doze off for about another hour or more, but eventually I could not forestall doing things any more. I set off to do the rest of the things I should do to set my affairs in order while I am in Malmö (hence 'day of the rest,' alright, enough handholding from me). One of the things I had not yet done was find the Musikhögskolan at which I will be studying. This was the first order of business, and, setting off, I was able to find it with minimal difficulty. I obviously couldn't get inside, as it was closed, but it was good to discover its general location, even if I won't be approaching it from the same direction after tomorrow, once I move into my apartment.
Sign outside the Musikhögskolan
The other main task at hand was to establish my means of transportation. My apartment is about 20 minutes walking from the Musikhögskolan, but a much shorter bus-ride, even if I do have to get out and change stops. But that brings up the question of bus passes. Public transportation in Malmö is very reliable and, it seems, is used by a sizable portion of the population. Obviously, I would have to get a bus pass somehow.
But it was lunchtime, and I was feeling hungry. As my family wanted me to find out what on earth was traditional Swedish cuisine, I went back to the hostel to look up local restaurants which were purveyors of Husmanskost (as traditional Swedish food is called). One of the places I found was near the western coast, which looks out on the strip of water between Sweden and Denmark, but also between the Baltic and North Seas (not sure to which this strip cartographically belongs). I figured I would kill 2 birds with one stone, since I wanted to go to Malmo's coast anyway, and I could get some Swedish food at the same time.
This is the point where the bus passes came back as an immediate priority. If I were to walk from my hostel to Strandgatan, the main street that runs along the western coast, it would take about an hour and ten minutes. By bus, it would take me 20. I opted for the bus.
You can get bus passes outside of bus stations at a big-bird yellow version of a 7/11. Just ask the cashier and you can get a pass. Mine lasts for the whole month (I guess depending on how much I use it I may have to recharge it a little, but still, having something which lets you just hop on a bus, rather than scrambling to buy a ticket is incredibly helpful, especially since I will probably be using the bus a lot).
My bus pass! While the word looks like it's 'Jojo,' it's pronounced 'yo-yo.'
The place I picked out for lunch was (predictably) also delightful. Though there was hardly anyone there when I went in to eat. It was called Babas Krogen På Limhamn (Limhman is the suburb of Malmö nearest to the west coast), and I had Köttbullar (show-t-boo-lar: meatballs) in a creamy gravy with fried potatoes. As Lauren remarked, skyping with me earlier today, that pretty much every country has used potatoes as a staple food. 'Traditional' means 'back when meat was expensive so we ate a lot more potatoes.' She's mostly right, methinks. Still, it was very good, and reminded me a little of the Monday Night Dinner meatloaf. It was a little on the dense and dry side, but the restaurant would definitely be worth a return visit to. The waiter was very kind and understanding, despite not speaking English. I stumbled through with the help of my Berlitz book, but, again, a conversation buddy is in high demand.
Interior of Babas Krogen På Limhamn
Köttbullar med gräddsås (meatballs with 'creamsauce')
The coast wasn't exactly a beach. The path I took to get to the coast took me to one of the arms of a small cove which served as a marina for hundreds of boats. It was beautiful, but very windy! I will say that wind is the feature of weather I have most noticed in Sweden. It is always windy (as you will see from at least one of the pictures). Though they were taken with my smartphone, I think that the pictures I took might speak a little better than verbal descriptions. In many of the pictures you can see a large bridge. This is Betalingsvej (or, in Danish, Øresundsbroen), a highway connecting Sweden and Denmark. Though I couldn't see any sort of elevated train track, it must be across the Betalingsvej that I came on the train from the Copenhagen airport, as it appears on maps to be the only connecting line between Malmö and Copenhagen.
Betalingsvej
Windswept old me, I wasn't kidding about the wind!
View of the Marina, I hope you can see how many masts there are.
You can barely see Copenhagen on the horizon. That's as close as I could get unless I went to the other arm of the cove.
A view from the marina back towards Strandgatan.
Bus-pass in hand, I returned to the hostel to take a large nap. Exhaustion pounced on me like a puma while I was on the bus back to Södervärn, the area where I've been living, and I collapsed on my bed for a good 3 hours.
Perhaps I tried to tempt fate too much when it related to bus navigation, because dinner was a lot harder to find than lunch. I used the bus again, this time to go to another Husmanskost restaurant, Två Krögare. When I got off the bus, I had to turn onto a street which, as I walked back and forth along Amiralsgatan, appeared not to exist. Eventually I was able to find it, but it was through a mix of luck and good guesswork from the map I had made. There was no signage for the street I was looking for, Storgatan, from Amiralsgatan, so the fact that I found it I count as a blessing. Finding Två Krögare, I also found a very kind waitress, who was very encouraging in my attempts to learn Swedish. She said to me that there were people she knew that had come to live in Malmö from England more than 10 years ago who had never tried to learn Swedish. I'll definitely keep at it, though Tuesday will probably be a better opportunity for improvement than anything I might do on my own tomorrow.
Dinner was wonderful. The traditional dish of Husest pytt i panna. A mix of meat, potatoes, and eggs, this particular one being ham, fried potatoes, boiled beets, bean sprouts, and an egg on top! Along with it I had a Swedish beer, Pribbs Blå, which I chose on a whim. Well, not totally on a whim, it was one of two Swedish beers offered, so it was a 1 in 2 chance, but there was no hint at which one I might like better. Thankfully, I loved the one I chose. It was fairly strong, but not very dark. I prefer less lager-like beers, and this one was great! I will definitely look for it at future meals.
Husets pytt i panna. Sorry about the lighting. You can see in the upper right hand part of the Pribbs Blå bottle.
Got home safely (walked), then, sat down to write this most recent update.
It's past midnight here, and I still need to pack, since I'm moving to my new apartment tomorrow morning!
Godnatt!
-Trey
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