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In Which I Photograph A Library
September 29, 2006 by Mike
Malmö
Route: Varberg - Halmstad - Helsingborg - Malmö
I rode as far as Varberg last night in order to be set for an important day today: I had a library to photograph.
And as luck would have it, Varberg is a lovely little town. I wasn't quite ready for the hammock again after the luxury of Høvik, so I pushed the boat out and stayed in the Hotell Gastis, a charming place slap bang in the middle of things, if three shops, a square and a railway station could be called the middle of things. The hotel is lined wall to wall with books -- all the Swedish books, in fact, that haven't been sucked up by the satanic Ikea empire to show customers what Billy bookcases would look like with, y'know, books on them.
But I digress. I was heading for Haverdal, a seaside village I visited half my lifetime ago.
When I was 16, the coolest teenagers in Norwich moved in across the road. Well, I thought they looked cool. Actually they were nerds - but in a nice, football-playing way. Frighteningly intelligent, good-looking nerds with really long hair. Also frightenigly tall. And half-Swedish, so they looked like Vikings. (Like I said, I was 15, and impressionable.)
Anyhoo, they moved in, and -- I only said they looked cool, and I didn't say they were cool, and I certainly never claimed to be cool myself! -- we met at a concert by prog-rock weirdos The Enid.
But I digress. Martin was by this stage off to University to study Very Difficult Particle Physics; Remy, my age, my underage drinking companion, became the bestest friend a boy ever had. I didn't even mind when a girl I'd actually kissed (yes! on the lips!) decided she wanted to be his girlfriend instead.
But I digress. The family had a holiday home in Haverdal, where their mother Birgitta comes from. (As does one of Roxette, but that's another story.) And one summer I stopped there as I was hitchhiking to Oslo. Naturally, I thought that (a) speaking English and (b) being Remy's friend, would have the beautiful teenage girls queuing up to smooch me. It wasn't quite like that (surprisingly) though three of them did sing a Simon & Garfunkel song for us. Well, not for us, but we stood nearby and nodded along. Did I mention that we weren't cool?
But I digress. Fast-forward another 20 years and I'm back in Haverdal. Remy's emigrating to Australia today with his lovely wife Helen, who would sing Simon & Garfunkel songs to him every day if he asked. Those beautiful teenage girls probably have beautiful teenage daughters of their own.
And I'm on the beach at Haverdal, stripped to my yellow-and-green Y-fronts, in hot sunshine.
I'm completely alone.
[...... pause........]
But, rather than wax philosophical about my solitude, I put it down to the Y-fronts. And sunbathe.
Why oh why oh why am I publishing this on the WORLD WIDE web?
--
Halmstad is the big city in these parts. And in the big city is a big library. It's shiny and new and Birgitta told me in a comment on this site that I should go and see it.
And photograph it.
It's a lovely library. I'm glad I saw it. And photographed it. But do you see what happened there? I responded to a suggestion from one of you. (I kid myself that 'you' are out there, somewhere.)
So if you have any (clean) thoughts on where I should go next, or later in the trip, please don't hesitate to email me or leave a comment on the site for all to see.
Especially if that suggestion involves a clean bed, hot bath and a meal.
--
I continued through Båstad -- it's on the coast, honest, and not just a sixth-form humour-style photo opportunity -- to Helsingborg, where I should have been able to see the five miles or so across the water to Denmark. Nothing. The fog had come down. (Ro, I promise to visit yr family when I get there!)
And so to Malmö, and to bed.
Comments
By Kathy | October 8, 2006 6:23 PM
Mike,
The pants picture has made me gouge out my own eyes. Which has, in turn, made a bit of a mess of the keyboard. And how am I going to drive home now? Please be more thoughtful.
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By Birgitta | October 4, 2006 4:54 PM
I know just where you were. Good photos
Did you know the other Roxette member is one of the owner of Tylosand large hotel? Did you see it? They play your sort of music there, inside and outside
Apart from that, you have not got Sweden right.