Ok, so last night, helping Azagthoth, the Jolly Goth, celebrate his birthday, I got messed up. I'm a one-drink wonder, and I had far more than one. As anyone who knows me knows, this isn't the usual practice.
I woke up this morning hung over in ways I haven't been in ten years. Snuggling the toilet hung over. Anvil-head hung over. Wheeeeee.
So, let's see, we have some pictures from my recent trip to Sweden. The first card from the camera has gone missing, I'm afraid, so a lot of snappies of Copenhagen, plus a couple of really great nudie pics, are vanished for the time being. I hope it will show up soon, though. Meantime, I have this gallery of pictures, if you want to just flip through. The guided tour is below.
Bicycling is very big in Denmark and Sweden, compared to here. This is just one of the many bicycle parking lots that cluster around the train station in the Tivoli area of Copenhagen. I estimate about 1000 bikes in this lot alone - Wlofie tells me my estimate might be high by a couple hundred.
After our stay at First Hotel in Copenhagen, which has sentimental value to us, we didn't want to haul luggage all over town, so we stowed it away (yes, that's the infamous NegiYo mug) in the lockers at the train station. Wlofie and I discovered we didn't have enough Danish coinage on us for the lockers, so I guarded the luggage while he went for some, and took a self portrait.
We had seen an ad in a touristy little magazine about Museum Erotica, so we went there next. That was quite a bit of fun. The place explores erotica through the ages, and of course there are places where the erotic world and pop culture intersect, so the variety of exhibits and materials made it a pretty impressive collection.
Coming out of there, with the wicked on my mind, this sign made me laugh. What it really means is the final push at the end of the race. The term is almost equivalent to "homestretch". I think it means the sale is almost over, so now's the time to go for that 70% off.
I wanted to show Napalm that an English speaking person could do just fine there, and in fact will find much that is familiar, such as Subway and McDonald's, as found in the train/ferry station at Helsingborg. Train ticket machines are easy to figure out, as is this sign. Ok, so this sign, not so much. By the way, I don't think that what they call schnapps and what we call schnapps is entirely the same thing. They mean aquavit. I'm pretty sure we don't. Ew.
More random pictures from the station:
feet
people
more people
the ceiling, with McDonald's sign
In describing the bus ride home from the train/ferry station, I have been saying that we didn't encounter any other cars on the highway, which is how I remember it. I could have been wrong though. Some of the oncoming lights in these pictures might be other cars. Still, for early evening, this is very, very, thin traffic, by US standards. And yes, there is a place very near Åstorp called Checkpoint. It was supposed to have become some kind of shopper's paradise, but it didn't work out. Seems to me, with a name like "Checkpoint" it was doomed anyway.
Abrupt cut to Wlofie's house, and the plants in his window, with shade and without. This is a very soothing sight, lying in bed. I took a lot more pics of Wlofie's house, but those feel a bit too personal to share on the web. It's a cozy place.
This is an overpass as you come into town by road. We were on our way, the long way round, to the video store, where they happen to have on hand Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, only its Swedish title is Stars Without Brains.
On the way back, we got to take a good look at the burned out Åstorp train station. Because of the fire, which happened right before I left the states, the trains are not able to run through town as often as usual, and this was why the bus trip mentioned earlier. Normally we'd take the train in from Helsingborg to Åstorp. All the plastic has been thrown over the station to protect the switching and signaling apparatus down in the basement, which was initially damaged by the firefighters' deluge. Note that the curtains didn't burn. In fact, very little fire or smoke damage happened on the main floor. The fire seems to have started in the pub kitchen and gone right up the ventilation into the attic, where the entire roof went ablaze (back view). Poor sad smashed little window.
This whole train thing is very important to the town, as this seems to be the major transportation service. There's a big highway outside town, but look at all these tracks, and the trains run pretty plentifully (except when there's been a fire). Åstorp used to be quite the industrial center, and there's still a quarry and cannery working there, and probably some other industries besides. I know there's a bus refurbishment business there as well.
Back down in town, zoologiska means "pet store", not "zoo". I had wondered, as the building seemed pretty small to contain an entire zoo. This is the food stand where we had hamburgers last summer. They also have an indoors seating section, so this time I had Swedish meatballs and mashed potatoes, which are served with a berry sauce made of something like cranberries, only not as tart and dry. They are called whortleberries in Scotland. Yummy yummy yum, it was sooo good!
There's a Chinese restaurant in town that's not half bad at all, and the people are very nice. I captured Wlofie while we waited for our food.
They do have crime, but they do it a little differently. This convenience store got knocked over very recently. The new owners were just in their first week of ownership, when the shop got robbed at ten in the morning! It was not an armed robbery. Instead, one robber occupied one owner while the other owner was in town, and the second robber emptied out the register.
This is the State church, the one that winds up on all the postcards and stuff. I snapped a lot of pics as we got closer and closer, and got some of the inside as well. I suspected this organ came from another church, as new ones tend (I think) to be built to suit, and this one doesn't suit at all. Wlofie says that it is likely, since the State church is no longer all tied up in the State anymore, and they've had to re-apportion their resources. It's a grand little church though. And whether you wondered what the Lord's Prayer looked like in Swedish or not, now you know. I liked this massive ancient looking lock, and got a pic of the plaque above the door outside. This parting picture came out surprisingly well, considering the building was backlit by the setting sun.
Now for a few random pics. I had taken a picture of this graffiti before, but it never made it into any digital format, until now. This is the town's grocery store, called Oi!, not Oj! I also wanted to snap a pic of this rotary telephone, as I knew Napalm would be interested. Two of his are early-model touch tone rentals from Ma Bell.
