Mysterious Knittings

You may remember that during my first week back to Stockholm, Deborah visited for the midsummer long-weekend. One thing she noticed was a band of knitting around a strairway’s handrail, just a block away from where I lived. We noticed another one, one more block away, knit onto a busstop pole.

Then I forgot about it for awhile, except for one time when I was locking my bike to a railing at Kungsträdgården (shown in the photo). But still no indication of what they might be all about.

Pride Festival

The entire last week was Pride Festival in Stockholm. This makes it the largest Pride festival in Scandinavia, and in some ways much larger than the one’s I’ve seen anywhere else. Most of the activity happened at a city park near Hornstull, where I lived in 2004, so I didn’t really see much of it for most of last week (I even forgot it was going on until Thursday or Friday).

But on Saturday, I really couldn’t miss it. …

Neighborhood Pics from Mariatorget

As I mentioned earlier, my neighborhood is Mariatorget. Here are a few pics I’ve taken in the neighborhood and in the larger Södermalm district over the last couple weeks. …

Boule

On TV right now is a report on something I was about to write about anyway: boule! Same thing as bocci, actually, it’s a very common park game in summer time in Stockholm, and there seem to always be a few people playing in Mariatorget, the main square of my neighborhood (and the neighborhood’s namesake).

On a normal day, Mariatorget is quite a lot of activity – there are a few cafes with outdoor seating fronting the edges of the park, there are always a few people walking their dogs or hanging out on the parkbenches, and in the center, there’s a fountain with a statue of Thor, wielding his hammer to slay the sea serpent Jörmungandr.

Last Thursday, there was a lot more activity: some new shelter-structures, covering an outdoor seating area for the Brown & Black Pub; a small riser of bench seats next to a boule-court, bordered by wooden slats; and a whole lot more people than normal, all playing or watching boule. A poster nearby explained that this was the first day of an 11-day boule tournament. And the appearance of my neighborhood on the nightly news makes me think this is no small event for Stockholm, though it is very casual. The final match is on Sunday at 1pm.

Arrival

I’m here in Stockholm — safe, sound, and settled in at the apartment I’m subletting for summer. The address is:

Tavastgatan 22, 1tr
118 24 Stockholm
Sweden

No new phone number or email…stay tuned.

—Joel