The last few weeks I’ve noticed that I look differently at the trip to school, at doing shopping, at walking in the city. I finally start to see this as normal. Before it was still my study abroad. Now this way to school has become my way to school, this city became my city. I feel at home, I think.

On the right is a part of that life. On my way to school the air was on fire. Oh, btw, another fire that was part of the life here, was Valborg. The Swedish helgdagar (holiday) on the 30th of April.

From one of the first books about intercultural interactions:

Strangeness is no longer a temporary condition to be overcome, but a way of life.
Harman

Click play or go to the gallery to view the photos in large.

The last weekend and the evenings around that, we – me and Frida, were moving together.

We’ve been installing new lights, packing, moving the packed boxes and placing everything in the new apartment.

But it takes more time than just that one weekend moving. Also cleaning the previous apartment, dealing with – and nervously waiting for – the rental company, and somehow, unpacking takes more time than packing.

And then come the more practical things.. A clock comes back in the apartment. How to deal with this and that? Were to place these things? How should this look? As said, moving takes more than 1 or 2 days. We’re welcoming the new adventures and conflicts :)

And things start to feel differently. The bed with the two nightstands suddenly looks like we’re a couple. Ah but wait, we are :)

And, we can now enjoy the new balcony.

I found a nice little park next to the supermarket – the Hemköp seen in the middle. I sat on a rock there, with this view. Good place to think, overview of the city.

I’ve been photographing a lot lately. I’ve also not been photographing a lot, just experiencing the environment. But both serve their goal. Photographing helps me to get another view on things. By trying different ways to capture a space I learn the different aspects of the space as well.

And I’m making new stereograms here. Thanks again Ivo for pointing me at this way back :) It is a trick to photograph an object which can been seen in 3D again pretty easy afterwards. See the picture below. The trick to see 3D here is to ‘cross your eyes’ to look at a non-existing point in front of the real image. Focus until you’ve got both grey circles to join eachother in the middle, then look at the image.

See more Swedish stereograms from the nature of Eskilstuna :)

At the station I bought a Balder (a sandwich with the same name as my brother) as I didn’t had breadfast yet. Than the guides which would take us into the old part of the city came, almost excusing for the fog. When we started walking it was clear what she meant, you could hardly see any building which was further than 100m away :)

But this actually gave pretty nice views of the city. At some places it made me remember of Paris, for example this picture on the right, but also this square and this passage next to the train. Maybe all old cities look alike?

Often, we had to imagine the great view which we would have gotten if there hadn’t been such a heavy fog. But it also gave views for some great photo’s; such as the fairy tail castle on one of the bigger islands, also hosting a lot of museums; our own clothings collecting dew; and the photo below near the royal castle which got me interested on taking photo’s of the people of Stockholm.

Not all creatures in Stockholm are people though, they also have animals there, sitting on lanterns and by the river. And statues, but they’ll get their own story. As well as the interaction design in Stockholm :)

After lunch a we went with four people to the Moderna Museet. Where I finally saw Duchamp’s urinoir after talking about it so often in the Interaction Design lecutres! One artwork was about birth and time. Pictures of a rising belly with poems, one read:

One is born into time. And in time, introduced to language…
Or rather – One is born. And through language, introduced to time…
Perhaps even – One is born, in time, through language.

Further they had a nice tree. Really strange. It was like a tree, cut inside another tree. When I saw the bottom I thought that the outer tree was actually made of two parts.

But upon viewing the other side that was clearly not the case, this made the mystery even bigger.. There you could see how a tree’s branches are branches inside the tree too. Not that strange when you think of it, but that is it with these unconsiousness things, you never think of it.

Or wasn’t it the reality?

After the museum of Modern Art we went to the attached Architectural museum where they had some nice examples of how to build a city. Explaining and showing the different ways of housing and patterns to make the city accessible, explorable, interesting, efficient, quiet or cozy.

As the evening fell I went for some diner for which – after some search – I ended up in a standard Chinese restaurant. It was pretty hard to find something ‘local’, or maybe I was just in thew wrong neighborhood. But maybe you need to be a local – or have one with you – to find the better Swedish restaurants. Well, I want to go to Stockholm again for a few days, so than I’ll go to some more Stockholmish places :)

Stockholm at night

Courses here are non parallel, so we only have one course at the time. Thats for the next 5 weeks and then comes the next course. Some exceptions, but then you probably won’t have more then 2 courses at the same time.

Elaborations on the question above after the beeb :)

I think culture does ‘distort’ your view of reality. I think we can never take off those cultural glasses. The culture you grown up with will always influence the way you look at the world. You certainly can learn to understand other cultures and the way other people act. But the ways you communicate, the ways you think etc., are so much burned into you life. Like walking, it happens in your unconsciousness and you’ll never forget it.

Another interesting question to think about: “how much should a society tolerate / accept in terms of cultural differences?” I think this one is especcially for the current situation in the Netherlands (well, the situation when I left the country anyway ;)). What are the effects of other cultures joining your culture?