NASA - A Human Adventure

Today we visited the Tekniska Museet to tour the NASA – A Human Adventure exhibit. The exhibit contained over 400 objects ranging from a replica of the Soviet Sputnik to a close up view of a space shuttle command deck showing the great leaps in space exploration achieved in such a short time.

We are space age babies. The “space race” glued our eyes to the TV as Walter Cronkite gave us witness to Mercury, Gemini and Apollo countdowns. We can recount in detail our personal story when Neil Armstrong announced the “Eagle has landed” and took his - and our collective - first step on the moon. It seems so long ago now.

We wondered how Swedes responded to the exhibit. Forever calm and inclined to maintain a balance, can a Swede ever identify with the intense sense of national angst we Americans felt when President Kennedy challenged us to land a man on the moon and return him safely? More importantly, can an American born into an Internet connected, iEverything world ever appreciate the sense of urgency we once felt to achieve a singular goal?

Replica Eagle Lunar Module

This observation had a note of irony as we received instructions on use of the exhibit’s iPod audio tour guide. “Simply move your fingers up and down to select the menu item you want.” On the tour, we selected menu items, listened, adjusted volume, opted to hear augmented narration and viewed supplemental photos on the iPod. As we stood in front of a replica of the Eagle Lunar Module command center, we wondered how anyone ever thought we could fly to the moon using computers with 16Kbits of memory. Truly a human adventure.

The exhibit designers understood the power that imagination played in launching humans into space in what we would now consider haphazard contraptions. Photos of imaginative writers such as H.G. Wells, Jules Verne and others filled an early display area. Also showing was a continuous video loop of Georges Méliès’s 1902 film Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage Dans la Lune).

Méliès’s film gives us not only a glimpse of the yearnings of our early 20th century European ancestors to travel to the moon, but also their sensibilities on exploration. Upon landing, the intrepid travelers’ first response upon encountering the moon’s Selenite population was to dispatch each creature encountered with a club. The Selenites, from a European mindset, had a king who was equally dispatched. The travelers then made their escape with spear-carrying Selenite natives in hot pursuit.

Harder to comprehend is a life that saw the original release of this grainy black and white science fiction film and also lived to see grainy black and white images of a human actually step on the moon. This time, “we came in peace.” Many changes indeed for a single lifetime.

A English narrated version of Le Voyage Dans la Lune.  There may be a brief "commercial" at the start of the film...but this film is a classic and worthy of whatever commercial benefit someone may achieve.

Riga in a Hurry

Very short video of our tour of Riga.  The town was celebrating its 810th anniversary.  The streets were filled with people, food, street performers and all sorts of activities and sights to see.  In the park, there were several events, including a live performance of New Orleans jazz music.

A Day in Riga

The M/S Romantica docked at the port in Riga on Saturday at 11 am and the passengers disembarked quickly. Some, like us, were carrying backpacks and were there to sightsee for the day. Others were hauling suitcases, perhaps going home. We had investigated Riga on the internet (www.liveriga.com and www.rigalatvia.net) and been given a briefing of the city onboard the evening before and picked up a map that was quite sufficient for our needs. It highlighted the top 12 tourist attractions and listed 67 houses that were “objects of Art Nouveau.” With map in hand, we headed out.

It was only a 15 minute walk into town, but we were constantly sidetracked on our way to the Tourist Information office by interesting sights and sounds. Riga was celebrating its 810^th anniversary the weekend of August 20-21 (yes, it was founded in 1201!), and we were in the middle of music, singing, dancing, beautiful parks, mimes, pony rides, a short parade and many locals who had come out for the occasion.

Here are four highlights of our day! We spent part of a rainy morning at the Latvian Occupation Museum. The museum presents the history of Latvia from 1940-1994, years in which they experienced both Soviet and Nazi German occupation. The exhibition shows agreements, documents, photographs and objects that tell the story of the Latvian population, the tragedy caused by invading foreign powers, the appalling conditions in which they lived and their resistance to the occupying powers. It was a somber experience. It made us so thankful to have been born in the USA.

The sun came out, and we saw St. Peter’s Church, one of the most ancient examples of medieval churches in the Baltic region. It was first built in the 13^th century, and a Baroque wooden steeple was installed in 1690 – the highest in the world at that time. It was burned down during WW II and restored in 1973. It houses many lovely pieces of handmade tapestry as well as ancient epitaphs and burial plaques.

Across a canal and housed in four dirigible hangars that were never used for that purpose is Centraltirgus – City Market. Each section of the market houses a different type of commodity. There are fish and other seafood (dried, fresh, frozen, cooked and raw), fresh fruits and vegetables and clothes. I was surprised at how much smoked fish was for sale.

The element of Riga that got me most excited when I first read about it is the fact that it has been designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO because of the number (around 800) and density (40% of buildings in the center of Riga) of their art nouveau buildings. It is generally recognized that Riga has the finest collection of art nouveau buildings in Europe. Art Nouveau was first expressed in fabrics and graphic design. This style spread on architecture and furniture in the 1890's. Art Nouveau buildings often have asymmetrical shapes, arches and decorative surfaces with curved, plant-like designs. Moreover, art and architecture connoisseurs believe that it is in Riga that art nouveau found especially powerful and sweeping expression.

The Freedom Monument

Michael Jackson Russian dolls

After a day of walking, touring, watching, looking and listening, we were tired and headed back to the ship, happy with all the discoveries we'd made that day. 

Cruising to Riga, Latvia

With angst about securing long-term housing now behind us, we have shifted gears to focus our attention on meeting people and travel adventures.  Last week was a whirlwind of those activities.  First, we attended the standing 3^rd Thursday evening gathering of the American Club of Sweden.  We had a marvelous time, renewed some friendships made at the July 4^th picnic and added new names to our “I know you” list. The next day we packed our bags and sailed to Riga, Latvia.

There is a very active cruise industry plying the waters of the Baltic Sea out of Stockholm.  Cruises can be arranged from a short 12-hour sail so one can enjoy a sumptuous meal to weekend cruises to other Baltic ports.   Our Riga adventure door-to-door was a total of 42 hours!

Helen arranged our passage on an Estonian-flagged cruise shipped named the Romantik from the Tallink Line.   Inclusive of the passage, meals (which were an option to be purchased separately) and four cocktail vouchers cost about $200 USD for each of us; quite a deal for two people looking for an adventure.

We have limited cruise experience, but can say that this cruise was “fully satisfactory.”  Unlike our week-long western Caribbean cruise, the Baltic crew did not fuss over the passengers. No steward, for example, cleaned our cabin and we found no towel origami bunny rabbits (with the accompanying video of how to do it for sale) on our bed. The crew was professional, but distant.  We have no complaints regarding accommodations or food.

This cruise also provided us our first mingling with people from the former Soviet-block dominated countries of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania.   We later learned, when touring the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia in Riga, that there is no love lost between native Latvians and those with Soviet/Russian roots. There is general peace among the people, but we made some personal observations.

We have grown accustomed to the mostly reserved Swedish culture where one does not call attention to oneself. We noticed as whiskey-induced songs rose from a nearby dinner table on the cruise ship that our Slavic brethren drew from a different social structure. Adventure is all about encountering the unexpected.

This cruise ship, like all cruise liners, had several bars. What we did find a bit unusual was that the tax free shop that sold candy, cigarettes and liquor had no real mechanism in place to dissuade the ‘purchase, consume, repeat’ cycle while on board. We heard over the loud speaker system in our cabin messages in Latvian, Swedish and English several times specifying that ‘consuming of alcohol brought or purchased on board was prohibited.’ It startled us to find Coke and Jack Daniels or beer toting cruise mates at 8:00 a.m. Ваше здоровье! - [vashee zda-ró-vye] – Your health!

Riga’s old town center and main tourist area is a 15 minute walk from the port.  We found that the cruise line’s allotted five and a half hours to tour this small, lovely Baltic port city was quite adequate. 
Pictured at left is a building in the harbor that greets passengers as they enter the capital city of Latvia.

Moving Day in August

With our move today into our new apartment, we entered another phase in our Swedish adventure.  We are now firmly ensconced in a real Swedish apartment.  Our initial seven-week rental of a 103 square meter, 3-bedroom apartment overlooking a beautiful park was not typical for this space-starved city.   For the next nine weeks, we are in cityscape 37 square meter, 1-bedroom apartment with pedestrian and vehicular traffic on Torkel Knutssonsgatan constantly passing our kitchen window.   Now this is Stockholm.

We actually feel quite lucky to have secured this new apartment on Brännkyrkagatan in Södermalm. Housing is in short supply in Stockholm, and has been for a century. When this apartment appeared on one of the many websites Helen monitored, she immediately sent an email of interest.   Her email was one of the first of 50 responses our new landlord received the first day.  We interviewed and closed the deal.

We think being old enough to be our new landlord’s parents helped our case.  Helen had learned in responding to apartment openings to include that we were a mature couple, on two-year contracted work assignment from the US and that we were non-smokers, and had no children or pets. 

The apartment’s attraction was that it met many of our criteria.  Most importantly, the weekly rental enabled us to perfectly bridge the “housing gap” we had until moving into our one-year long leased apartment in mid-October.  The apartment is also a 3-minute walk to the T-Bana (subway) and there are two supermarkets on the walk to the subway.  As we grow more accustomed to a car-free urban lifestyle, calculating distances to transportation and markets is now part of our lives. 

The actual move was painless.  Helen had packed a number of items earlier in the week.  On Saturday, we finished most of the packing and then took an evening break and watched an iTunes downloaded movie.  Early Sunday morning we stripped the beds and washed linens and towels. Final items were packed and we hopped the T-Bana, each of us pulling two suitcases, for the first of two trips to relocate our belongings.

Adriane, our new landlord, greeted us at the apartment.  We exchanged the first month’s rent for two sets of keys.  We then wished one another good luck and parted ways.  Adriane is vacating her apartment to move in with her boyfriend.  She may be on a grander adventure than we are.

As we left our old apartment for the last time we placed a bottle of wine on the kitchen table to thank our former young landlords for “the use of the hall.”  Johan and Asa are also our children’s age and are raising two small children.  They are indeed on a grand adventure.

We unpacked at our new apartment, made a grocery run, had lunch and declared that we had had another wonderful day in Sweden.

Sweden's National Museum

Instead of a journey to the east side of Stockholm to tour the open-air museum called Skansen, the Sunday morning rain caused us to take a detour and head to Stockholm’s National Museum instead.  The museum is on our Stockholm bucket list.

The National Museum is a quintessential temple built for the arts.  Constructed in 1886 right across the river from the Royal Palace, the high ceilings and long central staircase capture the northern Italian Renaissance style intended by its German architect. A small auditorium off the foyer has a continuously running 30 minute movie about the history of the museum and its acquisitions.  It was well worth the time.

An opportunity to see the five month long Lust & Vice exhibit made our detour out of the rain even easier. To be honest, our cumulative 21^st century exposure to nudity far exceeds depictions rendered by artists from the 16^th to 19^th century.   Numerous paintings of the exposed breasts of alabaster skinned women lined the walls. What was most revealing, however, was how artists of their day balanced religious sensibilities with the display of erotic imagery. 

Claiming that images of naked women were central to depicting mythological or biblical stories was a rationale frequently used. Martin van Meytens’ double-sided Kneeling Nun painting (~1731) highlighted an additional cleverness in “hiding” taboo imagery and deflecting personal involvement when viewing overtly erotic imagery.

On one side of van Meytens’ painting is the image of a pious nun, hands folded, kneeling, leaning on a railing.  On the other side is the bare backside of this same nun.  To remove the viewer from the “guilt” of enjoying the earthly pleasure of seeing the nun’s naked bottom, the artist included one additional image.  In the top right corner is a lascivious old man who is the voyeur, instead of the viewer of the painting.  The lecher then absorbs the guilt; the viewer is free to admire the artist’s brush strokes.

In another section of the museum we viewed the Four Seasons exhibit showing artists’ seasonal imagery of Sweden. The permanent displays include portrait miniatures, statues and the shimmering display of silver work in the Swedish industrial art design.   

A visit to the user friendly National Museum is recommended. Free coat racks are available as well as lockers for storage of backpacks or small bags.  The lockers require a 1 SEK coin which is returned once the locker is re-opened.  We did not have a coin, but were offered the use of a coin by a gift shop cashier.

After five hours at the museum that included a wonderful lunch, we emerged to less threatening skies and meandered back to our apartment with many wonderful memories.  One less item on our Stockholm bucket list.

Slide show of our Museum Visit

Finding an Apartment in Stockholm

We are writing this blog entry primarily for people who are starting on their journey to relocate to Stockholm and are seeking some information on how the process works. Along with death and taxes, you can also count on an arduous task when it comes to finding housing in Stockholm!  

Where to live.  We opted to live in the city vs. an outlying suburb. Stockholm is a very livable city.  It is relatively small and has a wonderful European charm as well as an up-to-date cosmopolitan feel.  Areas on our housing radar included areas mostly west or north of the city and on a subway line: Kungsholmen, Marieberg and Södermalm.  Off the list due mostly to expense were Gamla Stan, Ostermalm and Norrmalm.  We also considered out-of-town living in Solna, Nacka, Bromma and Liljeholmen, which all came recommended by expats.

Living within a short walking distance (10 minutes or less) to a T-Bana (subway) station was essential because we don’t plan to buy a car. We were given counsel by those that have lived through several Swedish winters to consider early darkness, snow and cold when calibrating our distance from public transportation. Jay was keen to use the T-Bana vs. a bus in order to avoid waiting outside for public transportation to get to work. 

Our location criteria also included the distance from front door to grocery store.  We did not want to rely on public transportation for a trip to the market, nor did we want a long walk lugging groceries back home.

We started out wanting a two-bedroom apartment 70 – 100 square meters with all utilities, internet and TV included in a monthly rental range between SEK 10,000 – 14,000 ($1545 - $2160).

We made an effort during weekend day trips to visit as many towns and neighborhoods as we could.  Having a personal understanding of neighborhoods really helped us understand where to look for housing online.  We confess, however, that when no housing possibilities were appearing with our desired criteria we knew we’d have to concede by raising the amount we would have to pay and lowering the amount of space.  We stayed focused and hopeful.

The tricky part is that online housing opportunities come and go in a flash.  Rarely do people advertise rental apartment weeks or months in advance, and within hours a landlord can have 50 replies. You have to play most, if not all, your cards up front to even get a response. I told prospective landlords that we were a quiet, non-smoking American couple with no children and no pets. My husband has an employment contract and we plan to be in Sweden for two years.

Lease durations vary from a few weeks to six months and sometimes one year, but not longer.  Many people who leave the city for summer vacation sublet their furnished apartments for one to eight weeks from June – August.

There are numerous websites where landlords post their apartments for free, and people looking for apartments have to pay to either see the listings or respond to the listings.  The most popular websites are:

Bostaddirekt.com (Biggest and most popular; costs SEK 695 to register for Stockholm – about $108. Registration is for 45 days. Don’t even think about looking further in advance.)

Blocket.se (Charges about $30 to register for 45 days)

Hyralya.se

Bostadsportalen.com

Andrahand.se

Bopunkten.se

Hyrbostad.se

Short Video Tour of our First Apartment