5/24 Stockholm, Sweden cont.

 

On my 2^nd evening in Stockholm, I was very happy to see Otto again after two years and I got to participate in comic night. This special evening occurs every Sunday in the house and involves a group of friends collecting around the table working on collaborative comics. For instance, once person draws a few boxes of a comic strip story and passes the page along to a new person to continue. Or, you can help out with one of the “experiments” as Petter calls them: 3 boxes, the first image begun by one person, the 2nd box continued by a 2^nd person, and the 3^rd box finished off by a 3^rd person – hopefully with some sort of joke or punch line created. My favorite of these experiments shows an airplane diving toward the ground in one box, in the next box, the airplane has changed scale and has landed head first in a flower pot, and in the 3^rd box, the plane is shown growing out of the flower pot beside other flower pots growing cars and other machines. What a cool thing to do in an evening! And what a treat to participate in such an evening with highly sophisticated, politically, environmentally aware people talking philosophically about demographics and population, social issues, food resources, and what makes a person bad or corrupt.

I had a few one-on-one good catch-up conversations with Otto. As he was cramming for an engineering exam, I had anticipated not having much time to hang out. We took a long walk through the parks one evening, getting to avoid the streets all together and just walk through the greenery to cross the island; this abundance of parks is one of the qualities I loved most about Sweden. Otto will soon be hitchhiking to Berlin, via Denmark. Maybe I’ll see him there next – everyone keeps talking about amazing Berlin, so I’ll go soon I hope. (Otto and I met by the way in Santa Fe, Summer 09 through a mix of couchsurfing/craigslist happenstance).

It rained the morning I left and cost $30 just to get to the airport (nearly the same amount for my cheap plane to Poland!) I would not recommend flying out of Skavsta airport. I spent money in Sweden only on transportation to and from the airport and a little bit on fresh fruit and icecream because the cost of transportation was so high. I hear it is one of the most expensive cities in Europe right now. I am grateful I had great people to stay with; it made all the difference in my visit.