Oh oh, the sirens sang so sweet
And watched the sailors going down
Oh oh, you talk to me in siren song
Yeah, anyone would drown
Anyone would drown
All the ships go down
Following the sound
All the ships go down
/A Fine Frenzy - Liar Liar
Things I knew about Sweden prior to this trip:
The Swedish Chef
Swedish Massage
Swedish Fish
My Aunt Dodo's Swedish Meatballs
Ace of Base
Things I now know about Sweden:
No Grown-ups
No Nighttime
Nothing but Hotties
I asked the hottie at catering yesterday what the meat selection was in the buffet line. It could've been turkey, pork, chicken, beef or something else entirely. It was cut into thick generic slices and was the shared color of all aforementioned fleshes. She touted off something in Swedish across the room only to return my gaze with the accented answer, "It's Meat." Sounds good. I¹ll have that.
...
So I mentioned there's no Grown-Up's in Sweden. It's true. Only teens, 20's and 30's and everyone seems eager to hook-up. I think it has to do with the sun never being too far away. Imagine the last 20 minutes of a gorgeous sunset and then make it last for three hours and that's what's happening up here. It is said that the first and last light of day is the best to ingest. You can actually look right at the sun in these moments and take the rays right into the pupil absorbing the nutrients directly. Can you say fountain of youth? Okay, that might be a bold guess, but it certainly helps the highlights. I don't think we've ever played before a more blond ambitious audience.
Sweden feels like a forgotten land to those of us who travel mainly via the jet and gulf streams. Way up here the rules are applied differently apparently. For starters, if you want to hop over the turnstiles in the subway you can. There are no authorities to control the free travel. This makes the underworld look and feel like a mall. Every hipster in the hook-up culture is down there, on the move and ready for action. But it isn¹t an aggressive world. Because everyone is hot, they don't know the difference. Ego appears reduced and everyone is friendly.
If that don't beat all, my hotel serves up the best soft serve ice cream in the history of soft serve, 24 hours a day. In the US, an ice cream machine in a hotel lobby would shut itself off by 10pm at the latest. But here you can grab a delicious cup before bed at 4am, long after the sun has already returned to the skies. Blackout curtains were also invented here apparently.
I've only been here less than two days. But Today I'll finally get out of concert and hotel mode and finally see some sights, perhaps some of the 2000 islands that make up the archipelago of Sweden and Stockholm, or maybe I'll cruise by city hall and snap a shot of where they give out the Nobel Prize every year. I also need a shot of me in a Viking ship with a funny helmet on.
Hey You
Don’t you give up
It’s not so bad
There’s still a chance for us
...
Hey you
Save yourself
Don’t rely on anyone else
...
Hey you
There on the fence
You’ve got a choice
One day…it will make sense
/Madonna - Hey You
It's the kind of town
If you left and returned ten years later
You'd see the same people
Still doing the same things
Talking the same talk
Walking the same park
Spring and summer
Fall and winter
Maybe you'd get some new neighbours
But the old ones have just moved a few blocks away
You would still be able to drop by to say hey
Mikael Ngo - Untitled
