Dreaming of Freedom

I have been back in England now for over a week and I am still feeling a little out of my element. I caught up with Andy at the Maypole on Friday night and now have no illusions that it’s much cheaper to drink alcohol in England.

Yesterday I went into the centre and visited useful and exciting places such as the tourist information. The tourist info is a bit run down and depressing here and doesn’t not even supply tourists with free maps of the city - it’s probably easier to check them out online and print out a map of the city yourself.

I was fully intending to go and see if Cambridge Cycling Campaign had their stall outside the Guildhall yesterday but the morning slipped past me before I had a moment to grab it - so that’s a little job for next Saturday.

Of all of the heartwarming things this week my favourite is that Waitrose let you use bike trailers for free. I am definitely going to try it out and see if it’s as good as it sounds.

And all my internet search led my to a great environmental blog based in Cambridge.

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I arrived back in England last Saturday and it has been a mad whirlwind of work, moving and cycling. The weather has been wonderful in Cambridge so far. I dug my bike out of the shed rusty and ill cared for and yet it is doing me great service getting me all around the city. For England Cambridge is quite a good city for cycling but compared to Gothenburg - ah well it doesn’t really compare. To celebrate my return I spent the weekend with Mum cycling up and down the Cam and exploring the green spaces around the city. Then Monday morning hit with a bang and it was work, work, work for most of the week.
Tomorrow afternoon the weekend starts and it’s all about meeting up with Andy after months for a good chin wag in a local student pub and then getting my bearings on the city and making plans for getting involved in Life on the Cam.

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I have been really excited to discover that you can now learn for free at various institutions including the Open University and MIT. While you may not get a qualification at the end of your studies - disseminating course material in this way gives everyone the opportunity to access higher education. This is the beginning of something great - let’s hope all universities start to provide similar access to their materials.

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While catching up on this weeks Colbert Report I was saddened to find Stephen Colbert appears to have gone over to Iraq not only to entertain the troops but also to provide us with some good old war propaganda. So far on the show he has had Obama, Bush No.1, Clinton, Biden and Palin give short amusing cockle warming speeches to the troops. He has had the Iraq Deputy Prime Minter on congratulating the Americans for invading the country to save them from tyranny and genocide. Meanwhile there has been nothing on the number of people killed due to the illegal invasion. Nor has there been any mention of torture, use of depleted uranium or the use of white phosphorus. He has not mentioned the sanctions that devastated the country for a decade between the two Iraq wars. Colbert in his brief history of Iraq totally failed to mention that the USA funded and supported Saddam Hussein. While it is true that the people of Iraq are better off without an oppressive ruler like Hussein - for Colbert to only focus on that aspect of the situation amounts to pro war propaganda. It doesn’t take long to mention the facts - check out Chomsky’s succinct summery of them.
I noticed there wasn’t a whole lot of discussion on the web although one blogger has talked about it.

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Swedish humanists have put up adverts around Sweden proclaiming ‘God probably doesn’t exist’ in an attempt to challenge the role religion plays in public life. Sweden is a remarkably secular country but it’s still good to see that such a campaign is taking place. I’m all in favour of keeping religion out of public life and make it a private affair. It’s great to see it being discussed around the world.

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We started the weekend with a trip round Gothenburg with the Critical Mass. There is now a new video of the ride up. Although there was only eleven of us, we remain optimistic that more will join each ride. The next ride is on 26 June 2009, meeting at Gustaf Adolfs Torg at 18.00.

The weather was amazingly hot over the weekend and Monday. On Sunday I wandered round Slottskogen failing to find Karin and her music quiz possy but managing to get a bit of sun. On Monday it was back to work but in between I have mainly found reasons to sit in Star Cups drinking beverages. On Monday I managed to convince K to hang out there with me and yesterday Cheri and I spent a pleasant hour or so there people watching and sipping English Breakfast tea.

Today after a few pleasant hours with Cheri in the centre of Gothenburg, I went for a very pleasant walk with Karin and Ted and paid a visit to the shop near the habour which sells lost property found on the trains. We spent the evening chatting and munching popcorn which was very satisfying.

The bookclub now has a blog all set up and ready to go - so now you can all read the books and comment on them even if you can’t come to one of our meetings.

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For those of you interested in getting some figures regarding MP’s expenses - try They Work For You. They also have details on MP’s saleries and other useful information.

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There wasn’t much time before we caught the train back to Gothenburg but we did manage to pay a quick visit to the Stadmuseum, which is free and well worth a visit. Like all the museums we saw there is a handy room full of free lockers and coat hooks, as well as the free toilets - which makes them very convenient places for travellers.

To sum up Stockholm in a few words - it’s a compact city, very traveller friendly, it’s a bit touristy and some areas are busy as you would expect in a capital city but there are some really pretty areas. Skeppsholm was my favourite place but wandering along the Strand is also nice, as is walking around Djurgården. I can’t wait to go back and explore the city more.

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K and I hopped on the ferry to get to Djurgården today and walked up past the theme park Gröna Lund Tivoli which was heaving with massive queues outside. We walked up to Rosendals Trädgård and wandered around the gardens, orchard and the ‘castle’. We stopped at the cafe to sample their carrot cake recommended by Karin and it was as delicious as promised.
We walked back along the strand in the drizzling rain and on to Skeppsholm to the Moderna Museet which has a fabulous collection of modern art. It cost a princely 80 sek to get inside but the adjoining Arkitekur Museet is free on Fridays between 16.00 and 18.00 so we got to wander round that for free. The Moderna Museet provided free audio guides in several languages and these are well worth taking advantage of.

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Yesterday we spent the morning walking along the waters edge on Södermalm and through old wooden houses and cute gardens. You can get great views of the Stockholm skyline from there. We found our way down to Tantolunden - a large park on the west of the island - and wandered amid the allotments, frisbee golf course and past the Zinkensdamm youth hostel (which looked very nice). It was then on to Gamla Stan and to Kaffe and Annat on Österlånggatan - which is a tiny little cafe with friendly staff and ancient wooden beams.
We wandered past the National Museum (entrance fee required) to Skeppsholmen where there are three more museums (fees also required) before walking down Strandvägen - a wide street on the waters edge to Djurgården another island complete with theme park, large open air museum and lots of green space.

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