stockholm

i got home later than my usual bedtime last night, after stopping in on detroit's third anniversary party (cake, beer, and nostalgic photographs in a bomb shelter under the vestertorp train station, south of stockholm city center). detroit is a shared studio space for emerging artists relatively close to odenplan; in a city as expensive as stockholm, it is a marvelous thing.

the weather in stockholm has been improbably good this week. for the fourth morning in a row, cloudless blue skies and brilliant sunlight. today, it bounced off the bright yellow buildings across the street and into the apartment, finally waking me up by 11am.

the warmth and light brought everyone out into the parks. we stopped for a coffee at a waterfront cafe in hornstull that has apparently been destroyed three times by radical political and religious right-wingers, then walked along the sodermalm waterfront until we got up into the neighbourhood south of folkungagatan where i got another latte and we sat in the park under the church and ate ice cream for a few hours in the sun while moa's friend's daughter harassed other park-goers under the guise of being friendly. after some discussion, the swedes decided that the ice cream known as hjortron (a tangy ice-cream with pale yellow preserves with large seeds swirled through it) is made of cloudberry, a berry prized across the far northern latitudes for its rarity. i woke up long enough to agree, then fell asleep again. in the spring, this city is easy to fall in love with.