seal: (Default)
seal ([personal profile] seal) wrote2010-01-19 04:41 pm

Winter magic and the road away from home

Even with a chest infection, which subsided into another bacterial infection when I came back to the states over Christmas, even with a lot of boring texts to study and some other hectic affairs, it was wonderful to be home for almost a month. I didn't feel like writing a single blessed thing about it for some reason, but it was so nice to dress a gorgeous tree and open presents with my family, including my god daughter and her sister, the cutest kids ever. It was great to go and see tons of movies in the theater, to cuddle with the geek, to sit at the Melting Pot fondue restaurant with a really great group of women, to go to Rachael's graduation party, to help E move house (although I coughed so much I sounded like a TB patient), to geek out with E and Jen and the Geek watching Dr. Who and LOTR, to play Mahjong and Gloom with Lish and Joseph and Maggie and chill at the Boulder Cafe with their superior Bhakti Chai.

Well, all that is over now, and it all went by so fast. Can I please have it back?

Anyhow, I'm in Sweden again, since a week ago, and there have been some nice moments here too, some of them closely connected to the extraordinary amount of beautiful winter magic going on in the landscape right now.

Last week presented some truly fairy tale-like Narnia moments, let me tell you, or rather show you:

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The Road to my School

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Swedes are hardcore when it comes to biking, they will most certainly do it, or try to do it, no matter what climate they are living in...

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The cathedral on a gorgeous clear day

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The Fyris river which goes through Uppsala

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The ducks were perhaps not all that happy with the cold days

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One of the many runestones in the university park, powdered with snow.

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The yellow house, which was built more than a 100 years ago, is called "The Scandal House", because people thought it was a scandal that it was built to be higher than the university main hall, which resides just opposite it on the picture. Later, the university solved that particular phallic complex by promptly buying the Scandal House and use it as one of their administrative buildings. Hey, if you can't top it, own it!

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But as nice as the clear days were, the real magic awaited when there was a misty softness to the gray sky, every detail on every tree became exquisite..

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I had to find out how the landscape outside of town would look like, so me and a friend took an 8 kilometer walk to the old mounds and around that area, and this is what awaited us on the way:

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There wasn't any lion, witch or lamppost in sight, but it sure looked like Narnia

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The Old Mounds kept their secrets as usual, with Old Uppsala Church peeking out behind them

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The church is actually rather pretty, up close.

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We ate opposite the church, at the Odinsborg Inn, which is built in the style of 19th century viking nostalgia kitsch, and the sign is boasting that they serve REAL mead and coffee. In reality, only the coffee part is true.

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And then it was time to go home, have some tea and warm our cold toes.

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[identity profile] kejn.livejournal.com 2010-01-19 05:05 pm (UTC)(link)
lovely!!!
and i do think the last picture has a bit of narnia to it, although with a contemporary reality twist. :) love the red against all the black and white.

[identity profile] freelark.livejournal.com 2010-01-19 05:28 pm (UTC)(link)
These pictures are amazing.

[identity profile] zombienought.livejournal.com 2010-01-19 05:41 pm (UTC)(link)
Not even a faun? :(

It is so beautiful where you
live(d).

I am guessing your chest is
better. I am glad. I am also
glad you were not quarantined
by the TSA.

How is the mead not real?

In total AWE

[identity profile] lelain.livejournal.com 2010-01-19 06:14 pm (UTC)(link)
The photos are just beautiful!

[identity profile] chocolatebark.livejournal.com 2010-01-19 06:20 pm (UTC)(link)
Awesome!

[identity profile] clsisold.livejournal.com 2010-01-19 06:57 pm (UTC)(link)
These pictures are absolutely beautiful

[identity profile] maehymn.livejournal.com 2010-01-19 07:04 pm (UTC)(link)
Soooo beautiful and looks so COLD. But still, really beautiful. I think the beauty wins. Especially in the tree/Narnia pictures. Really lovely.

I had no idea about the superior Bahkti Chai. I must go to there immediately.

That sucks about your infection! I hope it's passing now. You were such a trouper with all the activity. Hope your semester is off to a good start!

[identity profile] nerak-g.livejournal.com 2010-01-19 07:25 pm (UTC)(link)
So gorgeous.
Such beauty, I question why my ancestors left, have such resentment for them.
I sure hope I make it there someday, preferably in the extreme of winter.

[identity profile] hook-n-eye.livejournal.com 2010-01-19 08:04 pm (UTC)(link)
Beautiful!! Thank you for sharing these lovely photos. I'm sorry you were ill while home, but it sounds like you made the best of it!

[identity profile] sealwhiskers.livejournal.com 2010-01-19 09:30 pm (UTC)(link)
Wouldn't it be great if the red little signs said "faun dancing meadow", "fairy circle", "dryad glen" and such things, instead of "museum", "historical site" and "rest rooms"?

[identity profile] sealwhiskers.livejournal.com 2010-01-19 09:32 pm (UTC)(link)
There was something truly amazing about the day I took the Narnia photos, it's hard to explain..but there were less edges and angles to the world somehow.

[identity profile] sealwhiskers.livejournal.com 2010-01-19 09:35 pm (UTC)(link)
Dude, the fauns only come out to dance in the moonlight, and remember, they actually don't like snow, Mr Tumnus and his relatives were royally screwed by Jadis, faun climate is southern European, I'm pretty sure!

(chest is much much better now than when we talked on the phone)

ha! I meant that they don't serve mead, only coffee.

Re: In total AWE

[identity profile] sealwhiskers.livejournal.com 2010-01-19 09:36 pm (UTC)(link)
Imagine how great it was to be out walking in all that beauty! I'm so glad I didn't space it and forget my camera, something I do often enough...

[identity profile] sealwhiskers.livejournal.com 2010-01-19 09:41 pm (UTC)(link)
I just wish I could have gotten some pics form inside the inn, it's so gloriously kitschy, viking paintings from the 1800's on the walls and a the smorgasbord was served on a table formed as a huge wooden viking ship, complete with a dragon's head!

[identity profile] sealwhiskers.livejournal.com 2010-01-19 09:42 pm (UTC)(link)
These places are nice even on an ugly day, but this day was magic, I tell you!!

[identity profile] sealwhiskers.livejournal.com 2010-01-19 09:45 pm (UTC)(link)
And yet, the Narnia-day was much warmer than the previous week had been, apparently they had temperatures towards 0 F then, I doubt I'd been able to hold the camera even.

Yes, you should absolutely have the Bhakti Chai at the Southside Boulder cafe, go and have some for me too until I return.

[identity profile] sealwhiskers.livejournal.com 2010-01-19 09:47 pm (UTC)(link)
Normally, I would tell you to come to Scandinavia in the summer, because summers can be very lovely here..but I do understand the pull of a truly beautiful winter season. Only problem is that such magical winter weather isn't reliable, some years pass by without much glory at all...

(still, do come, you really should!)

[identity profile] chocolatebark.livejournal.com 2010-01-19 09:48 pm (UTC)(link)
I wish every town had an inn with a dragon's head on the middle of a table!

[identity profile] sealwhiskers.livejournal.com 2010-01-19 09:50 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm happy you enjoyed them, and happy to still have you here on LJ. I really do feel like my holiday in Boulder was warm and fuzzy and loving, in spite of infections and some stress, it felt like I had to leave way too soon though...
Edited 2010-01-19 22:01 (UTC)

[identity profile] sealwhiskers.livejournal.com 2010-01-19 09:54 pm (UTC)(link)
You certainly can't pass it by without at least a glance, no matter how blasé you pretend to be!

[identity profile] chocolatebark.livejournal.com 2010-01-19 09:56 pm (UTC)(link)
My monocle would definitely be poppin' out of my eyesocket!

[identity profile] cienna.livejournal.com 2010-01-19 10:00 pm (UTC)(link)
Wow, those pictures are absolutely amazing! It almost makes the snow look appealing. XD

[identity profile] sealwhiskers.livejournal.com 2010-01-19 10:05 pm (UTC)(link)
You would fit in over there perfectly if you had a hat, a monocle and maybe a long coat, they would probably pay you to eat there! (remember, they don't emulate real vikings, just the scholars from circa 1899 who adored and romanticized the viking era!

[identity profile] sealwhiskers.livejournal.com 2010-01-19 10:07 pm (UTC)(link)
Snow can be a pain in the #&% sometimes, but that day it was truly magical, everything was so soft and pretty and glowing.

[identity profile] simpletwice.livejournal.com 2010-01-19 10:56 pm (UTC)(link)
These pictures are amazing! And you have some truly beautiful trees. I love winter days like that.

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