Thursday, May 30, 2002
Grattis pa fodelsdagen
verse 1
"may he live for a hundred years
may he live for a hundred years
well of course he will live for a hundred years"
verse two.
"if he lives for a hundred years
if he lives for a hundred years
then he will be carried on a cart (the funny part is that the swedish word for cart is also shoot)"
translated by my flat mates
what an excellent birthday. people were exceptionally generous, even though this year i have been thinking alot about myself.
nick and chris sung me happy birthday from oz. thanks guys. er, it was great.
pip managed to make my birthday extend for 32 hours.
jess made me a sweeeet creme and strawberry cake. "she doesn't cook, but she can bake".
heydan, sean and brent bought me a gillete razor. perfect. i first experienced the mach 3 system when john loanded it to me in copenhagen. i guess i must have talked about it too much since.
the swedes gave me a swedish sleevless top to help me blend in. it was blue all over with yellow swedish crowns. authietically swedish i am told. so much so apparently i reminded some of the girls of photos of their fathers in the 70's.....shhhhhhh.
malin and anton bought me a post card of a (?gay) model. it will look great next to the russian propaganda posters.
earlier in the day i was lucky enough to go to sigtuna for a picnic. sigtuna has the claim of being the oldest town in sweden. today it has a lake that is perfect for birthday kayaking, white wine and sun burn.
then for the last time with everyone there, we all went to our favourite nation, vdala, for one last party night. we celebrated the birthday, and the fact heydan was leaving. he he.
mais oui!!
paris is now confirmed!. the locations are exceptional. i will be living in eastern paris, and studyng centrally-five minutes walk from the louvre and notre dame.
on sunday at 2:50pm i will fly from arlanda stockholm to arrive at charles de gualle airport at 8:50. i will go to the place des fetes metro stop in eastern/central paris to find the residence of my new host family. the retired Mr and Mrs .....they have a little pet dog. there i will only be able to speak french with them as a part of the whole immersion process-they are given specific instuctions not to speak english. thats a relief. when bux did his exchange in yr 11 ('92) les francais saw it as a great oportunity to practise their english.
i will eat dinner with them, get my own key, and get to learn about old french people.
the next morning at 8:45 begins the intensive language course. its 20hours/week making a total of 80 hours over the month. the danger now is that i might actually learn some french. workshops, a taloured and intensive programe, and being immersed in french everywhere.
and the best part of improving my french? next year i get to scare the day lights out of Mrs Smith from IB french. in past rowing days, i slept thru her mon, wed and friday morning french classes for two years. he he...
its a big place though. i think i need to learn how to fit into paris.
Tuesday, May 28, 2002
sweet and sour
right now i am 40 mins away from being 8400 days old (23x365+5)
although pip rang earlier and thoughtfully pointed out that my birthday has already started in oz and so that i could begin celebrating early.
right now i am rather unceremonially typing up my last essay for the semester. i needed a break and began thinking about what to do tomorrow night. then i thought i might think aloud with my imaginary friend... you.
tomorrow we won't only be celebrating my birthday, but a few of my new buddies head off form sweden. heydan and jenny.
and although i have not yet spoken to the parentals, so technically i shouldn't be writting this, it is looking like i am leaving for paris on sun afternoon for a month of intensive french. i too am leaving others behind who i won't see again, or for a while at least.
this is the sour part. i've only just realised that i have really been having fun with these guys . its like breaking up with someone and realsing that it was a mistake. or that realization of how good things were on a big night out after you begin to come down.
i guess it means that book 2 of living on mars is about to begin. new colonists will be arriving on the planet, new ideas, and new steps put into motion. i will need to change myself again to fit into this new and changing environment.
Monday, May 27, 2002
mars: our place in history
soon we will be going to mars. and i want to be there with them. let the whingers who don't want to go stay. but i want in.
i think david from uk summed it up. "I expect that this argument (against colonization) was made many centuries ago ... about navigating the seas. No-one fell off the edge of the planet then".
now that ice has also been found, terraforming is a much more realistic. i want to see red mars, green mars, blue mars.
putting people on mars will burn our generation's place in history
Sunday, May 26, 2002
the singing planet
tonight sweden is licking its wounds after it lost the eurovision song contest. "marie N" from latvia won it with style. the swedes are dissapointed. but "afro dite", the swedish entrant, lost with grace.
the lonely planet
scientists have found h2o ice just beneath the surface of mars!!!!!. colonizing it now looks much more interesting, and more importantly, the chances of me making it there in my life now have improved drastically
new words:
"loser pissed" someone who is much more drunk than their friends and abnoxious.
watching thru a window
tonight was the uppsala spring ball. i didn't go cos it was going to cost too much: 400crowns for ticket, up to 800 crowns for tux 70 return for the train to stockholm to pick up the tux, and everything else on booze. (A$250)
so instead the gang and i decided hang out at jesses place, then go to the dance afterwards (interestingly called a slap) when things get cheaper. while we waited we had swedish style pizza and bombay saphire washed down with girlie mp3s on jess's computer. heydan got very drunk cos he turned 21 today (americans have to prove they can drink 21 drinks in the 24 hours of their birthday). we gave him a russian model tank that we bought him at the artillary museum in St Petersberg.
afterwards we walked into uppsala. but then the action started. we were denied from the slap cos we weren't dressed formally enough.Denied!!. i say.
i thought i was too old for that, or too cool or something. i havenät been denied since rundle street days. i went into some club wearing my campers, and the peanut vendor bouncer didn't recognise their class.
in my "jovial state" i realised that the bouncers just needed to be reasoned with. "dress codes , smesh codes. come on man, i am wearing a balck tie suit. the difference between this and tails is nothing once you get inside. people take of their bow ties anyway when they dance so we will appear the same. and i will won't ever get the chance to go to another spring ball again if you don't let me in tonight. and and i am australian."
so the walk home was nice. on the way back i had to content myself with spying the fun thru an open window outside sneikers nation. watching the fun thru a window. then i sat down infront of my computer and started writting stuff in this blog i have called aidanshangover.
Saturday, May 25, 2002
whats the deal?
jess just called me (slogan "i am not christine fox"). she has asked me to go buy heydan a bottle of tequila for his birthday today. she is not yet old enough to buy alcohol from the system bolaget so instead she has to ask 22yo grandpas like me.
to buy booze at the system bolaget it is 20yo for men and women. to buy non spirit drinks at a bar 18. but then u have bars and clubs with their own "preferences" for age groups for the different sexes. while for most cool places in stockholm it is 23 for guys, it is often only 18 for girls, or younger if you smile nicely. one of the peculiarities of living in sweden. the place of gender equality, with very high womens labour participation rates, childcare, high rates of professional women etc etc, but if you're a 18 girl you can't take your boyfriend to a club unless he is 5 years older. seems to be encouraging paediophilia.
---so while jess can go to any club she wants in stockholm and i have to wait another 4 days, she has to get me to buy her tequila. hmmmm.
the system bolaget closes at 3 on sat. i better go. and my water is boiling. and i haven't been outside yet.
darkside part 3
my last night of filming. i die. but i also got to kill someone on camera first.!!!
the scene was at an abandoned car park out side uppsala. i was sitting in the drivers seat of the van, waiting for my brother to return from the house i was parked next to. he would be holding the package. it was excruciatingly tense. already eric is missing, and we were being persuded by mafia, CIA, and police. then a security guard comes over to the car and begins to question me.
"yes there has been some problems recently. a man was killed" he says
i remain cool listening to his story, not really paying attention. my wide eyes scanning around the car park, the trees, a car that drives past.
then magnus bursts thru the door and i seize our chance . i reach down and open the door, flinging it open into the security guards head (good camera angles). stunned he then reaches down tries to reach down for his gun. these were his last thoughts. by now i have shot him five times thru the open window of the car, and he is flung backwards (onto the cushions)
scene 2 inside the car. magnus gets into the car and we drive off....(everyone is pushing the van from behind)
"where's eric" i say to him
he is glass eyed. lost in thought. he has seen inside the package.."anderse, i have seen the most amazing thing..."
"magnus, where's eric..."
then i die. two of us walk inside a warehouse. a huge gun fight takes place - as all of us actors and film people switch the lights on and off. only magnus walks out. he is the last of the brothers left.....
Thursday, May 23, 2002
net therapy
sometimes when i am feeling cutt offi like to read other peoples blogs. i can can spend hours and hours flicking thru them. each one is a collage of their life, rediculous, funny, unique. then after hours of this peeping tom therapy, i feel better. all of them sort of express things that i couldn't otherwise tap into. each person saying something different. sometimes they say the depth inside, the fleeting thoughts, the unarticulated or forgotten emotion.
i was reading the forlorn hope and got to know the intimate details of some random person that i will never know. between her lines lives a person, a persons life going along (somewhere near sanfransico). all her hopes, anger and love for this boyfriend was there.
still coming to terms with that half an hour last night. i haven't felt so cut off from the things close to me, so apethetic for ages and it was for no real reason. it was one of those "whats the point" sort of feeling. the world goes on wheather or not you do stuff. people will be peope and behave like people. and sometimes it takes so much effort to just function like a normal social animal. and then everything people do pisses me off.
i haven't felt like that for a while as i said.
it just occured to me that the impression that one would be left with would be so wrong. there is no background. "where is this coming from". when someone sits and reads a blog in 10 mins it doesn't take into account the time that has passed in the authors world. not to mention the selection process.
random stuff
tomorrow night i have the last night of filming. these sessions go on for hours for what will probably be only a few minutes on the film. pretty usual according to mohommad: "an hour of filming converts to a minute of on screen time". now on monday i will be doing the sound recording. sitting in a room, repeating the lines over and over until we get it right.
right now i am at the ekonomicum computers chilling out in my post excersise lethargy. we have been playing ultimate frisbee on the lawns. sean and brent are emailing people.
brent is next to me. he is going to say something:
he won't. he is shy. i am telling him that it is very unlikely he will ever meet anyone who reads this. in fact, it is also very unlikely that someone else will read this anyway - well except for you, my patient reader.
sean has made a web site for all the exchange students in uppsala. it has things like email addresses and a few photos. a good idea for meeting up with people over summer. he is not shy...
sean says:
the shocker is in the house. But not to bother. Just want to give a shock out to all my new buds back in the land down under!!! Because as Aidan says, if I am a friend of his, I am a friend of yours!!! True dat. (hmmm ok sean. there are some bad inside jokes there - but now he is introducing you to everyone in da kantorz gang +affiliates)
Doctor Wilt Chamberlan is the man --> that's aidan (his slogan is shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh)
The Legend is Legendary --> that's Brent (his slogan is ummm I don't have a slogan)
The Shocker is well...ME (my slogan is its shocktastic and my symbol......don't ask)
Christine Fox is Red with embarasment --> that's Jessica (her slogan is NO I AM NOT CHRISTINE FOX!!!!!!!!)
Goober is confused---> That's Kenny oops I mean Jenny Nelson (she doesn't have a slogan)
Garth Orgy is happy --> that's Gretel (he slogan is JUST DON'T ASK)
and then there is
THE COACH, the COACH is just the COACH, no first or last name, just the COACH, he has other nicknames like gaylen and many slogans but the biggest and most pertinent one is BASED ON A TRUE STORY.........oh and Chris, that is Hayden
ok enough randomness.
one of those weird nights..
i have been hullucinating again tonight. i just arrived back from vdala. it has been one of those nights. i have barely been able to hold a converesation. not from tiredness, or lack of motivation. but from being cutt off from everything. introverted. also cynical. i stood on the edge of the danse floor for half and hour watching people, and all i cold think of was that nothing will change, so why should i try. i could barely rouse the energy to talk to my friends.
then i kept recognising the faces of people i know at home in the faces aournd me. almost every face seems familiar. there is dana. is that louise pjada. and i saw jack plate. this has happened quite alot in uppsala - never as much as tonight. i wonder how much this happens to all people that travel.
astronauts apparantely regularly suffer from hullucinations from sensory depreivation. people at sea. dostoyefsky in his prison. perhaps it is a perfectly normal response. a type of compensation for the deprivation or sensory withdrawl. but getting the wisk of adrenalin as i think that someone from home is also in uppsala is a little disconcerting.
Wednesday, May 22, 2002
traditions....
another one is medical students winding up in emergency.
got an email from james about a mutual friend who ended up in the hospital bed that he was meant to be learning from. this guy drank too much, WAY too much, and awoke the next morning he awoke feeling a off. palpitations. his brother also medical thought it looked like AF. an ryhthm disturbance of the heart, that in a weaker person can lead to fatal scenarios. freaking out he carted his bro off to emergency, and the ECG confirmed it. he was wired up, and not allowd home. it became clear it wasn't serious, so his friends could now burst out laughing unashamably.
then not embarassed enough by seeing his supervisors trot past smirking, he then had to deal with a tute group of 4th year students and a sadistic professor poking and prodding him.
"ok, so what are the common causes of AF in a 21 yo medical student?"
new words:
"if its yellow, let it mellow. if its brown, flush it down" referring specifically to urine sitting in a toilet. unfortunately has the undesirable effect of having many more meanings the more you think about it.
"tearing up" an expression used (by americans) to describe a player (in any sport) who dominates all others
the year that almost broke tradition
every year for the last four medical balls, james d and i have had our photo taken together. always with the same arrangement, the same pre medical ball drinks, and the tux's. the first two years it was a coincidence that we were in the same position. but then we noticed, and couldn't help but institute it as all part of the package for 3rd year and 4th year.
here is our solution for 2002. a bit of cut and paste, zooming, and imagination and we will have been able to continue the tradition.
and thinking about it this is not the only one we started. smoking a cigar after our final exams was great for a few semesters, until we both admitted that really you should only turn green and feel sick after the piss up, not before. going sailing with a bunch of friends on the day after we finished our december exams. cookies, vino and food too nice for a boat were also part of this. others too.
its' something about studying medicine that makes these things begin. as an arts x change student, everything from class mates to courses is changing so regularly that nothing has time to be repeated. (in fact sean, heyden, brent and others all leave very soon and me to paris in a week or two). but medicine is different. a six year degree, with the same 100ish people each year to keep things the same. it also also a profession where experience really counts.
Monday, May 20, 2002
are you austraaayan????
after telling someone that you are, two things usually happen.
firstly you instantly become exotic and intruiging to them, where as before you were probably just another english speaking x change student who sounded drunk. despite how many of us there are here, the country is still so far away that myths can grow. helen has quantified this intruigue into the foreign chick or guy factor when referring to how it makes you more attractive. australians rank highly on the scale.
the other thing that happens after mentioning that you are australian is the conversation about the australian steriotypes. it is scary to think how far some of our tv shows make it, and even more scary which ones are popular. evereyone know the brits play neighbours and home and away on repeat for 32 hours a day. but now even in russia you can watch the crocodile hunter. other steriotypes have usual conversations...
- fosters is crap beer
- we don't ride kangaroos down the streets
- we don't live in moment to moment fear of being bitten by some nasty exotic bug or snake.
- that the crocodile hunter is crazy even for australians.
- unfortunately the weather is not, like the saying goes beautiful one day, perfect the next, everyday of the year.
- that we really do want a republic, but we, er, voted no to the referendum.
- not everyone can surf,
- we all look blond, and have that ruff unshaven and too much sunned look.
- that the characters in movies like precilla, murials wedding, and crocodile dundee are representative.
why i like australians
last thurs night eve and chelsea from adelaide stayed over for one night in uppsala. it was awesome. and was a great bridge back to home and australia.
from the moment i saw them it was relaxed and exciting to have so much in common with people in such a foreign place. the accents and adelaide expressions homely rather than something to cringe at. and their uncomplicated sense of fun and silliness made me laugh so much. it was like being a grandpa remembering the fun days of his youth (then realising that i am still not too old to do the same). seeing eve and chelsea on the stockholms dance floor was so classic. smiling, a bit cheeky. having more fun than they should have been having cos why shouldn't they.
one guy dancing next to them got an aussie introduction. he made some comments to eve about dancing styles etc etc who responded with good hearted openness and friendliness. thats why australians are so cool. cos in many countries people assume the worst when you meet them. you are somehow guilty already, a threat and they are closed. in other words, to become friends you first have to prove this untrue. but australians still believe that people are essentially nice, and are not afraid to be generous.
after the dancing style comment, they turned thier full attention to his own (lack of) style. which meant they spent 5 mins taking the piss. not in a mallicious way, but more a friendly and inclusive way. sincerly made suggestions about improve his style. "hold the left arm out a little more, lift the right (spanking) hand a little higher each time. now rock those hips" it was soooo funny. the guy looked like he was spanking away - you know the move i mean- while all the time lovin it. that grin, those pumping arms. everyone was laughing.
seeing new stuff has been great. but seeing two friends from home with fresh eyes was also nice. they stayed around until 4 the next day, and are continuing on their tour of europe.
Friday, May 17, 2002
the finger
the dead finger is placed on the table infront of everyone. one of them was to place it on top secret finger indentification pads to gain entry. but the poad has a temperature sensor to make sure it is not just the finger of a dead person. it was. someone would have to put in their mouth...........
net footage is up of the film....
Tuesday, May 14, 2002
work hard, play hard in oz
spoke to mum yesterday.
she has told me that the coriole music festival went well. this was even bigger compared to the last three, now also including a new concert on the sat afternoon. the same plan for sunday though; 2 music concerts with a linking theme. designed for the intense elite, or the phoney brave. the theme this year was italian music of the `17 18th c. in between the music concerts are two grand dinners adding to, of course, coriole goon and '89 lloyd stash.
mum and dad have been working over time to get it right. mum even over her birthday.
i would love to be there. i am glad the the parentals and the bro would be having fun.
standing on the edge of a cliff
here i am again, looking out and deciding what to do. too far away from australia, and not really a citizen of sweden. in international no mans land. sometimes i think that i am a mars citizen living on another earth.
i have realised that this year puts me in a unique position. other than a few obvious constraints like money, learning, i can do what ever i want. i am limited only by my imagination and my motivation.
here is a preliminary list of things i plan to do soon ;
-get a summer job in a cool city. i have been thinking about either copenhagen or berlin. but i was reading why study french and started thinking about french speaking places to live in to practise my spoken french. more interesting places to go would be switzerland or belgium, but why not a cafe in paris? expenisive, but romantic.
-read the history of medicine, "the greatest benefit to mankind" that judy brought over from australia, and which i have picked up from her stockholm hotel. i just want to have the feeling of turning that last page over- finishing it should be worth a 5 point uni course.
-travel thru eastern europe
-perhaps i should join a pagan cult. it would be a great place to do it in uppsala.
-etc etc
the transient life of an exchange student
the thing is that the world i have just got used to is now changing again. soon the semester ends, for some it has already. the international students are all planning their whirlwind tours or europe, and the swedes their travels to the greek islands or vacation houses.
heyden leaves the day after my birthday. sean leaves soon after.
the now familiar environment i have built around me, now quite developed, is about to be uprooted.
i am thinking about moving out of my korridor in kantorsgatan. i could go to flogsta or elsewhere. a change of scene. and perhaps a south facing window will give me nice afternoon sun in the winter.
its funny how returning home to uppsala after being away makes it feel more like home. its like the process of stepping out side something and returning is what you need to do to make something familiar. let it integrate in the brain on a deeper level. hearing swedish all around me feels as natural as english now, even though i still don't understand all that much in conversation.
perhaps it will be the same when i return to australia. outside, yet all too familiar.
Monday, May 13, 2002
babushka, may day and vodka
I flew into Russia for the first time already feeling like I had been there. History lessons on the 1917 revolution, bond movies, the Kursk and rates of TB were floating around my head in my sleep the week leading up to it. It was going to be exciting to see how so much history and culture could fit together (and how we could fit it all together in one week). One week later I am happy to say that the reality is much better than I had imagined. I think I had been led to expect less (perhaps by the western media). Long live the propaganda. But it is definitely different to the west.
Driving out of the Moscow airport, it looked pretty depressing. The crappy identical fiats would rumble along with pouring exhausts as a constant reminder of the dysfunctional and inefficient soviet industry. But then some brand new Mercedes would fly past. It was a recurring theme. A mix of old run down crappy infrastructure with newish western influences slapped top. No big strong middle class, with its influence, and wealth, like I am used to in Sweden or Australia or anywhere else. You are either dirt poor in Russia, or in the mafia and loaded.
The general plan our week in Russia was simple. four days in Moscow, on our fourth night take the train to St Petersburg, and spend another four days there.
We arrived our hotel hoping everything would just run smoothly. Instead we were greeted by the words that all travelers dread. “you have reservation here, in this hotel??” shit. Service is crap in Russia. Painfully slow, and everything is done grudgingly. You ask for the key to the shower, and they act as if it is the most outrageous thing to ask and as if you are dragging them from their lunch break. And everything is done as if they don’t yet understand the law of diminishing returns. Getting five people to do two peoples work is actually slower.
Dealing with this crap on the first day gave us time to soak it all up and scope out some markets nearby the hotel. We checked out what other tourists liked. Babushka dolls, military stuff like clothes and MIG helmets, Lenin stuff, hip flasks, brand name rip off and fake passports. I dabbled a little with them all. And ended up with two hip flasks, heaps of the old propaganda posters from my bedroom wall, and a secret pressie that I can’t say any more about. The appearance of the Russian people in the markets were a surprise too. Much more of an Asian appearance than I expected. Until then when I thought of a Russian it was of the big Russian boxer in rocky 4. But 100’s of years of mixing between the original Slavs and Mongols could be seen in the colour of their skin. And the dress sense of both men and women was appalling. Perhaps somewhat due to the different sex roles in Russia. What my guide book calls ‘traditional’ roles is basically the fact that the men all look tuff, and the women look like tarts. A krona was given to the person who could spot the girl with the shortest skirt and have the highest heels.
The next day we all hit the centre of the city bursting with enthousiasm. “dude we are in Moscow’ was all Sean could keep repeating, and we all felt a little disbelieving that we were actually there. Moscow has been the capital of Russia for most of its history, with a intervening period of a few hundred years when St Petersburg took the role. It is the huge former administration capital of the entire soviet union. Despite the collapse, it remains intimidating. Nowdays is has become very westernized, and you could be in any city in Europe when walking around the GUM department store in central Moscow. Neon lights, flashy cars. It is also the epicenter of the growing extremely wealthy upper class and mafia in Russia.
The first thing to check out in Moscow is the Kremlin and red square. But on the way we took the metro and were amazed. Strange to point out the metro as a highlight, but things are different in Russia. All the tunnels are former bunkers built after the second world war. Greek and roman marble pillars hold up beautiful mosaics of Lenin, the revolution and soviet pride. And really clean like, surprisingly the rest of Moscow. After waiting for only 1 minute, we were off. Again having that feeling that things are not at all as dysfunctional as we were led to believe.
The Kremlin is the huge fortress, and its buildings and art are like different pages in a Russian history book. The communists used it as their congress, peter the great moved from there, and today it is the location of Putin’s offices and shit loads of different museums packed with Russian history and art. The kremlin itself also has a role in Russian history. When our guide told us that when Napoleon had conquered Moscow for 36 days, he had used the churches for his kitchen, horses, and the last one for his wine store. Her very grave and indignant face added to the pangs of laughter I was trying not to show. But she went on to explain that Stalin was hardly better. He wiped out 1200 churches from Moscow cos they were getting in his way.
But thankfully not all. The churches in the kremlin and St basils at the end of red square are just so beautiful in real life. They say to me Russia more than anything else. The domes are either gold, or a covered in a range of bright colours, making it look like the top of a circus tent. I like it cos it says to me that religion doesn’t have to be so boring all the time. Inside the churches the saying is ‘once you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all’, which seemed true enough, but they were great anyway. On the ceilings inside huge paintings of God and heaven that stare down at you. Pictures of saints cover the huge pillars so that they are supporting heaven, and act as a bridge to earth. On the walls are Russian icon paintings, and others that tell you good stuff to do and bad stuff not to do. There is still a strong connection with the Greek orthodox church today, even though all the former soviet states now have their own independent churches.
The red square was smaller than I expected, but St Basils Cathedral did impress. All museumed and churched out after the big day at the Kremlin, we just sat one night watching the sunset by the churches. Anton and Sean started doing their very poor take on Russian folk dancing. The police could only cringe.
Police around the square and on the streets were ubiquitous, but not really intimidating. Two men checked our passports, but even allowed a smile at our attempts to thank them in Russian. Sean was closest to something kinda cool. The red square was closed for the Russian orthodox Easter service. Dying to get in one last time, we asked the guard if he would still let us in. His reply in Russian accented poor English: "official visit, no. unofficial visit, you give gift".
we said " how much we give gift?"
he said "no no no, you give gift, you get visit".
One of the nights we saw the ballet at the Bolshoi theater, although “the pharaohs daughter” was pretty crap. at the end the guy wakes up and it was all a dream. The theater itself was impressive, and reminded me of the royal Stockholm theater except 2x bigger. But the way the crowd responded caught my attention more than anything else. I knew what to expect of Russians before I came. In death in Venice, a Russian family join the hotel, and bemuse the author when they listen to music with their outrageous passion and intensity. It was the for the Bolshoi audience. The performers had to compete with these mad Russian outbursts of applause mid performance. “bravo” could be heard at the end of each nice move. And at the end it was ridiculous. I stopped clapping after my hands got sore. Then they did that clap in time thing, so it sounds more like a football match than applause at the end of an opera.
By this time I had learned some Russian from my passport.
AèäÀÍ ÁóÐÐÅÏÏÁ of ÀÂÑÒÐÀÏÈÀ
It’s a small world. Usually when I have traveled I seem to meet someone I know in the most peculiar place. I saw Catherine Crowhurst in front of the bronze statue of peter the great. It was such a world away to be thinking of school when I was in Russia, still trying to imagine where I was on a map of the world. After five minutes of confused conversation we parted, and well, I fell back to listening Hayden and Sean talk about American football and ice hockey. Also met a microbiologist from Moscow university. she didn’t know dad, it was a long shot, but had good chat with her and finally spoke to some Russians who I had until then been eyeing from a distance. I remember the conversation well. She was passionately Russian: pessimistic about the present, nostalgic about the past, bright with hope for the future. She scoffed at the US health system as it only provides good care for the wealthy. “in Russia it is all free” Fair enough. But then I asked about surgery and expensive treatment in Russia. Her response was “but there is no money available, you have to pay it yourselves”. I really couldn’t see the difference between both countries, except that in the US people live a lot longer.
This was on the overnight train to St Petersburg. Seeing the locks on the cabin doors were a great relief as that is the notorious train of gassing and robbing tourists.
The more intimidating Moscow was contrasted by a much more welcome timelessness and slowness in St Petersburg. It was built by Peter the great in the 17th century, but most of the building today were from 18 and 19th century and by European architects. These buildings, their facades falling down and crumbling, gave the person walking around the feeling they were in a magical time warp back to the 18 and 19th century. It is a wonder how so much of the city was spared in such a long war against the nazis.
For me St Petersburg was a pilgrimage to see the world of Crime and Punishment. I found the apartment where Dostoevsky lived. In any other country the still standing residence of one the most internationally read authors would have had a tourist amusement park. Not in Russia. Just some poor old man living there sick of glassy eyed tourists poking around. The peter and Paul fortress is the famous political prison on the other side of the Neva, and was where he was imprisoned while young. (Trotsky, Gorky, lenins brother, Alexis, peter the greats son were other famous prisoners). After finding the flat, I then did what any fan should do: went walking around the streets of St Petersburg.
On these walks I started to get a feel for the place. St Petersburg still was totally different to European cities. But compared to Moscow it was much more ‘touristized’-tourist friendly. Whereas the people in the ticket booth in Moscow still didn’t know the English word student, in St Petersburg most of the service industry did, including the older ones. The people in Russia seem tired. Tired of change and the 20th century. There was a big generational gap. The older generation seemed closed off to me as a young westerner. Probably a lot to do with the fact so few spoke English. However the younger generation seem much more like any other Europeans. Many spoke excellent English. They seemed much more accepting of the west, and many were really interested to meet us, or at least stare. the amount of boozing they do is also hard to miss. Without a doubt they are the most drunk nation I have ever come across. Swedes, Australians, Germans, whatever. It is no exaggeration to say that a man walking around with out a beer in his hand was the exception.
Out stay in St Petersburg was speckled with other highlights. The winter palace of peter the great is home to one of the largest and best museums in the world, called the hermitage museum. But the higher you climb in russian culture, the more more Europeanized it becomes, and after many hours I got sick of all the European art and started seeking the Russian stuff. Like clothes, carriages, and amoury.
Our visit to St Petersburg had a great surprise as it coincided with the May Day celebrations and we experienced Victory Day where they celebrate the winning of WWII. There were fireworks that shot like cannons into the air, and sprayed like anti aircraft missiles. And something like a million crazed Russians, all sooo fucking drunk, cheering and singing. one of the most amazing and exhilarating experiences of my life. Added to this adrenalin was the fact that i was shitting my self that any minute we would be the targets for anti west/us sentiments. which are still real amongst the older people, and young people when pissed. I started thinking about the revolution which started at that exact same place. The adrenalin, the 1000s gathered in front of the winter palace, and the fireworks booming into the sky and all that history fresh in my head created this weird feeling that we were in the 1917 revolution again. we were standing right at the place where the revolution began, were the shots were fired onto the winter palace which began the revolution. Not excited enough, Sean took the initiative to stand on the side of the hermitage museum for a better view. But the site of policeman smashing his batten at our feet and shouting at us was all the convincing we needed. then a man told us in English to quickly leave to avoid being arrested. We were gone in a flash. A night in a Russian prison would have been a nasty anticlimax.
The victory day celebrations pretty much ended the trip. We all thought about the highlights. Sean got to see the ice hockey stadium that the Canadians beat the invincible Russians sporting machine in 1972. Hayden saw his military museum and a nuclear missile. Malin picked up her first non Swede. Anton did his Russian dance in red square. And I got to stroll around the streets where Dostoevsky wrote his great books. It was great rolling into Sweden again and just know that things would again be predictable and working. but I can’t wait to go back again.
Saturday, May 11, 2002
i have been cleaning all day. i was able to get my washing done and buy some groceries for the week. i got back from from russia late last night and today i have cleaned myself back into sweden. tomorrow i will write some stuff up about it all. today i have needed to digest it all.
the new graphics are thanks to pip. it is a kind of early birthday present. i think it looks awesome. she is really good at that stuff.
Friday, May 03, 2002
it is really time to go to bed. The Saint was good preparation for moscow. for mother russia.
but the front page won't be finished till i get back. good night
spring with the vikings
The whole experience of Valborg was summarized for me by this one image of 3 friends walking back from the centrum. they had probably come from the boat race, dash to the nations, champagne and picnics. They were probably headed to their next party. they walked slowly and clearly were very pissed. Leaning in to eachother, bumping along for support. as they walked they talked and smiled gaily in the warm spring light. they were happy. That for me is valborg.
life is a beach
the boat race was certainly a highlight. not so much a race as students strutting their creativity and madness over the city. unfortunately i don't have any photos. but brent assures me he has some good ones coming....
it began at 10am. twenty minutes before we were still putting on the finishing touches for the new theme. What was Australian, could include cricket, water, and a shark? The aussie beach.
The deck of the raft was painted yellow, and the foam waves on the sides of the raft were baby blue. on the front we painted "the aussie beach", but that sign fell off when one of the other boats rammed into us.
we must have looked rediculous. i was a bondi lifeguard. the whistle to rouse the crowd. the surfboard to fend off ramming boats. steve was a nude sun baker drapped in the australian flag. crispin was boonie out for beach cricket. and john was the crocodile hunter.
as the crowd began to thicken on the sides of the river so that there were litterally 1000s around the rapids, crispin even admitted to a pang of nervousness. would it float? would the boat survive the rapids? how bout the bombings from the crowd?
When the boat finally did slide into the water, we all stood triumphantly, waving our cricket bat paddles around like idiots.
The journey through the belly of uppsala, under the bridges and down the rapids actually went very quickly. the boat itself stood up to both rapids sections with effortless grace. john's handy carpentry skills had produced a sturdy raft. in fact we all stood to surf down the second rapid section of the river. it wasn't till we all stood in the same place at the end that we fell in. you could either build for strength or style. fearing that we would make it to the end we went for strength . some of the better designs unfortunately sunk before. the best ones were the simpsons, the group who made a bed and lay down on it the whole way, the soccor feild, the fighter plane, or the itialian crew that made a ferrari.
but the crowd still seemed to like us. i lost count of all the oi oi oi's we did. even people who clearly wern't students gave us the promt; aussie aussie aussie..... and then there was a moon from a friend on one of the balconies.
after that the day was a bit of a blur. the storm from the library was more like a few people walking down the hill. but the street was packed. the kantors gask, another name for a bbq at our student housing was great. frisby, american football, hamburgers and korv. or if you were brent you ate hotdog bread smeared with sweet chilli sauce. "this is the best stuff i have ever tasted man....."
those of us who remained later that night went to a bonfire at Gamla Uppsala (the pagan burial grounds). the high school kids and the oldies went burserk. a gigantic mass of wood blazing 20 meters into the night sky.
then some boogying at V Dala finshed the long day off.
Thursday, May 02, 2002
music is math
today has been the ultimate recovery day. relaxing, but also productive with the less urgent things. like when dad goes down to Goolwa and teak oils the outside wood on the boat.
i have been writting lots in my blog. oh really you think??. by the end of tonight i will have finished the new front page. it should make moving around in the hangover a little easier. it also solves the problem of photos taking up too much space. by the time you are reading this in australia, you should have already noticed the new address on the top of this page....
i got to speak to chris, nick and dan all at once!!!. once again came to the conclusion that my school friends back home have been my friends for most of my life for a reason. girls are keeping them all totally preoccupied. typical.
the new house in unley sounds wicked. more of a place to hang out than a place to live.
dan is leaving adelaide for byron bay to surf and love life. and he now has letters!. dan decru B.A. reminds me once again that my path of tertially education couldn't be more convuluted. it is leading up to 7 years of full time university without a single degree.
in between the bits and peices of today i have been listening to boards of canada. it is this ambient searching electro stuff that sarah from sydney has introduced me to. it sounds like, you guest it, old autechre. makes me feel dreamy and happy.
also been thinking about russia.
while in russia i want to:
walk around the red sqare at night time with a fur hat on.
sit next to lenin and look at the shape of his head.
see the museum modern art in St petersburg that is one of the best collections of 20C communist art in the world.
see a group of russians having fun, listening to music, drinking vodka.
i was talking to sean about our moscow hotel. it is one of five buildings that was made in late 70s for the '80 olympic village. it used to a bomb storage site too.
heyden just popped over. we are preparing tonight with The Saint.
Welcome to the darkside
1:30 at night, in the cold misty setting of an abandoned warehouse, I speed around the back in the Audi with people in hot pursuit. My brother and fellow gangster moans next to me from his gun shot wound. I pull on the handbrake and screech sideways to a halt. Run around the other side and help him out. the blood is oozing down his leg by now. With steady focus we look up at the warehouse and begin to run over there, me helping him with his bad leg. We have to deliver it….
This was the last scene of filming last night.
Earlier in the day my two older brothers and I had to have a conference with Mum, the head of a huge gangster syndicate. We meet out side the room, shivering with fear after she has found out that we have been screwing her for money. My role was the young, larrikin stupid brother. Always the last one through the door, always confused about what was happening next.
We tentively walk through the door looking at each other for support.
M: “anders (me), any explanations,,,,”
“no mum, (hits me with her pointing stick), owwwch, sorry mum”
M:“magnus………(where she literally grabs him by the balls) don’t screw with me again. You have three days to get the money”
“yesssss mum, owwch, I promise”
and so was the first day of filming. We met up in an apartment with of one the best views of Uppsala, borrowed for the day from a friend. Everything was moved around, lighting, video equipment. the people friendly but pretty focused.
And then we were into it.
Mo’s original plan was to provide lines to the actors before we arrived. Instead he now prefers telling us 10 mins before. “it adds to the nervousness and tension of the film. It seems more spontaneous..”. my 4 lines were simple enough. Most of them involved repeating the sentence before but as a question. Eric: ””this is going to hurt…”, Me: “really, is this going to hurt….?”.
The funny thing about being an actor on the set is that it doesn’t feel like it would look good on the screen. In a room full of 3-5 actors, the director, 2x assistants, lighting person, make up, and 2-3 girlfriends and onlookers, it seems like you are all just hanging out in an apartment practising a skit for high school drama. the proportions and spaces don’t feel right. Steve response was that “everything is condensed on the camera. Even penis size ha ha” . there is no moment where some says, ok now this is the time we are going to get it right. the camera is always rolling. Hours of film is taken. Those perfect snippets, grimaces, gestures are then sampled out from the hours of crap. In other words you have many chances to get it right, but never know when the part that eventually is in the film will be.
The other actors fit my expectations though. Loud and charming. Good looking. Primadonas. Everything is set up to the actors to look good, and most of them are very used to getting their own way. So for me by the time I had arrived the acting had already began.
We all interacted as mates that were part of the actors union against the tyrannical directors. Our characters seemed pretty well suited to reality. And as the 8 hours of filming rolled on, we became more and more like our characters. I think famous actors in Hollywood are wankers both cos they begin as primaddonas, but then are also further encouraged by the unreal evironment.
the whole day was brought together by the producer/director. Mo (hammad) was smart.
Always in control. No one has been allowed to see the whole script or synopsis before it happens 10 mins later. That means actors, assistant writers and even assistant producer. Even his girlfriend. To add to the vagueness of it all, he is not filming chronologically thru the film, but has had to film the scenes based on the availibility of the actors. As each new situation popped up, he was already thinking about the next step beyond. He was ridiculously encouraging to me cos he knew that what would get me to do my best. get me out of the shell. . “man, when you walked in the door I knew you would be prefect. You are doing great”. Magnus instead got, “man, we could get out of here faster if magnus stopped fucking up. If it wasn’t for you good looks you would be out…”.
he doens't sleep, but showed me some humaness. "i am sick of these late nights. the next film is going to be called "dayside"
The filming continues over the next three weeks. I need another haircut before I leave for Russia, but can’t do it until the film is over. I have three more filming sessions in the two weeks after Russia. Looking forward to it.
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