Stockholm syndrome. I just wanted to say that. It really does not have anything to do with my experience here, except that I am in Stockholm and I suppose I do like the Swedes, although I am free to leave at any time. It was bright and sunny in the capital today and I spent most of the day strolling around through some museums, into a chocolate shop in the old town and inside a theater, with nothing too terribly interesting to report, but it was all very pleasant and relaxing.

Another view of the Swedish capital, this time during my evening stroll on the way to an Indian food stall that served one vegetarian option on the menu called 'Greenpeace.' Yum.

The star of the Vasa Museum is a giant Swedish ship from the 1600's that sank only minutes after its maiden voyage - due to improper design of the ballast - and remained on the Baltic sea bottom until salvage operations in the 1950's. I learned about ship discipline, including keel hauling, which is where you haul the misbehaving sailor under the keel from one end to the other. There was a section on life on the ship titled 'stench, disease and tedium.' Which could also describe certain portions of my current trip. I also saw a couple of movies about the salvage operations and various disasters at sea.

Oh yes, that way. This giant hand breaking the water at night in one of Stockholm's rivers caused me to pause for a moment. I looked in the direction it was indicating and saw a full moon - which if you are reading this today you should see later this evening as well. *

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday! At the Njutanger Monster Truck Rally! Come watch the Big Swede smash and trash cars, jump through the flaming hoop of death, and do other things that monster trucks do. I have to confess that it was wierd seeing a monster truck in rural Sweden on my third day riding north from Stockholm, and even wierder to see it named the Big Swede, but there you have it. (10-31-04) *

(INTRODUCTORY DISCLAIMER FOR NEW INSTALLMENT: Alright, I have a lot of catching up to do on the photos, so please ignore any typos, etc. I am in a Finnish public library with one hour to get all this stuff uploaded, so I am trying to hurry on the keyboard.) This is a church in Hudiksvall, Sweden, on the eastern Swedish coast as I was making my way up toward Finland from Stockholm. I thought it looked cool because of the bulbous steeple, which looked almost like the Russian onion bulb steeples, but not quite. Most Swedish steeples are really steep, like the one in the next picture, so this was something different. I passed this church after staying a couple of days earlier in Gävle, a university town on the coast. I stayed in a hostel there where I became the celebrity of the evening when the receptionist spread word that an American was riding his bicycle north (everyone else there was Swedish). The town had a lot of restaraunts that advertised their American qualities, i.e. "Real American Pizza, Real American Burgers," etc. Our culinary hegemony is nearly complete when Europeans are advertising "Real American pizza." (11-1-04)

The ride to Sundsvall was great because: (1) the sun was out and shining, (2) I rode on the Swedish national motorway without getting squashed, and (3) I made a lot of distance during the day. In the evening darkness when I was making my approach to the city from the hills and saw the city sparkling in the inlet below it looked a lot larger than I had expected. It was my fourth straight day of riding north from Stockholm, and when I found out that an elite league hockey game was scheduled for the next evening I decided to stay for an extra day. The hostel accomodations were rather choice, which also factored into the decision to stay. This is a view of the city from the surrounding hills. (11-2-04)

The NHL's (and Canada's) loss due to the owners' lockout this season is Europe's gain, and a lot of the star players are playing in the European leagues this year. I saw Timra play Mora, with Timra being the home team in red (this is the pregame huddle). This also gave me a chance to hear the Swedish national anthem, which was pretty nice. There definitely were some differences between European hockey and the NHL aside from just the rink size. There was no big screen display for me to watch the instant replays, the goalie could touch up for icing instead of a forward, there were three referees instead of two, everyone wears the face visor, and the audience was loud without being commanded to make noise by the big screen. The big NHL star of the game was Mikka Kiprusoff, the goalie who took the Calgary Flames to the Stanley Cup Finals this past summer. It was wierd - in May I was at the beach house just before leaving for Europe watching him play in a game seven of the Stanley Cup Finals, and four months later we both found ourselves in Timra, Sweden. And again, I was watching, he was playing - it was a good high scoring game 5-1 in favor of the home team. (11-2-04)

I saw the election results leaving Sundsvall. I'm not going to talk politics here, just trying to give a temporal frame of reference. I thought I could make it to the next town with a youth hostel, but I was wrong, and ended up sleeping in the woods after cycling past frozen lake after frozen lake. The sleeping bag is winter rated, so everything worked out and I stayed warm. The days are really short now, which means I generally start and finish in the dark in order to get in as much riding as possible. This is me breaking camp in the morning, on my way to Umea, Sweden. (11-4-04)