A full day

The midday sun found Honeybuns and me having lunch on the verandah of a restaurant by the water in Södertälje, a Salvation Army band playing old standards nearby. We could have stayed there the rest of the day, contentedly basking in the sunlight like well-fed snakes, but we had other goals with the day and soon walked past election campaigners on the shopping street to Tom Tits.

The most noticeable additions since I had been there last were some fairground rides out in the yard and considerably higher ticket prices. The latter however included a thickish booklet briefly explaining each of the 600+ available “experiments”, but we it put in a locker with our jackets, so as to be less encumbered while exploring. Then off to play!

We started with the outdoor activities. The helium balloon was inflated, but not available for rides yet, but lots of water was available for diversion. No trout in the salmon ladder, but the camera obscura was perfect for hugging in (yeah well, but it's more fun to do it on the sly). Honeybuns, as always fascinated by wild rides, explained how cool the freefall ride was but was put off by all the children queueing for it, so I talked her into going for the ride. Unfortunately, as I belatedly realised, this meant that I, too, would be repeatedly dropped from a great height, but I held on to the safety harness with all my might and was at no point smashed into the concrete below.

Nearby was another threatening device, The Rotor, which once, when it was standing at Gröna Lund, turned my face green, which my sister upon witnessing noted she had always thought was just an exaggerated saying. However it was not active at the moment, so I bravely walked around it and made faces at it without fear of retribution.

Crawling through the old sewer pipe below the yard was on the whole a calmer experience and pleasantly cool.

In the Earthquake house stood a young man, licking an ice lolly, repeatedly pressing all the buttons that would shake the structure in various directions while looking very bored. Apparently a mere earthquake was nothing to the jaded ten-year-old.

Then we ascended to the top floor and the Human exhibition. On one wall I found Lajos Zilahy's short story „Mikor halt meg Kovács János?”, which must have been in some high school literature reader, since so many other people of my age relate to it.

Illusions, optical and otherwise, and then a lecture hall with the seats placed according to the periodic system.

The final thing we had time for was “Recollections”, a VIDEOPLACE lookalike. Honeybuns danced for me.



Then Tom Tits closed and we went home to smash some furniture.