In the pits

Honeybuns had been so excited about our previous visit to Sala silver mine and wanted to show this magic place to her brother. I brought along the OBS and off we went. We were still a bit shagged out after the excursion to the Siarö fort the day before, so we dozed most of the way. When we got to the mine area, Honeybuns decided to explore the big curio shop by the road. The proprietors were busy polishing thousands of cut-glass goblets. I presume they have to start all over once they’ve finished. Honeybuns sighed over all the cut-glass chandeliers, but we didn’t buy any, at least not today. I was fascinated by an entire section devoted to portraits of Marilyn Monroe. Indeed, an icon of our age. The barn next over was filled with old furniture and also, a bit incongruously, an R/C model of a Canadair CL-215 suspended from the ceiling.

Then we checked in at the visitors’ reception and told to wait outside for the tour, which would start in a few minutes. Soon we were descending into the dark. When we arrived at the view into Queen Christina’s Shaft I tried to record video of the falling mist glittering in the dark, but even with the new camera it was impossible to get anything but a dark blur. I guess I would have to set up more lighting and things to get anything sensible.

You’re in a maze of twisty little passages, all different.

From the 60 m level, where we were last year, we descended by lift to the 155 m level. While deeper, this level has been prepared a bit more for visitors and was supposedly even wheel-chair accessible (I’m not too sure about that, but presumably they have tested this). Among other amenities there is a heated concert hall with mosaics subtly blending into the natural rock. Our guide demonstrated the acoustics for us by singing an old miner’s chorale, quite beautifully. Then we had a snack in the anteroom to the Mine Suite. This was equipped with heating and a dehumidifer as well as a tiled floor, but still retained the rock ceiling.

Then we continued to the shafts where we could peer into the submerged parts of the mine. A pool filled a huge chamber with a little boat moored to a little jetty. “Gollum’s boat!” exclaimed the OBS and I in chorus.

There were more shafts from which water fell to fill the depths, but nothing would get caught on video. How remarkably light sensitive human eyes are, after all.

Finally we ascended to the surface, but what had looked like sunlight to my dark-accommodated eyes turned out to be an overcast sky that soon turned into a heavy rain. The local restaurant had nothing vegetarian to offer, so we milled about a bit in the area and went through the Police Museum. The exhibition on the Sala gang resonated with other more recent killers who also have coolly executed carefully planned acts of madness. The Sala gang’s head Thurneman did end up in a maximum-security mental hospital, but was eventually released efter 32 years and spent the last years of his life as a well-reputed Sanskrit translator.

As the rain showed no signs of letting up we had to give in and started walking to town. When we arrived, we were thoroughly soaked (except for the OBS, who had prepared with a nice lightweight rain jacket—I have to get one of those) and very hungry. We found a pizza place on the main square and as soon as we had gotten in and ordered, the rain stopped…

When I finally got home a couple of hours later, I hung my clothes up to dry and had a hot shower. When the final collapse of civilization arrives, I will miss hot showers most of all. (Well, maybe food, too.)

Guarding the ramparts

One of the prominent features of the Siarö fort is that it’s not actually located on Siarö, but Sjöbris knows how to get to the right place, so we jumped ashore on Kyrkogårdsön. It was one of the few sunny days this summer, so I insisted we start with a walk around the island. We soon found ourselves in a rock-and-concrete trench with two smallish guns on tracks at each end. Little concrete machine gun nests that somehow had been rendered in the same reddish tone as the granite were strewn all over the hillside.

A staircase led up to what turned out to be the huge concrete cap over the actual fort. It looked for all the world like a huge skateboard park, but with two 152 mm gun turrets. The entire thing was surrounded by more slit trenches, from which any landing of marines would be repelled.

The forest was filled with old and rusting barbed wire and I wondered how often deer or elk would get trapped in it—not even in its active period was the fort manned more than intermittently.

Beyond the fort lay the cholera churchyard for which the island was named, now just a lush meadow. We continued down to the café for lunch. (Note: both the cafeteria and the boat had only been able to offer pancakes in the way of vegetarian food. There is a limit to how many pancake meals one can have in a day.) Fortified, we were ready to tackle the insides of the fort. The entrance consisted of one of those one-person-at-a-time revolving doors, to make sure nobody would get in without a ticket.

Inside it was quite cold and damp and it turned out that the military had soon realised the premises were too unhealthy to keep even conscripts in, so in spite of the carefully marked sleeping quarters for officers, NCOs and privates, the garrison had actually spent most of their time in what eventually became the hostel we had just visited. However, one of the rooms had been furnished with an industrial-grade de-humidifier and heating to serve as a lecture hall. As soon as we entered, a projection screen rolled down from the ceiling and a showing of military archive films started. I noted with professional interest that sea waves apparently did not compress well in whatever digital format had been chosen and ended up as a mess of artefacts. On the other hand, the pedagogical trick of indicating cut-away drawings with an animated knife actually cutting away bits was absolutely brilliant.

The washing facilities for the conscripts. I presume the faucets have been removed to keep people from testing if they work, not that an overflowing sink would make any difference whatsoever here.

I climbed up into one of the lookout hoods and found I had a most excellent view of the fairway, but I still wonder what kind of damage the mounted guns would have been able to inflict on 1940s warships.

It was a relief to return out into the sunshine.

Travelling through Roslagen

Few things are as deserted as Stockholm City on a summer Sunday, especially if it is raining, but you have to be out early to catch the boat. We sailed through a misty archipelago, islands appearing and disappearing in the murk. At Östanå färjeläge we got off and continued on foot. We would have missed Wira Bruk if it hadn’t been for the signs–the buildings lay in a depression hidden behind the summer greenery. While
there would be a performance of Wiraspelen in the evening, it wasn’t our plan to attend and the recurrent rain made it an unattractive proposition anyway. Instead we walked around the little village, split by the skipping brook that used to drive the waterwheels of the smithies.

We snacked in the little café, I restrained Honeybuns from buying some horridly expensive chandeliers in the iron craft exhibition and then we continued on our way. We caught the bus to Norrtälje, riding past some potential future excursion targets.

By now we were pretty hungry, so we wandered through the Old Town of Norrtälje, looking for somewhere to eat. Apparently most people agreed with us on what places looked nice, as they were full, but finally we ended up by the harbour and S/S Norrtelje. We had a quite pleasant late lunch which we finished just in time to have time to peek in the curio shop by the quay. Honeybuns spotted something that might become our new kitchen table if we can figure out how to transport it. In the meantime she bought a stack of bargain books. Then we got to the bus terminal just as the bus to Stockholm pulled in.

We band of brothers

Some ambitious fellows had arranged for a modelling weekend at the Swedish Military Vehicle Museum. I haven't built an armour model for surely 35 years, but a weekend devoted to modelling is to be cherished.

I carefully packed my kit on Friday evening, so that I wouldn’t have to panic-pack in the morning. I decided to take along Italeri’s Sd.Kfz. 234/2 Puma, Airfix’ R.A.F. Refuelling set, and Tamiya’s Porsche 911 GT2. (The latter aren’t exactly armour, but at least surface vehicles.)

I got to the train just in time and as the early Saturday tour was quite uncrowded I managed to get a nice seat on the top floor. With Svealandsbanan, the trip to Strängnäs doesn’t even take an hour, but I’d have to wait about as long again for the bus to take me the last bit to the museum. At least it was sunny. I had but sat down at the bus stop as I heard an ”Oi!” from behind. There was Olle in his car. “I thought I’d find you here, let’s go.” An anonymous sign pointed at the “VEHICLE MUSEUM”, a functional-looking barn. We were greeted by the guys who’d arrived the day before and had already laid out the tables, lights, compressors and such on the mezzanine floor, with an excellent view of the exhibits.

The museum had a very special smell of oil and metal, many of the exhibits are kept in running shape, so now and then the public are given the full experience of 50 Mg chunks of roaring, clanking, smoking (though not firing) metal rolling about on the meadow outside the museum.

More modellers arrived from all corners of Sweden, until we were some 20+, laying out our models and gear on the tables. Ordinary museum visitors also turned up, some curiously asking us about our esoteric activities, and receiving enthusiastic explanations.

I started on the Puma, though didn’t get that far before it was seminar time.

Later in the afternoon we were invited to a private showing of the museum exhibits. After a while the curator got a bit concerned we wouldn’t get through them all before nightfall, what with the constant barrage of questions and comments from both people with deep knowledge about the subject and the rest of us, while not very knowledgeable, still intensely interested. We weren’t in any hurry, though and the curator indulged us. I have discussed the authenticity of preserved aircraft before, and the curator was happy to point out that many of the exhibits were not in original shape, having been modified, and then possibly unmodified again, repainted in whatever paints had been around at various points in their history, and that some simply were one-shot test examples that were unrepresentive of their type. “Photographs show what things looked like at one point, but there’s no telling what happened ten minutes before, or ten minutes after.”

When we had gone through the exhibition, now long after closing time, a question was timidly put forward: “Could I sit in the Trabant, just for a bit?” “Uh well, OK, but don’t hurt yourself.” The dams broke: People scattered like dropped marbles and were soon crawling all over the vehicles, cameras clicking away; everywhere was happy laughter and smiling heads poking out of hatches, guns were traversed and every bolt, pin, and attachment point scrutinised and documented. Most congregated around the celebrities: T-34, Marder, Sherman, but some connoiseurs preferred to explore Soviet amphibians or, as noted, East German bucket cars. (You will notice that I haven’t made any mention of Swedish vehicles so far—they tend to be fairly uncharismatic, possibly with the exception of the ”S” tank, and were accordingly mostly ignored.) The curator watched the proceedings with a beatific smile, most pleased with visitors who really appreciated the museum.

A view from the mezzanine onto early WWII Swedish armour.	Some armour of my own.
Down the hatch!	The driver’s seat in a Universal Carrier. A particularly nice touch is the bolt in the middle of the steering wheel—just made for crushing your sternum. Note also the footprint on the shelf where I stepped to get into the vehicle.

Finally I felt that I, too, had to try something and clambered into the driver’s seat of a Universal Carrier. I found it utterly lacking in any comfort or human factors thinking. The steering wheel was mere centimetres from my sternum, the brake pedal was located where it was quite convenient for the passenger to reach, I found a set of instruments on a panel by my right shoulder where my aging eyes couldn’t even focus on them and the front armour extended just to my eyebrows. I presume any road accident would have lead to instant death or major injury.

Eventually people felt that it started to get late and we profusely thanked the museum staff for their forebearance. Then a car convoy took off for Strängnäs and the pizza place that had been recommended as the most priceworthy by the locals. The quiet Saturday evening was suddenly shattered by laughing, talking, and hungry modellers. After dinner we continued to the youth hostel where some of us were staying the night. Others decided to keep us company for a while before they returned to their sleeping places. I realised I was but an amateur as everybody else pulled out modelling gear and started working in the kitchen. For my part I loaded a documentary on strategic bombing in my laptop. So the evening proceeded in happy intercourse. I decided to withdraw to bed before midnight and feel contentedly asleep to the sound of peals of laughter in the kitchen.

Next morning. An early rise and quick ablutions before we returned to the museum from where a new convoy took off and soon turned onto a small gravel road, at the end of which was the former mobilisation stores where the museum now kept the items they did not have on current display. ”Some 3–400 vehicles, depending on how you count.” Obviously we could not study them all, but we got extensive samples. The sheds were packed with armour, trucks, engines, guns, bicycles, but also more unexpectedly cradles, looms, sleds and a mysterious object that looked like a huge champagne cork in fabric. As densely as they were stored, it was soon obvious that the easiest way of moving about was to mount a tank and then proceed stepping from one to the next. The air was filled with joyous laughter as discoveries were made and people tried to seat themselves in the vehicles. My attempts confirmed that tanks evidently are made for short, very short, and thin people, and even they should expect to have their craniums banged about by various corners and edges. I dare not imagine the noise from shooting with large-calibre guns in those enclosed spaces.

A nondescript façade.	More camouflagey things to crawl about on.
The thing with amphibious vehicles is that you can only get in at the top and for some reason they never have ladders.	A very realistically weathered lorry.

Eventually we returned to the museum for more seminars, or should I say, intensely interactive discussions between skilled modellers. Towards the end of the day I set up for painting some Porsche parts. The Humbrol metallic colours are pretty temperamental when airbrushed and have a tendency to clog the nozzle. High pressure is indicated. This was really my only opportunity for aggravation during the entire weekend.

Cleaning up was quickly done with all hands on deck and then we all went our separate ways with happy smiles, new friendships having been forged and promises of future events exchanged.

Entourage on tour

We had decided early on to repeat last year’s trip; to the Helsinki Model-Expo. Honeybuns couldn’t come along because she had to go on a job trip—to Helsinki. Still, an expectant band gathered up by the harbour and off we went.

We had booked the cheapest cabins. What really should not have been a surprise was that they were also preferred by youngsters, saving them money they could spend on booze. While not being exactly rowdy, a couple dozen kids spent the night talking quite loudly in the corridor. Round 05:30 our neighbour snapped and rushed out of his cabin to give them several pieces of his mind, which however they just ignored so eventually a call to ship security was required to put the young to bed.

Still, a fresh new day awaited us. We bundled into our rented car and drove out to the Exhibition centre. The modelling exhibition was in the all-new hall, sharing it with the crafts exhibition (not very far-fetched a combination). The competitors lined up their entries and then we dispersed in the halls to see what we could find.

When introducing a new R/C plane kit, of course you need to bring it to the flight area accompanied by mood(y) music, soap bubbles and uniformed men looking very emo.	An utterly delightful kajak vignette.
Horror models: a tiny organ.	Over at the pet fair: little kitties sleeping despite the surrounding din.

We had vaguely thought about riding out to Suomenlinna, but the exhibits proved plentiful enough that we realised we wouldn’t have time for that. Still, eyes bleeding and brain full I eventually decided I’d had enough for the day and headed back into town on my own. As I got to Pasila station, the train pulled in, I ran for it and got on just in time. There were big signs in every car giving the ticket prices and carefully noting the fines for failing to buy a ticket. Yet I could nowhere find any instructions on the actual mechanics of purchase and found myself at Helsinki Central before realising I could simply have asked a fellow passenger. (Talking to commuters, what a bizarre idea! I probably could have gotten thrown off the train for that, too.)

The weather was sunny, though rather too windy to be warm, so I was quite impressed by the boys I saw playing icehockey in their shirtsleeves as I strolled out to Hietaniemi to tend to the family grave.

Back in the city centre I found myself in the middle of a little open-air rock concert, the final set just starting with The Death of Gagarin. The stage was quite small, but the band did their best to look as if they were playing at Woodstock. The lead guitar jumped around and kicked at the loudspeaker stack, but as they weren’t exactly the heaviest Marshall speakers, they rocked (too) in danger of falling over. For a fraction of a second the guitarist looked as if to reflexively put out a hand to steady the stack, but immediately realising that that wouldn’t look ultracool, so he just stared fixedly at the stack until it was steady again. A couple of minutes later his toddler child crawled up on stage:

“Not now, sweetie, Daddy’s supposed to be playing a solo.”

Finally the rest of the gang returned from a full day at the fair and we set out to find something to eat. “There’s a pretty good Spanish restaurant just around the corner here. Oh, looks like they’ve closed.” ”But the one we were to last year, the one with the knockout waitress? That was…over there somewhere?” [zig, zag] ”Look, there it is!” “Sorry, we are fully booked. Sorry, no, we won’t toss out the little ladies over there even if they look harmless. May we recommend the restaurant around the block?” [trudge] “Table for six…? Uh, yes, there’s a company just leaving, give us a minute to clean up.” It was Asparagus Week, but we didn’t have to eat the slimy asparagus (except for those who wanted to) and were quite satisfied as we walked back to our hotel.

The next morning we headed out to the aviation museum. This was a classic aviation museum in the style of “We have x m² hangar space, let’s pile in as many aircraft as we can.” Nothing wrong with that.

A bit of a jumble… Visible are a Caudron C.60, a Sääski, a Tuisku, a Viima, an I-16, a Safir, two Vampires, a Draken, a Hansa, an Utu, a Kanttikolmonen, an SG 38 and so on…	I did a careful photographic walk-around of the Mi-1 for an upcoming modelling project. Here are the rotor blades: note that they are canvas over a steel and wood structure, just like any WWI aircraft.
This really knocked my socks off: 40 hand-carved wooden 1:100 models of world speed record holders. Here the Macchi M.C.72.	From the collection of all Finnish air force aircraft types in 1:72: the SPAD VII. Compare this with my rendition.

Having had our fill of the museum, we headed back to the expo, picked up our prizes, did some (additional) last minute shopping (good SEK/EUR rates) and then headed to our ship home. No drunk kids on this trip and when we returned, it was spring in Stockholm.

Another place to go

Here is another aviation-related museum I intend to visit as soon as I have figured out where it is located: The Sci-Fi Airshow.

You can board the Orion.

H/t Thnidu.

On a spring roll

We’ve had April weather since March. Yesterday it was snowing big wet flakes all day, but when we got up this morning the sun shone from a bright blue sky and we decided to make use of our Skansen cards.

It was still rather chilly outdoors, but as long as one kept to the sunny side of the street, it was OK. After all the fuss about getting the tram to Sergels torg last summer, Hamngatan was closed off for street works until May, so we had to go the old end stop at Norrmalmstorg.

At Skansen we got into the VIP lane ready to nonchalantly breeze in, waving our cards, but were pushed aside by a huge group of American tourists, and then a Spanish couple who inquired about lots of things at the till, but finally we could pass the gate. By now we were pretty hungry, so we started with lunch at Gubbhyllan. Even so, when we then got up to the town quarters, the smells of freshly-baked bread that wafted out of the bakery almost floored us. As we peeked into the yards we found the saddler’s workshop, where the friendly saddler showed us some original 16th Century saddles and cleverly-shaped replica leather snuffboxes he’d just finished. We continued round some other shops and then went up to the Easter market. Perhaps we should have skipped the indoors lunch in favour of outdoors eating in the sun, but that will have to be for some other time. We still bought some bread and jam to take home and then continued to the newly-renovated petting zoo. Like our bag, this was also jam-packed, but at least we managed to look at the pigs and goats for a while.

Eventually we continued to Aquaria to look at fish. The crawlspace through the big aquarium with the sharks and moray had been closed up for some reason, which also shut off much of the view of the tank, which was a pity. In one of the smaller aquaria I watched a little fish rest on a leaf that gently swayed in the current, I have to presume it found this enjoyable.

Finally we boarded the ferry to Slussen and then home.

Aquarium, with a few fishes as well

As it had been a long time since for both of us, Honeybuns and I went to the Skansen Aquarium, a somewhat misleading name as most of the space is taken up by primate cages. Just inside the entrance we found a two-toed sloth hanging by its feet, munching cucumber pieces with gusto. (They had been placed on a tray, I presume that means they were betrayed.) It seemed all alone, but after ten minutes or so we suddenly noticed the other sloth, well hidden against another tree stem. In the meantime I had spotted small lizards rushing about. These turned out to be pygmy marmosets, so primates, but the way they kept their tail flat along the surface and their legs splayed out was utterly reptilian. Honeybuns and an iguana attracted each others’ attentions and watched each other through the glass.

Then outside to get to the next building. The baboons and lemurs were indoors somewhere, but there were several meerkats about in their enclosure, even though they were shivering with cold. I presumed they felt the necessity to keep watch of their territory, even though it was freezing cold.

Inside: Snakes, snakes. And frogs. It’s fascinating how tropical frogs manage to look completely artificial, as if made of wax or porcelain, sitting perfectly still on a branch or on the ground. (Some of them were at least visibly breathing, so they must have been alive.) I was a bit incensed on behalf of the Gila monster, who really hasn’t done anything to deserve such a name—even its scientific name is Heloderma suspectum.

Further in, a rain forest. I noted with surprise how much easier it was to breathe the humid air, Stockholm climate doesn’t really agree with me. So I just stood for a while breathing in and out, while monkeys clambered around the branches above me. I took the little rainforest tour, guided by a four-year-old who in rapid sequence showed me her new dress, the skellington in a corner, the monkey up in a tree, a puddle on the floor and so on.

Now we got to the aquariums proper. Rays and sharks swam around in a big pool, another aquarium turned out to contain three unimaginably huge alligator snapping turtles. We looked for a while at the crocodiles. The juveniles, kept in a separate terrarium, were constantly on the move, but the adults lay dead still. Honeybuns remembered how her grandfather once, doubting they were even alive, had knocked on the glass and been rewarded by a crocodile lunging at him. That time the glass had held, but there were prominent signs to stay away from the glass surfaces and that any objects thrown into the enclosure would have to be retrieved by the thrower.

One terrarium held naked mole rats, but they had to make do with pre-prepared perspex tubes, rather than getting to dig on their own. I thought that probably must feel strange to them.

The final room contained the spiders and scorpions, but most of them managed to hide quite effectively, so one couldn’t see much of them. I wonder if they consciously stayed away from the front of their cages.

We exited through the shop. It was very child-oriented, containing huge amounts of cuddly snakes, animal stickers, all kinds of plastic animals, etc, etc, but nothing in the way of books or DVDs, which disappointed me, surely a learning opportunity such as this should be made the most of?

By now we were quite hungry, so we went up to Stora Gungan for a late lunch. They had locked their doors and were just ushering out their last guests. Gubbhyllan then? Sorry, the kitchen had closed. Hm. Let’s leave Skansen then. What about Lilla Hasselbacken? Ah, maybe a tad too fancy for our current needs. We continue to Blå Porten. Do they offer hot food? The staff look a bit uncertain. Eventually it transpires that they had just had a fire in the kitchen extinguished and the fire brigade has forbidden them to even go in there right now. But would we like some tea and cookies? We decide to move further into town. BarCelona, our usual backup site? Completely full. Ah, but what about Grace Tea House just across the street? Yes, they’re open, even if we seem to interrupt the staff in their own lunch. What about dumplings? Ah, they're fresh out of vegetarian dumplings. Honeybuns settles for a Szechuan soup. It turns out to be spicy enough to give her a nosebleed, but at least we finally got fed.

Then we return home for weekend cleaning.

Туполев Ту-144

Before the arthritis got too bad my mother constantly knitted and usually asked me to design the patterns for my own sweaters. For one of these I copied a picture of the Tupolev Tu-144, with the appropriate Cyrillic caption. It caused some consternation at school when they couldn’t read the text.

Since then I’ve been to and in the Concordes at Duxford and Yeovilton, but have not had the opportunity to see the Tu-144 IRL. However, I just found they have one at Sinsheim. I consider a pilgrimage there, but I’m somewhat put off by the realisation that even the Tu-144 uses the mandatory hideous Soviet cockpit turqoise. I don’t understand why the designer of that particular shade wasn’t executed as a Western saboteur or something.

Quickie holiday

I felt a bit guilty about leaving the office in the middle of the afternoon, but I had a train to catch. Luftwaffenmuseum Gatow were hosting an exhibition by IPMS Deutschland and that was a reason as good as any for a weekend holiday for Honeybuns and me, so we eagerly tagged along our friend Ulf.

We had some time in Malmö before boarding the sleeper train to Berlin, so raided the local Pressbyrån for food. Lots of pasta salads of various kinds, the only edible thing I found was rather dry sushi in a plastic box. Well, it sufficed to keep body and soul together.

We had berths in a couchette. Now, while SJ complains that the X 2000 trains are getting long in the tooth, the rest of the rolling stock are completely ignored: The car was clearly older than I was, even still festooned with the classic admonishing Ströyer cartoons and the toilet paper had a distinct East state character. We shared the compartment with a talky young couple and a non-talky buff woman with major tattoos. We soon arrived in Trelleborg where we after quite a bit of shunting were rolled into a ferry bound for Sassnitz. The rest went up to have a look-see of the ferry, but I tried to make myself comfortable in bed, and the rest soon returned, having found nothing interesting. As often, I slept fitfully and definitely awoke as the German border police loudly inspected the passports of the travellers in the next compartment. They did however not seem care about us, possibly the people next doors were not intra-EU travellers, of some suspicious skin colour, or whatever other juridical complication.

A sight for sore eyes.

Finally we rolled in at Berlin Hauptbahnhof (tief) at 06:01, rather bleary and worse for wear. No shower for cheap couchette travellers. We stumbled out in the steel-and-glass building, like something out of a Tati movie. While we wouldn’t be able to check in at our hotel until after 15:00, maybe we could at least dump our bags there, so we set out to find Motel One Berlin-Hauptbahnhof. No problem, it was visible as soon as we exited the station. We got to the checkin desk and declared that we had bookings and within minutes we found ourselves clutching keycards to our rooms. Yet another two minutes later we were having glorious showers!

Berlin at dawn.

The healing and restoring magic of hot water from above soon had us bright and bushy-tailed again and we set out to find breakfast. Admittedly there was a breakfast buffet downstairs, but the vegetarians did not find the carefully aligned rows upon rows of sausage, ham, sausage, ham, sausage, and sausage to be that appetizing, so we went out on the city to see what food we could find. Nothing on a Saturday morning at 06:30, it turned out. But, surely there must be something at the station? We returned there and found a little shop offering salads, smoothies, fruit juices and other delicacies. I peered at a good-looking salad. It looked pasta-free, but you can never be sure, so I asked the lady behind the counter. Some minutes of confusion ensued until she realised that I really was asking whether there was any pasta in the salad. Of course not, who’s ever heard of a salad with pasta!?

Now, both washed and fed we located the tourist office, got maps, postcards and stuff and then tried to figure out how to get to Gatow. The guy at the travel information had no idea at first, but looked up something and printed us an itinerary that looked rather complicated. We decided to go for a taxi instead.

A long line of Soviet air power.

The taxi drove away for quite some distance, but finally ended up at the General Steinhoff-Kaserne. Well, the general idea was correct, so to speak, but it didn’t look very museumy. The taxi driver inquired at the gate, got further instructions and we drove on for a few more minutes until we got to the museum gate. Ooooh! Lots of aircraft out, but first things first: We located the hangar where the exhibition was being set up, in the space between exhibited aircraft.

Now, it has to be admitted that many of the models weren’t exactly Spitzenqualität with regards to the quality of finish, but the underlying ideas were often excellent. As this was an exhibition, rather than a competition, there were many themed exhibits, such as “Captured German aircraft in Soviet markings”, “All versions of the Fw 190”, “Pioneer aircraft up to 1914”, “Early jets”, “RAF aircraft stationed in West Germany”, and so on. (There were of course also exhibits of surface-bound vehicles, but I’m just not as interested in/knowledgeable about such.) The spirit was one of ”models are for building”, and I heartily agree with that.

My favourite, a burned-out Wellington, very impressive.	I wasn’t even aware it had been issued as a model: The EWR VJ101.
A quite unusual subject, an Etrich Taube. The original could be seen two hangars over.	A gaggle of figure builders were also present, happily painting away.

However, after a while the hangar felt quite chilly in the still early morning, and while Ulf exercised his German with the exhibitors, Honeybuns and I struck out to see what we could find. Now was when I realised the camera battery was running flat, so I had to switch to using my mobile. The picture quality dropped, but it managed some 200+ pictures before its battery went empty the next day. (Later on, more experienced hands have recommended carrying multiple batteries and changing as needed. Seems there’s going to be a lot of follow-up purchases to this camera…)

Airfields are big and there were lots of hangars located along the perimeter. Walking around a copse of trees we came upon a pair of hangars and started investigating the one furthest away. Боже мой! It was full of…stuff. A staff-looking person was sitting outside having a smoko, I looked at him and he nodded imperceptibly, apparently it was OK to go in. This was apparently the museum storage hangar, we found shelf upon shelf of rocket launchers, jet engines, stacks of rusty bombs (disarmed, we hoped), landing gear legs, a balloon gondola, and … cash registers, shop scales, tabulating machines, cutlery, and other non-aviatic items. At one end was a basically complete Heinkel He 111 in the company of other bits and pieces of aircraft in bad shape.

I think this probably is a Siebel Si 204 fuselage. The one at Arlanda is not in quite as bad shape, but it’s just a question of time.	It looks like a Bf 109 wing, but missing a bit at the root.
I think this is a Goblin, but I have no idea why it’s radioactive.	Presumably even the air force needs to sew things every now and then.

The next hangar was much more orderly, a very fresh and clean exhibition of the West German air force within NATO. Side rooms exhibited the different generations of fighter aircraft and the training courses German pilots had been to in the US and the UK.

As we returned we suddenly found ourselves in the middle of a bicycle race circling around the airport. With time we realised that today was also Tag der Reservisten, with lots of other activities apart from model exhibitions. We walked along long lines of Soviet-manufactured aircraft, most of East German provenance. Many were in rather sad shape as a consequence of being stored outdoors.

A Su-22M-4.	A MiG-23UB.
A Lightning F.2A.	It took me a while before I realised what I was looking at: A HFB-320. Cool!

We continued with museum exhibits. Yet another hangar with aircraft. This was probably the original start of the museum, not quite as carefully laid out as the NATO hall, but interesting stuff nonetheless. We meditated a bit on how few German aircraft from the world wars remain in Germany itself, what was not destroyed having been shipped away by the Allies to their museums.

Eventually we decided we needed food. There were food tents aplenty, but to the dismay of the vegetarians they served wurst, wurst, wurst, wurst, and steak. And beer. I got me a steak and a Fanta, Honeybuns choked on a glass of Sekt. Eventually Ulf and she found some strawberry cake to fill their stomachs with.

The control tower building had a chronological display of the development of German air power from the beginning of the 20th Century onwards, the postwar period being indicated with a blue and red stripe on the floor separating West from East, with corresponding exhibits facing each other. The story of how two opposing air forces were merged into one must be a truly fascinating one.

Finally we were satisfied with museum watching and even skipped the exhibition on RAF Station Gatow and walked off to find a bus stop. We suspected that the travel directions we got at the Hauptbahnhof probably were not the most efficient ones and indeed we were recommended to take the bus to Spandau and the S-bahn from there into the city centre. The S-bahn was a strange experience—it would go a couple of stops, then stop to drop off all passengers and return, while a new train would turn up from ahead and take us a couple of more stops. I’m sure there is a reason for the ratchet drive.

After a detour to the hotel we went in search of Alexanderplatz. Well, it’s not much of a search—the Fernsehturm is easily visible everywhere since Berlin is very flat. („Es gibt keine Birge in Berlin“, Ulf proclaimed.) There may be some connection to the weird pipes that rise above many street corners. On a previous visit it was explained to me that they were there to pump away ground water that otherwise would waterlog the city. There are also major plot holes, given over to grass and weeds. I couldn’t tell if they were remnants of the war, of the Berlin wall, or just areas for redevelopment that had stalled. Honeybuns directed us to Bio Company, where we marvelled at an entire shop full of ecologically grown food and picked up some nice items. Then dinner at Thai inside—though we ate outside in the still warm evening air. Then the few steps to Alexanderplatz, where we browsed the sale at a bookstore. The waiting time to get up into the Fernsehturm was however prohibitive and we simply walked back to our hotel through a now dark Berlin, where brightly lit ships glid on the Spree.

The next morning Honeybuns and I got up early, bought breakfast at the Hauptbahnhof and boarded the train to Hamburg, leaving Ulf to his studies. Berlin to Hamburg is just a two-hour journey by day—night trains being a completely different story. The plan in Hamburg was to visit Miniatur Wunderland. I had tried to purchase advance tickets on their website, but for some reason failed, so we’d have to buy them on site. As we got to the ticket counter we found that the first available times for entry were several hours later and I realised the reason I hadn’t been able to buy online tickets was that they’d been sold out for weeks… Anyway, we weren’t going to let go now that we’d travelled all the way to Hamburg (well, actually we had to go that way anyway on the way home, which was what gave rise to the idea of a visit in the first place) so we bought tickets and then went out into the Speicherstadt to see what to spend our time on. Crossing a bridge we ran into Cap’n Jack Tar, who was selling tickets for boat tours of the harbour. Well, why not? We bought two tickets and looked around in the Binnenhafen while waiting for the boat to leave. Eventually the boat filled up with tourists and a colleague of the ticket-seller turned up to actually steer the boat. He cast off and started talking on the PA and didn’t even stop to draw a breath until we returned an hour later. He had a very distinct way of phrasing, which caused frequent smiles for the listeners. In general everything we passed was „größter in der Welt“ and/or „wunderschööön“. The Speicherstadt used to be the Docklands of Hamburg, but now the tall houses seem to be turned over to oriental carpet sellers (I dare not imagine the amount of carpets they can hold) and trendy marketing companies. Some of them had indeed been turned into blocks of flats, which must be very interesting places. But soon we steered out of the canals and into the harbour, where we passed next to huge container ships. At one point we went through a lock, but we never passed one on the way back, so I’m still not sure what the deal was there.

„Die wunderschöne Speicherstaaaadt!“	In the middle of the harbour is a golden calf on a pylon. I have no explanation.
M/S Lorraine. When she is fully loaded the red area is submerged.	Blohm & Voss are still in business, I didn’t know.

As we arrived back in the Binnenhafen, we jogged off to Miniatur Wunderland and got in. Jehosaphat, but it was crowded! Honeybuns mostly just saw the backs of people, but managed to peek between enough people that she had some idea of the glory of the place.

Archaeology in the North Sea.	The new “Switzerland” segment requiring two floors.
A Swiss station from above.	The new airport segment.

We decided to spend at least a week in Germany next time. Then we rushed back to the station and boarded the train to Copenhagen. We had a perfectly nice dinner on the Puttgarden-Rødby ferry. At København H we had to rush a bit back and forth while they kept changing the track of the Malmö train, but did get there. Finally we could board our sleeper train in Malmö, a proper sleeper compartment this time, a three-berth one, as is the SJ tradition, but I had booked the entire compartment for ourselves. By now we were completely knackered and slept all through Sweden and woke up as we rolled in to Stockholm at 06:04. We eschewed the shower on the train, instead making use of the one in Honeybuns’ nearby office, from which I continued straight on to my own, for a change being the first one in.

Special people

There was a modelling weekend at the Maritime Museum again. The Saturday was a beautiful day as we sat in a tent with the wall furled, so we could bask in the late-summer sun. Suddenly Ture, who I hadn’t seen for a quarter century or so, turned up and joined us for a bit of modelling of his own, as he brought out a flotilla of 1:1200 ship models to work on. Then Honeybuns came by for a late lunch.

At the end of the day we stored our stuff inside and walked towards the city. As we got closer to Karlaplan we noted that we hadn’t been to Eskader since they moved. The shop would be closed of course, but it would be good to check the exact location, the opening hours, and mature stuff like that… We found it quickly and we of course had to peer in through the shop windows and check out all the cool stuff in there. A small child was a bit annoyed at the old men blocking his view, but so it goes. After a couple of minutes one of the proprietors turned up and opened the door: “Come in boys, we have to work on the book-keeping for a while anyway, so you can poke around in the meanwhile.” So we did, and filed away many interesting ideas. Then we finally went home.

On the Sunday I was sitting alone and it was very windy, so I spent most of the day chasing small parts being blown across the lot. And I swear every non-stop talker in Stockholm was there to harangue me, so I couldn’t get a word in sidewise!

Invisible Man

We went to Fotografiska Museet. As usual, there were several parallel exhibitions of varying degrees of interest: Robert Mapplethorpe leaves me cold—all his pictures are somehow just the same, regardless of the subject: same lighting, same æsthetics. But we’d really come to see the “Invisible Man”, excerpts from Liu Bolin’s series Hiding in the City—photographs of himself, bodypainted to meld in with the background at various places in Beijing. Looking at the pictures I realised there must be at least another invisible man: I can’t quite see how Liu could have managed to create the body paintings on himself by himself, matching them up with the environment behind him. There must have been at least another, quite skillful, person helping him with the paintings and adjusting them to the background. I find this a problem with art in general: there is this Romantic idea of the lone genius that the teamwork necessary for almost any piece of art is completely suppressed. Well, except for film, where it’s pretty obvious that the producer did not do it all alone and where the skills of all other participants have identifiable effects on the end result, so these days everybody in any way involved with the production is listed in the final credits and I can pay hommage to them by watching the credits to the end.

A slightly different example was Eleanor Coppola’s Circle of Memory, a memorial to her dead son in the form of an Irish passage grave recreated with hay bales, clearly not manually stacked by herself. However, this was more explictly a cooperatively created art piece, as the public were invited to write their thoughts on pieces of paper and attach them to the hay, so that others could read them. Honeybuns noted that it’s hard to express strong emotions without becoming banal. Indeed, quite a few of the writings had been directly cribbed from the quotable quotes at the bottom of calendar pages. So, kudos to the young woman who unpredictably but truthfully noted: “Don’t do a runner twice from the same taxi, you’ll feel so guilty.”

Historical excursion

It transpired that on no occasion Honeybuns has been in Mariefred has she had time to visit Gripsholm castle. This obviously won’t do, so a castle trip was necessary. To have the maximum time available we took the train to Läggesta. We hesitated for a second whether to take the bus or the steam train to Mariefred, but clearly a steamtrain trumps busses. However, it turns out ÖSlJ does not take credit cards, but they were kind enough to let us come along anyway, get cash in a (the?) ATM in Mariefred and buy the tickets afterwards. Customer service!

In Mariefred we got ourselves something to drink in the station café (Note: In spite of a menu footnote to this effect, they don’t actually carry gluten-free sandwiches.) and had a quick look in the museum. When we got out to go the castle it had started raining, so we proceeded with some haste.

Gripsholm, with its almost 500-year history (600 since Bo Jonsson Grip’s original fortress), is a melange of all ages, being rebuilt about once every century to adapt it to current needs of each age, while honouring the past. It’s current guise is a sort of 1890s idea of what it should have looked like during the renaissance and I suspect that in quite a few instances the reconstructions may have gone beyond what was originally there.

A model of what the castle would have looked like ca 1600.

This corner is the tower on the far right above, extended by a new wing. The brick on the wing (on the left) is real, on the tower it is a pattern painted on plaster.

The bartizan is an 1890s recreation of one which was presumed to have existed here.

Honeybuns was very fascinated and pleased with the window flannings that all had nice benches to sit on. One wonders to what extent they existed originally—to be sure most windows would have been smaller at the time that the castle was actually used as a fortress in the turbulent times of popular uprisings and dynastic struggles. I wonder what issues the builders in the past would have had with knocking new holes in the massive old walls to increase window sizes and attaching new wings to the castle—would there at any point have been problems with the structural integrity of the walls?

On my earlier visits I had clearly not been very attentive to the portraits in the collection, but now I realised that many of the standard depictions of people in Swedish history are paintings displayed at Gripsholm. I read the famous names, and indeed every now and then found ancestors of people whose history in the limelight went so far back. Honeybuns noted that the portraits up to the 19th Century were cast very much in the same mold and were all but indistinguishable from each other, mostly concentrating on the jewellery and exclusive clothing while rendering skin and faces as smooth, characterless surfaces, but from the 20th Century there was suddenly a great many portrait styles.

Photography was not allowed at all inside the castle—presumably to avoid the hassle of explaining to people with automatic flashes that flash photography is not allowed—so no interior pictures for you.

We finished the tour somewhat before the castle closed and returned to the town to see how to best return and perhaps to find something to eat. We found S/S Mariefred waiting by the bridge and decided to take the boat back to Stockholm.