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November 29, 2004
Home Again
After more than 24 hours on the bus, I am back home again. The trip was lovely, although I didn't really get much out of the rest of the educational stuff. It was mostly focused on community (hence the "eco-municipality" billing), and I'm beginning to realize I am more interested in the business side of sustainability. The real joy was spending time with my fellow students away from the classroom.
We spent Friday in a workshop with Torbjörn Lahti, author of The Natural Step for Communities, and toured a primary school with an "eco-school" emphasis. The kids were incredibly friendly, and it was really interesting to see how the school incorporates social and environmental aspects into its everyday plans. For instance, we got to see the kids have a "school meeting" where they raised and voted on issues of concern. That day's main concern was that someone was peeing on the toilet seats. After some discussion (all facilitated by the kids, aged 6-12), they voted and decided that everyone should always sit down on the toilet seat. Very amusing!
Friday night was delightful, with a delicious smorgasbord that included moose stew. Now, one of my main goals while in Sweden was to see a moose, but I decided that this didn't count. On the other hand, I can speak highly of moose as a stew base. I stayed up way too late playing cards (a vicious game of spoons that was called off after blood was drawn, hearts, and spades).
The next morning, we got back on the bus and spent the next 7 hours traveling to Ammanas, which is only 120 kilometers from the Artic Circle. On the way, we stopped at a beautiful spot, where I some of the only picture of the trip (I'm counting on the other photographers to capture the basic stuff) and spotted a group of reindeer by the side of the road. We arrived tired but happy on Saturday night and settled into a lovely hostel. Once again, the sky was clear and the moon provided enough light to cast a shadow. The temperature, having steadily fallen from when we left in the morning, was -30 degrees Celsius when we stepped off the bus, but it was dry enough that you didn't notice it so much.
That night we were served a reindeer concoction that reminded me a little of the kebab med bröd meals we get here in Karlskrona. Afterwards, I participated in a time-honored Swedish event—the sauna.
I tromped down with Lisa and Ann to join some of the other students in the sauna behind the hostel. In all, about 12 of us could comfortably fit in the sauna (one you got over the near nakedness of the others—most people were wearing just a towel), which was cranked up to stifling and damp with steam from water thrown over the coals. For once, it was fantastic to be so hot and sweaty. After about 15 minutes, as tradition dictates, you run out of the sauna and throw yourself down into the snow and roll around, then get back up and dash back into the sauna for another round. I wasn't sure I would be up for the snow-rolling adventure, but I thought "when else will I have the opportunity to roll around nearly naked in the snow on a -30 degrees night?" So I tried it and it was amazing!! In all, I did four rounds of snow-rolling—about the average for our group. The next morning I discovered that I had scraped both of my knees on the icy snow, but at the time I just noticed a little stinging (which, compared with the overall shock of plunging into the snow, was barely noticeable).
I didn't get back into the hostel until nearly midnight. After talking with the remaining group in the dining room, I headed up to bed. The next morning I skipped breakfast (ahh, sleeping in!), but joined everyone later for a little craft shopping and lunch. We piled into the bus for the LONG ride back, but enjoyed visiting a local artist and her husband first. It turns out that she's quite famous—having designed the back side of the 10 kronar coin, as well as a bunch of other coins and sculptures. We then got back in the bus and got a little tour of the town from Osvald, a Saami guy who has started his own horse-tours of the area, which I will try and convince my family to do in the summer.
Finally, a little past 4 p.m. (but what seemed like the middle of the night, since it had been dark for hours—in fact, the sun never made it above the mountain at all) we set off for the journey back to Karlskrona. Almost immediately, we saw moose—which just made my day. In fact, it was a mother moose with two calves (the calves were as big as a regular horse) by the side of the road, so we got to see the whole family.
The rest of the ride was fairly uneventful. Incidences of note include almost hitting another moose that decided to dash in front of our bus. At over 1,000 pounds, a moose could do serious damage even to our giant bus, so we were VERY thankful that we missed it. We also stopped for another car in the ditch, which had driven off the road in the snow (which went from gentle flakes to near blizzard conditions as we drove south). Other than that, it was your typical bus ride home—late night stops at fast food places, cramped attempts to sleep, movies where you only catch every other word.
At any rate, the bus generously dropped some of us off at Kungsmarksvägen at 5 p.m. Roya, Jess, and I made dinner together and then proceeded to make some sense of unpacking. I realized that I had left my alarm clock at the hostel in Ammanas (there was a little shelf under the bunk bed that was out of sight unless you were lying in bed, and I just forgot to retrieve it after I took a shower and packed). I'm hoping that I can call them tomorrow and have them send it back down.
Fortunately, laundry day is tomorrow, but I will be surprised if we can get even half of our stuff washed. We don't have any classes until Wednesday, so we can do a full recovery tomorrow. So far, my preliminary check of email indicates that our small group's plan to hold a workshop with Tarkett on Friday has been thwarted. This is both good and bad—we weren't really prepared, but we will also have to miss class on Monday (the alternate date they proposed). I also discovered that I don't need to have a conference call with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) people tomorrow, but will try and reschedule for Thursday or Friday.
I managed to walk down to Willy:s and restock my groceries. How nice it will be to wake up tomorrow morning with choices for breakfast!!
