I've come to Sweden to look at and document the work of Sigurd Lewerentz. Yesterday I traveled from Helsinki to Kemi by train. I left early in the morning and chatted with a friendly woman until Tampere where I changed trains and continued on to Oulu. Frost quickly turned to snow as I watched forests and trains full of logs go by. At almose every station there was a beautiful brick semi-circular roundhouse. Each with a wooden platform in front to rotate the trains and send them from the tracks into the sheds. I sat next to a boy of about 10 who was traveling with his younger twin brothers. From time to time he would ask me something and I would have to remind him that I didn’t speak Finnish. He asked if I was Swedish because I was reading Lonely Planet’s Sweden. I told him I was “amerikkalainen” which he promptly reported to his two brothers. With what little Finnish I know and the "american" he knew we managed to have a staccato conversation punctuated my repeated admission “Mina en ymmärtää.” and his giggles. When he saw me reading Moominsummer Madness ‘in american’ he told me they had that book in Finland too. He was delightful company. Any hesitation or fear to speak another language completely disappears with children and I was reminded of a wonderful conversation I had with some Belgian children last spring in Normandy. They were curious about what I was sketching and told me about the cours de dessiner they had taken in school.
I reached Kemi at three and walked a block from the train station to the bus station. The big clock on the wall had no hands and made me feel like I was very far away. I wrote a postcard while I waited for the bus that would take me to the border. I walked ½ kilometer right into Sweden and onto another bus bound for Umeå. It was 14:00 local time and the sun was already giving up the day. Three more hours and I was finally in Luleå. I collected some Swedish kronor and some dinner and went to find the bus to the hostel. Vandrarhem Kronan, the hostel, was the last stop and I got off and walked into the woods. It was at the end of a lane and lights were lit in several of the windows. I rang at the door...I rang again....and again. Nothing. There were two phone numbers on the door and after some fumbling through my guide book for country and city codes I called various combinations of both but to no avail. My Finnish phone does not work here in Sweden. Eventually my disbelief turned to acceptance and I walked back to the bus stop. The bus had just gone and the next one wasn’t for an hour. Taxis didn’t seem to make it out this far and I debated walking back to town but decided it would be worse to be lost than to wait it out. I bundled up and paced up and down the snowcovered sidewalk to keep my feet warm. I passed the time talking to myself, half laughing and half scared by how vulnerable I suddenly felt. Waiting in subfreezing temperatures for over an hour feels like a real accomplishment. The bus finally came and I climbed on to warm up. Back in town, I walked to a hotel recommended by the guide book and rang the bell. When a girl finally answered she told me that reception was closed for the evening and so they wouldn’t take any more guests. It was just a little after 21:00. So off I went to find another hotel and I took the first room I could find. It is expensive and tiny but looks out over snowy rooftops and has the most wonderful bed. I had a glass of wine and checked e-mail before going to sleep. A message was waiting for me from the hostel. It said “Welcome!”
The train to Gävle is booked until tomorrow, except for the sleeping cars which cost more than this little room, so I’ll stay on another day and go see Gammelstad. It’s a 16th Century church town, built where Luleå used to be when the sea was 10 meters higher. Uplift from the receding glacier meant that the town had to move to stay next to the sea. Gammelstad is a UNESCO World Heritage Site with over 400 little cottages. At the train station I was warned that a big storm was coming. It’s already snowing and the wind has kicked up but I’m assured that I can seek shelter at Margaretas Wärdshus, a cozy 200 year old café next to the church. It sounds perfect. Wish me luck.
