the goggles do nothing

Driving from San Francisco to Seattle takes you through Redding, California, where there's an improbable pedestrian and bicycle bridge built by Santiago Calatrava. The Spanish architect came through Seattle a few years ago and gave a talk on his design work. More pictures here.

Here I am with the Swedish Minister of Higher Education and Research, Lars Leijonborg, as well as my professor Lotta from Seattle. Interestingly enough Lars is a big Selma Lagerlöf fan. Each of the Fulbrighters who had been in Sweden this year had a few minutes to stand up and present a summary of their research. Pictures from the rest of the event are online here.

The Spring plantings have started to appear along Uppsala's many pedestrian and vehicular bridges crossing the Fyris river.

Walpurgis (sv. valborg) is perhaps the highlight of the social calendar in Uppsala. The Swedish-language Wikipedia has an entire sub-article on the events of the day, which I’ll copy here and amend with my own annotations:

07.00-09.30 Champagne Breakfast on Castle Hill: Yes, most people are drunk by 7 am. Skipped this.

10.00-12.00 Waterfall Rafting on Fyrisån

The idea here is that student clubs build makeshift rafts and dress up according to a chosen theme (mimes, squid, clowns, etc). They float down the Fyris river and, at the sharp drop by the old mill, go over the waterfall. This usually means the end of of the rafts, but they’re judged on style at the precise moment they rush over the edge, wading out after they come out of the water downriver.

12.00-14.30 Herring Picnic Lunch: Nothing like pickled fish on top of the champagne from breakfast. Skipped in favor of less-traditional pasta.

15.00 Rector magnificus bids welcome to Spring from the balcony of the library by lifting his student cap, signaling great celebration and consequent stampede down Carolina Hill to the Champagne Gallop at various student clubs.

Anders Hallberg, the rector, steps out on the balcony:

…and puts on his hat, the “Mösspåtagning” which signals the arrival of spring:

I stayed for the hat-waving but skipped any and all galloping. An interesting part of Valborg is how it functions as a kind of Alumni Reunion weekend, with older folks who once attended Uppsala blending in with the rest of the student body:

21.00 Curator curatorum (Student Body President) gives Spring Speech on top of Castle Hill, followed by a concert given by Allmänna Sången.

This I did attend, which proved to be quite atmospheric. Representatives of all the Student Nations had their respective flags and banners fluttering atop the hill next to the castle at sunset, while 420-year-old Gunilla bell was rung. The renowned choir Allmänna Sången sang while attired in evening gowns and tuxedos. The tradition of student choirs in Uppsala dates back to the early 19th century, and like many other things in Swedish academic arose under the influence of Germans who came northwards to work. Swedish Radio broadcasted the talk and the concert live from the top of the hill.

The gallery of photos from Valborg is online here.

Some pictures from a walk along the northern edge of Kungsholmen.

A panel on citizen participation in the creation of public spaces in Stockholm. To the left, the moderator Zanyar Adami, former editor of the journal Gringo. Just to the right of the screen is John Higson, an Irishman who moved to Stockholm and decided to try and liven up the cultural scene there. The result was Street, a culture center and marketplace modeled on London's Camden Locks project, transplanted to the Hornstull area of Kungsholmen. Higson was upfront (in Irish-accented Swedish) about the challenges that he still faces trying to improve Stockholm's cultural life -- how much paperwork and how many meetings he has to conduct with all sorts of government offices in order to accomplish a project. It's clear, however, that the Stockholm municipal authorities appreciate his European vision for expanding their capital's cultural life

I walked through Street back in 2004, when the project was just getting off the ground. Even back then, the summer weather brought out a mixture of musicians...

fashion designers...

and sculpture explorers:

This weekend I went on a return trip to Bergen, on the west coast of Norway. I was last there in November 2007, as part of a conference in Migration and Ethnic Relations.

Every trip to Bergen has to include a visit to the Fish Market, which is sort of like the scene of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre for undersea life:

At the Bergenhus Fortress, you can see Håkon's Hall, a 13th-century royal building constructed by (who else?) Håkon Håkonsson.

Like any good medieval building, it's been destroyed and rebuilt any number of times, from catastrophic fires right after the initial construction to the most recent disaster, a Dutch munitions ship exploding in the harbor in 1944, setting the entire complex alight. Thusly the interior is mostly reconstructed, albeit on the model of authentic surviving models further north.

The lower floors, underneath the main hall, feature dramatic architectural vaulting:

The big tourist attraction in the city is the collection of Hanseatic buildings seen at the top of this post -- Bryggen, the Warf. Though these have also continuously been rebuilt through the ages, and though the fronts of the buildings themselves are mainly filled with touristy shops...

...the reconstruction itself has taken place with traditional materials and methods, and seen from the back the complex appears like a window into time:

On Sunday a bank of fog rolled into the bay, covering the buildings in a soft blanket of light grey:

More pictures from Bergen

The winter lights shine on Stockholm's Queen Street.

Eco came to give a talk about his theories of Semiotics as well as his fictional novels, in advance of his receiving an honorary doctorate this week.