lydia's musical adventures in Sweden, 2012–2013

A Thursday evening excursion into Uppsala for this wonderful concert and dance at V-Dala. I had not encountered Ulrika Bodén before and was very impressed with her musicianship and stage presence, if perhaps not properly appreciative of all the nuances of her songs in Ångermanlandsk dialect. I did love their selection of Christmas songs, all of which were unfamiliar to me except a couple of common texts we’ve learned about in class. And I am happy to report that they are just as wonderful on the CD, Allt vid den ljusa stjärnan.

One of the “friends” in the band is the inimitable Niklas Roswall — who said on stage that having a row of ESI students in the audience after spending the day teaching us about dominant chord progressions made him think, hmmm, I wonder whether they are noticing that 5-of-5 chord going by…

I think their dance set afterward was the first time I’ve danced to moraharpa — fun! and lots of great slängpolska tunes. Also a nice set by a student duo on fiddle and bass, and a rousing final set by the large and enthusiastic V-Dala Spelmanslag.

On the way home, our usual path became a snow globe, with enormous soft flakes, and we tried to take pictures that would do it justice. I’m afraid you’ll have to use your imagination.

…and all other Lydias, at least the ones in Sweden and Norway. (In Latvia my nameday is January 16th.) Evidently we don’t actually celebrate such things here, though the word puzzle in today’s newspaper featured my name, and I’ve gotten a couple of nice email notes. My favorite finding on the subject: in Sweden there is (of course?) a committee that reviews the list of names every decade for any needed maintenance.

[thanks to s-blommor.se for the pic]

It is now officially winter! The snow seems to make the train schedules a little erratic, though I’ve been lucky so far. Happily, the roads and paths are well cleared. On Saturday I went to Stockholm to play with Anders again (yaay!) — all layered up in case the promised 15–20°F temperatures coincided with stranding me at a train station somewhere. Proud innovation moment: my travel pants, which in summer are notable for their converting-to-shorter-pants and having-many-large-pockets features, in winter make excellent snow pants! So I donned my 3 pairs of pants and 5 shirts plus sweater and coat, and was perfectly toasty warm. (Except for my hands, which are expecting higher-grade mitten technology soon by special post from Mom, yaay again! Though also it would be smart if I’d remember to keep my mittens on when taking photos.)

On Sunday I took advantage of the lovely sunny day to go for a little walk, so here is a little collage with some of my pics. That beautiful late-afternoon sunlight was between 1:30-2:30pm.

(Click to enlarge, click again to zoom.)

Our first real snow of the year started on Wednesday, was footprintable by the time I emerged from the main house after class at about 5:30p. It’s pretty much been snowing ever since.

In which Tobo becomes a Christmas market for one Saturday afternoon, yaay! The only indoor venue (or possibly the only one I discovered?) was our main hall, which was full of handcraft sorts of vendors, mostly — jewelers, knitters, weavers, a glassblower,… And then from here, the booth space continued around our grounds, down the cute little road toward the ironworks factory, and within the factory grounds. Everyone brought their kids and their dogs, and seemed to be having a fun day of it. I’d been wondering whether I should try to get to a julmarknad I knew about farther away, so I was pleasantly surprised to have one was delivered right to my doorstep.