nordic currents

[Urbino dukal palace] Palazzo Ducale, magnificent building, pillars, different kinds of stone, lots of old paintings and an unerground.

[Grape to remember] Nero D'avola is a possibly Sicilian grape to remember. Regaleali is such a wine. Buy it. www.tascadalmerita.it

[Monument builders] Every man of power has a need to raise a monument to himself. Of course, formally it may be for the glory of some god or for some public benefit, but the real reason is for the man of power to have a nice, brilliant monument so that people will remember him when he dies. Or her? How many female monument builders are there? It was easier before. One just invested a large amount of ones holdings in a huge tomb like a pyramid and then instructed ones servants to place one there after death together with ones most precious belongings. One fact along the same lines is that communism, despotism and monarchy generates far more splendid buildings than democracy. Rulers that spend too much on unnecessary buildings will certainly not be reelected.

[Heard unsaid prayer] The Gods had mercy and strangely heard my unsaid prayer. The breeze is back, more powerful than ever, and with clouds. The afternoon room temperature is endurable.

[Adriatic breeze is gone] The adriatic breeze has abandoned us. Too bad. I wonder what saint or roman god that is responsible for starting it again. I would consider visiting a temple of such deity to make breeze offerings.

[Italian mountains] Every respectable Italian mountain top has a castle with small village. Today we have paid visit to 3 of them.

[Le bruschette] Le bruschette, which basically is a big sandwich with lots of stuff on, in my case mozzarella, pesto genovese and ruccola, turns out to be really tasty.

[Riminian night] Riminian night. Magic trees lit by soft street lights. Lots of people. Tea freddo limone at la Cantinetta, one of a million ristorantes. Soon we will be sleeping without sheets and with wide open windows. Rimini will dance for a few hours more.

One nice way to waste a body is to do Venice in 6 hours.

Venice Guggenheim Museum. A statue by Antoine Pevsner called Developable Surface. The Sea by Mondrian. Dark brown lines on light brown. Domenico Gnoli, Sleeper No.2, oil on sand and canvas. Some known Picassos. Yves Tanguy, better than Dali? Umberto Buccioni, Materia, huge praying troll mother surrounded by dark light painted in dark colors. Other names not to forget, Carlo Carra, Ardengo Soffici and Luigi Russolo. The latter creator of The Solidity of Fog, very blue. Magritte, empire of light. As always in this kind of museum only about one out of ten paintings is worth looking at but that one makes it worthwhile.

Airconditioned bus to Venezia. We are supposed to see Venezia in just one day. Supposing it is nothing but a tourist trap, that it will be incredibly hot and that it will be filled with tourists just like us it makes sense. Otherwise I guess we'll come back another year. Anyway, it will be an extraordinary experience.

Ariminum was the roman name of this place that they founded more than 2200 years ago. Then it was a strategic place as base for further expansion nothwards and later as harbour. It wasn't until 150 years ago or so that bathing in the adriatic just for fun was invented. Now the beach is endless, well structured and is filled with happy vacationers. Now this is Italy so the beach is really crowded before lunch. After 13 all the italians go home for lunch and siesta and only some return later. Now this again is Italy so lunch as well as dinner at any restaurant is a pleasant experience. This far we have been highly satisfied with every eaten piece. Only hotel breakfast is somewhat boring. And, as now, enjoying a glass of Trebbiano before dinner, nice indeed.

Sore feet is a disturbing side effect of walking the shores of the Adriatic.

An unknown mile is always longer than a known.

Rimini seems to be at its best in July. Hordes of Italians don't arrive until August so beaches aren't that crowded and the weather is nice. Keys can be found, a place on the beach is just 16 european monetary units and, best of all, despite picking the closest beach we haven't seen a fellow swede busser all day.

God bless the Adriatic breeze.

Waking up in a bus descending from the Brenner pass into Italy is a pleasant experience to say the least.

Dinnerstopping somewhere between Kassel and Wurzburg with two options. Big Burger or McDonalds. There is also a restaurant called Jagdhof but itis closed: Of 50 bussers only 3 checks it out. The whole thing is a solid reminder of the essence in western civilization. Fast trash. Sad but enlightening.

Slowly flowing through Germany on a three lane autobahn.

Doing the bus thing from Malmoe to Rimini. Mostly old people with some exceptions. Just as expected. 2 hours already managed to pass by. God bless our new portable MP3 CD player.

At La Empanada in Malmoe fast food reaches a new level. Latin american food, cheap, plenty and tasty. Located in the shadow of St Petri it is a perfect lunch or low ceremonial dinner choice after or before the downtown stroll.

Things to know about Formule1 hotels: cheap at 310SEK per room, breakfast is NOT included, breakfast is french, WC and showers in the corridor, the light in the corridor is intensely bright during the night, people mostly stay one night and it may be neighbor with McDonalds which is good after the pub.

Now we are down at the new semihip seaside area built for an apartment fair in 2001. To the south is a beach with a forgotten name. To the north is the harbor. At the other side of Oresund the skyline of Copenhagen raises above the waves together with a bunch of wind power plants forming the horizon of the sea that starts to the left with the new nice bridge. Clouds obvious signs of rain adds some spice to the scene. The sun that were here a moment ago has now solidly got into hide. But still - its all nice..

Malmoe Art Museum. Bertil Gado - paintings from the city - long thin people with long faces. All in brown and bleak green with the occasional yellow and blue.

Kommendanthuset in Malmö offers an exhibition about Mah-Jong. Not the tile game but the swedish sixties clothes manufactuer. Lots of interesting stuff about the relation between politics and fashion.

Waking up in grey Malmö is not paradise. Swedish summer at its worst. Lucky we are leaving for Italy at saturday.

[6810] Finally I got my Nokia 6810 to send emails. Only 4 calls to Vodafone support was needed... This will probably result in more posts here - especially when travelling. That is - if this mail-to-blogger thing works. This is the virgin post.

Watched fantastic David Lynch mystery Mulholland Drive this morning. It is one of those movies that makes you think it over and over again. What did really happen and in what order.. There are a bunch of intertwined stories and they are not ordered fully chronologically. All in all a great movie.

One would think that yet another vampire movie is just one too much but then Underworld comes along and changes ones opinion. This is action set in a dark mythical world that makes me think of Blade Runner. The kind of movie you have to see just because of the poster. As always with action movies there are too much action for my taste. And the story is predictable. But it doesn't matter. The setting is amazingly beautiful and makes you forgive everything else about the movie.

Now that Jaguars look like Japanese plastic - or even worse like a Volvo - we have to take a closer look at Maserati.

Ok - so you are 30 something. You lost all your friends due to a massive change of class going from a charismatic baptist subculture into the boring mainstream of nobodies. Now you are alone. One thing that is nice is that noone cares about what you believe. One thing that is not so nice is that noone cares about what you believe. So you got your freedom of thought at the expense of increased loneliness and intense lack of roots. Now - is that a good or a bad thing?

The only way to get to Novistrana is to buy the PC game Republic. I did that today and I am both satisfied and disappointed. It is a far too slow game for my taste. You have to wait too much for things to happen. But. The whole idea is very nice..... A couple of years (say 7) ago I would have been totally fanatic about it. Now I think it is boring....

I just recently bought the album For Father made in 2002 by Stephen Simmonds. It is approaching the listening intensity of Maxwells Urban Hang Suite - the best compliment I can make.... This is soulfunk when it is at its best. The last track (More To Do) may be the best - starting out softly the groove slowly increases and at its peak its just so good. Another favourite is Let Me Touch that just grooves on from the very start. The duet with Dilba is memorable too. Just cant wait for the next record. To be released 9/13 according to his web site.

My brain is an infinite storage of unnecessary information. But when storage is needed it fails miserably. I - for example - remember about 5% of the short history of Italy I recently read.

Have resumed playing the massively multiplayer online roleplaying game known as eve online. It is immensely beautiful but at times infinitely boring.

A group of 30. No real formal leader. What happens? 30 is too many to have just one leader so 3 to 4 persons arise as leaders of smaller groups. Somehow they manage to bring the whole thing forward despite poor formal leadership. Who will get credit for potential success in the end? Maybe it doesn't matter much cause the group itself knows who made a difference. That will be the lucky star of the future for some.

Tuija Lindström exhibits at Liljevalchs. A rather disparate exhibition where climax is magic but some works are just boring. Four magic moments:

• In the first big hall there is amazing black and white pictures from what may be North Africa. At first sight one of the photos looks like a scuplture.


• In the next room is 8 (?) fractals made from some plant. If you get very, very close to them and then just lose youself in them you get a cool floating experience.


• The most magic part of the exhibition is 4 pictures of a nude woman floating in water. The water is black and the light is just enchanting. Not sexual at all but amazingly beuatiful.


• One small picture calls "1984" gets my attention - it depicts a factory or modern building and it is looks kind of pixelated resulting in a very modern impression. Nice.

Then there are lots of other pictures. The "look at us" series are pictures from a trip to Lithuania. Neither nice nor evil. In another room are pictures of semi nude people sleeping outside in the bushes. All in all - this exhibition is well worth the 50 SEK.