On the road to the North, 3

It was Swedish National Day and we google-maps-planned our further trip connected to the sole socket in the sole open café in Östersund over breakfast. We turned west and drove towards Norway into the Fjäll area. Both used to the Bavarian Alps, we were beyond excited about the flat, snow-covered mountains we were looking into since Östersund.

We visited two awesome waterfalls (Tännforsen and Handöl), had our usual lunch and went for several little walks throughout the area, seeing 2 rabbits and 1 fox, as I extract from Marco's travel diary, where he noted down the animals we encountered. For the night, we decided to stay at a camping site, the first and only time during our trip. I guess after the world's coldest bath in Storsjön the other day we just really craved a hot shower...

On the road to the North, 2

On day 2 we visited Carl Larsson's house, one of my favourite things in Sweden, so wonderful. We drove on along the shore of lake Siljan, which is famous enough for its blue color to have, well, a color named after it. Lunch was in Rättvik on a really long jetty that went far into the lake. It was the food we would consume 95% of the time. Bread, creme cheese & sliced cheese, topped with dried tomatos. Bread, creme cheese & orange jam for dessert. Oh yeah, and then we got ourselves cinnamon buns for second dessert. I took a photograph of the hill on one side of the lake and after a while, a house there catched fire. I was so excited that the picture I took of it came out all blurry.

We loved this part of the trip. We drove all the way to Östersund through magnificent landscape. The photographs are taken late in the evening, the sunshine felt unreal.

Our place for the night! Storsjön, a little south of Östersund. Definitely the coldest water I ever had a bath in, and that means something. This was also the darkest it ever got.

On the road to the North, 1

My friend and former classmate Marco came to visit me from Munich in the beginning of June, right after Konstfack ended. We spent a few days in Stockholm and then we set out on a week-long roadtrip to the north of Sweden. Our route was vague in the beginning, we just picked things throughout the country that we thought would be fun and decided to make up our way accordingly. The first stop was Falun in Dalarna, home of a famous old copper mine. A side product of this copper mining is the red color so many Swedish houses have, as seen in the second picture.

Does one have to write The North with capitals? It feels like it. I wanted to travel there ever since I moved to Stockholm!

After the spring exhibition, the Konstfack year is ending and summer holidays, or now in my case, life AFTER, begins (in Sweden, the university year goes non-stop from September to May followed by three months of summer break). Before, there is one final big day of festivities.

There is a big meal in the great hall, every house department is attending and has own tables, which have been individually decorated. Each department also has its own food theme, ours was Swedish midsummer buffet.

After the meal, our department (just like a lot of others, apparently) traditionally makes its way to a park nearby school to hang out until the big party begins in the evening. Which inofficially started at Konstfack's roof, until everyone (including professors) was banished by the building complex' security and the doors were locked.

The night progressed. An avid observer will by now have realized that there's really only one kind of glasses you are allowed to wear if you want to work within the field of art and design here in Sweden.

At some point someone might or might not have become a bit obsessed with finding a rumoured secret way back to the roof to watch the sunrise from there. Success ensued, and the night ended with watching the sunrise.

In the morning we tiredly made our way home, falling asleep at the various bus and train stations we had to pass to reach our beds. Damn living so far away in a house in the woods! At least there's a considerable number of nice company getting there. Konstfack, I will miss you loads.

A thing that probably never happened in this house is someone staying hungry for long. Very pleasantly, the creativity of my housemates (friends/schoolmates) extends into the kitchen. All come from different areas of the world and all tend to prepare food in large quantities at a time.

None of them is much of a baker, so I´ve been trying to cover that area. They used to refer to me as the master of baking, just because none of them knew any better. I was actually just following recipes. They realized that as well once Prang moved in, who is indeed and truly a master of the baked good. I had to give away my title, but didn't mind much, because now, there practically wasn't any time at all left where you couldn't find something delicious on the kitchen table.

Behind our house I am forgetting the existence of my camera's manual focus wheel. It can't be worse than Instagram though... so never mind!

At Aum's nice balcony in Liljeholmen.