Goodbye Stock-home!

It happened: I walked out of a ministry building onto the bustling tourist walkway of Drottringgatan and realized that I was done. Done with case study interviews. A lot of feelings at once competed to express themselves. Luckily a pack of twenty people wearing "I heart Stockholm" shirts passed by me at that moment, just surreal enough to pull me from what could be some sort of embarrasing outburst in the middle of downtown Stockholm. Why do people travel in coordinating outfits? Why? This is not the first instance. In Ostermalm the other day I saw eight Swedish girls dressed in kimonos? Blue kimonos with that massed produced hawaii -inspired theme. You know the one. But why on a Kimono? And why on eight little girls, their blonde hair pulled back into stiff ponytails? What discursive messages are at work, I ask?


It seems I've drifted onto something that was not the point of this post at all. I feel compelled to write some sort of ode to Stockholm, to the little time I've spent roaming her streets, looking for important people in buildings with codes to get in (everything has a bloody code here, everything).  So here's to you Stockholm. Here's to your locked doors and special codes (because if you don't have the code, should you really be there?). Here's to your tall tanned men with their hair slicked back with hair gel (oh so much hair gel). To that pop song that kept playing all summer (jag kommer, jag kommer!) --the best rendition of which was performed at three in the morning by a gaggle of drunk teen girls on the tbana. To the fact that the sun happened to be rising at the same time, and to Johan let me fall asleep a little bit on his arm even though I had locked us out of a party for half an hour (n.b: every door has a lock and code). 


Here's to roommates (Johan and Sabina) who were willing to try my crazy Canadian cuisine and who even had the audacity to like it! Here's to Johan's unbeatable dance moves and Sabina's great taste in Northern soul. Here's to Stockholm University students (Moe, Helene, and Kyle)who let me crash their laundry parties and political parties and taught me how to play Kubb (see illustration below for clarification). 



Here's to turning professional relationships into evenings spent with cans of Folköl by the lake in Haninge, and afternoons in grassy parks (of which there is no shortage in this fair city!) Here's to  discourse prosodies,Adam Curtis films and so many spoonfuls of instant kaffee. (Rivalled only by our scandalous consumption of fil) 


Here's to hearing my first ever Swedish rendition of Ani Difranco songs, thanks to the acoustic talents of Annelie. And here's to all the politicians, policy-makers, disability activists, civil servants, project leaders and so on who replied to my carefully worded e-mails and calls,and  taught a little Kanadensiska what disability policy in Sweden is all about (well, we'll see if I actually learnt anything won't we). 


It's been wonderful and I'm sad to move on. But adventure beckons. I'm heading south, soon to be rejoined with the Margaret Mead to my Ruth Benedict. You know who you are, Lyns.