kareina

Thursday it was only four of us for the Frostheim meeting, but it was all productive stitching time for three of us (and lord_kjar entertained us by playing the violin, which he was bringing along with us to Göteborg for the weekend, since it is *much* easier to travel with than the nyckleharpa). We had to leave after only 40 minutes, since the next stop was the airport, where, it turned out, our flight was delayed, so we could have stitched for longer. But I used the wait to do my yoga, so it was ok with me. We finally landed late enough that rather than bothering with public transit we just took a taxi to C's apartment, and I was asleep not too long after we got there.

Friday morning I woke up around 08:00 when C's alarm went off, and after my situps we three had breakfast together before she needed to head off to a class (which had originally been scheduled for earlier in the week, but had gotten moved at the last minute). After she left lord_kjar worked on the cloak for a bit, but then were both feeling tired, so we laid down for a nap. I think I expected to sleep for perhaps 20 minutes, but it was three hours later that either of us woke up! I think I had been burning the candle at both ends a bit too much in the week before.

After the nap we had time to cook an early dinner and then take the tram out to meet C and head to her folk music session/lesson. Their group is around 12 violins, one flute (C), one guitar, and a banjo. lord_kjar, of course, joined them with his violin, and I worked on the cloak (not only did I not bring the dulcimer due to being too big to easily fly with, but I don't learn new songs as fast as they were going through them, so I wouldn't have been able to play anyway).

After the music session we went downstairs to the folk dance class and joined them, and then stayed afterwards for the open folk dance session afterwards. I danced some with lord_kjar and some with C, but they also wanted to dance with one another, so I asked a random man standing nearby if he wanted to dance, and he said yes. He was a fairly good dancer, so when he made no move to go dance with anyone else I kept dancing with him, for a number of dances in a row as that seemed easier than trying to find another partner (since most people there seem to dance a number in a row with a same person).

In the short pauses between dances he chatted with me (in Swedish) about music and dance, where I came from, and asked why I was in town. When I explained that there was a "medeltids envenmang" that weekend he asked for more information, and then asked for more details about the local SCA group than I could provide. Therefore I brought him over to lord_kjar and C, who were taking a break to eat some food, and let her fill him in. In the process he managed to not make a very good impression on lord_kjar, when he replied to hearing that one of the SCA activities was armoured combat with a joke about bondage (but I didn't understand his comment, the whole conversation being in Swedish, and I don't have those words in my vocabulary).

After C and lord_kjar finished eating we went back in, and I danced with one of them, and then the other, and then they danced with one another again, and since there was no one in the room at that point who wasn't dancing, I danced alone for a few songs, before the same guy asked me to dance again, so, of course, I said yes. Towards the end of the evening he said he needed to leave, and asked me for my phone number, which really surprised me, since nothing about him really caught my interest, and I didn't feel comfortable giving it to him, so I explained (truthfully), that I prefer email to phones since my hearing aids makes it much easier to understand speech when I can see the person, and gave him one of my less used email addresses.

After he left a really good looking man, with lovely long dark hair, with silver highlights, and a pretty dark & silver beard came in, and C pointed him out and strongly recommended that I dance with him, since he is a good dancer. This sounded like a very good idea to me, and much more appealing than the random guy I had danced with earlier. It is funny how, while physical beauty shouldn't be important, it does make a difference. I am certain that some people would find the earlier random guy attractive--he is reasonably tall, and reasonably fit, but his short hair and clean shaven face combined with something I can't define in his manner made him totally uninteresting to me.

I did manage to get in a couple of dances with the pretty long haired man, who does, indeed, dance very well, but we didn't really talk much--my Swedish isn't up to leading a conversation, and he didn't ask questions. Then it was time to head home. On the way home C told me that the pretty long haired man comes from somewhere else, perhaps Ireland or the UK, she couldn't really remember. That could explain the lack of conversation--we were speaking in Swedish--perhaps he also isn't so comfortable driving conversations in that language. And, of course, my ear for dialects isn't good enough to have realized from listening to him that he isn't a native Swedish speaker.

Saturday morning we got up early to head to the SCA event (which actually started Friday night, but had we tried to go out to the site after dance we would have arrived *really* late). We went out to catch the tram, which would have taken us to another tram, and then a bus, which combined would have gotten us to site 1.5 hours after leaving the apartment. However, when we got to the tram stop she checked the phone app that shows the schedule of the recommended buses/trams for the journey, and it announced that the schedule for one or more of those buses/trams had changed since she did the query and now we would need to walk some blocks to another stop, and once there the changes would have us at site nearly half an hour later than planned. We discussed it, and opted to just take a cab, which got us to site in only 30 minutes.

The event itself was very nice and relaxed. I did some work on the cloak, led some dancing, chatted with people, and was really flirted with by a girl who, while caressing the silk of my dress (and the curve of my waist), explained to me how wonderful I am and how beautiful, and how the colours of my gown are perfect for me, etc. I loved and appreciated the attention, though I wouldn't be interested in the girl, since she is a snus user (and I think she smokes, too, though, perhaps, that was just her friend) and has rather more piercings than I find appealing, but it still felt good to be thus showered with compliments.

After the feast we went out to the hot tub for a bit, afterwards I went straight to bed, since I didn't feel inclined to wriggle back into the bliaut (it is *really* comfortable to wear, but not so much fun to put on or take off). As a result I woke up early enough to go for an hour walk in the morning before breakfast, which was really nice. A pretty, misty morning--barely able to see the cute Swedish farm houses and their stone fences as I passed them on my way up the hill.

After breakfast on Sunday we caught the buss and trams back to her apartment, where we had just enough time to change into presentable modern clothing, pack up the SCA stuff properly for travel (and in C's case unpack and put away her SCA stuff), and make and eat some food, before heading into town to the opera house.

It turns out that I still haven't seen an opera--while we had discussed seeing one, the things playing that day led to C choosing the musical, Crazy about You, rather than the opera. The play was done in Swedish, which meant that I couldn't follow the plot as well as one would wish to. While I can understand lots, and do ok when a conversation follows expected patterns, I wasn't able to follow all of the plot twists--just the ones that were really clear from body language and use of archetypes, etc. However, it was a musical, which means I enjoyed listening to it anyway, and was amused by the costuming. (Who dreamed up the cowboys and Indian themed show girl outfits? the girls had long Indian feather headdresses over red and white striped cow-girl skirts and blue sequin tank-tops with a star on each breast, while the boys were dressed in cowboy style outfits which were also heavily embellished with a red, white, and blue sequined ornamentation involving blue with white stars and red and white stripes.)

After the play they had second dinner, I did yoga, and we relaxed and hung out for a while. Eventually I went to sleep, and they chatted for another hour or so. The alarm went off at 04:00 on Monday, which gave me time to do my situps and pack the last minute things (my pillow and phone chargers) before catching a taxi back to the airport. No one else sat in our row, so I got a nap on the flight, and then we went straight to work from the airport.

Monday evening was Finnish class, and tonight was choir, where, of course, I worked on the cloak, bringing the total to 139 hours so far. We are both looking forward to tomorrow evening, when there is nothing at all upon the calendar.