Pope's visit in Lund

This Monday we expected chaos in Lund. The Pope visited the cathedral for a big event commemorating the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. Both Catholics and Lutherans participated. The service was not open to the public but it was broadcast live on Swedish Television.  We didn't know what kind of crowds to expect so many of my commuting colleagues (and myself) arrived at work very early that day. In the end only about 5000 people showed up outside the cathedral. I had to drive the storage round and on the way back I very nearly got stuck when the police started closing off the access roads to Lund. I just about made it through before they blocked the road.

The university library did actually contribute to some extent to the Pope's visit. A few weeks earlier they called from the security department and asked if we had some books to lend out for decorative purposes. Before the church service the Pope was going to meet the Swedish royal family in a separate house which needed to be decorated. The book shelves there were empty so we lent them about 15 boxes with relatively good-looking books from the 19th century. I hope no one looked too closely at those books because they were mainly on German Protestant theology...

Two days this week we had an intern in the stacks. We already knew her because she works hours as weekend/evening staff. She helped us retrieve books both in the stacks and at the storage. She was, like most people, impressed by the electronic compact shelves at the storage. She also though it was a little scary to operate them, as the entire block (7 meters high) moved at the same time.

Saturday my father and his girlfriend came to visit. We went to the nearest mall as they needed to get some shopping done. It turned out to be impossible to find a glass bowl that was big enough for punch. It's apparently not in fashion at the moment. They ended up getting a large keg made of glass instead. I was also able to stock up on groceries and was daring enough to get an orchid as a house plant.

Illness

Monday I drove the storage round and then attended a meeting. After this I had to go home. My throat was sore and I knew very well what that meant. Many of my colleagues have been sick and now it was my turn. This was really annoying because my work calender was full and we had arranged a bowling evening on Tuesday. I missed the opening of the renovated lunchroom also. I had to cancel several things and if that wasn't possible, force someone else to take my place.

I have had a severe cold with body-ache and high temperature. It was more like a flu. I was at home for three days and worked a few hours Friday. I'm still not well. It was incredibly boring to sit at home doing nothing. It's amazing how low the quality of the TV shows is in the daytime. Because of my fever, my brain didn't work well enough to solve crossword puzzles. It was truly a bad week.

Fall weather

The leaves of the trees are changing in color and it's very pretty. The rain storms are not pleasant, though. It's cold in the mornings and I have already started wearing my winter jacket.

It has been a rather ordinary work week. I have spent many extra hours at work because of that new database with Swedish-American newspapers. One other colleague was also interested in this and I tried to help her with searches. She has recently started doing research and she has already found several emigrants in her family tree.

This past week there was a choir festival in Lund. Two colleagues are members of a choir which performed in the large cathedral this Thursday. I attended (as did several other colleagues) and it was a very nice concert with sort of melancholic tunes.

Saturday I went to Lund but not to work (very unusual). I had to go to the optician as I need new glasses. There were many frames to chose from and I made a preliminary decision. I need to get my eyesight checked also, but they didn't have time until next week. While I was in Lund I also went to two of the thrift stores and some other stores. Had a salad lunch and then made some purchases in the expensive chocolate store. They have a very nice selection, it's hard to resist.

New database

There is a new database out that is very interesting. We have been waiting for it for quite a while. It's digitized Swedish-American newspapers from 1850 and on to about the 1930s. Coverage varies a lot. The database is hosted by the Minnesota Historical Society and it's free to search here: http://www.mnhs.org/newspapers/swedishamerican. I have spent many extra hours at work this past week to search this database and I have found many clues, both for my own research and other's. I was able to find information about an early emigrant for a colleague. I noticed that this database is also good for finding information about events in Sweden because these Swedish language newspapers quoted the Swedish press. We have very few or really no databases of this kind in Sweden, so this can be used for locating very local news from the 19th century. The actual text is interpreted with OCR software which makes it easy to text-search (even though it sometimes gets it wrong, it's a marvelous tool). I found several news items from my hometown, some were about house fires, auctions and the renovation of the church in 1948. Pretty amazing to find that in an American-based newspaper.

At work we waited for the announcement of the Nobel Prize in Literature. It turned out to be a rather surprising choice this year, Bob Dylan. Nevertheless, it took three minutes before the first book about Dylan was requested from the stacks. It's the same thing almost every year.

This weekend I made a visit to the nearest mall to get groceries, basically. There were high winds and I didn't dare to go on any longer trips. I have also spent a lot of time with the above mentioned research, because this new database has made me dig up several old cases.

Lots of shelving

The second work week was even more straining than the first. I had to do double desk duties, two storage rounds and on Friday afternoon I went with a colleague to the storage again to do some much needed shelving. We are constantly lagging behind with shelving. It is incredibly boring and we all hate it. The only good thing about this was the discovery of four missing books in the technology section. We have also had a service done to the electronic shelving system and now the shelves are much better to deal with. We had a lot of problems with it, the shelves got stuck and we often couldn't retrieve all the requested books.

At work many of the people on my floor had been ordered to move their offices. The exact reason for this has passed me by, but I heard the order came from the management and it was not negotiable. I am one of few people that didn't have to move. This past week it was pretty chaotic with lots of people carrying their desks(!), chairs, computers and work materials to other rooms. It will take a while to learn where everybody has their new offices.

This weekend I was pretty tired and didn't do much. I went to the local grocery store and then made my own pizza for dinner. I cheated and got a ready-made kit with dough and tomato sauce. I had tomatoes, feta cheese, chicken and bacon on it. In my opinion it turned out great. Over the weekend I have also done some reading. One of my friends has written a book about an old church near my hometown in northern Skåne. It was very interesting to read. He and the co-author had produced a very detailed account of the history of the church (which is believed to be from around 1200 AD).

Back to work

I survived the first work week in quite a while. It wasn't a great shock to come back this Monday but it was still pretty tough. Lots of people came bringing tasks and questions for me and there were large amounts of emails to check. I had to drive the storage round twice during the week and also fill in for a colleague on vacation. One of the weirdest questions I got this week was if we could lend out 20 shelfmeters of nice-looking books for decorative purposes for a special event in late October. I think we can answer yes to that, but we have to discuss it a little bit more first.

This weekend I have mostly rested, but I spent a few hours of Saturday in Helsingborg. Had a nice lunch at a 1950's style cafe and then went to the mall. At home there is now heather in the flower box on the balcony. The tomato plant is still alive and I will probably be able to get another four tomatoes from it. We are preparing for the dark season here. It's about 15 degrees and the rain storms have started to come. I removed the balcony furniture and made some changes in my closets.

Trip to Amsterdam

I attended a meeting at work this Wednesday and while I was there I booked another trip. I went to Amsterdam Thursday. It's only an hour flying time but of course the waiting time is rather long. I arrived in late afternoon and took the train in to the city center. I walked down the main street and did some shopping pretty soon after getting there. I got a top at C&A, which is a rather cheap clothing store (it's also in Germany). The souvenir shops sell all kinds of things relating to typically Dutch items, for instance clogs, windmills and tulips. I walked to the hotel further south and checked in. The standard was acceptable and I got a good room facing the back of it, so it was quiet. I rested a short while and then went out for dinner. I ended up at Hard Rock Cafe, which turned out to be situated close by the hotel. The hickory ribs and chicken combo was very tasty, and it was the first time I had that at HRC. On the way back to the hotel I bought a waffle with chocolate. The bakeries seem to have many incredibly sweet goods to sell there.

Friday I got up early and walked to the Rijksmuseum. It opens at 9 and I got there a few minutes later. It's a newly renovated museum with some famous paintings. One of them is the Night Watch by Rembrandt. It's a very large painting, guarded by two people in uniform. I was particularly interested in the 17th century paintings and looked at some by Ruisdael, Vermeer and others. I also walked through the other galleries with 17th century dolls houses, Delft porcelain, old coins, furniture and many other paintings. It was a huge museum and I couldn't see all of it. What I did get to see was interesting, though. I walked further south to a market street and spent most of the afternoon looking at the goods for sale. It was everything from fresh fish, fruit and cheese to scarves, clothes, souvenirs and toys. There were three stalls where they had plus size clothes, and those stalls also had the stores behind, so you could try the clothes on. I bought some tops here, some of them at a very affordable price. On the way back to the hotel I had a meal at a pancake house, a large pancake with icecream and strawberries. Pretty good. At the hotel I rested for a while and then went back out again to look in some other stores. I found a shoe store with large sizes and was amazed by the 25 racks with my size, but sadly the shoes were not wide enough for me. My feet are both big and wide, which is a problem. In the evening I had a nice pizza with smoked salmon in a small and very noisy restaurant in the tourist area.

Saturday it was time to return home. I got up early and walked up the tourist streets to the train station. When I got there I saw signs saying the trains to the airport were cancelled due to construction work over the weekend. The instructions on how to get to the airport were not the best I have seen, but in essence I first had to take a train to another station and then go on replacement bus. So there was no bus service from the main station, which is remarkable considering the amount of tourists in Amsterdam. I'm glad that I'm used to travelling because I could figure this out. At the airport, getting through the security checkpoint was an ordeal, to put it mildly. The lines were very long and it was not a practical arrangement. I remember hating this airport already in the 1990s, when I had to change planes there to go to the US, and I'm sorry to say that it is still how I feel about it. It was not a pleasant experience. Of course the gate was as far away as it possibly could be also. I finally arrived back home in the evening, pretty tired. 

My visit to Amsterdam was rather nice but I was not impressed by much (Rijksmuseum excluded). I have been in a lot of cities and Amsterdam was not a surprise, since it resembled Copenhagen. The large number of canals made it difficult to cross over to the other side, if you saw a store you wanted to go to. The trams and the huge amounts of bikes made it a special place, and the night life seems to be very hectic. I can understand the appeal to some extent, but I think this was my first and only visit to Amsterdam.