The train system in Europe is amazing. That is another post, and all I’ll say for now is that trains are operating very early in the morning. Between Thursday and Friday nights I think I got about 9 total hours of sleep in a bed. I was able to sleep a while on my journey to Stockholm on Thursday morning at 5:30 am. When I got in, I had an exciting and tiring Fulbright day ahead of me. I was barely on time for our 10:15 talk at the Royal Library, sweaty, clammy, and generally disheveled. But the talk was great, despite some awkward mentioning of exploring our navels and trying to make chess references to everything. We were treated to a rare intact book of Pieronaezi (spelling?) copper etchings (? they neglected to tell us exactly what technique was used), and old illuminated manuscript, and some interesting, more contemporary European ’personality’ maps.
We had lunch at a fancy restaurant (Restaurant Pauli), then headed off for a tour of the Hallwylska museum, which was bequeathed to the state after the death of its extremely wealthy owners (they were approximately three times aw wealthy as Alfred Nobel). The wife had made it her life’s work to ensure that the house was left in proper order, cataloging and labeling every item in the house with small circular silver labels. Not obsessive at all… I think my favorite details of the house were: 1) the Steinway piano that she had changed the outside of in order to match the wood inlay style of the rest of the rococo-style room, and 2) the small musicians gallery concealed by a large tapestry in the dining room, into which a small orchestra would squeeze during society dinners despite risk of fainting in the cramped elevated box.
After this, we retreated to our hotel rooms to prepare for the Nobel Award Ceremony, which took place in Stockholm’s concert hall. I had packed my high school senior prom dress that I hadn’t received until the day after the choir’s ball concert, so I was very happy to get another wear out of it. I actually think it fits better now because in high school I was a bit too mannish due to my four years of swim team and short, spiky hair. We walked to the concert house, which was hard enough in our sneakers, never mind what it would’ve been like if we’d word our heels (I don’t know how Europeans do it in winter!). There wasn’t as much security as I’d thought there’d be- they only checked our IDs twice and there wasn’t a metal detector. That may change, however, after the bombing on Saturday… Anyhow, the ceremony was very nice. There were a crazy amount of pink flowers, apparently brought in from San Remo, Italy, and everyone was dressed to the nines, of course. I was sitting in the very last seat up at the back of the right side of the highest balcony, but still had a good view of the stage. I was happy that Princess Victoria was wearing a bright green dress so she was easy to pick out. I guess her sister was still in NY recovering from heart break.
During the ceremony, there was lots of pomp and circumstance- we had to stand whenever the King stood up, there was a trumpet fanfare when each prize winner received his prize, etc. The only disappointment was that there were not more women in the Nobel Committee- I think one of my friends counted only twelve (excluding the wife of one of the recipients) out of the see of penguin suits. Hopefully in twenty years there will be more, as women will have hopefully made more advances in the sciences…
After, we went to a nice Thai restaurant for a private dinner. We took advantage of the free drinks and delicious food, though I was sad that my dress was not stretchy, otherwise I would’ve eaten more! I miss Asian food so much! I will positively gorge on it when I go home for winter vacation!!
Afterwards, we went to a ridiculous club called… Berns Salonger. I’d recommend it if you have a lot of money to blow (eg. a gin and tonic was 114 kr, ~ $16.50), you don’t particularly like dancing, you like dressing up really fancy to go out, and you like creepy guys. Anyhow, it was fun once, but I don’t think I’d go back. The venue itself was gorgeous.
