Scandinavia 2008 - Day 13
This morning I slept late and bought a pizza at a kebab shop on my way to the Rhöska Museum. The museum was fine enough. Out front of the museum workers set up a sound stage. Apparently the town was readying for its large yearly outdoor festival with bands, shows, and attractions. That was then, currently I am drinking some beers at a sidewalk bar during happy hour on the main thoroughfare through town. Later I will go to the Kuntmuseet. But for now I will enjoy my happy beers in the happy sunlight while I watch amongst other things, two old homeless men seated on a bench. While myself and most others around me are engrossed in watching all the pretty people walk by, these two men rarely if ever seemed to see them. They were homeless, unkempt, and wearing coats to thick for the weather, but they sat with backs straight and legs crossed regally, one over the other, as they leaned towards each other in conversation. They were the two happiest and most care-free bums I had ever witnessed. In the course of conversation as one bum made his point, stabbing the air with his stubbed cigar, the other would fold back his thick coat-flap like a businessman reaching for tin of business cards, and he would pull from his thick coat a tall can of warm beer, take a sip, and place it back in his inner pocket. For over an hour each bum took turns stabbing the air, relighting their stubbed cigars, and sipping from their coat pocket. Their long dirty-yellow hair and beards flapping in the breeze.
The Kunstmuseet had a decent collection, including a few nice Albrecht Durer's, but their main gallery was closed for renovations. Thankfully the museum's entrance fee had been waived for the day for the day's festival. Earlier in the day men had been setting up, but when I emerged from the tall brick columns of the Kunstmuseet, I discovered that the talent had arrived to warm up their guitars, chalk out their sidewalk performance space, or to stand-motionless on their painted box in their painted clothes covering their painted skin.
The sun being so bright and warm, I decided to take a walk down Kongsgatan street to the harbor to the see the floating ship museum and adjacent car show. The street was packed with people, Göteborg, a town the size of Wichita, had a majority of its people out walking the street, watching the American Indian Dance troupe, the magic show by the fountain, or just laying on the park grass drinking. After walking the circuit of Kongsgatan, having just caught the end of a cirque du soliet-like act near the harbor, I found myself on the edge of the old city near the market looking for a famous bar. The bar, öl hallen 7:an (that's not a typo) was as traditional as a drinking haunt as there exists today. The dark wood panel walls were covered with portraits of long-gone barflies. It was a small and intimate space without frills, but full of love. People shared rows of dark stained worn narrow board-bars along the wall, just wide enough to hold a drink, while talking and chatting. This place had two purposes, drink and talk. I found the only seat at the only table available in the whole small bar. I worked on my journals and listened to the conversations in Swedish around me. It was the second time today that I got drunk. But now I was hungry and in need a some food.
Further up Kongsgatan I found a café that my guidebook listed as one of the most famous and most traditional in all of Göteborg. I had a nice sandwich and wonderful desert before going back out to listen to a few bands then taking the tram back to my hostel. My feet hurt tremendously, and I needed rest and sleep. Unfortunately the desk clerk girl from the night before was not there.
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