Warships and Runners and Songs in the Rain

Saturday 12th May was all go in Gothenburg. Sometimes weeks pass and nothing much seems to happens, and then you get a day like this.

NATO ships in Gothenburg harbour with Ramberget in the background, originally uploaded by Gothenburg Observer.

Warships!
First off, NATO is conducting a naval exercise off the coast this week, and most of last week the fleet was in port here (on a good-will visit and to bunker up I suppose). Apparently there were more than 43 warships involved, including the British navy's HMS Ark Royal. Only the lighter ships with shallower drafts got all the way up the river to anchor in the old Free Port area just opposite the opera house. (The others, including the aircraft carrier, stayed out at the deep water container port at the mouth of the river). But the smaller ones were quite big enough: grey, prickly looking, faintly menacing and clearly observable from the high road and bicycle bridge that links the city with Hisingen. I saw them from the tram window as I came home on Friday and decided I had to go out and take pictures.

Of course, the visit did not go unnoticed. There is a song by one of Gothenburg's most beloved sons, Evert Taube, which describes the effect a British naval visit had on Gothenburg's female population once upon a time:

The English fleet has been sighted off Vinga,
Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!
A thousand little sailors that we're going to conquer
Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!

But that was then. Today (whatever the private feelings of the younger ladies of Gothenburg) the visit was not exactly celebrated. There were a number of protest actions and meetings during the week and over the weekend. On Saturday there was big demonstration (reportedly up towards 3000 people) that started off in town at midday and ended up at the Free Port at two. I had thought to document that as well, but domestic chores (Saturday is laundry day) interfered.

Runners!

By the time I got out, the protest was over and instead the roads were cleared for the next big event of the day, the Götevarvet, the annual Gothenburg half marathon, which was being run from 3 p.m. The name Götevarvet (or GöteVarvet), is a pun in Swedish: 'varv' means a movement in a circle (one revolution), and the race is run in a circle around the city and around the river. But 'varv' also means a shipyard (compare 'wharf' in English, which comes from the same root, even if it doesn't mean the same thing). Gothenburg used to be an important city for shipbuilding, and though the yards are almost all closed nowadays, their memory lingers on, and the route of the race takes the runners past most of the old yards.

So, as I was out for the ships, I decided to snap the race as well. That was when I discovered I had left the memory chip from my camera at home. I could only take 15 pictures on the camera's built in memory. So there was a lot of snapping and then scuttling off to shady spots where I could check the quality of the pictures and erase the ones I didn't want. The shade was necessary because the sun was out and the display screen on the back of the camera is difficult to see in strong sunlight.

It's always fascinating to watch other people exerting themselves, don't you think? I don't run myself (two knee joints in less than mint condition), but I don't begrudge other people the pain they seem to delight putting themselves through, and in public too!



Incidentally, Götevarvet is sponsored by a certain sports shoe manufacturer and so the route of the race is marked on the road by a line which imitates the sponsors' company logo. This involves three times as much paint as necessary, so I do hope the sponsorship covers more than just the cost of the extra paint. And that the paint is environmentally friendly.

Songs!
And still the excitement continued because on Saturday evening it was time for the Eurovision Song Contest. A. and I were invited home to a friend for this most Swedish of occasions. No, seriously! A meal, a bottle of wine, and snacks in front of the telly as we listened to one god-awful banality after another. Five days later, writing this, I can't remember a single melody - probably just as well for my peace of mind - though I do recall some of the staging. So we listened all the way through and commented with increasing volume on the quality of one song after another, and the consensus of the party was that Sweden's entry was the best. (It seemed most diplomatic for me to go along with this at the time.) And then we voted.

Oh yes, I spent actual money phoning in my votes for the Ukraine (the only people who seemed to take the whole thing in the right spirit) and Bulgaria. I think I may also have voted for Hungary - was it a blues number? Then the votes from the different countries started to be announced. Our Swedish company became progressively more and more subdued as nobody (but Norway and Denmark and a grudging Finland) gave them any votes at all. My suggestion that Sweden grant independence to Jämtland and Skåne to ensure at least the possibility of some votes from them, did not go down well. Sometime around the middle of the voting, our hostess nodded off.

Rain!
So we crept off just after midnight and discovered it was raining. In fact, it stared raining hard as we left, so we sheltered in a doorway at which point it started really chucking it down. Our desperate phone calls for a taxi were met by engaged tones, and attempts to flag taxis down simply involved getting wet and wetter, and being ignored. It seemed the taxi drivers were all in a collective sulk about the Eurovision result. Or, I suppose, they might have just had more business to handle that evening. Once a taxi did stop, but we got beaten to it by four other people who emerged from nowhere and four different directions, wrenched the doors open and flung themselves in while we were still dithering in our shelter. We got home eventually at about 3 on Sunday morning.

"Well, at least when people start talking about the Song Contest at work, this year you'll be able to join in," said A. But you know what? No one mentioned it.

Sunday's paper, originally uploaded by Gothenburg Observer.

Above is a collage of pages from Sunday's Göteborgs-Posten, our daily paper. So much happened on Saturday. Anti-clockwise from the top right corner: People protested against the NATO visit; ran the Göteborgsvarvet; saw the Swedish national ice hockey team lose to Canada; saw the Swedish hope for the Eurovision Song Contest go down in flames (18th of 24); saw Serbia's entry win and final (middle picture) were reminded that the East Indiaman Götheborg is on her way home and due to stop off in London next week. There wasn't room for everything in the blog!