Entropic

...And Micah has a pretty boat too...

Gimme Some Peter Bjorn & John

Jag pratade Svenska med Peter, Bjorn och John. Roligt!

North to Sweden, Pt. One

Yesterday my marina neighbor John was watching me climb around in the cockpit locker of my boat, tangled in battery cables and covered in engine grease. It was the 18th day in a row that I’ve put over ten solid hours of work into the boat. He asked me where I got my motivation; it was an easy answer – in two months, I’ll be sailing towards Sweden, and the boat just has to be ready.

As I write, it’s late in the evening and I’ve just finished yet another 10-hour workday, the 19th now since returning from Sweden on April 1 (‘nothing goes to weather like a 747!’). I left my fiancé Mia back in Stockholm to finish up her university degree and plan our wedding (!). Returning April 1 would give me exactly one month to finish fitting out the boat, a project we started in earnest last summer in Annapolis where we spent three long months living in the boatyard while we took the boat apart just to put it back together again.

Arcturus – our 35’ Allied Seabreeze yawl that is going on 50 – needed some shoring up for the North Atlantic. But we’re almost there, which is a good thing, as I’ve barely a week and a half left before ‘real’ job obligations finally take over and I have to leave town again.

Writing in Stockholm, mid-winter 2011

The plan to sail to Sweden has been evolving ever since we bought the boat in 2008 on the Chesapeake Bay. The story of the sale is an emotional one, filled with serendipitous moments (which I live by). Mia and I took delivery only two or three days before heading to St. Martin for the summer to skipper a boat full of teenagers for Broadreach. Since then, Arcturus has gone through stages of being lived on, worked on, and left under a cover for long periods as Mia and I bounced around between Sweden, St. Martin and Annapolis, trying to figure out how to sustain a life without real jobs. We’d always dreamed of going ocean sailing, but never really had a destination in mind, and didn’t really put much effort into fitting out our boat in earnest, as we had no specific plan. Then we got engaged. As the wedding would be in Stockholm, that became the obvious goal.

Mia, skiing on the ice in the Stockholm Skärgård

I’ve always believed that once you make a decision to do something, the world sort of lines things up in such a way as to make them possible, even probable. Ideas take on a life of their own once they leave your subconscious. Thus began a two-year period of strange coincidences and opportunistic meetings that have given us the confidence to even attempt this voyage.

It’s only recently that I’ve begun studying charts for the route which, serendipitously, were given to me by Yves Gelinas – the inventor of the Cape Horn windvane who circumnavigated via the Southern Ocean in his Alberg 30 – after we met and took up a correspondence. We’ll sail north from Annapolis towards Halifax. If time permits, we’ll cruise the Nova Scotian coast before setting off towards Ireland, the west coast of Scotland and the North Sea. The pilot charts indicate a 50% chance of fog along the Canadian Maritimes in June/July (not to mention potential icebergs) when we’ll be passing through. Once off soundings east of the Grand Banks, we’ll be sailing generally along the path of the Gulf Stream as it branches towards the UK, which may give us half a knot or so. But the frequency of gales is a bit higher that far north, and the sustained westerly’s we should experience are in the Force 4-6 range. I spoke to a friend of mine who sailed that route single-handedly a few years ago; “there’ll be plenty of wind, and get ready to get wet,” was all he said. We hope to cross the North Sea by September before the winter (and the gales) kick in. People ask why we don’t stop off in Bermuda and the Azores, the more typical route across the pond; well, because that’s the more typical route, and we’re up for a challenge.

But today, the North Sea might as well be the moon. Arcturus is coming along, for sure – the engine is mounted again (though not connected to anything), the steering system is on the re-assembly phase, the new sails are being stitched, the Cape Horn windvane is installed (well, almost), and I nearly have a working electrical system. If I think about it, the work that still remains to be done seems overwhelming and impossible. And yet when I think back on the last 19 days, I’ve already achieved the impossible. 

At the moment, I’m exhausted. When we set off in June, I’ll be ecstatic. The idea lives – there’s nothing to stop it now.

grandpa's sthlm

I have not paid for a café latte in ages, and yet here I am. I was told this is the hippest place in Stockholm, and I think I’ve made it decidedly less-so coming in here with my puffy coat on. I look a fool.

I passed a girl on the sidewalk just outside who was wearing a black long-sleeve shirt. It was loose fitting with a wide collar, and I could see a grey v-neck undershirt sitting close to her shoulders. She had black hair and white skin, was entirely too thin and had the worn-down, washed-out look of someone sauntering home after a night spent too late at the bar. Except it was 4:30 in the afternoon on a Friday. It was too cold to be outside without a jacket. I tried to get a good view of her without actually looking. She intimidated me. She was smoking a cigarette.

The two girls behind me right now talking Swedish also intimidate me. One is moving furniture around in the little upstairs alcove where I’m sitting (on an old leather sofa). The other is on the steps, and I cannot see her. This place intimidates me. I don’t belong here, the bastion of hipster fashion in the middle of the city (and literally downstairs from our new apartment in this posh part of town). It’s called “grandpa’s” with a lowercase “g.” They sell new clothing and accessories that are supposed to look vintage (as well as a USB-enabled turntable, to play your vinyl through the computer…?). Hence the name. I thought it was clever.

I ordered my latte extra hot, and felt better about myself after getting a good look at the customer in line in front of me…he had on an even more hideous puffy coat with floppy jeans and old running shoes. I was definitely above him on the hipster hierarchy. But the latte wasn’t extra hot, and never is here in Sweden for some reason. What with the freaking cold weather you’d think they’d like their coffee hot, but apparently not as hot as me.

Today is my day off, my sick day. I was up half the night coughing up pieces of my lung, and was convinced as I fell asleep that I had pneumonia and would wind up in the hospital today. I don’t often get sick, real sick, so I’m not sure how it’s supposed to feel. I think I have a fever and I think my cough is bronchitis because it feels like it’s emanating from my freaking soul, and my snot is green and crusty in the morning so I am probably fine. But what if it is pneumonia? Or meningitis or something? How the heck would I know? What do normal folk feel like when they’re sick? Is it really this lame? Am I just a big sissy for laying on the couch all day? Or should I go to the hospital? I won’t go to the hospital. I am probably fine.

Something Borrowed

(I stole this idea from Dave Eggers.)

Let’s try and write a story. Fiction. Or maybe some non-fiction elements thrown in, but let’s not let the reader know what is what. So it will sound like fiction then.

800 words…no, make it 1,000. It’s easier to write more and cut it down later anyway. About a guy and his dog. But we’ve got to come up with a cool name for the dog, something tough. He’s a skinny dog, but he’s a survivor. He’s fiercely independent of his owner, but loyal to a fault (like all good fictional dogs). He’ll often wander off on adventures, sometimes for weeks – no, that’s too unbelievable – let’s make it days. But he always returns. Sometimes with a new scar or a tuft of fur gone missing, but intact nonetheless. We’ll call him Andor. Andor, ‘the shark hunter.’ No, the ‘bear hunter.’ He’s an Akita. A badass.

But where should they live….obviously near the forest, what with a name like that…’the bear hunter.’ Okay, so they live on an island. But not a tropical one, that’s too cliché (and there’s no bears there). An island in the high latitudes maybe. Somewhere like the Falklands. They’re almost fictional sounding and nobody knows for sure where they’re at, so that should do just fine. But I don’t think there are any bears there. How about Spitsbergen. Yes, perfect. Another fictional sounding name nobody can locate on a map. And Andor can hunt polar bears. Yeah. Andor looks more like a sled-dog, like a husky. But a svelte, tough sled dog, not the pampered, groomed overweight types you see on those dog shows on TV. His coat isn’t quite as shiny, the white bits not so white. Andor definitely doesn’t prance around on his toes.

Andor’s owner is a quiet man, the type that doesn’t speak unless spoken to. But when he does speak, his words are smart. People enjoy listening to him, and he can be genuinely engaging if the subject is one he feels strongly about. He has blond hair. No, that’s too clichéd too. Dark hair, but not quite black. With flecks of gray around the ears, making him look older than he really is. And a perpetual three-day-old beard (it seems that way anyway, because he only shaves every third day or so, and his face is much less memorable without any whiskers). He’s weathered from working outdoors his whole life. On ships. No, that’s too obvious. As a postman. He loves riding the mail around on his bicycle during the warm months, and cherishes the brisk saunters in the wintertime. The locals invite him in for coffee when it’s particularly cold outside (his record in one day was 27 cups). He’s never in a hurry on his mail runs, so he enjoys these visits. The town is small enough that he can easily manage his route in half a day when he has too, but he’d much prefer to make it a full eight-hour work day and really enjoy it. His bosses trust him so much that he works his own hours and makes his own schedule – the mail is always on time, the townspeople forever happy for it. He never runs to catch a train.

Sometimes Andor joins his owner on his daily route. He’s never asked, of course, for his owner knows it must be on Andor’s terms. He might be off on a three-day adventure and suddenly turn up at, say, the local fire department, and continue along the mail route as if he’d been there from the start. The locals like his presence, and only a few of them are fearful of inviting him into their houses, particularly that one prickly middle-aged woman at the end of the street who doesn’t seem to like any sort of wildlife (so why is she living on Spitsbergen?). They skip her house on the mail route on days when Andor tags along. Serves her right, she can wait until the next day to get her mail if she wants to act like that.

His owner isn’t so sure how Andor got his nickname as ‘the bear hunter,’ but he likes it that way. It adds a sort of mysticism to his dog, and in turn to him, the respectful mailman with a mysterious bear-hunting husky dog. At home they sit in front of the fireplace and Andor’s owner drinks red wine at night while thinking about how satisfying is his job as the local postman where he can be friends and drink coffee with the entire town and yet leave their hospitality on his terms and with no hard feelings, because, after all, it’s his job to deliver the mail and everybody loves him for it.

An Interview with a German Named Jens

(Originally written February 17, 2011).

I expected him to be Swedish (what with a name like Jens) and by 10:05 I expected him not to show at all. He did, and he wasn't Swedish. Which was a good thing, because I was getting cold standing outside.

We sat in the library in a "talkative" area inside the main entrance where Jens informed me he'd met friends before while someone was giving a presentation to a group who had nothing to do with them. No such presentation took place today. Instead, I removed my hat to expose a blonde head of hair flush with static electricity. Jens also had blond hair, significantly less kempt than mine. And he was goofy looking, but that didn't affect his eye contact.

We talked about Stockholm Jogging Tours, he and his also-not-Swedish but Spanish friend Jose. Jose and Jens, building a business in Sweden. They would also run Stockholm Cycling Tours, but neither of them were runners or cyclists. Instead they are students here in the city, and I didn't recall what they are studying, but it's not running or cycling or business.

I informed Jens that I wanted to work on a freelance basis, and could help them with web content and development as well as the actual cycling and running, since I enjoy both apparently more than they do. They have a network of others like me (oddly and merely coincidentally also German), so they hope to get the business going in earnest once the snow melts, which Jens mistakenly thought was happening a week ago before the city received another foot of the stuff.

Then I went up to the top of the library. It's square from the outside, but laid out in a circular fashion inside, like the points of the compass. N, E and W have wings filled with books and tables with lights on them for viewing these books, and some tables with plugs for laptops and other lights more suited to an office-style desk. I spend a lot of time at this makeshift office, surrounded by the smell of books and other Swedes, if they are sitting across from me. The S side is a staircase.

It's frustrating in public places here because the public restrooms are spotless and delightful. And this means one must pay for them. There is a slot for a ten kronor coin, and a slot for a five kronor coin and I can't figure out why someone would put a ten kronor coin in the slot when five kronor opens the door just as well. It's written right on there in Swedish, but I hasn't yet deciphered it.

I did some web work, checked my email about one hundred and fourteen times and tried to start writing about Panama, which is much harder than I anticipated (part of the reason I’m not writing about Panama right now, but instead listening to The Streets on the couch while it gets gradually darker outside). The subway was crowded on the way home but I sat down anyway and read my book until I got off at T-Centralen to buy my train ticket to Uppsala for tomorrow. I leaves at 9:30 tomorrow morning, but that's not until tomorrow.

Earlier I chatted with Nate this morning on Gmail who gave me his dad's phone number, who I then promptly called to talk about marriage. With Mia. Nate's dad, Pastor Jim, will marry us in the USA this summer one hour before all the guests arrive for the big party, and probably right around the same time that my mom starts freaking out. I have not told her this yet. Mia and Daniela are sitting in the kitchen writing about tourism and I am going to go take a shower.

Vasaloppet - Öppet Spår 2011...Story to Follow

Today there will be no distractions

Written 18 February 2011

Today, there will be no distractions

10:27 AM: Café Linne

The café has no internet, but I’m glad I chose it over the one on the corner down by the river. This place is cozy in a way that only familiar things are. I walked into the place on the corner down by the river, and it too was cozy, but not in a soul-inviting way. They probably did have internet because they had a small sign on the counter encouraging students to stay and study while eating their sandwiches. My chair is very comfortable, the kind you’d find in a grandmother’s apartment that’s been moved around her various living spaces for years. It’s not overly large like a new watch, and it does not recline, but seems to have been designed for a generation that did not desire large things, like wrist watches, but instead things that were the right size and made you sit up straight, but in a comfortable way. It’s not the kind of chair you’d have trouble getting out of, but one that instead encourages you to remain seated because it was made for that.

I do no remember the last time I was here, but it’s been at least a year and a half, probably over two years at this point and perhaps not since Mia and I last lived here. I will stay her for the morning, having purchased by bottomless cup of coffee which was ten kronor cheaper than a latter, and bottomless. I will get very high on coffee today, but because I plan (desire) to do so, I will not notice my fingers getting jittery, and if I do, I will not mind. I will sleep wonderfully tonight.

This chair is too low for the table. I feel like a six year old trying to sit in the dining room with the adults and feel normal, but am obviously out of place because I can’t rest my elbows on the table in a natural way, and this is probably apparent to the adults I try to mingle with. The computer is slightly above me, almost out of reach, and I have to prop it up on a book so that the keyboard is tilted in such a way as to allow me to see the keyboard. I will not wear my headphones today. I want to go get another cup of coffee, but I will have to push the table away from me to get out of this chair, and not because the chair is the type that is difficult to get out of, but because the table is slightly too high for this type of chair, requiring me to pull it closer so I can sit here and type. Charming, but right now, frustrating. 

I am already high on this coffee. I will drink a lot of it today because it is not hot enough.

10:50 AM:

Two long-haired weiner dogs just walked by the window I am sitting at. It reminds me of the card I got Kate for her birthday, in anticipation. On the front there is a picture of two weiner dogs playing Wii, - it says “Wii-ner Dogs!” I find it hilarious.

11:12 AM:

Coffee cup number three. They are small.

11:16 AM:

I am laughing, out loud in this café, at a photo of Nate sitting before his dessert at the German place in Pompano. His expression is pure Nate.

12:07 PM:

Time to eat lunch. With my coffee spoon, which is very little. Small bites…small bites.

12:33 PM:

Interrupted…by the proprietor of the café, or more likely, one of his employees. He told me, in Swedish, that I couldn’t eat my packed lunch in that café, presumably because they had their own food for sale and I was somehow robbing him of a potential meal sold, despite the fact that I wouldn’t have bought anything had I not even had food. I accepted this, and left. Now I’m in the library and cannot get on the Internet. I stole one of the café’s coffee spoons and finished my lunch with it.

1:26 PM:

I could survive here, in the wintertime, with a bicycle. It would be better than riding the subway in Stockholm. Stockholm is too big, but it’s perfect here in Uppsala. This is my kind of town. Vibrant, buzzing, but small enough to feel like home.

Another café now, and another coffee (a latte this time). Though I was very tempted to get a beer, and might do so before the afternoon is out. I have a seat by the window, on a stool, my computer resting on a bar of sorts, and I’m watching the people go buy on foot and on bikes and with strollers. There are more walkers than cars, another reason why I like this town, and I can see the river flowing underneath a bridge nearby, it’s edges frozen and covered in snow with ducks sleeping on the ice. 

4:04 PM:

Still at Café Magnusson. The upstairs Stork place didn’t have internet, though it was mighty cozy and offered a delightful view of the square through the upstairs windows. I was tempted to get a beer at Café Magnusson, but got a café latte instead. I’ve peed about sixteen times today. The food smells awesome.

4:25 PM:

Lemon Jelly. Oh yeah.

Kungsholmen

Written 25 FEBRUARY 2011

Wow, 2011. It’s weird typing that.

I do not know the name of the café I am sitting at, but I’m at a table by the window which is supposed to seat four, and have a bright view of the gloomy world outside. I’m in Enkoping.

I say gloomy, but it’s really just wintry, with sullen grey sky and snow-covered streets speckled with tiny bits of gravel that often get stuck to the bottom of your shoes and make horrible clicking sounds when walking through subway stations. I managed to speak only Swedish with the proprietor of the café, but then embarrassingly didn’t realize the unique teapot she handed me when I moved to get a cup off the shelf near the milk and honey. 

I arrived in Enkoping on a bus that was ‘ej i trafik,’ meaning not in service. Mia’s friend Bjorn was at the helm though, so I had a private chauffeur all the way from Balsta. He was remarkably friendly despite his armful of tattoos (or maybe because of them?) and we conversed about skiing, snowboarding and weddings. His band (with seven members and two female singers) will play at the party in June. Bjorn has just returned from a snowboarding trip to Norway on Monday, and will set off again next week in hopes of becoming a ski instructor there. Bjorn has never skied before. 

---

Yesterday we ran towards our new apartment on Kungsholmen, much closer to town and in a much livelier neighborhood. It will be within walking distance of the Boomerang Hotel, the one and only Australian bar in all of Stockholm, and Kristian’s choice of watering holes, which I discovered two nights ago. We were not running specifically to check out the apartment building, but it was a convenient detour en route to the Alpint ski shop where my brand new cross-country skis were being re-glued back together after the base began delaminating from the ski. I discovered this to my chagrin on Sunday after 25km of skiing (and was going to quit before realizing the bus would not be leaving for another hour – so I set off again, my right ski dragging behind like a snow plow where the base had come off). And I skied two days later as well, for several miles on the frozen water of Stockholm’s archipelago, a route that Mia had discovered, and quite likely the most beautiful sporting I have ever done. On the ice!

The day before our running excursion in town (which also saw us take the watery route to the south of Sodermalm – we ran beyond the marina docks and mooring balls where several sailboats remained frozen in for the winter, jogging oddly close to a green channel marker right in the center of the normally wide waterway), I met Kristian at the aforementioned Boomerang Hotel, and oddly enough, enjoyed a couple Weihenstefaner weissbiers with him and his girlfriend Malin. Kristian (a Swede) is an old acquaintance whom I met on my 21^st birthday in Wellington, New Zealand – almost two years to the day of when I’d meet Mia and Johanna, the other two Swedes who had an obviously bigger influence on my life. When Lindsey, Mara and I continued onto Australia, Kristian followed a few months later, crashing at our apartment along the Brisbane River for a week on his way south (or north?) along the east coast of Oz. Which, I suppose, is why he likes the Boomerang Hotel (though they did not have Cooper’s on offer that particular evening). 

We ran across a large bridge in the city, the same one we traversed twice during that dreadful Stockholm Marathon of a few years past. Mia informed me that ‘if I want to kill myself, this is the bridge to jump from.’ Okay. At it’s apex, hundred of locks were shackled to the guardrail, and this is also apparently the spot to ‘lock your love,’ – many of the locks were inscribed with couples’ initials and a small heart in the center. Okay. But most remarkable was not the bridge, but the waterway below. From atop our lofty perch (for the highest building in Stockholm is the TV tower – the bridge provided a nice view), you could make out the routes of the ferries and working boats still active despite the season. The whole of the archipelago was frozen in save for narrow channels cutting throughout the city – broken chunks of ice littered the channels, which were lined on either side by snow-covered plains of very frozen water. Oddly enough, this scene seems okay, what one might expect of February north of 60º north. And yet upon further reflection at the top of that bridge, I found this stark winter scene incredibly beautiful and utterly amazing. I do not want to take for granted my winter experience here in Scandinavia, but it’s easy to do so, the ease of transportation throughout the city frankly astounding given the conditions. 

The thermometer has not risen beyond 0º in the three weeks (as of today, actually) that I have been here, and we’ve received about 30cm of snow in the same time frame. They do not plow the streets in the city, save for the major thoroughfares, and this is flatly accepted. Bits of dirt and gravel are spread on the sidewalk, but essentially the snow removal is dealt with by cars and walkers tramping down the newly laid snow into something one can (carefully) walk and drive upon. Vehicles here are required to have winter tires installed past November, which have small metal nubs in them providing traction on the snowpack. Most runners wear a similar style shoe in the winter, and the few brave cyclists on the streets do the same with their tires. The snow just doesn’t melt here, and people (I guess) learn to live with it. I, for one, have learned to enjoy it (but get odd looks when I pass people wearing my barefoot shoes when out running in -8º temperatures).

---

I have little more than a month remaining here, and lots of wedding to plan. I just remembered that I must go to the Park Astoria hotel here in Enkoping today (part of the reason I came) to book some rooms and do some recon for Mommom, Pappap, Scott and Laura. We’ve covered Bjorn playing in the wedding, so I can check the music off of my list. Check. 

I thought I Could Ski...

9 FEBRUARY 2011

And finally brother after while

the battle will be over.

And we shall lay down our burdens!

And study war

no more.

I learned to listen to Moby while writing in 2005 in Australia. Living on the Brisbane River put me within a ten-minute bike ride to the University of Queensland, where I "studied" (two days per week). The library there was ultra modern and sterile, white and glass everywhere, with high ceilings and convoluted staircases. It was akin to an old-world city, with labyrinthine hallways, a distinct departure from the expected orderly rows of musty stacks and brown card catalogs.

I often sat at one of the public computers, which being a Mac, blended well with the white motif. The essay had something to do with tourism – that is what I studied there – but specifically I don't remember what. Moby's hotel.ambient was my background music. It was mellow, it blocked out the background chatter and distractions and it didn't have repetitive beats or catchy rhythms to break my stride. Instead, the music tended to help me into a trance-like state, where only the writing existed, kind of like the feeling one gets on a long run, when the only conscious thoughts are each step on the road in front of you, and you no longer feel the niggles and pains in your body. It's delightful.

And so it has been every time I sit down at the keyboard since, and so it is now. The same recording, over and over again, yet never getting repetitive or intrusive, but rather inducing the opposite effect of allowing me total immersion in the task at hand.

I sit on the couch in the apartment near Globen, in Stockholm. It's cold outside today – my hands became numb on the walk home from Gamla Stan just now (carrying a box of wine). The sun remains low in the sky, but intensely bright, and lingering for a few extra minutes each day as it marches north again towards the spring. The boxes I used to wax my skis on Saturday are still sitting on the floor of the living room. I had good intentions of taking them to the storage unit in the basement. Hasn't happened yet.

Our window overlooks the other apartments across the way. They're a dull off-white with a slight yellowish tint, with a bright red tiled roof, sloping to a peak just enough to slough off the newly fallen snow, but not so much as to resemble an Alpish chateau. Beyond the first building, which is three stories high and rectangular in shape, rises the upper floor and the rooftop of another building further along. This one is of a similar style, but smaller, narrower. At this time of day, the yellowish walls – which are tinted ever-so-slightly darker than our immediate neighbors' – reflect the light of the setting sun, giving the structure vivid depth, and starkly contrasting the deepening blue of the background sky. For an otherwise nondescript city-ish backdrop, it's unusually beautiful.

Monday, 7 February 2011

I skied for the second time today. It takes forty minutes to get from the apartment to Agesta friluftsgarden – five minutes walking up the hill to Skarmarbrink t-bana station, a few stops on the train, then a bus ride from Farsta to Agesta, and a two-minute hike through the parking lot to the snow. Nobody speaks to me or looks me in the eye on the train or on the other public transportation. Not because I'm American and feel odd and out of place (my own doing), but because people here don't speak to or look at each other in the eye either. They are not unfriendly; in fact, it's decidedly the opposite. But people here generally mind their own business if left alone, and everyone seems to like it that way.

I have no idea how one is supposed to look while cross-country skiing. I'm perfectly happy getting dressed in spandex to go on a bike ride back home (though I haven't yet taken the plunge and shaved my legs, thankfully) – this is the norm, and I fit in. Before researching my skis though, I didn't even know the sport had two distinctly different styles – "Classic" and "Skate." Classic skis have no metal edges and operate kind of like walking – you plant your weight on a foot and a pole and 'kick' forward, gliding onto the other foot and transferring your weight. Once the glide slows, you kick with the other side, being careful to coordinate the weighted side and the pole side so as to be in sync. The skis remain parallel to one another and you generally ski within a marked and groomed track, as if you were a train riding on pre-set rails. This is called the 'diagonal kick' style. On the flats or slightly downhill sections, you simple stand there and pole your way through the snow, though using more of your abs than your arms to do so. On steep uphills, you herringbone, which, when attempting to do quickly, produces comedic results for the beginner, at least this one.

'Skating,' on the other hand, is exactly what it sounds like. The type of skis required for this sport (for it's different enough to be considered as such, in my mind anyway) have metal edges like the downhill skis I'm used to, and the action is very similar to the action one takes when trying to traverse the lodge area of a mountain to get to a lift on the other side. Except (as with the classic style) your heels are not attached to the ski, providing more flexibility, ostensibly. This, to me, would come quite naturally after having spent half my lifetime on downhill skis, perfecting the lift-line traverse. Of course, for Vasaloppet, I ignorantly chose the 'Classic' division.

I was well prepared for my first outing on my own – I had my backpack loaded with my camera, my water bottle, a banana and a thermos ("it keeps things warm, it keeps things cold – how do it know!?") full of mint tea. I had on my long underwear beneath my running tights (I've since learned that, like cyclists, cross-country skiers prefer spandex as well, to my delight) and the blue fleece I bought 4 years ago in New Zealand. I wore my black running hat on my head, and a blue handkerchief around my neck, which made me feel like a bank robber from an old western movie.

Agesta friluftsgarden is a recreational area to the south of the city. In the summertime it's a golf course surrounded by woodlands that have a criss-crossing network of running trails and those fitness stations you see sometimes back home (with monkey bars, pull up rings, balance beams and the like) that no one ever seems to use. In the winter, the running trails and cart paths magically and brilliantly turn into skiing tracks. They're even lit up at night.

With each new snowfall, someone (presumably employed by the government and paid with socialist dollars) comes to the area and grooms the skiing trails, though not in the same way an alpine resort is groomed. The trails cater to both the skate and the classic styles of skiing, and are groomed accordingly. The machines are tractors that drag behind them the grooming mechanism, not unlike the tractors that groom a baseball field prior to a ballgame. The grooming device has two parts – in the center, the snow is leveled and groomed much like an intermediate trail at an alpine area, leaving the trademark 'hero snow.' This is for the skaters. At each edge, the device cuts two skinny-ski-width tracks, about half a meter apart, to fit the average stance of the classic skier. These are the 'train tracks' that the classic skiers follow, and the combination groomer allows both styles to share the same trails. For classic skiers on the loop trails, one track is generally used for the slower skiers, while the other is the passing lane. The 'skaters' stay in the hero snow in the middle.

I wrongfully assumed that the area was primarily a golf course, with the ski trails a novelty addition. But I forgot that in Sweden, winter can last more than half the year, and skiing is far more socialist than golf. Golf requires hefty greens fees; skiing is free for everyone. This became obvious as I sauntered through the parking lot and onto the snow (the marvelous thing about cross-country skiing is that the boots feel like slippers and have designed flex in the sole so as to be able to comfortably and confidently walk in the them. Indeed, I left the apartment in them and wore them on the train. The binding mechanism is simply a horizontal metal bar the diameter of a thick piece of spaghetti on the toe that clips into a rather minimalist binding – which, incredibly, was mounted on my skis at the Intersport store in Sodermalm in less than an hour, while I waited and with no appointment). On the far side of an open area adjacent to the parking lot was a starting gate of sorts, two large pine logs stuck into the snow with a banner strung between the two. Next to this was a large map posted on a wooden billboard, eye level, which showed a topographic map of the surrounding terrain and the trails that criss-crossed it. Next to that was a hefty wooden picnic table.

I laid down my skis in the snow next to this supposed starting gate, a few meters from the right-most tracks (which had obviously not been groomed in some time. It's been warm in Stockholm lately, the snow melting during the day and re-freezing at night, providing the conditions you'd expect given that scenario). I cinched my backpack straps tight so it wouldn't flop around, clipped into my bindings and set off towards the forest track. It was flat, so I utilized the poling method, which is precisely what it sounds like and not significantly different than using ski poles on an alpine slope to keep your speed up on the flats spots. And I promptly fell on my ass.

The day before, I was watching skiing on television at the apartment. We don't have cable (not many people in Sweden do), so we only get 5 or 6 channels. Invariably (in the wintertime anyway), one of those channels has skiing on it. Despite the fact that the broadcast is in Swedish, I'm mesmerized whenever this comes on, and watch it intently. That day was a Swedish championship of sorts, where the top finishers would advance to represent Sweden in the World Championships. They were performing the classic style (as opposed to the skate style, which is usually what the biathlon competitors – another winter sport constantly on TV – use), and I watched intently to try and learn something. I discovered that they rarely use the diagonal kick method, but instead thrust themselves forward with remarkable energy only using their poles (through their abs). Only on the slight uphills do they use the diagonal kick – the course had more severe uphills, and here they broke into a herringbone jog of sorts, effortlessly floating up some pretty steep inclines.

The run up to the finish line was a long flat section, and these guys were flying, slamming their poles into the ground, thrusting forward with their shoulders and bending past horizontal to get the full force out of the motion. As they extended their arms to prepare for the pole plant, they'd rock forward with straight legs onto their toes (remember, your heels are not attached to the ski, making this possible), then with the forward burst of the pole plant, propel their hips forward and glide down the track, their weight centered on their feet and the skis. I absorbed all of this in an effort to maximize my own training sessions, for in less than three weeks I'd be setting off for 90 kilometers of racing in a sport I'd only done just once (for three km, with Mia on Saturday).

With this extension-and-heel-lift thought in my head, I dropped into the track, extended my poles, rocked forward onto my toes and exploded forward. I immediately lost my balance, my feet getting way out in front of my center of gravity and fell ass-backwards onto the snow. Trouble was, the snow was ice. The tracks that are cut by the grooming machine get rutted over time with use, as you'd expect – the ridge between the grooves (basically the space between your feet as you look down to your skis) had become a solid block of rock-hard ice, and my tailbone met this ridge with fervor. Recall how difficult it is to get to your feet the first time you fall on alpine skis. This remains the case on cross-country skis (they are so freaking skinny!). My instinct was to jump up immediately and 'walk it off,' curious, really, to see if any permanent damage was done. But I couldn't get up. When I finally did (very awkwardly), I brushed the snow off my tights and my knitted gloves and took stock of my situation. Nobody had seen me, I don't think, so that was reassuring. I hadn't even reached the forest yet, and it was only 100 meters or so away – I was barely through the start gate, bruised, embarrassed and a heckuva lot more nervous for the Vasaloppet than I was three days before as I was packing up my new skis in the living room of my dad's house back home.

I recovered from my overconfident crash and stepped back into the tracks, only after looking around and making sure no one was watching. This time I kicked off much more tentatively. After a few graceful diagonal kicks, I felt pretty comfortable. My skies glided well on the flats and seemed to have good grip when I wanted to kick. I got going towards the forest where the track abruptly narrows from an open field into a five-meter-wide trail. As I approached the entrance – passing one of the aforementioned workout stations when the trail is used for running – I rocked up onto my toes again, planted my poles and pushed off, confident that I'd get a nice boost of speed into the woods. And fell on my ass.

The same thing happened – I was overzealous in my pole kick, my feet got way in front of me, I lost my balance and down I went. The ice was, incredibly, harder than my first tumble, and I fell on precisely the same spot, the right side of my tailbone on the boniest part of my butt right beside the nice soft parts of my cheek. It really hurt this time, and again I was covered in granulated snow, particularly my hands, which, with their knitted gloves, seemed to attract it. Again I awkwardly stood up, and again I nervously glanced around to see who'd witnessed this buffoon trying to get ready for a fifty-five mile ski race. I'd hardly gone fifty-five feet.

I decided that little heel-lift, toe-rock maneuver was a little advanced for this beginner, and I abandoned all thoughts of the race I'd watched on TV the day before. Even more tentatively than the first time, I headed into the forest.

The first stretch was actually quite pleasant, and I surprised myself by getting into a quick rhythm despite my false start. To my right was a steep hillside covered in thick brush, while on my left was a few sparse, leafless trees that opened onto a frozen lake (actually part of the archipelago, which ultimately leads to the Baltic and Atlantic Ocean). In it's center, the lake had been plowed (probably by the same socialist employee who groomed the ski trails – and socialism is bad again because…?), and people were walking their dogs on the ice and skating with their kids. I could see a large U-shaped section of plowed ice – it seemed as though they hadn't plowed an oval or a rink, but a path that looked as if it extended far beyond where I could see, a trail on the frozen lake much like the ski trail I was enjoying at that moment. Mia later told me that with such a long and cold winter, Swedes just learn to accept and enjoy it. I could see why.

My trail quickly turned to the right, inland. I was met with my first short, but very steep slope, and practiced herringboning (is that a word?) up it. Though not nearly as graceful or swift as the guys from the TV, I made it (without falling), and emerged onto a plateau of sorts, deeper into the woods. The trail was well-marked with green signposts every few hundred meters, a markers after every kilometer. The snow in the tracks was rutted and icy, but in the forest either side of me appeared fluffy and untouched (though I imagined it was crusted over with a hard layer of ice due to the fluctuating temperatures of late). At least it looked nice.

My plateau quickly began its descent. On alpine skis, I'd have had no trouble, would have looked forward to the decline and the rush of speed. On skinny skis, with no edges and trapped in the deep tracks made by the groomer, with my heels unattached and my poles suddenly way longer than I was comfortable with, I was terrified. Apparently I'd done a reasonable job of waxing my skis on Saturday, because I accelerated down the hill (which, even at the time, was no more than a bunny slope, if that), with more speed than I cared for, my arms extending out to the sides and my pole tips scraping the ground in a futile effort to control my speed and maintain my balance. Thankfully it leveled off with a long straightaway and I managed to stay on two feet.

On the flat sections, I practiced the diagonal kick method, focusing on my mantra (for all things, really), of 'slow is smooth, and smooth eventually becomes fast.' I'd get into a good rhythm, kicking off my right foot, gliding on my left and vice versa, getting up a good head of steam before completely losing it when I'd neglect to shift my weight sufficiently and my 'kicking' ski would slide right out from under me. At that point I'd stop, repeat my 'slow is smooth…' mantra and get back into the groove. This worked.

After three kilometers, my confidence was high. I was kicking and gliding with relative ease. I knew I was still a beginner, but there were fleeting moments when I felt like I was 'flowing,' when the effort was effortless. I must stress that these fleeting moments were indeed fleeting, but I felt them and they gave me confidence, and that's all I need. After six kilometers I accelerated down a slope which I knew had a flat runoff and I burst out of the forest and back towards the starting gate where I'd fallen on my ass (twice) less than an hour before. By now, I was a different skier.

Next to the maps was that aforementioned picnic table of thick, rough-hewn lumber. I kicked off my skis and unstrapped my backpack and sat down to enjoy my mint tea and my banana. The area was quiet – I distinctly remember thinking how wonderful it was to be so close to the capital of Scandinavia and yet feel completely removed from the city, and I thought how wonderful it was to be in Scandinavia, and I thought how wonderful it is that not too many other people feel the same way and that this place, which I am very close to calling home (though never truly will, for my home can only exist where I grew up), is far enough removed from the typical tourist trail to remain unique and appealing.

It had only taken me 45 minutes to complete a six kilometer circuit of the forest trail. I wasn't feeling particularly tired either, and there was plenty of daylight remaining. 'I can totally do this Vasaloppet dealy, no problemo,' I thought to myself. I packed my bag (after taking a few solo photos of myself) and set off for towards the golf 'bana.'

Where the forest was quiet and closed, the golf course was spread out and open. It was an enjoyable change of pace. I poled my way across an open stretch leading from the parking lot where I initially began, up and over a few hillocks and down again through a flat valley. I found it unreasonably comical that whoever maintains the golf course (seemingly someone other than the socialist-paid groomer of the ski center) does not remove the pins – there they stood, proudly sticking out of the snow, their red, white and blue flags indicating the hole positions relative to the greens.

Someone else, apparently, maintains the signage for the ski trails. I shortly came upon a junction in the track – to the right and up the hill was marked the '5KM Trail,' while to the left and straightaway was the '8KM Trail.' Seeing that I'm about to tackle 90km, I chose the latter. The golf 'bana' track was decidedly hillier than the forest track. I was passed on two occasions by two guys out on their own. They couldn't have been much fitter than me, but their technique was obviously superior. They sped by me with such ease as to make me wonder if they were using a different wax (which is quite possible).

With two K to go, I noticed another bunch on my tail. The trouble I have with cross-country skiing is that I don't know how to shift gears. I find it easy enough (relatively) to maintain an easy pace. If I get in the groove, I become reasonably comfortable with the diagonal kick method and can keep my momentum up. I practiced getting just as horizontal as the racers on TV and using my abs to propel me on the flat poling sections. I just don't know how to accelerate. When I run, or swim or bike (the three propulsive sports I am most accustomed to), I can quite easily shift into a higher gear (literally, on the bike). If I'm off on a good run, I can increase my cadence to the point that my feet are literally flying over the ground and I get the perception that their not even touching. On steep hills on the bike I can shift into the small ring, stand on the pedals and dance my way past most of the amateurs I (used to) ride with. I'm definitely not a fast swimmer, but relative to my cruising speed, I know how to accelerate and go faster for a stint.

Not so with skiing. No matter how I try, I simply cannot go any faster. I can't even tire myself out – it's as if I'm running on a treadmill that will only go to number 6 when I need it to go to number 11. Somehow, in my (obviously) poor technique, I am missing out on the ability to accelerate and go faster, even for short stints. For me, it's either stop or go. There is no in between.

So when the couple with the dog that appeared with 2K to go started making headway on me, I had no defense. When I run or bike in a group I can't help but be in the front – first of all I hate being stuck in the crowd at the back; but worst of all, my competitive side can't stand following anybody. I have to be out front, have to be the leader.

When I used the ride with the Annapolis Triathlon Club, I'd always position myself at the front of our twenty-man peloton near the base of one of the steep (but short) hills along the Severn River. My good friend Brian and the bike shop manager Joe would usually be flanking me, and we'd all up the pace ever so slightly in anticipation of the jolt that was to come as the slope increased. The hill came in two parts, a short, steep burst at the bottom where we'd all stay pretty much even (though pushed the pace so that by it's finish we were in the red). Then came a very brief respite, a tiny flat section not more than few meters to flush the lactic acid out of your thighs. The road immediately turned upward into the steepest, longest section – this was where the moves were made. I tended to wait until someone else made the jump, then latched onto their wheel, stayed there for a few seconds, and jumped to either side, accelerating past them and up and over the crest of the hill, in front of everyone else. I was throttled by the top, scarcely able to breath, and took the next five minute descent to recover as the pack caught up with me. But I was first over that crest, and my ability to accelerate when I needed it was never in question, and I earned respect from my fellow cyclists for it. I was king of that small hill, and they knew it.

On skis, I'm a commoner. I was passed three times over 8 km, by guys I never even saw coming and scarcely saw after they'd passed they were gone so quickly. And I couldn't do anything about it, which was the most frustrating part of all.

The dog tipped me off. Out there on the golf course, it's very easy to be distracted into your own world – it's quiet, skiing is quiet, and it's easy to lose yourself (much like I lose myself when I'm listening to Moby and writing, which is currently still playing, by the way). That dog was so excited to be romping around in the snow. I immediately wished that Oatie was there to experience the same thing, and I understood why he (or she) was so happy. I've seen Oatie that way on our runs in the snow back home. But that dog was not quiet in the least. He lead his leaders by a few hundred meters. Unlike the others that passed me, the dog gave me a warning, and with 2 km to go, I had a few hundred meter head start and knew they were coming. Thankfully, the rest of the way was flat, and I pounded into my pole plants and my diagonal kicks as hard as I could (despite knowing that my beginners technique was not making me any faster, despite the extra effort). Nonetheless, I succeeded, and glided triumphantly off of the golf course and back to my picnic table, still a few hundred meters ahead of my competition (who, with an extra km or so would have undoubtedly caught me, with little extra effort on their part). It was a Pyrrhic Victory perhaps, but a victory nonetheless.