[If you want to read Week 1: Genesis first, you can find it here.]
Even with an entry so lengthy as the previous one, there are still details I forgot to mention. I even forgot to talk about one of the most striking habits of Swedish people. When entering for example the mansion or the main research building, they remove their shoes. Never having heard of this ‘tradition’ before, I’m always wasting almost a minute to tie or untie my hiking shoes, while the Swedish people are prepared for it by wearing shoes with no or loose laces. Easy to slip in, easy to slip out [I obviously stopped tying my shoes as well if we just had classes. It surely helps with keeping the mansion clean].
Another habit is the use of snus, a tobacco thingy you put under your lips. I’ll stick with tea, thank you very much. It’s smells way better than cigarettes though.
Anyway, still mourning the loss of my camera, and finding no one that was going to Lindesberg any time soon, plus thinking how the repairs could easily amount to the price the thing itself had cost, and with some suggestions from Rein, I looked up some cameras who have been abandoned by their previous owner. Whether they found something better, something more fancy or something more pink, the reduced price with almost no loss in quality is at least something you can take a glance at. And so I found a slightly better camera for a good price. And I ordered it maybe three hours after I found it. Then I just had to wait till it would arrive. There were some issues with the payment notice being vague, so it was a little bit stressy, but all went well and I received it on Friday already, right before my birthday. So yeah, I’m no longer cameraless. It does mean that I don’t have many pictures to show in this entry [I totally forgot about this, and was wondering why I had so few photos to show for week two. And why I had so many pictures of the same thing. It’s because I was testing all the settings], only of the last two days. But do enjoy the reading.
Or don’t, wha’ever. I’m not your boss. No, go ahead, don’t read further, I don’t care. Close this page, I dare you. Go outside, find some hole and make it deeper with staying ignorant of my boring escapades!
Thought so.
Another week obviously means new classes. The person who is most suited for the subject is to be the lecturer [usually meaning who did, or is doing, what kind of PhD]. It means a variety of people, a variety of English skills and a variety of teaching style. So the one lecture wasn’t as exciting as the other. They do have in common that they all bring in some extra stuff like skins and stuffed animals. So we touched the skin of beaver, mink, several seals and had a lynx skull, among others, in our hands during this week. Together with the more hands-on experience we get from going into the field and wearing a flashy jacket, this is what I meant with the more practical stuff I wanted.
Another hard lesson we learnt is that we should really keep track of what we are buying, because we ran in some trouble determining what was whose on a ticket, with the foreign and sometimes very general names of the products [for practical reasons we sent out a few people to do the shopping, listing what we wanted. It…. wasn’t the best of ideas].
BUBBLES!!!
Monday was the day we saved the life of a bumblebee from drowning itself.
It was also beaver day. We first had a lecture about them: their ecology and a lot of stories about the creature. The beaver is a part of loads of placenames, heraldry and myths. Even the genus, Castor (and the French name, casteur) has its roots in a myth. When trapped, the beaver would castrate its own testicles and give them to the hunter to spare its life. Yes, it’s googleable, there are drawings depicting this. It has some background in the fact that beavers have some glands they use for scent communication with a substance called castoreum. It was used in medicine (don’t even act surprised), its weight being worth in gold and now it’s used in perfume and as a food additive.
The lecturer was really passionate about everything beavers, and even met Olivier Rubbers, the guy made it so that Belgium has beavers now. Though not very much the way like it should have happened. It was illegal, is what I am saying.
Another neat tale is one I already partly knew and is about the Mad Hatter. To treat the skin of the beaver (which were really good pelts to make hats from, apparently, though the process is a tedious one), mercury solution was used. This made the hatters go mad and their hair turn orange. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
The second part was an excursion with canoes. We were dropped off and pushed in the water with two or three people in one canoe, and just had to find our own way. Since it’s a river and those tend to flow in one direction, that wasn’t actually hard. The hardest part was actually navigating through the stream, since there were loads of branches and felled trees (not only by beavers) that were barring our progress. Sometimes the only way was to go fast and use the speed to get over the tree, and if not possible, struggle to tilt the canoe over the obstacle. Another danger we actually didn’t had to take, were some rapids on one point. We were supposed to get on shore and carry the canoe past it, but we kinda missed the stop. So we tried and almost tilted over on a rock. We saved Rein’s camera by just jumping out of the canoe and get ourselves a little wet (like, up to the knees. Don’t worry, my toes only almost froze off). We were prepared for it, though in Rein’s case it meant going barefoot over all the rocks. After that, we had no real trouble with anything anymore. One incident involving Rein peeing overboard just got me in a bout of laughter for a while.
The reason we were on the river, to see beavers, was successful in the case of three canoes (out of eight). Rein and mine, Siege and Pieter’s, both because we were in the front (we gained on the others when we were pushed in later, them being less experienced with rowing, me thinks [because I am SUCH an experienced canoer.. canoeist… rower]), and Anders and Julian’s, just because they were lucky. In our case, we even had a beaver swim straight under our canoe. You could tell by the bubbles, just like the lecturer told us. We also saw a grass snake swimming away from us. It was getting dark when we arrived at the stop [first!], but most of the others were way later than that. And with no flashlights, it’s commendable. The most of the commendations go to (Polish) Eva though, being a little afraid of going, but doing it anyway. Under the cover of the dark, Rein was sitting in the bushes to scare people with his goblin, and Guillaume, wearing a wet suit, went into the water to go Gollum up their asses. It worked well in a few cases. But Lorna, instead of screaming, almost lobbed his head off. Like a true Scot.
What’s in the bag
It was a moose head. They shot it. It was big. And smelly.
Tuesday was about the ecology of capercaillie, black grouse and hazel grouse. The first two are known for their lekking and display. Another lecture was about hares and the last one about seals. This last lecturer was… not like the beaver guy or Gunnar (who gave the grouse, hare and hunting lectures to us). I’ll leave it with that. Things I noticed during that day is the Swedish people have the tendency to pronounce the g as a j (soft j, not the English dj), so general becomes jeneral. Also, everyone was tired, all the time.
Outside, there was a dead sheep lying about, being all smelly and stuff. It got killed by a predator and was to be used in the next days to teach some people (other than us) how to recognise how an animal got killed.
Gunnar told us the hazel grouse is territorial, and they could be lured with its call. So obviously, Rein wanted to try this. He downloaded the sound to his cell phone and out we went. I’ll make it short and tell you it didn’t work.
In the evening, we wanted to watch Iron Man 3. It got postponed for almost two hours, because people kept skyping with their girlfriends and just went on and on. How the hell can you not prefer Tony Stark over your significant other? (though I have to admit, I didn’t really like the movie)
It also marked the arrival of the final student [and fifth Belgian], Arne. He immediately proved he was part of the Belgian delegation by breaking two sticks while playing Innebandy (floorball, you know, one of the sports that are made up as an excuse to bash on each other with sticks and fists).
It’s more of a guide line, really
Wednesday we had to leave at 7 am. We were going south to Öster Malma, home to the Swedish Hunter’s Association. It took us three hours to get there during which I noticed these things:
– The van I was in reminded me of a certain friend back in Belgium who also has this noisy Volkswagen van. This one is a deeper shade of blue though [The owner was one of the people who initially wanted to join as well, but had to take satisfaction with just visiting later on].
– A few place names had an x in them.
– Some geese were flying in V-formation right next to us for a while.
– The radio broadcasts play even shittier music than the Belgian ones (the only good songs I’ve heard on it up till now were from “Of Monsters And Men” and “Mumford and Sons”) [which by now has become debatable if they are actually that good as well].
In Öster Malma, we were told a bit about hunting law and other general stuff on what they did there at their HQ. I was distracted by all the stuffed animals standing around most of the time though.
Swedish hunters (or at least those we spoke to) seem to have the same exact mind set the Belgian ones do. They hunt for fun, and sometimes the argument to hunt a certain species is more than a little dubious. There is this whole debate going on about the hunt on wolves. Especially in the northern parts of Sweden (reindeer husbandry area), wolves are not welcome at all. The population seems to be healthy enough to allow some harvesting. But is it true or not? There are two sides that clash with each other, much like the fox debate in Belgium. They even have the same kind of incompetent minister responsible for all things environmental like we have in Belgium.
Though I don’t particularly like that attitude, hunting for fun, it does bring some very good meat on the table. Best. Lunch. Ever. No doubt about it. Wild meat, lingonberries (like with most of the Swedish meals), fish and cantharella, … [Ultimately Sweden does have a lot more “superfluous” wildlife than Belgium has. And most hunters we interacted with were the good ones]
They also have the coolest offices ever: huge deer horns everywhere, you can bring your dog with you (not very surprisingly, as most of them are hunters) and free books! In Swedish… Oh well, it’s free [They’re still lying somewhere around here].
We also got the opportunity to shoot a (very) light rifle at a poster of a boar. I was the only one not to do it [I have a severe distaste for guns. This doesn’t include virtual ones and some really ornate display-only (so not-functioning) pieces]. Most got a killing shot. The poster is hanging around in the mansion now… somewhere.
We also got some information on the different tracks the different deer and moose make. Rectangular shapes are red and fallow deer, and then it depends on the relative length of the two parts (soft and hard) of the hoof. Moose and roe deer leave more triangular tracks. They also taught us that no matter how good you are, you will never always be correct, especially on harder ground [Which is still an issue I have with people who are always incredibly sure on certain footprints].
Shops are open way longer than they are in Belgium, so we could do some shopping before we went to a hostel in Stavsjö to spend the night. The stores are big, not that expensive and I had no idea where everything was. The cash registers are also big machines that do most of the work. The cashiers just put in your money, and the machine does all the rest.
The Belgians were at it again too, using the shopping carts to do what Belgians do. Let your imagination do the work.
The hostel was a cosy place with lots of stuff from all over the world and retro stuff like old guns and a very old cash register. The owner was from… Turkmenistan? I think. Somewhere over there. He loved music from all over the world, played djembe (and had a little team up with Arne doing so), had some Dutch books and even a Dutch version of a Donald Duck comic [so this hostel comes greatly recommended. I don’t have a specific name though].
Welcome to Deer Park
The next morning we had to leave reeeeaaallly early to go look at red deer being noisy to attract females. Actually, now to think of it, that’s kinda like humans…
Anyway, everyone was dead tired, but from the moment we got out of the cars at our destination, we forgot about that. We immediately heard the ‘roaring’ of the stags. Like dinosaurs. Really, the comparison to Jurassic Park has been made multiple times by at least five independent sources. We quietly [we even took care when closing the car doors] went closer up on a rocky outcrop and had a good view on the field a bit up ahead where the stags were playing fetch, using the hinds as the sticks. It was a time where I really, really regretted I didn’t have my camera [same for that hostel]. But then I just had more time to enjoy the moment, seeing those big animals chase rivals away, get back some females who ran over to another and in one small incident even clashed with each other.
Oh yeah, there’s a place called Simonstorp.
Afterwards we had some lecture about… I think it should’ve been about red deer, but he talking about what he did in his life way more. Loads of pictures, loads of stories. The most interesting one was involving a red deer called Muhammad Ali, named after the boxer. Another one was called Foreman. Red Forman. Hehe.
You know, red deer, Red Forman.
From “That 70’s Show”?
Nevermind [I know who George Foreman is, ok?].
It was time to go home. Actually, we all started to call it home. We stopped in a fast food chain called Max which some claimed to be better than McDonalds. It’s been a while since I’ve been to one, being accustomed to real fries and real(er) food, but I found no grounds to distinguish Max from any other fast food joint.
Le Loyon
It refers to a story about a man, wearing a gas mask… just follow the link. Anders brought it up one time, and I didn’t have a title yet for the next part.
It was a very misty morning. The first time we ever got close to anything that we could call rain. The weather isn’t super great over there, but at least it never drizzled. Yet.
I might have jinxed it right there.
Class today was about the North American views on and system of wildlife management, given by an American. We already heard (yes heard first, saw later) him the week before, ‘cause you know, he’s American. His biggest message was that wildlife management is more about managing the people than wildlife itself. Because obviously, nature and wildlife can save itself, it’s self-regulatory.
It was Friday, which meant camera day. I had to search for who actually received and signed it. Found him too. Everyone was playing with the air pocket cushions things that protected the box (the sender thought it would be a good idea to put it in a box four times the necessary size). Everyone was happy. Good endings and all that.
A few people already ‘subtly’ mentioned that it was a custom that the students of Wildlife Biology threw a party for the whole staff of Grimsö (though only four of them showed up, Oskar being one of them). Not wanting to spend too much money on it, a few people went dumpster diving and brought back a more than reasonable batch of bananas and eggs. When I’m writing this, Sunday, there’s still plenty to eat, and all of us have been using them to cook on the only half working cooking plates that we have here. Good thing too, I wouldn’t have too much to eat if it wasn’t for that [I’m not a bad cook, but that kitchen just reduces your capabilities with 90%. Except for Tommaso’s maybe, but he’s Italian so that’s cheating].
Anyway, Arne en Pieter started the party a little early, celebrating the news they had graduated. Then more drinks came and we all had a good time. I got a bit frozen at the end, because I only had a T-shirt on. But I had my reasons. Good ones? For me it was a good one, though not a necessary one. Am I going to tell you what they are? Of course not.
After midnight, it was my birthday. Lorna (again being her aggressive self, harhar) showed the habit of Scottish people to punch people the same amount of years they have been living, then just punch them some more just for the hell of it. My arms are still a bit sore, because a few others turned Scottish and started to wail on me as well.
Good times.
Saturday continued, nothing much. Sleeping, watching “Full Metal Alchemist” [not sure if it was Brotherhood], went to the lake, ate crumbs of what once was cake, toyed with the new camera, … Boring birthday? Nah, I’ve done what I like to do.
Sunday, cleaning time. I couldn’t let Christina do all the work alone (she was the one to start it, like a genuine grandma should), so Tommaso and me jumped in and helped a bit [I helped so much, you wouldn’t believe it]. Now the only job left is to keep it all clean.
Oh yeah, and blog entry time.
This week’s evil Swedish scientist’s biologically engineered weapon are moose flies. They’re flat, they stick to you like glue and they’re hard to kill.
See you next time.
Continue reading with Grimso Week 3 here.
This blog is brought to you by the following artists (as a compensation for the lack of many pictures):
Ben Caplan – Bird With Broken Wings
Courtnee Draper and Troy Baker – Will The Circle Be Unbroken
PostModern JukeBox – All The Small Things
PostModern JukeBox – You’ve Got a Friend In Me
Somewhat Fascinating 