Stockholm, caffeine addictions and liminal spaces

February 19th 2014

On the way from Stockholm to Umea in the North East of Sweden.

I chose to take the train rather than the plane so as to get a better image of this beautiful country. I saw a bit of snow, forests and red houses, then I completely passed out into deep sleep for about 3 hours. Now it’s dark and I seem to have only been able to be called back into life due to my discovery that they sell coffee on board. Seriously, I think I am becoming a total caffeine chunky!

Earlier in Stockholm I had a few hours to spare and wondered around the city. Found a really cool vegetarian restaurant filled with people in colourful clothes and brown boots- I felt very much at home amongst them! The pedestrian area I stumbled across reminded me a bit of Graz, the town I went to school in back at home in Austria. The river that flows through the city gives it an open feel. Total jack pot- considering that the last time I was here, exactly a year ago to take part in the same ‘Umefolk festival’, I started to walk in the opposite direction in order to explore the city a bit and saw… well, actually nothing at all…

Back at the train station the feeling of being lifted out of my daily life and the entrance of a liminal space- the space social anthropologist Victor Turner describes as ‘betwixt- inbetween’ – started to kick in: in the middle of Stockholm’s Central Train Station I flicked through the photos on my camera.

There it was, a quick reminder of the past two years that seem to just have passed me by: my second trip to India, a trip to New York and Philadelphia with some Sligo people to musically support the promotion of Tullamore Dew Whiskey, a family holiday in Croatia, Umefolk 2013, various little trips to Austria, my BA graduation.

I really love travelling. It always seems to put me back in touch with myself. Sitting on a train and just pondering on life and just hanging out, looking at things, at the other end a couple of concerts and a lot of amazing people that I’m looking forward to playing with, dancing, laughing, going to the sauna… could this get any better?!Now back to learning the words for a Spanish song- I don’t understand a word I’m singing!