Versary Updates

I celebrated two (anni)versaries in the month of May that I did not get round to blogging about at the time. 

 May 15th was my 10th Postcrossing-versary.

 

• What is Postcrossing?

  The goal of this project is to allow anyone to send and receive postcards from all over the world!

  The idea is simple: for each postcard you send, you will receive one back from a random postcrosser from somewhere in the world.

 

When I joined Postcrossing, in 2013, that was a couple of years after my dad died. He used to collect stamps; but in his later years (with increasing dementia) he lost control of the "collecting". When going through his study I kept finding envelopes both here and there of fairly recent stamps that he had bought (he subscribed to new issues) but never opened. Around the same time, I heard about Postcrossing from fellow bloggers. Not being a  collector myself, I decided the most fun I'd have with the stamps (still good for use) would be to send them out into the world, which was what they were made for in the first place. So that's what got me started - not really considering at the time, I have to admit, that instead of one box of unused stamps, I'd end up with a collection of postcards (and more than one box!) instead... Ehrmmm... 

Having used up all those old "free" stamps of higher value - and with postage having become increasingly expensive in later years - I've cut down a lot on my participation since the first years, though. Luckily the system makes it fairly easy to keep one's own pace. (Stop sending, and you won't be receiving either.)

16th May was my 7th Duoversary (Duolingo.com)

These figures I assume to include all the languages I've have a look at via Duolingo. Those of you who have been following me since 2016 may recall that besides Spanish, I've also been "sniffing" at several other languages - just to test my brain's capacity to deal with that. Learning Spanish has been my priority all along though, and still is. All these seven years, I've been doing at least one daily lesson of Spanish - which means 2564 days in a row, today. (I'm still finding it very hard to follow spoken Spanish though, because they really do tend to talk so very fast!)

Two other languages that I think I also started on (from scratch) already back in 2016 were Welsh and Turkish. (Just to test my capacity for learning multiple languages at the same time.) I've gradually given up on both of those, though - the grammar got too complicated, and it's also hard to memorize words when a language is too different from those more familiar to you of old. Occasionally I go back and practice some beginners' lessons, but I've given up on moving forward. And the same with Russian. I feel more comfortable to continue a bit further with Dutch, but my ambition there was always only to increase my understanding, not to speak/write (it's too much like German, which I know since school/university back in my youth - so German tends to take over in my head as soon as it comes to actually trying to construct a sentence etc). But because Dutch comes across to me as a kind of mix of German, English and the Scandinavian languages, through Duolingo I feel I have learned to decipher it better than I used to. 

I've always liked languages so I'm still just learning/practicing for fun, rather than for any specific goal. I'm hoping it's good brain exercise, though!

 

Azaleas

My last post (with photos from last Saturday) ended with the first azaleas in bloom in the cemetery close to where I live. This week they've been in their full glory, so here are some more photos...

 

Spring Turning To Early Summer

Some more photos from last Saturday - taken on the way back home from my visit to first the Spring Market and then the Textile Museum. First following the river for while (some photos taken looking back rather than in the direction I was walking).

Looking back

 

 

Looking back

 

 

Looking back

This is a new 'square' (open place) by the river - it was inaugurated last autumn and I think I may have posted some photos of it then, including the sculpture below. There will be restaurants/cafés opening in a nearby building which will probably bring a bit more "life" to the place in summer. It's been named The Post Square because the main post office used to be located there in the past.

 

Horse Chestnut trees in bloom now.

 

 

Ferns uncurling (from the first of two old cemeteries I walked across after leaving the riverside)

 

And in the cemetery closer to home, the azaleas were just starting to burst into bloom:

TUBE

The current major exhibition at our Textile Museum is entitled "Tube", and has only one single object on display. It's an absolutely gigantic installation, though - filling the whole largest exhibition hall.

TUBE
A vertiginous
social sculpture
by Numen / For Use

Welcome to enter into TUBE!
Climbers, put your shoes here.

Visitors are invited to climb into the Tube and crawl around in it. Not something that would really have appealed to me personally at any age - and certainly not now... So I just went for a slow walk around it with my camera.. Alas, I was also the only visitor at the time, so also did not get to see anyone else moving around in there. It was still a rather weird experience in itself, though, just walking around it all by myself... (There was a guard sitting on a chair along the wall, keeping watch - obviously they need to make sure no one gets stuck in there! But as I had no intention of going in, I did not talk to her.) There was also some spooky music in the background as sound effect.

 
In my mind, I saw the thing as some kind of giant sea serpent. I guess all the lines and the shadows cast by the net contributed to that impression.

After a slow turn around the beast with my camera, I left it to hunger for braver visitors than myself, and walked back out into the sunshine.

 

The spring-summer exhibition at Textilmuseet invites visitors to explore the three-dimensional net installation Tube. The suspension of the net makes it swing and move as you move together through the winding formation. The transparency creates a feeling of floating freely as well as a tension between the security of being surrounded by the supporting net and the danger of the dizzying height.

The design collective Numen / For Use works across borders with design, scenography and architecture. They are particularly known for large, intricate installations that visitors can take part of physically by climbing into, crawling through, or hiding inside. In the exhibition at the Textile Museum, the interactive installation Tube will be shown for the first time in the Nordic countries. The work consists of tunnels of net which the visitors are invited to climb through and experience the room from a completely new perspective.

Tube was first shown in 2015 in Austria and has since been set up in 6 more locations around Europe. The installation is a hybrid of art and design– a kind of "social sculpture" in the shape of a giant spider's web that stretches in all directions, circles around the pillars and breaks the straight lines of the room with irregular diagonals.

Read more at the Museum's website here (in English).

More from the Spring Market

 Yesterday (Saturday), I went back for another peek at the Spring Market, this time with my 'proper' camera - which hasn't got to be out and about much since I bought the new phone. I also took some photos along the way downtown (choosing a different walk than on Friday).

Lilacs are now in bloom...

 

And rhododendron at one of the entrances to the City Park.

 

Strawberries were sold in more than one stall. Probably all imported though, because I don't think the Swedish ones are ripe yet. (I did not buy any as I was not going straight home and did not want to carry them around with me...)  

 

I also passed on the chance of trying out what I might look like with pink or blue hair...

One pedestrian street was lined with 'flea market' tables selling all kinds of stuff.

Looking up at the church on the hill behind.

Looking back towards the main square.

I decided to walk on towards the University though (with more rhododendron and trees in bloom outside to tempt my camera). And having gone that far, I decided I might as well also look in at the Textile Museum while I was in the neighbourhood anyway... 

Just across the road - and railway...

 

 My favourite sculpture, The House of Knowledge by Jaume Plensa (...again...)

... But I think I'll save the photos from inside the Textile Museum, and the way back home, for another post! ...