In Stockholm, skiing in circles

Posted on January 18, 2024 by Eirians under life, Uncategorized

In the middle of Stockholm there’s a stadium, originally built for the 1912 Olympic Games. In the winter they open it up for skiing, for free. You can just go there and ski in circles on tracks laid along the 400 meter running tracks.

I thought I’d get dizzy from just going in circles, but 400 meters is still enough that it’s not too annoying. The difficult thing is keeping up with how far you’ve gone, after a while I started doubting if I was counting the laps right. I should have made lines for it in the snow at the starting point. Like counting how many days you’ve been in prison on a stone wall.

Anyway. I made it 23 laps before the clock reached 21.30 and they closed down for the night. 25 laps would have been 10 km, so it was annoying. But that’s okay. I’m very happy these days.

21st Birthday

Posted on February 27, 2017 by Eirians under life

When I turned 21 a few days ago I escaped to the north of Sweden to go skiing with my family, because birthday parties give me anxiety.

It’s not parties in general, just that if I host one myself I feel like EVERYONE HAS TO HAVE THE BEST NIGHT THEY’VE EVER HAD and that’s a lot of pressure. So I haven’t really had a birthday party since I was a small kid. It’s good then that I have friends who throw me surprise parties (even if I’m sweaty and disgusting from skiing when I arrive.) (And to be fair my mum organised a lot of it, which is extremely sweet and a little bit sad at the same time, considering I’m supposedly a “grown up”. But hey, next birthday I’ll probably be on another continent (I pray))

Anyway, birthday=great, and here you have a pre-party sisters picture.

Love.

Winter

Posted on January 19, 2017 by Eirians under life

Went cross country skiing today. Then I drank hot chocolate and ate waffles and got really emotional about this place I’ve been visiting for as long as I can remember.

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(The thing about skiing is that it’s in my blood and bones, it’s what my dad and grandpa and great grandma did, it’s old and Swedish and the forests are dark and the views beautiful. It’s freedom and being out of breath and so much pressure. It’s me as a little girl. And it’s weird to think about the people working here, the guy preparing the tracks outside the window right now, or anyone else who’s been here. Weird that this place could mean even more to any of them.)

Skiing

Posted on March 24, 2014 by Eirians under life

I’ve grown up believing that cross country skiing is the worlds most popular sport. That and perhaps football. As time went on I realized it’s kind of not, but to me it still is. Having a family and tons of friends that love it too might have something to do with that. My first time skiing was when I was two or three years old and maybe somehow I was hooked, all I know is that it is one of the things I’ve stuck with, and to me it’s one of the definitions of winter. Both the actual skiing and the weekend mornings when you eat breakfast in front of the TV, watching the champions and then my dad in the end, his screaming and cheering might be even more entertaining than the actual sport at times and me and my sister always laughed at him. Well, we still do.

So anyway, we saw the finale of the world cup live, it being in Sweden, Falun, where my aunt lives, and it was such a good day I thought I should share some pictures. I didn’t take too many though, I kind of have this problem with not actually experiencing things when I see them through a camera lens, so sometimes I let things go undocumented. Still, with my camera around my neck I can never resist it completely.