Explorations | Translations @im-in-sweden - Tumblr Blog

Ribersborg

I’m always drawn to water in new places. Malmo has several ways of allowing the city to reach the sea, the man made beach Ribersborg being one of them.

-See how the shore frames Malmo (provides the “postcard” image of Malmo)

-Describe the area that you had to go through to get to the beach. What did you expect the beach to be like based on that journey?

-Go to the fields by the beach. Notice how the space feels while looking at it from the outside versus how it feels once you’ve entered. Which perspective makes it feel more vast?

-Visit the toilets. Compare to bathrooms at your local beach. Look up while you’re outside (green+clean!)

-Consider the differences between the beach and the western harbor/titanic area, both functioning as man made ways for the city to meet the sea.

-Walk the length of the beach. Do demographics change as you travel? Do demographics change throughout the day?

-How did the planners impose order to the beach? If you’re stumped, try meeting up with a friend at the beach and notice what landmarks you use to let them know where to meet.

-Go out onto one of the bridges. Sit facing towards the city for long enough that you stop being conscious of the other side of the bridge. Then switch sides.

#belated

I still have a few posts left to come to round this out, but thinking of leaving this blog is making me super sad. It feels like cutting the last ties with everyone in this class, particularly the Malmö students I might not see again.

Flour city station 20/7

Seeing someone else’s familiar as fresh has given me a new way to look at Rochester. I can see the places shrouded in stale familiarity as landmarks to show people new to her and show myself as someone who has never tried to see. I’ve been seeking out the things I’ve only heard of before and holding my usual places much more dearly.

I’d still rather be in Malmö but I feel less like I’d rather be anywhere but here.

#missing Malmö

Time

The hardest part of coming back has been keeping the time I spent abroad whole. There are things I can’t use, clothes I can’t wear, and songs I can’t hear without crying. I’m afraid if I think of anything too much I’ll destroy it, melt the memory down and pour it into the wrong mould.

Everyone who’s talked to me about this since coming home suggests I try to go back and I think I will, but I think it’s really important to separate the things I can go back to from the things I can’t.

I can’t go back to the newness I felt upon arrival, even going to a different city would hold similar differences to those I noticed in Malmö. I can’t go back to the way I was visiting through this class, through these people. I’ll return without most or all of you if I do. I won’t have the same piece of the U.S. as home base. I probably won’t have the same role as student however I choose return. The weather may not be the same. The construction sites will have moved. The people who are still there will have changed. I can’t return to the point in time that Sweden currently lives in for me, it is gone already.

But I can return to the place. I can return to bike lanes, to detachable shower heads, to weird toilet flushers that no one really understands. I can ride through the same streets to the same parks. I can return to lights in the fountain at folkets park. I can return to sunsets over the titanic. I can be in this quiet but living city next to the sea and feel the home-ness I was growing into while riding through it when I left.

I’m just not sure that all these things will hold the same feelings or purpose without the contexts I had them in the first time, or that their new life will be as important to me. I can’t be sure they’ll even be the same places in the same way Maurilia can’t be seen through old postcards. Maybe it’s better for me to try to return to making a home for myself in a new city; destination as action/task/feeling. But maybe I’m truly in love with Malmö, maybe I need time.

#returning

Shoutout 2 gabe

#t.a. appreciation post

Would recommend riding on the back of a swede's bike

#bucket list #how AUTHENTIC

Anticipation/everyone looks beautiful in this space.

babiepetals

i did not follow the signs along the hiking path and i survived.

#relevant

Postcard-esque views. Grand canyoning Florence. This view is what I imagine as Florence. A lot of it felt like an amusement park or something, with constant tourists and gift shops and every monument so close to the next. It was hard to imagine people living there even after seeing where they did, but it was beautiful and delicious.

#florence

Being back in Malmö feels good.

#making new places home

I'll keep posting about my trips, but I just want to acknowledge how much being abroad changes this course. I would love to stay in Malmö and get to know the city on my own. I know I will this week, but I don't know when I'll be back in Europe and so I've been taking advantage of that. 5 weeks is also so different from having 15 weeks in Rochester. Really curious about how different this would be in that setting.