Spending one of the last days in Sweden in Liseberg amusement park turned out to be almost the best choice. Considering all that unhealthy stress and tension that come along with moving, getting a healthy and constant dose of adrenalin for eight hours straight seems like the best one could do, instead of packing boxes, that is.

The owners of Liseberg claim to be the oldest, largest, baddest and the most visited amusement park in Scandinavia. I don’t know if all that is true, but I can say that some of their rides are so good that one simply never gets enough. Take, for instance, the Balder roller-coaster (in the photo above). Already from afar its magnificent wooden structure is awe inspiring, but once the tiny train rises to the top and just moments before it reaches that first 70 degree drop into the void, you really become aware of your insignificance. The feeling, alongside the constant clasping of internal organs, remains all the way until the two-minute ride is over.

Similar feelings are constantly present on other rides where the trains are shot out and reach speeds of 75km/h in 2 seconds, flip you upside down, swing and spin between 0 and 120 degrees at neck breaking speeds, catapult you sixty meters up or drop you from the same height towards the land. No matter whether the ride lasts 20 seconds or 2 minutes, I am pretty sure that the times are carefully measured for each ride to hit just the right spot between the weightless stomach sensation and puking. It’s probably as close as it gets to astronaut training for the mere mortals, especially if you can persevere for eight hours.

The last time I did a similar thing was in Helsinki’s Linnanmäki amusement park. It was great fun while it lasted, even though I did get a bit green-faced from that Viking Ship ride. But the next three days after those eight hours at Linnanmäki were quite terrible. I had a constant nausea, my head was spinning whenever I sat or lied down. It felt like a terrible hangover for three days straight. And it would be quite terrible if I got the same feeling after a similar stunt at Liseberg, since I have a day of packing and 48 hours of traveling ahead of me.

As I mentioned right at the beginning, I’m moving again. Although there are some resemblances to the last move, it is a lot easier this time as the flat needs to be emptied, or in other words, stuff just needs to be packed, or thrown away. But the trip itself will be something special.

The trip back to Finland is unlike anything I’ve done before: I’m going back by train. Once the train leaves Göteborg I’ll be traveling via Stockholm, Umeå, Luleå and finally to Haparanda, a small town right on the border with Finland. From there I continue the next day to Kemi, Oulu and Kajaani before I reach the final destination: Kuopio.

I was excited already when planning the trip and can hardly wait to board the train tomorrow afternoon.

Au revoir,

Mladen

Aaaaalmost there. Obviously not a first generation immigrant graffiti artist from ex-Yugoslavia.

Mladen

Can you guess what the plush toys in the image above represent? Haven’t got a clue? Urine and excrement. That’s right, plush piss and poop are the latest rave among the Swedish kids … and probably adults too.

When I first heard about plush piss and even plushier poop, frankly, I did not know what exactly to think of them. Sure, it might be fun as a practical joke, but I can’t really imagine attaching them as a key ring to my keys, let alone learning that my kids picked plush excrement as their totem for good-night’s sleep. I can’t.

Even though one cannot be exactly sure what the people behind these “toys” really had in mind when planning this product (toilet training or bachelor parties, hard to tell), it all started as a student project. Kiss och Bajs, as they are called in Swedish were designed by Emma Megitt, a student at HDK (a sister academy of Valand where I’m studying right now) for her Master’s in Design project. She started the couple’s Web site and requests for the plushy bodily produce started pouring in.

Now the original Pee and Poo are so big that they even have their own merchandise ranging from tattoos and T-shirts to sold-out socks and, naturally, underwear.

Anyway, the small Kiss and Bajs (key rings) run at 8€ a piece, while both also come in the larger version (each approximately the size of a pineapple) will set you back for 32€. Quite affordable for something so ephemeral and priceless at the same time. Go and grab one, they’re on sale on the Internet too, and let me know how you feel about them.

One more thing. Kiss and Bajs definitely have a glitzy site catering to the whole world, but I beg you pardon, in Finnish they’d be called Pissa and Kakka, and not Kissa and Kakka. In Finnish kissa stands for cat, not piss.

Mladen

Not long ago opera house in Gothenburg begun a marketing campaign that seems to be the right kind of approach to selling an opera. The posters scattered around the city of Gothenburg invite people to dial an advertised phone number and listen in on opera’s current and upcoming program. Enticing.

Naturally, if you want to attract people to whatever you want to sell, you should let them get a taste of it, or in this case, let them hear what it sounds like.  I just wonder why opera houses don’t realize and accept this fact more often, or ever at all.

To get a glimpse of Göteborgs Operan program the old fashioned way dial 031 10 81 00 (or +46 31 10 81 00 if you’re calling from outside of Sweden), or visit the campaign Web page where you can sample different operas by picking up different telephones.

Even though the new generation of consumers will be content by hearing just these samples, I find it to be unfortunate that they don’t play the whole deal.

Mladen