Pick Up The Ball & Run
Crouch - Bind - Engage!
So it's been roughly a month since my last post on here, but I've actually had quite an eventful month. I have turned 30, joined a rugby team, hosted friends and family in our new city and taken my first summer holiday since high school.
So in my last blog, I mentioned that I had gone along to watch a pair of local teams play at Årsta Rugby Center. It was my intention to approach one of them and say "Hey, I may be fat and haven't run for anything but the ice cream van in 12 years, but I used to play rugby 4 days out of 7. Can I come and train with you guys?"
Well things ended up going a little differently, but in a really cool way. When I showed up to train with my chosen team of "Hammarby" (The guys wearing Celtic colours) I found a group of ten people getting changed into rugby kit, practicing their drop-kicks and generally just catching up after the weekend. It turned out this this group of guys and girls were the "Stockholm Berserkers."
“Sthlm Berserkers Rugby was founded in January 2011
In the beginning it was a rugby team motivating gay and bisexual guys to venture into one of the toughest and challenging sports there are.
Berserkers built up an environment without prejudice and homophobia
where players could feel comfortable and relaxed.
Berserkers welcome everyone no matter sexual orientation or ethnic origin.
... OUR MOTIVATION Is to be as open and welcoming as the world we want to live in.”
After chatting with some of the guys and finding out about the club, I joined in with the training session and immediately found out how right I was about my current state of fitness. Since that day, exactly a month from when I've been writing this, I've been working on my fitness in the gym, on walks with Kara after work and of course, during training sessions out at Årsta. While I feel like I'm getting back into the swing of things, I am a totally different shape to when I was 17. I've morphed from second row into a prop, and while I feel like I'm still strong, I know my stamina isn't where it needs to be. It's ok though, because the team are so nice and welcoming that you always feel that the support is there when you're puffing and wheezing to get over the line.
On top of my fitness level, there's those aches and pains that I spoke about last time. On top of the rugby, I've also joined some friends in trying to increase my strength with a regimen of weights. It's totally new to me, and I'm a bit of a liability, but I can see and feel my shoulders and arms regain their strength, and I'm really hoping to become a valuable asset to the team.
Heliophobic Hermit Hosts
So Kara and I have been living in Stockholm for 4 months now. It feels like it's been much longer, as we've done so much and spent entire days exploring the city, but Stockholm continues to unfold in front of us, and we are enjoying visiting corners that we haven't seen yet.
Avalanche has a standard two week holiday period at the end of July. This seemed weird to us, as this doesn't really happen in the UK. People only tend to take time off around Christmas to go home and see their family. We discovered that the Swedes like to take advantage of the summer by taking stints of 3 to 4 weeks off, which sounds incredible, but completely alien to us.
I spent my first week trying to stick to a healthy regimen and of course I succeeded in hurting my neck at the gym, with my poor form on the squat racks. I also set myself a task of working on a Twine game, that I'd hoped to finish. Of course, there are challenges to non-linear storytelling, and I am still early in my process of learning how to build a story that accounts for player choice. This is all part of my attempts at forming something - anything that I can put on this site and say "lookie here, I can do a good writings!" Anyway, I was able to hammer out the outlines of each "cell", but the actual prose will need to come later. I'm hoping that as I flesh out the story, the cells will begin to flow, but it's weird to look at a story and see a flow-chart, even though I know that's a basic component of interactive storytelling.
Our second week was spent in the company of friends & family who had come to see Stockholm. Well, all except from our first day where I took Kara to the gym to get her baseline weight limits and ended up sort-of breaking her. She'll be well placed for working on her strength now, though.
At the start of the week, our friends Kevin and Penny arrived in town and we went out to Stockholm's amusement park; Gröna Lund.
It was great to see our friends, who we hadn't caught up with since our wedding, a year and a half ago. Since we last saw them, they've become jet-setting superstars in the world of piercings and body modifications, with Kevin piercing his childhood celebrity crush, amongst many other high profile celebrities. It was great to catch up with them both as they discussed their travels. Like me, Kevin had also just had his thirtieth celebrations, and this trip had followed time spent in Gruyere, Switzerland.
As a pair of borderline hermits who don't venture out into direct sunlight, Kara and I may not be the best tour guides in town. Kara can't drink, and I can't afford to drink, so we don't visit many bars, and while we do enjoy finding nice places to eat, readers of previous blogs will note that we pick from the "kids menu" of international cuisine. That being said, we have discovered that it's possible to get delicious pizza from two places nearby. Both "Bananas" at the end of our street, and "Galina's Pizza" at Ringen are fantastic, and if you keep it basic, Galina's is under £10 for a delicious log-fired pizza.
Because the weather was so nice, we took our visitors out to Gröna Lund. This involved climbing aboard one of the ferries that we'd been wanting to set out on, and it was really cool to have the sea breeze in your face as you approach the sound of loud music, excited chattering and *sigh* children (and adults) screaming on rollercoasters. It was after disembarking and looking around that I remembered "Shit. It's the school holidays." It was an ironic observation, much like my "Rome is ruined by all the visiting tourists." from a few years ago.
We bought an all-day pass for the rides and set off to wait in our first queue of the day. It actually worked out ok, as it gave us a chance to catch up with our friends while we waited. We went on all the rollercoasters that we wanted to, and the longest queue was for some chicken nuggets. Of course, this was all accompanied by the scorching heat and the sound of screaming and crying kids. Personal highlights from the day include:
- Realising that by sitting in the same row as me, my friends had doomed themselves when the bar was pushed down as hard as I could on my thighs, still leaving a hearty 2 inch gap between their legs and the bar for them to bounce around in.
- Hearing the sounds Penny made as we went around the "scary" ride. Especially when the chairs are rigged to poke you in the back.
- The "toilet monster" on the scary ride. That was great.
- Seeing Kara get to go on her first "proper" rollercoasters. It was a little dampened by Kara's screams as she clutched onto her only pair of glasses for dear life.
In the last couple of days during their visit, we also met up with a couple of native Swedish friends and got to play at being tourists in our own city. We took a boat ride under the bridges, listening to an extremely passive-aggressive tour that discussed how Sweden is well known for developing weapons. It struck me as a "so don't mess with us, okay buddy?" We also got to go out eating in our neighbourhood, and try some places that we'd been considering. All-in-all, a great few days.
As soon as we got off the boat, we waved goodbye to our friends and went to meet my mum and her partner Bob, who had arrived that afternoon. It was really nice to see them, especially as I'd been getting used to seeing more of my mum, just before we moved to Sweden.
Kara and I felt like bad tour guides, as most of our experiences of Stockholm involved going on nice long walks and taking in the scenery. We walked around Gamla Stan, taking in the beauty of the old city, showing mum the shops we like and the one's we think she'd like. We toured a large section of Södermalm, culminating in a rain-drenched walk to Sofia Kyrka, where I got a nice but drizzly view of the island.
We also got to visit the Vasa Museum, which houses the ill-fated "Vasa" ship. A cautionary tale against letting an unqualified leader make rash decisions (no subtext); the upside of the Vasa's story is that it leaves modern historians with an incredible relic of the past. While being busy, the museum is climate controlled to keep the wood from rotting away. This made for a very comfortable and cool atmosphere.
Too soon, it was time to say goodbye to mum and Bob, and we ended our holiday by watching movies and taking a deep breath before getting back into the swing of our usual working week.
Berserker Pride
I don't talk about my personal politics online very much, and while I rarely shy away from engaging in conversation in person, I like to think that anyone who knows me will be aware that I am for equal-rights and inclusion across all groups of people. While I've always considered myself an "ally" to the LGBT community, I've never really done much beyond the occasional reactionary post to something I've read about out of touch politicians trying to score points with bigots.
Joining a rugby team with its roots in the gay community gave rise to a unique opportunity to actually do something visible, even if it was as simple as walking in a parade. Kara and I were lucky enough to join in the Stockholm pride march, wearing Berserkers colours. Despite still being very new (today marks a month of meeting some of these guys) everyone has been super welcoming and friendly. It also helps that some of them are fellow nerds, and the march was a great opportunity to get to know them better.
Of course, Stockholm is the bohemian capital of Sweden; the hub of a very progressive and mature society. It would be naive to think that people don't face bigotry in Sweden, but it was really eye-opening to me to see the enormous numbers that lined the streets as the parade passed by. Some open spaces showed hundreds of people, just waving and cheering. My imposter syndrome was in overdrive, as not only have I not actually played a game for the Berserkers yet (stay tuned for the fallout), but I haven't had to go through the sort of issues that pride stands against. It was such a nice environment, I am looking forward to doing it again next year.
The march itself was an extraordinary experience, as the group in front of us represented a Jiu Jitsu martial arts school, and they would intermittently drop their bags and two of them would spar on the cold wet concrete. Some were even performing holds that had them spinning upside down, their heads scant inches from the ground. For the Berserkers part, my teammates took every opportunity to demonstrate line-outs and scrums. The crowd often went crazy as we hoisted people into the air or wrestled for the ball. I didn't see any skinned knees, so I think it all went to plan. I also learned the Berserkers chant, which we yelled every 50 meters or so, it seems.
We ended the day with a little picnic up by the observatory. It was great to just relax in the company of some welcoming new friends. I think that I'd have a hard time feeling as satisfied with joining another team, knowing that a crew as great as the Berserkers were out there. I look forward to getting to know you all better.
“Bira, bira bira!
Berserkers!”
Next Time:
I really ought to get back to talking about games, but life has gone from a dreary slow pace to an exciting and frenetic time after we moved to Stockholm. The summer has been quite draining and my hayfever has finally reared it's ugly head. My grass allergies don't make it easy to enjoy rugby, but I'll find a way to make it work. My first game will hopefully be in a week's time, so here's hoping it all goes to plan and I end with all my teeth.
Until next time!