My growing audacity at taking close-ups in public in Sweden---on the street and even indoors, and in the presence of people right next to me---eventually led to my being accosted by someone demanding to know what the heck I was doing.
It was awkward to be sure, but thankfully it was a gentle incident, and only good things came of it.
It happened while we were still in Gothenberg, on our third or fourth day staying downtown near the station. It was still our practice at that point in the trip to stick close to the station for our accommodation, partly for ease of movement, and also for cheapness of meals while we were still establishing the budget of the trip. In Copenhagen we had eaten shawarma near the station nearly every day until we were sick of it. Fortunately Gothenberg had an excellent cheap burger place right inside the station itself (on a side note, the hamburger truly is the perfect meal).
The richness of businesses in the city center had me occupied splendidly for the first couple days there, just by walking around the nearby neighborhoods.
But soon I wanted more, something beyond the kinds of words I was seeing there. So on a sunny afternoon when I had some time, I took a longer walk, past the train station and the adjacent central waterfront shopping mall (which I'd thoroughly explored by then) onto the big arching bridge that crosses the Göta River, from which the city gets its name. The bridge itself afforded some awesome shots of the traffic signs, as well as the advertisements on the sides of buses and trams as they passed noisily by.
The city picks up again on the other side of the bridge, but it is more industrial along the waterfront. For almost an hour in the sunny afternoon, I detoured down under the bridge onto the narrow industrial side streets of working and abandoned factories with big parking lots, as well as storage facilities of all kind. Right under the bridge itself I found the city's dumping ground for its outdated municipal trash cans, emblazoned with the old city logo from before it was rebranded.
Feeling in my element, I walked up to the gates of the factories as if I had business there, took a few shots, and moved on. But mostly the area was quiet and I had the streets there to myself. Tempted by ancient decaying stenciled writing on the side of shuttered brick building, I risked my precious iPhone more than once by thrusting it through an opening in a rusting chain to get a good angle.
I could have spent hours more just circling in the same area, but as always I felt always the need to press on, and explore new areas of the city. I've always done exactly this kind of aimless wondering when I am abroad in a foreign city, so it was very much in keeping with character, albeit now with a new mission attached it.
Away from the river, the road began to feel like a proper highway with a grassy median and a sidewalk set back on the crest of a small hill beside the road.
Across the road I spied the most wonderful target: an automobile repair shop, the kind one sees near highways even in America, that provides servicing of brakes, mufflers, and tires. It was beautiful in the sunshine, with black on yellow lettering advertising its services prominently to the motorists coming down off the bridge. Even though it was across the road, I immediately detoured towards it, crossing the median and the climbing the grass berm on the other side until I got to the crest.
Once there, I could get a shot of the entire building, but to my delight, in front of the business was also parked a Gothenberg city garbage and recycling truck, in the process of picking up its loads at the mechanic shop. For the kind of project I was doing, such vehicles can be like white whales, covered with all sorts of unique vocabulary. One wants to grab the shots whenever one can.
Still holding my phone, I descended quickly down from the crest of the berm to the truck, and got within a few feet of it, taking pictures of the signs on the side while the garbage men helped the business owner load the bins. They seemed to ignore me at first.
With the truck still idling, I circled around the front, taking pictures of writing on the truck from several angles and distances, until I was on the other side of the truck, and also alongside the building itself. I figured while I was there, I might as well get some close-ups of the words on the side of the building too, and even on the front door.
Doing this, I finally came in view of the back of the truck, and while I was in the midst of taking a shot of the door itself, I heard a voice in Swedish yelling unmistakably at me. I looked up and saw what was obviously the proprietor of the auto shop, in mechanics garb with a sewn-on name patch, and with sturdy air of seniority about him. His tussled dirty blonde hair that matched the grease stains on his shirt. He was speaking right at me, in a sharp tone, and with a scowling visage. He came right up to me and motioned at my iPhone while he was talking. He wasn't particularly happy.
I can't remember if he was speaking Swedish or English, or both. In any case, I had thankfully rehearsed for exactly this moment. I put on a big wide silly smile, and said, in my best enunciated Swedish:
"I'm learning to speak Swedish."
I paused a moment, to let the wheels start to work in his head. Then I motioned at the words on the building that I had been photographing.
"I'm taking pictures of the words," I said, again in my simple Swedish, while running my hand slowly below the letters of the words themselves.
"To learn Swedish," I said again, bringing it back full circle.
With my silly grin, I nodded my head holding up the camera and held up the camera in front of me, in the manner of classic Japanese tourist of old, as if to say, "get it?"
At that moment the wheels in his head turned. The proprietor broke out in a big smile and even started laughing. Never before had I seen tension evaporate more swiftly. He did not need to hear another word from me. He waved me off as if to say, "knock yourself out," and then turned and went back to the sanitation workers, eager to tell them the gag.
As I would learn, this turned out to be by far the most prevalent attitude that I encountered in my project across Europe. Even in Holland, where I got the most push back (people there basically live on top of each other), all I had to do was learn the equivalent phrases I had learned in Swedish, and recite them each time someone asked me what I was doing.
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