Malmö Festival

Uff. Today was the second day I spent in Malmö walking around through the Malmö Festival. This is a yearly spectacle in which all sorts of stages are set up for different kinds of music, there are carousels trying to get money from families of small children, all sorts of food specialties are offered, and all sorts of small sellers flog their wares. Not to forget the gypsy fortune-teller.

Why two days? Well, the first day, Teeny and Twenny wanted to go. It is boring as hell here in the woods, they wanted some action. Since we had to drive WiseMan to the station anyway (he has jury duty and has to go home), we then took off through town.

I really don't care for this kind of entertainment, and was expecting to have to shell out a lot for stupid amusements. But Twenny, in Sweden for the first time, was enthralled by the shops open on Sundays! They were the same shops as in Germany! And the clothes were cheaper! I tried to explain that it would make more sense to look through the shops that only exist in Malmö, but I could just as well have been talking to the wall.

I did get her to enter one boutique - and then it was a snooty one where a thin rag was marked down to "Only" 1000 SEK, and they only seemed to have size 38 or smaller. I should note that Twenny wears clothes a size or two larger than mine, and I am *not* a 38. This just proved that it was useless to shop in boutiques.

She loved the tourist-trap place with the Swedish-colors-on-all-sorts-of-crap, and she bought some pencil cases and erasers and stuff for the cousins back home. This was useful crap, you see.

For lunch the first day I decided to try the vegetarian sweet-potato wrap at Astrid and the Ape's stand. They also had a completely vegetarian Chorizo-flavored sausage, but I decided to skip the sausage-that-was-not-a-sausage. Then I tried to convince Teeny and Twenny to try something. Teeny was just hungry, made a beeline for his favorite Chinese food, end of story.

Twenny walked around the entire large square with all the food booths. There was Chinese, Thai, Lebanese, Dutch, Danish, Mexican, Yugoslavian, Syrian, African, German, Texan, and vegetarian. They had all sorts of special stuff, including alligator and gawd knows what. Then there were the Swedish specialties: Moose-Kebab (I kid you not!). Fried Herring. Herring in cream sauce. Moose-and-Reindeer-Kebab. I tried to get her to try some, but she would have none of it - what if she bought it and didn't like it? No, after all the considerations, we just got some more Chinese chicken.

Today, Twenny wanted to go back to some of the shops. Unfortunately, the Sunday sales were over. We visited more shops today, and even Teeny got irritated by all this looking at clothes you aren't planning on buying. I tried to interest Teeny for the street basketball or the Hip-Hop music tent, but he was not interested in being interested in anything.

For lunch we went to Subway. Ah well, good American chocolate-chip cookies.

I find the Malmö Festival, now in its 20-something year, more of a Rummel than a fun festival. They used to have dragon boat races and more cultural stuff. But maybe it was just because I didn't find anything to buy for myself.