Lalala

posted June 21 2026

Well well well, I did not expect myself to put this off for so long but let's start with going back two weeks ago.

On June 9th, I did one of the more serious and exciting art trades that I've been wanting to do for a while now! I knew that since I would be in Stockholm (and really could travel to anywhere nearby if I could), I would want to get a tattoo. I did also recently post this on my instagram here. I traded four bowls for this absolutely gorgeous tattoo: its sort of baroque style like my other tattoos with several lotus roots placed around. This tattoo was a modified version of this (the shade bush and lotus roots)! Unfortunately I didn't take that many photos of the bowl, other than the photos that I took to send to her... so I just used one of the photos she sent me for the post.

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Not extraordinarily exciting news for most, but on the 10th, I was able to visit the craft association nearby, which held a total of 6 floor looms and 1 table loom. They typically have a weaving group meeting on Wednesdays-- well I was under the impression that it was a group of people gathering together to talk about what they were currently working on, questions, or something along the lines of that. However, I learned that the weaving group consisted of two people, with one person who wasn't present because they were home taking care of their dog. Additionally, most people in Sweden aren't working during July and the craft association will not be open, so it was crucial that I got a key so that I could go in and out of the building whenever necessary.

On the left is the loom that I will be using this summer and hopefully next semester as the memberships last for half a year. These looms are so much larger than the ones I am used to (at Oberlin), and have slightly different materials used for the different parts, but just from a glance, they seem to work the exact same as the looms I am used to. I'm super excited to start weaving, though I still need to plan the warp length, colors and tapestry imagery.

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On the night of the Thursday the 11th, I took several trains down to Heidelberg, Germany. I think the total time traveling was probably around 21 hours. I didn't take any photos worth sharing on the way down, but I will say that I saw an impressive amount of wind turbines and solar panels. There was a superb offshore wind farm on the bridge from Malmo to Copenhagen, consisting of 48 wind turbines. My partner hopped on the same train as me, at Hannover, and we went down to Heidelberg together. As we had arrived pretty late on Friday, we didn't do much other than go to our hotel and walk around a bit.

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On the 13th, we walked around Heidelberg and Weinheim. First we visited the Heidelberg's alstadt or old town. It was bustling with lots of people (tourists) and there was a protest happening against Germany's right wing party who had a tent set up against wind power. There were police there who pushed them to a corner, but even after we had visited the Heidelberg castle and visited a church, the protesters were still fighting strong. When we went by them the second time, we saw a small table set up that was pro wind power.

The protest happening in an Alstadt square

Heidelberg Schloss Ruins

Later this day, we traveled to Weinheim, a town around 30-40 minutes north of Heidelberg. We visited their alstadt, Schau- und Sichtungsgarten Hermannshof: a botanical garden and we got pizza and garlic bread as dinner. Here are some photos I took while walking around town!

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On the 14th, we went to the Heidelberg botanical garden within their university before traveling to Freiburg. The indoor section was quite small but it was cool that it was one building with different environments in each room. While the botanical garden itself was super interesting, I don't think that most tourists would probably visit that area as it mainly has university buildings/dorms, but it was also a Sunday which is when many stores and such close in Germany. Additionally, lots of the buildings in the botanical garden area were, I think, mainly meant for the students to learn, propogate or just experiments with the plants. After walking through the area, we traveled to Freiburg, saw some live music on a residential street, met up with a friend and walked around town as usual.

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On the 15th, we explored town a little more, visiting the churches (to see the organs!) before we traveled even further south to Basel, Switzerland. The Freiburg Minster, is a gothic church that is super cool architecturally, and also survived bombing raids in 1944 which destroyed many of the houses north and west of it. As you can see below, there are FOUR organs in the church, three which can be seen for free and one in an area where you have to pay to see. I find it fascinating how all the organs can be controlled at the same time, and we looked through a book to see the humongous manual that can be used to control them all. You just have to go there to see it!

We traveled to Basel soon afterwards, arriving and almost immediately going to the beach by the Rhine. The weather was really nice and we met up with friends of the person we were staying with there. Most of them swam at the beach, though I didn't want to risk soaking the tattoo so I stuck with dipping my feet in the water. We got ice cream afterwards, before heading to a bar to see a comedy show called Monday Murders celebrating their 5th year! For this event, they gave all the comedians a role and a general plot line, but otherwise it was improvised. I assume based on what I saw, that generally the show starts with someone being killed and the rest of the crew figuring out who killed the guy. The show overall was alright, but I think that there were several characters who improvised quite well with their role, like a duck guy who quacked (a lot) and said somewhat cringe jokes, and someone dressed as mario who kept saying that they saw a green turtle killed the victim.

The comedians

Look at the bottom left!

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On the 16th, we saw this pretty big organ at the Basel Munster, honestly larger than most that we've seen on this trip. We also heard someone playing an organ at another church, but they stopped playing soon after we entered. We also entered a courtyard that was part of the city archives, and saw a cat.... We pet it for a while as it was super friendly and spotted a qr code on it's collar. If you want to learn more about this cat... click here! At the end of the day, we walked alongside the Rhine, and we saw about 3 herons which is (in my opinion) so rare.

On the 17th, we visited the botanical garden in Basel-- but wait let me tell you that all of these churches and botanical gardens that we visited were free with some of the churches having paid parts but most of it was free! This one has an extensive outdoor area with some buildings for certain environments. It was quite funny too, that this day was extremely hot (35 celsius), so going in and out of arid and extremely hot environments made the outdoor weather kind of cooling.

On the way to the botanical garden, we passed this bakery that we figured we would visit afterwards. It is called Ass Bar (with two dots above the A but it won't copy properly). Their whole thing is that they go to highly rated bakeries at the end of the day, purchasing bread that was leftover and selling it for relatively cheap at their store. This was their way of helping reduce food waste. We purchased a big loaf and long loaf for 1.5 CHF and 2 CHF respectively and a sandwich for myself. We sat outside of their store eating some of the longer loaf for a bit, before deciding that we needed to go in and purchase some more stuff from them, both because it was cheap (Switzerland is expensive!!!) and because we respected their motto and what they were doing.

We visited the music school, listening in on a studio class (that the person whose place we were staying at) played in. We just listened to everyone play through their pieces before leaving to visit another church.. and dip out feet in the water. I like that I was able to visit all these churches and they all had organs that I could look at, where that would NOT be the case in the United States, but more specifically New York where I am from. Oberlin is possibly an exception(?) as most if not all of the churches have organs in them.

Later this day, we took the train to Luzern to see a concert with some friends. The views were superb, with the Swiss Alps showing in the distance and they were super pretty as well. The concert program included Overture to the opera Fidelio, op. 72 by Beethoven, Violin Concerto, Op. 14 by Barber with an encore from the soloist, and Sibelius 2. I hadn't seen Sibelius in person before but I had heard his symphonies mulitple times now, so it was definitely an exprience to hear them in person. And, I think I said this in my first blog too, but I feel like I can appreciate songs so much more after having heard them multiples times rather than hearing it for the first time in a concert- though it isn't like I don't enjoy music that I hear for the first time at concerts too.

Finally to the 18th, the last day I will mention for this blog. We had some time in the morning before our train back to Stockholm, so we took a little trip back to Freiburg to visit our friend. We visited this pottery and tea store, which I have no photos of but the tea I bought. We saw them when wandering Freiburg the other day, so we thought that if we had time on the 18th, we should visit it! Most of their pottery was imported from Korea and Japan, with only one small section being somewhat local. They had a discounted tea section that I looked through and selected two bags of. I'm pretty used to loose tea leaves at home, but at Oberlin I collected a lot of tea boxes with tea bags. I learned that some of them can be made with plastic and honestly they take up so much more space, so I am in the transition to switching towards loose tea leaves that I buy on my own- rather than relying on the tea that my mom drinks.

Afterwards, we went to a place called Zuka Solicafe, which had food usually at a flexible price rate and had vegetarian or vegan meals also at a reasonable price. They also source local produce for their meals, and they have volunteer gardening opportunities and events for kids! We got two sandwitches for a little less than 15 dollars! After walking around Freiburg for a little bit again, we then headed back towards Stockholm via Hamburg. I think it took us around 24 or more hours to get back, with a bunch of panic for making our connection and many many delays. But now I am home and that is what matters!