Perhaps you’ve heard the assertion that you need to put in 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to become an expert at any field. Well, here is an amazing and inspiring example I found today. Jonathan Hardesty decided that he would learn to draw and paint. He totally became an expert. And what’s even more cool – he documented his progress in a forum thread spanning 7 years of work, so you can follow him on his way. Makes me wonder – what might I achieve with the same kind of dedication?

September 2002 (© Jonathan Hardesty)

February 2009 (© Jonathan Hardesty)

Saturday: The planetarium at Ahhaa, somewhat disappointing. A lecture rather than a show, dry-ish and uninspiring. Presented by a guy picked for his knowledge rather than his presentation skills. Since he only gives a scripted talk his knowledge of astronomy is no use; I would have preferred someone with better diction and more charisma, or even a recording by a professional actor.

Sunday: drove to Tallinn. Got stuck in a massive traffic jam at Ülemiste due to some bicycle race that we didn’t know about. We could have taken an alternative route but the traffic authorities didn’t have the sense to inform drivers of the road blocks in advance. After half an hour we finally got to a place where we could escape the jam and zig-zag through Lasnamäe to Pirita where my friend V lives. Spent a most relaxing afternoon with V and family – the kids entertained each other, Adrian picked through their toy box, and we adults just lounged on the deck and ate and talked.

Monday: in Tallinn’s Old Town. The town was overrun with large guided tourist groups; they were everywhere. Both kids were in a bad mood, tired, didn’t want to eat at mealtimes and then complained of hunger a short while later, and generally complained about stuff all day long. We hardly enjoyed any of the stuff we saw.

Tallinn Flower Festival: small scale, low-key, pretty and fun.

Finally saw the much-discussed Victory Column with my own eyes.

Lunch at Olde Hansa: menu unchanged over the past 10 years, food still good, portions smaller than they used to be.

Climbed to the top of the tower of the old City Hall: good views but very windy; had to go down almost as soon as we got up because Ingrid wouldn’t keep still and got in everyone’s way, while Adrian squirmed all the time.

NUKU muuseum, the museum of Tallinn’s puppet theatre: far larger and more interesting than I had expected. But it was a total labyrinth, a tangle of rooms with confusing signs.

Kultuurikilomeeter, a kilometer of culture: “a lot of kilometer and not a lot of culture”. Instead of one kilometer the path is 2.2 km long but the culture along it is very, very sparse. From its name I had expected it to be lined with sculptures, installations, outdoor art… all we found was an “eco-island” (a cheap-looking café on some sort of floating island), a stage and some graffiti and another café in the old Patarei prison, a construction site which will at some point become a museum for sea planes, and a couple of historic ships. A lot of urban decay – hip and edgy, I know, I know, and quite nice-looking in places, but depressing in others – but very little of what I would actually term “culture”. We gave up about halfway through since Ingrid and Adrian were both bored as there was nothing at all to hold their attention.

I took the day off work so we could all go to Gröna Lund. We wanted to go on a weekday to avoid the worst crowds, and the weather reports had been promising a cloudy day which should also lead to fewer visitors. In the end most of the day was sunny but the crowds weren’t too bad. We were there as soon as they opened, at noon, and up until about half past two we could go on most rides with very little queueing.

I got to go on two roller coasters this year, Jetline and Kvasten (The Witch’s Broom). Both were great! Kvasten was fun because you’re hanging below the tracks so it feels like your feet are going to hit the house / tree / whatever you’re flying over, but the ride was a bit too short for my taste. Jetline is a serious roller coaster with steep ups and downs, and enough g-forces to give me a stiff neck. I totally agree that it is unsuitable for pregnant women, even though I found that rule most disappointing last year, when the most adventurous ride I could go on was the wave swinger.

Ingrid revisited all her favourites from last year, and also tried three new attractions: the bumper cars (that she was too short for last year), Blå tåget (a ghost train, which she found way too scary) and Rock-Jet, which had her literally squealing with laughter for the entire duration of the ride.

She was surprisingly utilitarian about her choice of rides. Nyckelpigan is her favourite, and Kärlekstunneln (the Love Tunnel) is a close second, but she only went once on each of those and then rejected them because the queues were too long, opting instead for the instant gratification of rides that were almost as good but with a much shorter waiting time.

Adrian had at least as much fun as the rest of us. There was so much to look at he could barely find time to eat. Things going swish and vroom and clang all around him, lots of people, never a dull moment. And he got the best value for money since they have free entry for kids up to the age of 3.

Jetline! Image borrowed from the Gröna Lund web site.

Yesterday the Estonian school in Stockholm’s Old town had an “open house” day so I went to visit. Next winter we will need to decide on which schools to apply to for Ingrid. (Somewhat stupidly their open house this year was well after the school choice deadline, so I can’t count on visiting them when it’s time to make the decision.) The school seemed good enough, but I haven’t seen any ordinary Swedish schools to compare to. The hard part will be weighing the extra exposure to Estonian language and culture against the inevitable logistical complications.

Today we went to Liljevalchs to see their Spring Salon, an annual exhibition of art by “everyman”. Anyone can send in photos of their works for consideration by the jury, who choose not the “best” works but works that make for a fun exhibition. You can see photos of the works selected for this year’s exhibition here. Ingrid complained about tired legs (par for the course); Adrian was mostly happy to be lugged around (also as expected).

If I did movie reviews, I’d write a rave review about The Secret of Kells. But I don’t.

This blog has a whole category for books, and none for movies. That’s no accident. Books are much more important to me than movies. If I had to live without movies, I don’t think I’d miss them much. Books, on the other hand, are essential. (So is the internet, for that matter.) And I often have opinions about the books I read, whereas I don’t know enough about the art of making movies to be able to say anything particularly intelligent about them. I don’t think in images, I think in words; I don’t process images as well as I process language.

In the evenings, when both kids are asleep, Eric will often watch a movie or part of some TV series, while I’d rather spend time reading blogs or a book. But I often listen to whatever he watches with half my attention. Sometimes I decide partway through that his movie sounds so interesting that I want to see the rest. And sometimes, very occasionally, I will take the time to watch a whole movie. Even more rarely, I will ask Eric for a particular movie, rather than just “tag along” with whatever he chooses.

I can only recall three movies that I’ve watched from beginning to end during recent months. (I may have seen more but in that case they didn’t make a very strong impression. And watching Ingrid’s “Barbie Rapunzel” with her does NOT count.)

The Secret of Kells, as I said, was wonderful. This one we all watched together on New Year’s Eve, in order to stay awake until midnight, and everyone loved it. It is beautiful, magical, gripping: a fairy tale excellently told.

Babies was one I had wanted to see. Just 4 babies doing their stuff: somehow totally riveting. Perhaps because I have one at home myself? (Review at Salon.com)

How to Train Your Dragon was just plain fun.

Determined not to let one bad circus experience discourage us, we went to see Cirkus Cirkör today, at the Subtopia festival. Cirkör is a Swedish contemporary circus company (which means no clowns and no animals, and about as much theatre as circus).

The title of the show was “Wear it like a crown”, after a song with the same title by Rebekka Karijord, who’s written the music for this show. It was a small and almost intimate performance, with just 5 people on the scene (the 6th artist was absent due to an earlier accident), a simple set, melancholy music and muted lighting. There was juggling (of everything from ping-pong balls to chainsaws and chairs), acrobatics, knife-throwing and trapeze, and more. It is apparently possible to make a circus show out of shoes, plastic bags and plungers.

This is not a children’s show in any way, but it was weird and whimsical enough, and not too loud or scary, so Ingrid enjoyed it. At over two hours (including the interval) it was a bit too long for her, but not so that we’d need to leave early.

I’ve looked for photos of the show but found none that made it justice. There is a trailer but unfortunately it shows nothing of the show itself.

A nice performance, fun, unpredictable, and personal – well worth seeing.

Yesterday Ingrid and I went to the circus. (Eric was away in Italy, carousing with colleagues.) We’d been looking forward to it for a week, especially with all the posters everywhere.

And what a disappointment the show was. A dull performance with unimaginative numbers, not exactly badly performed but totally uninspiring. Two of the numbers seemed to be pure fillers, to make the time pass: musicians in shiny circus attire playing ordinary musical instruments in the middle of the scene. If I wanted to listen to a guy play the trumpet, I’d go to a concert, not the circus. During the break children were offered pony and camel rides (for a fee), or to go backstage and see the animals (for a fee, again) – and that’s on top of the steep ticket price.

Note to self: stay away from Circus Maximum, and probably from all such travelling circuses.

Today we visited Tartu Hansapäevad (Tartu Hanseatic Days), a summer festival in central Tartu. Lovely. I associate festivals with loud music, crowds, crappy expensive food, and sellers of cheap tat. We didn’t sample any of the food, other than ice cream, but on all other fronts, this was the opposite in all ways.

The city centre was way more crowded than usual, of course, but not so bad that it would get annoying (and my threshold for crowd tolerance is low, believe me). The stalls were all spacious and spread out, which made the festival area easy to get around. It wasn’t even hard to get around with a buggy.

The music (where present) was provided mostly by wind orchestras and brass bands, since this year’s Hansapäevad coincided with a wind music festival.

Instead of cheap tat, there was a huge market for traditional Estonian handicrafts: wood working and wood carving, pottery, knitted wool, felted wool, embroidery and sewing, smithery, traditional food and so on. A lot of lovely stuff to look at! In some senses I may not be strongly Estonian any more, but I do feel a strong affinity to Estonian crafts. The feel of the Estonian woollen yarns (hand spun, slightly rough, unbleached), the smell of juniper wood, the look of the traditional striped fabrics – it all says “home” to me. I love Estonian traditional textiles in particular, and wish I could fit them into my wardrobe without clashing with everything else I wear.

They had even thought of families with children. Not just the usual bouncy castles (although there was an area with such junk as well) but also meet-a-policeman, pony rides, and a lot of craftsy activities for kids of all ages: stamp your own shopping bag, draw and paint, make a paper doll with real fabric clothes. Even better, the activities were not all in one corner of the festival area. We could alternate between window shopping (stall shopping?) for me and activities for Ingrid, so no one got bored.

Add ice cream, and a fountain to splash in, and great weather (below 30°C!) and it was a roaring success for us.

For my non-Swedish readers, here’s a representative sample of bugg.

The dance floor at Gröna Lund

The bugg course ended in June, and then we were away in Estonia, but now that I’m back, I’m determined to go out dancing regularly.

During summertime there are several outdoor dancing venues in Stockholm. Skansen and Gröna Lund are two popular ones in central Stockholm. I’ve been to Gröna Lund these past two Thursdays, and it’s been great.

The standard setup for social dancing in Sweden is that you pay some sort of entrance charge, and then you get to dance for a couple of hours while a band plays live music. At Gröna Lund the band plays from 19:00 to 22:45. There’s a break (or several) in the middle to let everyone rest. And there’s free drinking water available somewhere near the dance floor, because bugg is sweaty business.

The band always plays two slower tunes (for quickstep/foxtrot) followed by two faster ones (for bugg), and this pattern repeats throughout the evening. In order to dance, one person (usually, but not always, a guy) approaches another person (usually, but not always, of the opposite sex) and asks if they want to dance. An affirmative answer is a commitment for one “dance” consisting of two tunes, but if both are happy, a couple can go on dancing for as long as they want.

The crowd can be very varied, ranging from 20-ish girls dancing with each other to 70-ish couples, and everything in between. Some are there for serious dancing, showing off competition-level moves. Some are more casual. Some only come for a few dances after their dinner. Some are there with the very explicit goal of meeting women. (I’ve gotten polite but very thinly-veiled invitations both times.)

There was a slight excess of women both evenings. Turning up without a partner, and not knowing many people there (although I did recognize a couple of people from the dance school where I took my bugg course), I spent some time partnerless both times. It’s much easier to dance with someone you know – the first dance with a new partner can be a bit awkward when both try to figure out the other’s style – so most people are hesitant to invite a stranger to the dance floor. But I spent much less time standing on the side yesterday, so the trend is looking good.

Most guys on a dance floor are reasonably good at bugg. You either know how to dance it, or not – and if you really suck, you won’t go out dancing. There’s also some scope for the girl to dance “better” than the guy – if he’s hesitant or unclear in his signals, the girl can compensate for it. But quickstep/foxtrot is trickier. It seems so simple on the surface, so guys think they can do it. But it’s not at all easy to really do it well. Yet when both partners know it well, and their styles “match” or mesh well, it is fabulous. Out of all the dances yesterday I had a single fabulous foxtrot, and it eclipses the entire rest of the evening.

Bugg is fast, sporty, somewhat technical, with lots of twirling. It takes focus and energy. Foxtrot done well, on the other hand, is smooth and sensuous, especially the so-called “dirty fox” style with lots of body contact. It’s a bit like meditation: a combination of relaxation and concentration. I can close my eyes to shut out the world (just like when listening to music), even forget about the music and just follow the guidance of the guy, and I’m floating around like on a cloud. When the music ends, it feels like waking from a dream.