Back in Sweden

I have had a lot to do this last week of the circus course, which was fun but sad as I knew that soon there would be no Greentop every day anymore.

My family came to watch the final show, and then we looked around Sheffield and spent some time with my landlady and lodger.

After that, I had one more week in England until our flight left from London, so we went through Stratford-upon-Aven, Warwick and Oxford before we reached Heathrow to fly back to Sweden.

Now I am in Tyresö outside Stockholm and then we will fly back to Luleå late in the night tonight.

Soon there will be a boom of final show pictures and pictures from England.

Happy Easter and World Circus Day!

Today it is Easter and we had a day of from rehearsals. It is now less than a week until the show! I feel much better from the cold now and look forward to next week. Today I spent some time in town trying to sort out the last pieces of my costumes, but I bet I will find something else that is missing during the week.

Since it is Easter I bought some chocolate Easter eggs that I have seen almost everywhere since I arrived in Sheffield. I got two different types: one with chocolate mousse and one with some sweet milky white thing inside. They were both good and very sweet!

I also found out that the World Circus Day is celebrated the third Saturday of April every year. I didn't do anything special to celebrate it, but I had some energy to do some more five ball practicing.

Happy Easter everyone!

Busy and BJC

It has been a very busy week since this is the last week of spezialisation before the full time work on the show starts.

Last weekend I had some time to be touristic and went to Kelham Island Industrial Museum, and it was the best museum in Sheffield so far. I will make a post where I show some pictures and tell you more about it.

I am almost done with my tightwire piece and have been working on the same idea for weeks. In aerial, we restarted this week since we due to time restriction in the show needed to do aerial in groups. Our group has changed theme some times but now I think this will be fine.

I have spent the evening packing and preparing for the British Juggling Convention! It is gonna be so much fun!

Cave story

The weekend before last one I went to the Peak Districts to walk, but due to rain we went down to Speedwell cavern instead. I realized that I probably don't have any better pictures than these two as it was very difficult to take ant good pictures inside the cave.

Speedwell cavern is a cave in Castleton and was originally a lead mine, but as they dug into the natural cave system the cave was flooded and they had to close the mine. Nowadays, it is possible to take a guided tour where we first had to walk down over 100 steps down, and then continue the tour on boat in the old mining tunnel. It was a little bit claustrophobic with the small tunnel that we half filled with water, and I think the water made it both more scary but also exciting.

Sitting in the boat going through the cave

Inside the cave, we could go off to a platform and watch from where all the water came from. We could also see "The Bottomless Pit" which the miners though was bottomless since the water level never rose no matter how much stone they threw there. They thought the devil was sitting on the bottom eating the stone, but now divers in the cave have found out that the water could go away though some holes on the side of the cave, almost like this thing in sinks to prevent the water from flooding over in bathroom sinks.

Tried  to take a photo of stalagmites

It was definitely a good decision to go inside the cave instead of walking in the rain. I recommend Speedwell cavern as it is unique with the water and the combination of mine and cave.

Peak district

Last weekend I was very happy to get the chance to visit the Peak district together with my landlady and her boyfriend. We drove there through a beautiful wavy green landscape with nice view to do walking in Castleton.

We started walking along one of the green hillls. It was like I imagined the English countryside with green hills, stone houses and sheep. The road was wet and slippy, but it didn't rain as we started to walk.

These are all picture from when there was nice weather, but as we had walked a little bit more it started to rain. We rested in a cave to eat some sandwiches and hope that the rain would fade out, but instead it started to rain even more. Then we decided to turn around and not continue walking since the road would be quite dangerous to walk on.

To escape the rain we decided to go on the guided tour in Speedway cave, which was very exiting since it was like a combined mine and cave, and since it got flooded as the mine went into the cave system the tour was on a steel boat in the old mine tunnels. I will write more about the cave.

After the visit to the cave we went to eat tea and scones. It was very nice with tea, scones, strawberry jam and whipped cream that was almost like butter, and it was all very English.

On the way back we drove past Chatsworth House which is a big house of the same type as the one in the TV-series Downton Abbey.

It was a nice day trip even though there was a lot of rain that made us change some plans. I highly recommend a visit to the Peak Disctrict and if I got a chance I would like to go there again.

Slackers in botanical garden

Today I visited Sheffield Botanical Garden together with some friends from the course to do some slack line walking. It was a long time since I last tried slack line so it was fun, and it is very different from tightwire since the slackline can go sideways under you in a way tightwire can not.

Here I am on the slack line!

The slackline stand out quite much in the park and some children also tried it out, and they all looked so happy to do it.

We also juggled and did some other circus things together, and practiced some pass juggling. The weather was very unpredicible; it rained, was sunny as in summer and then it suddendly started to hail big ice marbles from the sky.

The pavillion that was used as a greenhouse. It was free entry.

Before I met everyone we ha a walk around the botanical garden and the pavillion.

No doubt it is spring times.

Lost in Hillsborough

Yesterday I slept as long as usual to recover from a week of circus. In the morning I joined Im to go out running. We ran for maybe one hour and it was a nice sunshine but still windy so it was perfect running weather. We ran along the canal in the old industrial areal which was a nice path.

Since I chose equilibrilistics as one of my specializations I plan to do a lot of tight wire, but the wire is made from twinned metal wires and after 2,5 hours of constant walking my soles are hurting. Therefore I planned to go to some dance shop to see if they had some kind of dance shoes or even martial art shoes that could be suitable for tight wire walking. I was told it would talk maybe 20 minuets to walk there, but after 45 minuets of walking I felt that I was not even near or in the right areal. I had seen a lot of Hillsborough area though, but I never found that dance shop.

Then I met a friend in town to watch some photo exhibition from travelers which was small but nice. The we also watched the Millennium galleries since he had never been there the last two years even if he lives in Sheffield. I really understand this since I am not very good at doing tourist things in my previous hometowns, except when guiding friends and family.

The Moor Market and street dance

Yesterday I walked down to town. First I visited the main library of Sheffield and the Grave Galleries, where I watched ther exhibition about Polish artists the fled to UK duting the second world war. It was mostly quite heavy oil paintings. One thing I really like with the exhibition was the informative signs next to every painting, and the text on each was a good length but still contained some interesting information about the work. In some museum there are no or little information, or just too much. I also saw the rest of their exhibitions.

Some art in the stairs of the main library.

Then I went to see the Moor market. It was a nice market area that was number 7 on VisitSheffield.co.uk top visitior attractions. It was a nice, sunny Saturday with many people walking around, and I liked the atmosphere of the area.

There was some street dancers performing in the streets, and they both were really good at dancing and to enjoy themselves. After some time I realized they promoted their one night only show on Wendsday at Sheffield City Hall and I had already planned to go there together with some other students from the CIP course.

Inside the actual Moor Market was a mixtore of food and other stalls where you could find almost anything.

In the evening I went to Greentop to see the Cabaret "Sailors and Mermaids". It was fun to see some performances that could inspire us to our final CIP course, and the average level of the acts was good. One of our areal teachers did a performance and I liked to see how she did a very nice areal hoop performance

The flying teapots and fire spinning

It is already week five of the course. I am really getting used to do this and I really like going to Greentop every day.

I have had a beginning of a cold this week so this Monday I didn't go to beginners evening trapeze class. instead, I went for Sheffield University juggling club "Flying Teapots" juggling practice session. It was very nice to see a room full of enthusiastic jugglers and object manipulators. I learned some new nice devil sticks moves and also some new poi moves ("the wrong weave" and "the antispin vetruvian man").

In poi, I have reached the point when it can sometimes be difficult to know what to learn next or where to head next, but there were some really skilled and nice poi spinners there that I talked to. I have never been to any juggling conventions but now I understand how you can learn a lot from them!

After the practice session we headed to West Park to do some fire practice. I had brought my fire poi from Sweden so after I had watched the other people I also had a go. My poi was burning a lot more than usual, and I don't know if it was because it was hot in the air or if it was the paraffin fuel that was different.

At the end A did some fire breathing. It looks really cool, but I think I will never dare to do it.

When I first started doing poi, I don't know if i was even aware that it was possible to do fire spinning. I had been doing poi for many years (hmm summers) when I tried fire for the first time with the jester club in Luleå, and I was really scared of the fire.

Now, I quite enjoy spinning with fire, but I still have a lot of respect for it. I like the sound of the flames when they move through the air, and still get a little adrenalin when I do it, even if it is not as much as when I was less used to fire spinning. It was a good evening.

Parkwood springs view and diabolo practice

This weekend I have been very lazy and mostly staying at home. I needed to rest after two weeks of circus course with the London trip between them, and it has been very nice just to relax for a while.

In the afternoon I decided to take a long walk around Burngreave. I managed to find a post office quite near my house, but since it was Sunday it was not open. I tried to ask in a convenience store if it was possible to buy stamps there but he seemed very unsure about international post and told me that I had to visit the post office.

Then I just walked around, and passed Abbyfield park which was full of kids playing football. I wondered why there was quite a big brick wall around the park so It was impossible to look in or out from the park.

I saw on the map that I was quite close to an area that was called Palmwood Springs so I walked in that direction to see what it was like. It turned out to be some kind of big nature park open for everyone. The entrance was very empty and was just a sign saying “public footpath” with a small map. But when I had walked a little bit in this area I realized how high up above Sheffield I was, and it was a nice view over the city. I really recommend to climb up in the Palmwood Springs area for a free nice viewpoint.

I was almost alone, except for one running woman and some downhill mountain bike guys. There was a prepared track for the bikes that was surprisingly long; it covered almost the whole area from top to bottom.

There were also two football fields and some forest where a dog and the owner played around. I decided to practice some two diabolo, but it was super windy so it was even more difficult to keep two going at the same time. I tried to spin one diabolo and then take my cell phone to take a picture when I spun, but it was impossible since the wind would make it change angle and direction and I cannot do the diabolo with one had yet, and especially not the left one.

Downhill mountain bike track

Then I decided to try to throw the diabolo as high as I could, an then I had to run around since it would be totally unpredictable in which direction the wind would push the diabolo in the air. It was dangerous once when i catches it the diabolo hit my hand. Either it spun very fast or had such a high speed, because my hand started to bleed when it got hit. Well, I continued anyway until it started to get dark, and then I walked back home to make chicken stew for dinner.

Edit: 

I wanted to add some top diabolo tips for windy days

• Don't do diabolo when it is too windy
• Try to drive the two diabolos with your right hand rather than the left. If you like me, drove with your left at first, the it will feel like you are doing it twice as fast when you are doing it with you right hand.
• Let diabolo land on the string and not other body parts, because it will hurt

Feeling like a local

The day before yesterday was a fantastic day, because I watched instinctively to the right when I was about to cross the road. Today, I was able to give directions to a man who asked me how to get to a street near my house. I am not so awkward when I use the self check outs at the grocery stores and I now understand that "tea" can be both the drink and dinner.

Todays dance class was fun. We did everything we did the last times and also worked a little bit on our phrase. We also had a discussion about what we wanted to do at the final show. It was the first time we actually started to sit down and think about it. Everyone got so excited and had so many good ideas that we will explore the next dance class.

Yesterday was a super dramatic day in the afternoon. While we did standing on shoulder exercises, some young boys came to use the bathroom. We just assumed they were early for the youth acrobatics, but on the way out they pickpocketed two phones. But since one of them was an iPhone with a tracker, we called the police and tracked them. In the end they couldn't catch the thieves, but they found the phone in the forest with help of the tracker. It was like a television drama.

As usual I cannot take picures during class but here is another pyramid from last weeks acrobatics class. It is called a Spanish pyramid where the different levels go into each other.

Meadow hall and trains

Yesterday I slept so much so I eat brunch. In the afternoon, I took a walk to Meadow Halls shopping center. It was in the same direction as Greentop, so the area was quite industrial. As I passed this big brown building that has something with steel industry to do, I manage to catch another train picture for Dad.

I saw a sign that the same security company that surveille Luleå Technical University also look after some industry here. There name is quite funny for being a security company. Maybe that is the reason all the security guards in Luleå are so nice to the students.

I passed this memory wheel over workers who lost their lives in different industry accidents between 1867-1873. 

I passed a railway bridge and took some more railway pictures.

After a while I finally reached Meadow Hall. It was very difficult to take a flattering picture of this shopping center and the path go reach it was not pedestrian friendly at all, as with all shopping malls, also in Sweden. It was surrounded with big parking lots and there where many cars everywhere, and I got confused from left traffic again and had a hard time reaching the entrance. I couldn't even find the main entrance, so I went through a shop to go into the mall. It looked much nice inside though. 

Meadow Hall in one of Europes biggest shopping malls. I have visited the World biggest shopping mall Shinsaege in Busan, South Korea, but this one felt much bigger. I think Meadow Hall seemed bigger because it was only two floors, but Shinsaege had many floors. This meant that the walking distances in Meadow Hall was long and I think I have never seen this much people in the same area in England as in Meadow Hall. You cant really see from my pictures how big this mall really is.

There where mostly clothes stores, but a lot of other shops as well. One segment that seems so much bigger in England are the card shops. I saw them yesterday in the city as well and even Tesco has so many greeting cards for every season, occasion and birthday to any relative or friend you can think of. English people maybe send much more cards to each other, or they like to look at cards? I don't know.

I also noted that many jackets where marked as "Shower resistant". My current winter jacket stand water okey, but my spring jacket doesn't. I  have experienced why they need shower resistant jackets here though. 

There where also a lot of small cookie shops that only sold big flat cookies. In Swedish shopping malls there are cafés, but not this type of cookie shops.

Another thing i noticed was that is was quite hard to go between the two levels in Meadow Hall, until I realized that the stairs or elevators where almost always "hidden" inside the stores, as many stores where two floor stores. That is usually not the case in Swedish shopping malls.

On my way back, a train passed just as I walked across the bridge. Here you go dad.

Twilight pictures of city center

This is a continuation from the last post about my walk around the city center of Sheffield.

After visiting Devonshire Green and the university area I stumbled upon this area with many food restaurants and small shops, typical for areas near universities I think. It was a nice to walk around and look inside the stores and feel the smell from the restaurants.

Then intensity of the rain increased and the sun started to set, so I started to walk back home. Then sun sets about 17-18 I think, which is a lot more than in Luleå at this time of the year.

I passed this house with Banksy style graffiti art that I liked. 

The city hall had some nicely lite fountains outside.

Here is the red building again.

I also passed the Peace Gardens on the other side of the Town Hall, which also had a nice light design. I liked how the fountain where at different levels throughout the "garden", and here you can see stairs for both humans and water. 

Even my cell phone was soaked in water due to the rain so those pictures have a lot of water on the lens.

The fountain in the middle changed height. 

Then I walked back home and went to Tesco to stock up food for the upcoming week. Luckily it finally stopped raining.

Walking around looking at architecture

Yesterday I decided to have another look around town in the afternoon. Since it was quite sunny after lunch I thought it would be nice to walk there to get to know the area between the city center as well.

Since it was both Saturday, nice weather and not too cold there was a lot of people out. To me, it felt like spring in Sweden and I became happy just because of the weather.

On my way to town I passed through Wicker Arches, and as a ex engineering student I had to read the sign and take some photos of it. It got extra points for being built just for carrying railway. It got bombed during the war 1940, and then, according to the sign, partly dismantled during the electrification. In 1990, the arches where restored. 

Another arch I saw as a approached the central parts of Sheffield. To to far from this one I finally found a post office where I could buy stamps. I was also surprised that they could change some Swedish bills that I accidentally brought with me to England.

Then I walked around the city center once again and it started to rain again. This stereotype that it always rain in Britain seems not be based on a true story. This street was a big shopping street with a lot of people.

I thought this red building to the left was quite cool, so on my way back I took another picture of it.

Then I walked towards the Devonshire Green, which had some funny sculpture walls that I liked. I started to rain even more so I couldn't sit on the benches and enjoy the park. As you can see, the colored line changes color like a rainbow as it travels along the wall.

The color change of the line was possible since it was composed of many small tiles. Devonshire Green looked to be a little bit under construction, but I liked this area. It some way it reminds me a little bit of the pictures I have seen of Gaudi's Park Güell in Barcelona (but I haven't been there).

Then, I ran into the area of one of Sheffield two universities, Sheffield university. I saw this building which i though looked cools as well. I think architecture in general are moving towards free form building rather than 90-degree shapes. I also liked that the house in the background to the left had like a tunnel through it. 

The building underneath looks very gothic and English. I think I saw a sign that it in some way belongs to the University of Sheffield but I am not sure what it is used for.

Then I just had to take a photo of this street sign since Portobello both is a Swedish soft drink, a mushroom and a market in London that I remember from the first time i visited England with my family.

Then I walked around some more in the area as it started to get a little bit darker, but I will continue in the next post.