Västerås tales - City festival week

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It was not "Thank God, its Friday" for me yesterday as I had been pretty much having a very good time the whole of last week, both with work and fun. I can't forget that a few days back I was in a nice get-together and barbecue with friends. The last weekend of June 09 is here and I am almost completing a month now in this beautiful place with beautiful people. Yesterday, over lunch, one of my friends told me that Västerås is having a city festival (http://www.malarveckor.se/), something which is held every summer and that there's a frenzy of activities at the city center and that its total fun. Wow, that was it. What more can you expect over the weekend.

These days, the weather god has been very kind on Västerås - its bright and sunny and the atmosphere is just great or rather I should say "sexy". The temperatures are between 20-25 C and lots of people are out on every possible street. There's the old couple hand in hand going for their walks, the mom, pushing the pram with the little one giggling all along with her hubby on the side and the younger lots on their cycles rushing around to enjoy as much as they can. The big motor bikes with the big people on it are out on the main road, the restaurants are choc-a-bloc full, beer bars are running full houses - well well, its just people, people all around enjoying to their level best. This weekend being the last weekend before the summer vacations start for all of them, the excitement is almost on a high. I went to the city center both yesterday and today.

Friday evening, the situation was like Brigade road or M. G. Road in Bangalore - only people. I was ecstatic. I wanted to have a hair cut, but then the saloons were already closed. Most of the shops here close at 18:00 hrs while few of them stay open till 19:00 hrs. Anyway, there's nobody to look at me, so I was not bothered about my hair style. I was more enthusiastic to go around and see whats happening. If you have seen Durga Puja in Kolkata, the situation was just like that. Most of the side streets were all closed and there were enclosures built on the major streets as if some kind of big puja is happening. The only difference was that in all those enclosures, there's a stage and on the stage, musicians were performing. I found stages in almost all the important side-streets and the music in all the stages were not the same. At two places, there were rock shows going on with several bands (i think local bands) performing one after the other. At one of the places, they were charging an entry fee of 20 SEK and I think the performers there were some of the best people around. At another place, it was more of the classical type and I listened to a guy singing which I presume to be the Italian opera type of song. This was like the performance in the movie "The Untouchables" which Robert De Niro was watching when Sean Connery gets killed. I was impressed. There were flywheels and all those sort of games which we see in a typical Indian "mela" (festival). The fun quotient was probably the same for children and adults alike. At every place, it was full. At those streets where "pandals" (enclosures) were not there, the sides were all lined up with small shops selling things ranging from football jerseys to leather accessories to summer clothes to .... what not. And when I said its like Brigade road its slightly different in the sense that the shops were right on the street, so you peek into each one of those and then see whats in for sale. I just stood at one end of the road and lo, slowly, I was at the other end. People were not in a hurry unlike in Bangalore, they were here to enjoy and every one of them was taking their own sweet time to go ahead. I liked the steady movement to the other side and I did the same thing for the return trip as well. With so many people around, can food stalls be left behind. There were many many food stalls too selling many different varieties of food items. Since I don't eat meat, I just lost out on having a feast. It was a totally different experience all-together at a place where usually I never expected such a thing to happen. I am told that the countdown for the gloomy days ahead is probably going to start from this point on. Well, I am looking forward for that experience too.


Europe is known for football and for the first time, I could experience the love for the game on Friday. I was busy watching one of the music performances when from nowhere, there was a big roar from all around and people started to look out as to what exactly happened. Then, I saw people crowding round at the back of the stage and I was curious to know what was there. I too went there and surprisingly, I found that people were watching a football game on TV over mugs and mugs of beer and interestingly, Sweden was playing England in an under-21 UEFA cup match. The most dramatic part was that Sweden had just hit a goal to level the scores 3-3 and the roar was for that. Can you imagine the situation? In no time, I found that the crowd around the stage had disappeared and there was a small melee around the TV. Unfortunately though, Sweden lost the game 5-4 on tie-breaker and I just can't imagine as to how much the beer pubs would have made yesterday night.

Saturday, I went to the city center slightly late, around 8:00 PM or so. The situation was similar as it was yesterday. I had a chance to see a performance by red indians on one of the street corners. At one of the places where a rock show was on yesterday, today evening a dance show was happening, the name of the event being "Power Moves". I was lucky to see a pretty old guy dance to the tune of Billie Jean. That was just a great performance. After that, it was a big group which performed a medley of dance sequences from solo performances to group ones. The crowd was encouraging the performers with continuous clapping and hooting. It was sheer fun to be out their in that environment. I didn't have much to do, so I just roamed around till 9:30PM, did some household shopping at ICA and came back home. The last two evenings has given me more reasons to believe that I am at the right place at the right time. The only thing I missed was the Samba which I didn't know when it happened, but I came to know that it happened.

Hej då