On the way to Vienna – sparrows, airports and a stag do
On 15 October, I set off once again. My journey was to take me from Gothenburg via Vienna to Canyelles near Barcelona and finally back home again. I left the car in the larger car park at the Rådahallen swimming pool in Mellerud. From there, I took the train to Gothenburg.
There, in sunny weather, I still had time for a fika in the park. However, I wasn’t alone with my cake for long. A curious flock of sparrows had spotted the crumbs. Some were surprisingly bold and ventured right up close to the plate, whilst others preferred to keep their distance and watch to see what the cheeky ones could get away with. A lovely little game developed between us. As it happened, I felt very close to Hajo. It was almost as if he wanted to tease me a little.
I then took the Flygbuss to Landvetter Airport. Although I’ve flown a lot in my life, I now find it rather tiring. You’re constantly on the move, yet you spend most of the time waiting. No sooner have you settled down somewhere than you have to get up again, carry on walking or join a queue. I rarely manage to concentrate on work or read undisturbed in such situations.
It’s different for me on the train. Once I’ve found a seat, I can stay where I am. Even if there’s a delay, I can read, write, look out of the window or simply doze off. When flying, on the other hand, my attention is constantly on call.
So off I went into this commercialised world, where even the route to the departure gate leads through retail areas. As always, I first had to make my way through the perfume scents – which I find unbearable – before facing the next challenge: a fully booked flight.
With an unknown destination
I ended up sitting next to two very friendly and decidedly talkative young men. Throughout the flight, they kept offering me alcoholic drinks, which I politely declined each time. In return, I gradually learnt the story of their journey.
The two were part of a whole group of friends celebrating a stag party. They are from Serbia, live in Sweden and work in Oslo. They’d whisked the future groom away straight from work. He thought they were heading to Vienna, where they have family. It was only later that I realised Vienna was just a stop-off: the actual journey continued on to Belgrade for an ice hockey match. Apparently, they were all keen ice hockey fans.
The alcohol flowed freely. By the time we landed in Vienna, the drinks were still not finished and the party was far from over. For me, it was a surprising encounter. Usually, you sit next to each other in silence on a plane and, even after landing, know next to nothing about the people with whom you’ve just spent several hours in a cramped space – in a tube hurtling through the air at 800 km/h at an altitude of 10,000 metres. This time, I’d unexpectedly gained a little insight into a network of friendships spanning Serbia, Sweden and Norway.
After landing, the familiar wait began again: for the shuttle bus to the terminal, then on to the exit. At customs, the choice between red and green – green, of course.
At the exit, I was greeted by Harald, whom you’ll already know from our ‘Inbetween’ and ‘Hellwach’ seminars. As a graduate of his ‘Visual Communication’ course, he’d invited me to the ‘Visual Communicator Day’. After all that travelling, I was delighted to see him and to have finally arrived.
Vienna – Reunions and Memories
For me, Vienna is a special and wonderful city. This is mainly down to the people I know there. Harald is a warm host, and with him I discover places I’d probably never come across on my own: the vineyards, the Heurigen and, time and again, good food. Some of it reminds me of my grandmother and her Bohemian cooking.
I also hear something familiar in the Viennese dialect. The sound and certain turns of phrase bring back memories of my grandparents, who came from the Sudetenland. Then I can hear my grandfather saying once again: ‘First I was Austrian, then I became Polish, then Czech, then German, and then I was forced to flee the country.’
This single sentence encapsulates a whole life spent under changing national affiliations. The German-speaking settlement areas in Bohemia, Moravia and Austrian Silesia – which were later grouped under the term ‘Sudetenland’ – belonged to the Habsburg Monarchy until 1918. Following its collapse, new borders were drawn. In Cieszyn Silesia in particular, Poland and Czechoslovakia disputed the allegiance of the towns. In 1938, Nazi Germany annexed the Sudeten German territories; following the war and the Nazi occupation, a large proportion of the German-speaking population was expelled from Czechoslovakia in 1945–46. His sentence has stayed with me as a reminder of just how much political borders can shape a person’s life.
Perhaps that is also why, for me, Vienna is not simply a city I visit. In the language and the food, I encounter something from my own family history.
Thank you, Harald, and thank you also to Brigitte, his wonderful wife, for this lovely time and your hospitality.
Friendships that last
For me, Vienna is also associated with my former colleague İnci Dirim. We conducted research and worked together in the early years of my academic career. Over the years, this has developed into a lovely friendship.
İnci has been a professor of German as a Second Language at the University of Vienna since 2010. Her work focuses on multilingualism, education and the question of how language enables a sense of belonging, but can also become a means of exclusion. Her research combines language teaching methodology with perspectives on migration education and anti-discrimination.
I also visited Esther Schramm. She works as a coach, mediator and communications expert, including with autistic and other neurodivergent people. At the Polyvagal Academy, she runs courses on autism, stress and trauma-informed mindfulness. She has also long been associated with autSocial and our joint work with Hajo.
We hadn’t seen each other for a long time and spoke at length about our experiences, about Hajo and his death. Esther told me how much he had meant to her and how difficult it still is for her to come to terms with the fact that he is no longer with us. For me, it was important to speak to someone who knew him and who has their own memories of him.
Bringing things back into view
The Visual Communicator Day was also a chance to catch up with lovely people from my training days – and an opportunity to meet new ones. It’s inspiring to get together with people for whom visualisation is a natural part of their lives and work.
The meeting reminded me of what I actually want to do myself. My focus is really on visualisation: not just putting thoughts into words, but giving them a visible form, discovering connections and working together on an image.
I’ve already told you about this in connection with ‘Inbetween’ and, most recently, with ‘Hellwach’. In his work, Harald makes thought processes visible during a conversation. Simple drawings give rise to shared images in which differences, patterns and new possibilities become apparent. In the summer, this idea even led us to the rock carvings at Tisselskog: images through which people long before our time recorded what was important to them.
In Vienna, this personal aspiration took on a clearer shape once more. Amidst building, organising and all the day-to-day tasks, it sometimes fades into the background. Here, it was once again very much at the forefront of my mind.
Unfortunately, that long, sunny autumn weekend passed far too quickly. Before I knew it, I had to head back to the airport and on to Barcelona.
This time, the flight was delayed by two hours. However, the delays weren’t announced all at once, but bit by bit. Just enough to keep me waiting, but never enough to allow me to get on with anything else. So I was constantly on the go and couldn’t really get anything done.
Eventually, the aeroplane did turn up, and I was able to board. This flight was full too. There were no remarkable encounters this time. After all the conversations and reunions in Vienna, the journey continued in a somewhat quieter manner.
A different autumn – a week in Canyelles
The approach to Barcelona on 19 October was extremely bumpy. I was overcome by a slight feeling of nausea, the sort I’ve rarely experienced whilst flying. In fact, there were severe weather warnings for the coastal region of Barcelona that evening: the Spanish Met Office had issued a warning of heavy rainfall and thunderstorms, which could be accompanied by hail and strong gusts of wind. I don’t know if that was exactly what made our approach so bumpy. In any case, I was glad when we were safely on the ground.
In Terminal 1, I made my way to the bus departures. My friend Nora had advised me to take the bus to Vilanova i la Geltrú straight from the airport. She said the train services were too unreliable at the moment.
I had to let the first bus leave without me, though. As is customary in Sweden, I’d naturally expected to be able to pay by card. But here I needed cash. So back into the airport building I went, to find a cash machine, work my way through its menu and withdraw some money. An hour later than planned, I finally arrived in Vilanova, where Nora picked me up at the station.
It was lovely to finally see this long-standing friend in person again. She’d just finished her last cycle of chemotherapy, and I’d promised to give her some support afterwards.
Arriving and lending a hand
I was allowed to stay for a week in her wonderful house with a garden in Canyelles. I cooked, worked in the garden, went shopping and took care of things where she needed a hand. With each passing day, she regained a little more energy, and alongside the daily chores, there was time for us to do things together.
Canyelles lies in the hilly hinterland of the Garraf coast, between Vilanova i la Geltrú and Vilafranca del Penedès. It is not far from the sea, yet the surroundings are quite different: hills, woodland, vineyards and the paths between the villages characterise the landscape. A description dating back to the 19th century already lists wine, cereals, vegetables and pulses as the area’s produce.
Towering above the old town centre are the castle and the Church of Santa Magdalena. The preserved castle complex dates from the 13th to the 15th centuries, whilst the church dates from the 16th and 17th centuries. In this small village, therefore, many centuries lie side by side.
The reapers in front of the town hall
In front of Canyelles Town Hall stands the sculpture ‘Els Segadors’ by Emili Trías, dating from 1990. Two men stand close together, one holding a sickle aloft; further figures and ears of corn are suggested in the stone behind them. The motif links agricultural labour with the political history of Catalonia. ‘Els Segadors’ is also the name of the Catalan national anthem. It commemorates the uprising of 1640, when unrest broke out at a time of great hardship caused by war and the quartering of royal troops. On 7 June, these unrest escalated in Barcelona into the so-called ‘Bloody Corpus Christi’ – the start of the Reapers’ War. The current lyrics date from 1899, and the song was officially recognised as the national anthem in 1993. Thus, in front of the town hall, one encounters not only a reminder of agriculture, but also an important symbol of Catalan identity and self-assertion.
Between the sea, the market and the garden
We went on day trips to Sitges, went for walks in the Canyelles area, popped out for coffee and visited the market in Vilafranca del Penedès. There, we bought provisions for our next meals together.
As well as the sea and its beautiful setting, Sitges also has a distinctive queer history. Platja de l’Home Mort, situated just outside the town and accessible only on foot, is regarded by the local tourist board as one of the first beaches in the world to have gained a reputation as gay-friendly as early as 1930. The secluded cove thus also symbolises a long history of the search for spaces of freedom.
After the rain, the area around Canyelles looked fresh and in bloom. Lemons and oranges were ripening, the olive harvest had begun, and people were still swimming in the sea. What a different autumn to the one in Dalsland!
After that unpleasant first day, the weather turned sunny and mild again. The maximum daytime temperatures from 20 to 27 October ranged from just under 20 to a good 23 degrees, whilst at night it cooled down to around 11 to 14 degrees.
It felt good to be outdoors, to do something with our hands and to eat together. The week had a completely different rhythm to the journey there. Not constantly rushing on to the next connection, but simply staying put for a while and seeing what the day had in store.
Back home
On 26 October, this lovely time had, sadly, already come to an end. This time, the flight to Gothenburg was quite uneventful: no delays, no difficulties and no particular encounters either.
I took the Flygbuss to Gothenburg Central and from there the train to Mellerud. My car was still waiting in the car park at the Rådahallen. Then it was just the final stretch home.
As lovely as the trip and the reunions had been, I was still glad to be back in my little paradise. After airports, cities and lots of conversations, I enjoyed the peace and quiet that I value so much here.