Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

My childhood idea of a “ballgown” was based on Disney’s cartoon Cinderella–a gleaming display of fine shoulders but no naughty bits. My Google researches before buying gowns of my own showed that Sweden’s beautiful Queen and the Royal Aunt wear long flowing dresses with cap sleeves or even with long sleeves.

For the traditional royal dinner at the palace, I wore my own long-sleeved long velvet dress so that my new birthday necklace would show. I was glad of the sleeves, because Stockholm’s Royal Palace turns out to be much colder than City Hall!

Today about 1 p.m. we saw our last daylight–at least until we fly south again on December 18. We’re pausing in Luleå for one night–here’s their church built in 1492–tomorrow we head north again, past the Arctic Circle.

We’ve said fond good-byes now to Stockholm and to Nobel Week. We’re saying hello to life without Cecilia, who solved all our problems with unmatchable efficiency and good humor. We’re wondering how we’ll survive without Harald, who drove us everywhere in his stretch Volvo limousine.

The Arctic Hotel of Luleå has comfortable large rooms and even free wireless Internet. But I think Frank and I will spend some time pining for Stockholm’s incredible Grand Hotel…

• Golden elevators lined with sparkling mirrors
• Fresh flowers and even chocolates for laureates
• White-clad maidens who deliver breakfasts or pick up your laundry as if they were taking a pleasant break from performing complex brain surgery elsewhere

Still, the future lies ahead, including the Ice Hotel tomorrow!

	The football-helmet-hairstyle of Patty Duke
	The drat-those-orcs-hairstyle of her son Sean Astin shown here with similarly coiffed young Frodo

Last night was great fun and Frank Wilczek is now a green frog. We went to bed happily smiling at 1 a.m.–now it’s 5 and we are taking last showers before packing up for the north.

I have to decide what to do with my Patty-Duke helmet-hair. Don’t blame my elegant young hairdresser Morgan Johansson for creating this time-honored style twice during our stay–I talked him into it, both times. Without lots of smoothing and fluffing and serious hairspray, my hair likes to curl itself up into tiny dreadlocks

So tempted as I am to wash it this morning, I’d much rather look like Sean Astin’s mom than like third-reel Frodo or Sam. And I’ll regret my helmet hair if I fall off that dogsled!

At 6:50 a.m., the sparkling-clean Wilczeks jumped back into bed and turned off the light. We were, of course, wearing our “dignified pajamas.” (Since I’d had no time to buy new pajamas in Stockholm, we had put on our heaviest and still-unwrinkled long underwear.) Soon, we heard the Lucia knock at our door….

The Lucia singers were escorted by two ladies from the Grand Hotel’s “guest services,” so we didn’t have to get up to unlock the door. Soft singing and candlelight slowly progressed into our darkened bedroom. The Lucia girl had a headdress with real lighted candles–her attendants all carried candles in their hands. (I later found out these were students from a local music college–their voices were lovely!)

The Lucia attendants wore tall pointy hats (the “star boys”) or green wreaths with flowers (“maids of honor”). They sang “Santa Lucia” (in Swedish, that’s pronounced “Loo-see-ah” rather than “Loo-chee-ah”), a bit more Swedish Christmas music, then slowly filed out singing “Santa Lucia” again.

David Gross told me later that one year a laureate was really surprised by this Swedish custom. The sleepy laureate woke up to melodious singing by handsome young blondes in long flowing robes and jumped to the conclusion he’d died and gone to heaven.

The Grand Hotel Lucia singers also brought us coffee, saffron buns, and a wrapped Lucia gift that turned out to be a ceramic Lucia. At the time, the coffee was much less exciting than their singing. Which, for coffee-addicts like Frank and me, suggests some kind of miracle.

Later, I saw the same singers down in the lobby and snapped a few photos. The singers are serious but the people they sing to are smiling from ear to ear–I know we were.

December 12, 2004. New Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek visits the Nobel Foundation, to sign final papers for getting money and medals. Assisting him are foreign-service desk officer Cecilia Ekholm (left) and Nobel Foundation public communications officer Annika Ekdahl.

So he has quite a few reasons for smiling today!

I mentioned our plans to ride in a Kiruna dogsled, but didn’t say enough about Sweden’s space high school. Sverker Fredriksson told us:

It has national recruitment, and VERY good pupils. Many of them come from southern
Sweden, 2000 km away. It takes real enthusiam to move that far from their
parents at the age of 16, in order to study space for three years.

I just got some interesting blog-email with more information and links to photos:

Odd Minde [1] sent this email to you through Betsy Devine: Funny Ha-Ha or Funny Peculiar? [2] regarding this page [3].

Hello! I found on Web in your Nobel-blogging: “…Finally some news: Ingrid Sandahl [physicist and expert on auroras] is a great person, who knows almost everyone in Kiruna. She has arranged a dog sled for you on Thursday evening, after our visit to the Space High-School…..”

Here you have a picture of that Space High-School. The name of the school: Rymdgymnasiet in Kirun. Our astronomical observatory is named Bengt Hultquist observatory. Picture you find here:
http://www.malmgruppen.com/t1pubhttpdocs/temp/282422793974968_BHO_mini.jpg

Odd Minde
Project Manager
Teacher

[1] http://w1.171.telia.com/~u17106184/skolan.JPG
[2] http://BetsyDevine.weblogger.com/
[3] http://betsydevine.weblogger.com/

Thanks to Odd Minde for letting me share this email!

It’s traditional for the King and Queen to invite new Nobel laureates to dine at the palace on the next day after prize awards–so today’s birthday dinner will be hard to live up to.

I might add that in addition to a charming prince who remembered today was my birthday, Sweden also has a very charming prime minister. Thanks to my table companions Göran Persson and Finn Kydland for sharing my enthusiasm for speculating about economic issues, a much safer pastime than speculating in currency.

The Grand Hotel, which does nothing in a small way, sent a huge vase full of flowers with birthday wishes. (This advantage of having hotels check your passport had never occurred to me before.)

Frank gave me a beautiful necklace of amber beads–Amity gave me a cellphone holder with a huge script ‘B’ picked out in cute diamond-oids–Mira gave me a huge chocolate cigar full of marzipan–mmm–and Joi Ito’s birthday best wishes linked to my blog.

This was such a good birthday, I think I’ll just have to stop getting older. No more birthdays for me!

Wilczeks et al., waiting for Nobel Prize ceremony, Dec. 10, 2004.

Why settle for garnishing food with fresh-ground pepper–or even my mother’s four wicked secret tricks

The Nobel banquet staff dessert “presentation” requires a Mozart mini-opera prelude, plus hundreds of waitstaff marching in unison, holding trays high with one hand and ringing small bells with the other.

Those three flights of marble stairs add dramatic tension, and I’m told waiters aren’t allowed to help serve dessert until they are veterans of previous Nobel banquets.

Beautiful photo borrowed from Dagens Nyheter