Galapagos

Summer blues do kick in also, so I ve realized. Many have moved back home to avoid the Ghost town it can be- Uppsala. Everything dies, I mean, student nations where many hung out to kill time, meet people and chill out. Not to mention, the jobs are gone- serving, cooking and attending the drunks by the drinks.

For those left back in Uppsala there may not be much to do apart from reading and cycling out on sunny days. They do. It gets boring after a while. Theres only so many places and activities you can do without your friends, that have flown to their original nests for summer. People indulge in Facebooking, if at all there is a word like it. Movies and music become their best friends. The bicycle becomes their getaway vehicle. One such trips led me to a new indulgence- a public library. Its very easy to forget, if there was ever such a beauty. A place where you have a collage of covers, an organised scramble of ideas, articulate works or even a galore of graphic documentation, movies included.

Situated in the city centre is this new discovered sanctuary of mine, the city library or Stadsbibliotek. Got there just before quarter to closing time. Monday to thurdsdays holding it open till 7PM. At the desk a lovely receptionist asked me if I wanted to get a membership card done. Not knowing what documents I would need to pass this test, I said, " Yes, Ma'm!". I got it done in a minute after I leaked my personal details on a piece of paper- Contact number, address and email address. All this done with after a glance on my drivers license. A barcoded plastic card was handed to me with a pin code to borrow out my interests. I saw another helper sort out some music discs. They lent out dvds of  rare concerts by some of my favourite artistes. Considering the seriousness of my reading interests or the lack of time I had to check out the array, I thought I d have barely enough to select a few multimedia disks to check out. And boy, did I find a collection that impressed the Bejesus out of me! From movies to Woodstock concerts, from Natgeo documentaries to 'Teach yourself _____' kind.

One could check out a maximum of 5 dvds at a time for a loan period of a week. Late fee being 2SEK a day past the due date. Termination of membership if the late fee accumulated to 100 SEK. There is no charge otherwise. I quickly was able to check out a David Gilmore performance captured from the Royal Concert Hall from 2002, a Woodstock recording from 50s and a foreign movie from the Oscars selected section.

Next time though, I would love to see if they had a 'Rosetta Stone: Svenska' for my summer assignment. I want to sound like a Nordic god, or a hiccup-ing light haired native. Also, check out the entire catalogue of the multimedia section and see if they had DC comic books in English. That might be a too much to ask. I was like Charles Darwin when he researched in the isle of Galapagos, probably. A library like this is a must use for everyone who is tired of downloading pirated movies/ music or reading on their (max)Ipads. Much love to all readers or it too much of a pun. Intended.