Eskilstuna, Sweden August 5th, 2007....

Talk about returning to your roots!.... I went to Eskilstuna on the 5th of August. It was the first city I ever lived in in Sweden. On the way there from Stockholm I had some time to reflect over the last 10 years. I came to Sweden and to Eskilstuna almost exactly 10 years ago. It was in August of 1997... pretty crazy! So much has changed in my life since then. I have met so many amazing people and have been able to experience so much since then... I came here as a little 19 year old with very bad Swedish, and it is really amazing to come back now 10 years later and see how I have changed....

Here is the entrance to the train station in E-town... I still remember getting off the train here on my first day as if it were yesterday...



Here is a picture of the city hall in the main square in Eskilstuna...



This fountain is in the middle of one of the intersections in town...I thought the silhouettes of faces on the tower in the middle are pretty cool.....



There is a big river that goes through the town. It goes through a series of dams so it looks like a big lake in the middle of town... Here is the big church across the river from downtown...



Here I am now on the side of the river by the church. There is a big park there that goes along the river... I always have remembered this crazy statue...called the Hand of God, by Carl Milles.

This is what Milles said about Hand of God:

"Yet Milles's most famous later work, and possibly his most realized, is "Hand of God," a literal interpretation that works so well because of a deceptive simplicity. A figure stands on the hand of God, his feet resting on the holy thumb and index finger. This could be Adam, but Milles once pointed out that this figure was instead all of us, looking skyward and precariously balanced, with an ability to rise or fall based in large part upon our own decisions." (Thanks for finding that Tamara :)

You can also see part of downtown across the river...



Here is the street KlosterGatan that I lived on 10 years ago...Kloster means monastary.. Gatan=Street) I didn't have time to walk up it to the apartment house we lived in.. but you can almost see it way down the street...



This is the old part of town....smaller cobble stone streets..right next to the river...



A view of the old town from the river...



One of the oldest churches in Eskilstuna.. Its right accross the river from the old part of town...



Another view of it...



Another view of the old part of town from the old church...



Here is the branch in Eskilstuna.. It was pretty cool to come back and meet everyone that i hadn't seen for 10 years...


Its not everyday you get to return to a place 10 years later and reflect... I think I should make it a tradition...