Wednesday 15th October

Today I spent the whole day with Christina at the Gavle Concert Hall and its library. What a place. The complex is wonderful and so fantastic to have a branch of the public library attached to it. Outside the building is covered in blue tiles, made by the same firm who did our Opera House tiles. Inside it is all light wood and polished floors. Has a beautiful outlook over the river and the autumn leaves made a great show of colour. The building contains a large hall seating 800 and smaller hall , which can also be rentd out for seminars, conferences etc. In fact there was a Children's Librarians conference on this day , showing the latest Swedish titles. There is also a eautiful restaurant which is quite expensive and there has been controversy about the food. Christina showed mae around the complex , but unfortunately things were very quiet. there is a resident symphony orchestra , but they were not practising that day. Very kindly, the management gave me all of their CDs to bring home. (about 10) I spent till 11.30 looking at the library, and making notes. (more details later)It is on two levels and the pop and jazz are on the ground floor with Classical upstairs. The shelving was specially designed and I took plenty of photos. The atmosphere in the library is lovely and they play music all day - the person on the desk gets to choose . There are 4 staff .
The weather was superb and so Christina and I set off about 11.30 to walk to the University Library which is very new and a semi circle around a courtyard. After looking around for about haf n hour we walked further along the river to 'the Colonel's House'. The university was previously army barracks and this is why there was a house for a colonel. It is now a lovely restaurant. Christina's colleague , Margareta, joined us and I was treated to my meal courtesy of the Music Library. Had herrings and mashed potato-they made me eat traditional food and I liked it. Then we walked back through the woods to the Library along the other side of the river. Very beautiful.
When we got back a reporter from the local newspaper 'Arbetarbladet' had turned up to interview me and take my photo. The article appeared the next day (16/10) -website is www.arbetarbladet.se and I am on Page 15.
I spent more time looking at the library until 5p.m. when it closed and we locked up. We walked back into the town and went to dinner at a lovely restaurant called Matilda's with the Manager of the Gavle Library Service and the Manager of the Central Library. This time I ate reindeer. (sorry Rudolph) Luckily they paid, as main courses were the equivalent of $40 !
Had a great time and this was a fitting end to a very good day.Learnt a lot and had fun with it.