As you know, I live in Gothenburg, so I've been here during the entire week. After the police held the Hvitfeldtska secondary school under siege and finally had all the residents thrown out, three of them lived in my apartment together with two Stockholm anarchists, myself, the kids and Sophia, who also stayed a few nights. It was really crowded, but we had a good time. The big events were the large demonstrations against George W. Bush on Thursday which drew 15,000 attendees, the march against the European Union on Friday which drew 10,000 attendees, the Reclaim the city street party on Friday, which the police crashed, and the big march against the international capital on Saturday which drew 20,000 attendees. I was attending the march against EU and the Saturday march myself. In the largest march there were thousands of the Syndicalist red and black flag in the air. It was an amazing sight. I was working from home on Thursday, but Sophia and I decided to leave when a friend of mine called and said that the police held the Hvitfeldtska secondary school under siege. We spent four or five hours outside Hvitfeldtska among an incredible amount of riot police with dogs and large groups of riding police. Sophia and I went on a small recon mission to find nearby roofs so the press photographers could get a nice view into the schoolyard. After a few phone calls we also managed to get pass cards for some local University institutions. I spent the afternoon trying to show press photographers what to do and tried to stay away from the police. Friday morning I was attending trade union meetings with Anarcho-syndicalists from all over the world. It was nice to meet people from the same line of business and talk about what we can do about making our workplaces nicer and how to cooperate across the borders. Several of us left after lunch since there was so much going on downtown. We felt we better leave to watch what the police was doing. I had my son Gabriel (six years old) with me, so I tried to remain in the background. Friday night, after having fetched my eldest son Ludvig (eight), we all went to Forum 2001, a large area with tents, providing food, music and seminars to the GBG2001 event. The (uniformed) police mercifully stayed out of Forum 2001 the entire time and I think a lot of people had a great time, learned many things and drank a lot of beer. Heh... Saturday morning I was going to the large march against the international capital. Helena, the mother of my two children, had called me on the phone earlier and forbidden me to take the kids with me. I had to leave the kids at her apartment before attending the march. Of course, all trams in downtown Gothenburg had been stopped by the police, so I had some trouble getting to Helena and back in time. As it turned out, the march was delayed so I did manage to get back in time for the start. After the march a few friends and I went to the Schillerska secondary school which also was hosting a lot of activists. A collective from The Netherlands was selling cheap soup outside and we had lunch there. Later, we learned that all the dutchmen had been arrested. Apparently, it's dangerous to serve soup in Sweden these days. After lunch we went to Forum 2001 and then off to Solrosen, a nice vegetarian restaurant. It was very crowded, but we sat down and had a few beers while trying to coordinate friends for the next move. We had all heard about an unauthorised demonstration against the violence at Järntorget and we thought about attending. When the time came for the demonstration, we approached Järntorget and looked around to see what kind of people were attending. It was people of different ages, representatives from different subcultures and lots of reporters, so we decided it was safe and stayed around. After about half an hour, someone representing GBG2001 asked people to leave to Forum 2001 and continue the discussion there. People started to leave, slowly. When most of the people were moving towards Forum, some 500 meters away, the riot police appeared and stopped them. It was really confusing. Why would the police want to stop people from _ending_ the demonstration? Me and a couple of friends quickly ran around and checked where the police line was weakest and did a breakout right through them. We succeeded to get into Andra långgatan and kept walking until we got to Kellys pub where we knew some friends would be waiting. We followed the rest of the action on TV from Kellys. The demonstration started at 19:00. People started to leave at 19:30 and by 19:45 the police had blocked all entrances to the square completely. We got out just before that. The police just stood there until 23:35 with people sitting on the square, waiting what would happen. There was no violence but the police did a few shocks into the square to do a few arrests. During the night the police called in the Swedish anti terrorist forces and hit Schillerska with heavy use of force (and showing off their new H&K MP5s with laser sights). They emptied the school on activists but made no real arrests; they just forced people to stay in a temporary arrest for a few hours and then let them go in the morning. No one was charged for anything. It is interesting to note that Schillerska was the official first aid hospital for the entire GBG2001 and that there were lots of people there from the Red Cross and most of the people who organized the entire GBG2001 event. These people are not militants and they were certainly not involved in any riots. The slow Sunday was spent following people to trains and busses and waving them off. The police stopped people for no other reason but alternative looks and their choice of clothing all over the city, asked for ID and went through their personal belongings. I imagined that this is how it feels living in a severe police state. Sunday night I spent with friends at several concerts at Forum 2001 and I met a very nice and beautiful girl from Ireland. Now it's Monday and I'm sitting at work trying to convince myself that last week was for real.