Thursday, November 17

Today I have travelled across the city to Arcada where, among other things, I will have lunch with Jutta in the mall. Public transport does not allow for pinpoint accuracy in terms of scheduling and so I arrive about fifteen minutes early, to bump straight into Monica Löv, leaving S-Market with he newly purchased lunch.

A couple of minutes later I watch Christa walking past me waving, lunch in hand. “Busy”, she shouts as she breaks into a trot.

I look around the mall which has changed quite a lot since I last saw it. They have filled all the empty spaces downstairs by rearranging the architecture and letting K Market spread into the resulting space. Downstairs now looks packed and thriving.

I stand outside S-Market and photograph the real moss growing up the wall besides the gap where trolleys might one day live.

When Jutta arrives (having learned from Monica that I have got here) we go upstairs for sushi. I will notice that the spaces there have received some attention from a space juggler with the result that only two very small spaces seem empty and available for rent.

No new shops or restaurants have opened but with a little space juggling the mall has gone from giving an impression of empty-and-sinking to looking lively, well-kept and full. I bet the new students at Arcada and Prakticum (of whom I see plenty as I stand and wait) feel glad to have such an impressive mall close at hand.