life and joys of lisbeth & tue

Passport check

2011-11-03T05:19:00.005+01:00

Once we, at long last, had Ursula's complete name approved and registered by the Swedish authorities we could request a hard copy of her records from Skatteverket - a document we needed in order apply for a passport for her at the Danish embassy in Stockholm.

For this we also needed a passport photo which turned out to be a rather difficult thing to obtain. For starters the requirements for passport photos are quite strict and it can be difficult taking baby photos that meet all of these requirements. Adding to our difficulties were the fact that Swedish photographers have no experience taking photos that meet the requirements - when applying for a Swedish passport you do not have to bring a photo as the authorities insist on taking the picture themselves.

We started out by attempting to take a picture at home in the living room with our digital camera, but we weren't really happy with the results and we also worried that we might not be able to have such a photo printed according to the requirements.

Ekerö Centrum

So one Friday we made a little excursion from Bromma to Ekerö Centrum to have pictures taken at a professional photographer. This little excursion of course took most of our day since you can't take acceptable pictures of a baby while it is sleeping, sleepy, eating, hungry, bored or in need of a clean diaper. In the end we got a set of photos in which Ursula was sitting at an odd angle and the hands holding her up for the photographer were apparent. We were rather sceptical as to the acceptability of the photos - the photographer on the other hand was convinced that they were sufficiently good.

When we went to the Danish embassy in Stockholm on the following Monday it turned out - of course - that the pictures really were not good enough. So we hurried (well, as much as you can hurry considering the complications mentioned above for baby photographing) on over to Östermalm for some new ones. This photographer had newer equipment and seemed generally more in the loop and the pictures he took were a lot nicer than the first set - for one thing Ursula sat more straight in these - but a few fingers from the hands holding her were still visible. Also this photographer had confidence in the Danish authorities' tolerance for passport photos of babies.

House of Denmark - housing the Danish embassy in Stockholm

Tue ran back to the embassy before visiting hours ended - and was told that those fingers couldn't be accepted (or that the embassy staff would be really sorry to forward our application to the police in Denmark and have them reject the photos). Might it be possible to explain to the good photographer that the fingers were not allowed to be there? Tue was promised that he would be allowed to enter the embassy after normal visiting hours to hand in new pictures.

Back in Östermalm the photographer was surprised that the photos were not acceptable but did not mind photoshopping the fingers away - at no extra charge. The 'new' pictures were accepted and away the application went.

A little over a month later we could pick up the passport at the embassy and wonder about all the fuss over the fingers - that part of the photo had been cropped away anyway.

Also babies look like criminals in their passports

Winter is approaching

2011-11-01T09:38:00.004+01:00

If the cooler temperatures, the progressively barer trees, and the increasing darkness weren't sufficiently clear indications of winter approaching, other signs leave no doubt.

The landlord has placed large boxes of sand to strew on icy stairs and pathways:

The rescue stations along Lake Mälaren have had ladders added for use rescuing people who have gone through the ice:

And people have started wearing hats and gloves, but these seem to still come off from time to time and consequently get lost:

New apartment - new neighbourhood - new season

2011-10-26T09:37:00.002+02:00

Late in August we moved again. This time to our third neighbourhood here in Stockholm. Seasons come and go rapidly this far north, so our departure from Lidingö coincided with the end of the summer:

We were very happy living on Lidingö, but Alvik and the autumn isn't half bad either:

Family tour

2011-10-20T14:51:00.005+02:00

When we moved to Stockholm in 2009 it was because Tue got a scholarship for doing a post-doc at Stockholm University. The scholarship was initially for 1 year, but it was expected easily to be extended to a second year (and indeed it was). Further extension is not an option. There are two primary reasons for this: for one thing one can only be a tax exempted researcher in Sweden for 2 years; secondly it is not legal in Sweden to hire someone temporarily for more than 2 years (i.e. if a person were to be hired by the university for more than 2 years this person would have all the legal rights of a permanent employee - and in Sweden it is not easy to fire permanent employees).

All in all this means that since shortly prior to Ursula's birth - for the first time since 1995 - Tue has been what is in this day and age known as employment seeking. It has be said, though, that employment hasn't been sought particularly intensively yet as parenting has been the top priority (well, we also moved again - it all takes time).

Obviously there are advantages to being two parents at home. Everyday live, to mention just one aspect, is more managable with an extra pair of hands around the house. Another advantage is that it is relatively unproblematic to go to Jutland for half a month visiting the extended family. In this way most of our relatives have now met Ursula even though we don't live close to any of them.

With one aunt

With another aunt

With her great grandmother
Generation gap - what generation gap?

Swedish families

2011-09-14T21:54:00.001+02:00

In Sweden it is possible to constitute a couple in a number of different ways: as married people, as sambor (living together, but not married - this is what we are now), and as särbor (living apart and not married - one could say that Lisbeth and Tue were särbor until Lisbeth moved to California .. that was just before this blog started). All three options are gender neutral so what you choose to be is initially mostly about your personal attitude(s) towards marriage and the concept of living together.

But of course from a legal point of view it matters. As särbor you have no particular legal rights, as sambor only a few and as a married couple by far the most.

If for example you get a child together, the law in Sweden (as well as in Denmark) stipulates that the father of the child is the person the marriage points to. If you are married when the child is born Skatteverket (The Swedish Tax Agency) will automatically register both the father and mother, and just as automatically joint custody will be granted. If, on the other hand, you are not married Skatteverket will only register the mother of the child and she will initially get sole custody. Later on, it is the responsibility of the municipality to determine who the father is, at which point you can apply for joint custody. Naively we assumed these things would be formalities quickly dealt with...

Lidingö city hall

Our biggest problem was the timing. While all of our friends here in Sweden thought that it was downright fantastic that our daughter was born Midsummer's Eve itself, the fact remains that Sweden for practical purposes shuts down during the month of July. Thus it was around the beginning of August before we were contacted by Lidingö municipality. When we were finally able to book an appointment at city hall we were quite puzzled as to why they wanted to know the birth weight. It turned out that when establishing the fatherhood the municipality is required to inform the 'potential' father of the time of conception (calculated based on the date of birth and the birth weight) before he signs the form in the presence of 2 witnesses. All this feels a bit awkward when as a sambo you show up voluntarily to get registered as the father of your child - and not particularly useful when it comes down to the details as the calculated time of conception is given as a 6 week interval.

Only then did Skatteverket register the fatherhood and the joint custody, so that we finally were able to get on with our lives and apply for the acceptance and registration of the complete name of the child...

Most recently we've learned that the joint custody only is valid from the day Skatteverket registers it and not already from the birth of the child. In other words: after falling prey to a bout of municipal peeping (*) one still has to put up with 'only' being the father (with the all the privileges and duties that entails) as of a rather random date mostly influenced by both municipal and national slovenliness as well as the efficiency of the mail service.

(*) In Danish there's an excellent expression for municipal peeping, i.e. when authorities violate (or border on violating) your intimate privacy in the name of following rules and regulations: dyneløfteri, which literally translates as 'lifting of duvets'.

2011-09-03T13:51:00.003+02:00

The bicycle counter on the bridge to Lidingö may be good for counting bikes, but it isn't particularly good at measuring the temperature: the summer this year has been better in Stockholm than in Denmark, but we haven't reached 35 C (95 F) - at least not in the shade...

Lunch with a view (part 2)

2011-08-14T12:02:00.005+02:00

An elephant from Cirkus Scott who had put up their tent on Ladugårdsgärdet near the Kaknäs tower

These weeks we are spending most of our time on two things: 1) Ursula and what surrounding issues 2) moving. But there has to be time for enjoying life as well so when we recently got up to a sunny morning after a couple of days with heavy rain we decided to go up the Kaknäs tower again. We had been talking about going up the tower already last summer and now that we had been up there in the winter we were even more curious to see Stockholm from above clad in green instead of clad in white.

Ursula was once again very good at travelling by bus and even let the grown-ups eat their lunch before she wanted food herself.

View over the Värta harbour and the bridge to Lidingö

And in August it is significantly less cold for the fingers to capture the view.

View over Stockholm's Old Town

A different sort of journey

2011-07-21T12:17:00.001+02:00

This blog has become more about documenting the little trips we take in and around the country we currently live in and much less about our daily lives and the characteristics, traditions and odd things and habits we encounter in the new culture.

However, the trip frequency is rather low at the moment while we embark on a completely different journey: 4 weeks ago we welcomed little Ursula to our little travelling family.

She is, however, already doing quite well on public transportation so while her flight temper has yet to be discovered, we hope for happy travels in the future for all three of us.

Countryside Street Art

2011-06-18T10:37:00.002+02:00

We were actually a bit surprised that it was on Blidö, far from the hectic city, we were find this particular style of mailbox decoration:

5-day weekend

2011-06-07T21:21:00.001+02:00

Today it was back to work after a looooooooooooooong weekend: Thursday it was Ascension Day (a holiday in Sweden) and lots of people found a way to take Friday off from work as well. On top of this yesterday was a very special day here in Sweden: the national day, the day of the Swedish flag and the name day of the king. This day is not the only day that Sweden is a nation (as suggested by a Basque friend of ours), rather it is the anniversary of the foundation of 'modern' Sweden: on June 6th 1523 Gustav Vasa became king of Sweden. However, it wasn't until 1916 that the day was officially recognised (as The day of the Swedish flag). In 1983 the day was renamed as national day of Sweden and only as late as 2005 was it made a public holiday - in return for which the Swedes gave up having Whit Monday as a holiday.

Even though this was our 3rd Swedish national day this was our first time getting a day off on account of it (as it was during the weekend for the 2 preceding years - a problem that never arises with Whit Monday as we'd like to point out). Fortunately for us it was a beautiful day and we were able to enjoy lunch on the balcony.

Snake's Head (Fritillary)

2011-06-06T16:00:00.002+02:00

Our trip to Danmark actually started somewhere else in the vicinity of Uppsala: on Uppsala Kungsäng (Kungsängen in this context is read as Kungs-ängen, that is King-meadow - not to be confused with the Swedish bed stores Kung-sängen, 'the King bed'). We had read that in late May this meadow offers the view of lots of blooming snake's heads (in Swedish known as kungsängslilja, 'king-meadow-lily'). Truth be told the experience didn't have quite the grandeur we expected: the flowers are very pretty, but we had allowed ourselves to expect a virtually purple meadow...

As with everything else related to botany in this country we were able to find traces of this gentleman:

And then we went to Danmark

2011-06-04T14:17:00.004+02:00

That is the village of Danmark^[1] just outside Uppsala. Danmark is close to freeway E4 so even though we only recently learned that the village there is called Danmark we had previously noticed the church ('Church of Danmark').

^[1] Yes, Danmark is the name for Denmark in both Danish and Swedish.

Bottled mail

2011-05-28T13:51:00.002+02:00

When we got off the boat in Stämmarsund on Blidö we discovered a mailbox of a kind we had never even anticipated finding: a message-in-a-bottle-box!

Blidö

2011-05-22T14:52:00.003+02:00

When Kirsten and Steen came to see us in Stockholm again recently we planned a trip on the water a sunny day in May.

Departure from Strömkajen ('current-quay', central Stockholm)

We set the course for Blidö in order to try out the northern parts of the Stockholmian archipelago.

Colony of cormorants

As it turned out there was a small glitch in our planning. The day before our trip we called Blidö Wärdshus to ask if they would be the day we went to Blidö. We were told they would be - but when we got out there that turned out to be a misunderstanding. So there we were, lunch hungry, no open restaurants and with 3-4 hour till the next boat departing Blidö. Fortunately the weather was excellent, so we tried to relax and make the best of it.

Nice spot for relaxing with a book..

It turned out there was a bus from Blidö to Norrtälje one hour earlier then the next boat departure - our stomachs dictated that we take that bus. It was an interesting little bus ride: In order to reach the main land the bus crossed water no less than twice with the typical small yellow car ferries (from Blidö to Yxlan and onwards from Yxlan to Furusund) and 6 bridges (Furusund-Svartnö-Humlö-Idö/Nässelgrundet-Storö-Solö-main land).

Google maps: Trip from Blidö (lower right corner) to the main land (upper left corner)
Click the map for a larger version

Once in Norrtälje we made haste in getting a meal (late lunch/early dinner) in a pub before taking a much more boring express bus from Norrtälje to Stockholm (Freeway - Yaaaaaaaaaawn).

Trip to Sörmland

2011-05-12T19:04:00.002+02:00

We had decided to spend Easter this year making a small trip of Södermanland, or Sörmland as it is popularly known. And where is Sörmland? The short answer is that Sörmland is immediately south of Stockholm. The long answer needs to point out that Sweden can be divided in two different ways: in the 25 traditional provinces (landskap in Swedish) that today only have historical and cultural significance, and in the 21 counties (län in Swedish) that make up the administrative division of Sweden. The old province Sörmland (Sudermania in Latin) consists of Sörmland county and the parts of Stockholm county that are south of lake Mälaren.

One of our primary destination was Stendörren ('The stone door') natural preserve where a couple of islets and skerries are connected by wooden bridges so that one can visit the archipelago by foot. Fortunately the Easter weather was perfect for such outdoor activities.

Our trip continued to the nearest town, Nyköping ('New market town'), which is the capital of Sörmland county and turned out to be one of the nicer Swedish countryside towns we've visited. By the local stream, Nyköpingsån, we found this monument for one of the city's proud sons.

We decided to try something new and booked one night at Yxtaholm castle just outside of Flen. Although certainly picturesque there on the Yxtaholm islet between lakes Yxtasjön and Långsjön, it was more what we'd call a manor house than a castle.

In Mariefred by the shore of lake Mälarens we found Gripsholm castle which fits our expectations for a castle much better.

We also noticed a few pieces of cultural heritage reminding us that the area was populated already in the 11th century (translation and a few notes grabbed from the plaques posted next to the stones).

They fared like men - far after gold
and in the east - gave the eagle food^[1]
They died in the south - in Serkland^[2]

^[1] giving the eagle food is a poetic term for killing enemies.
^[2] Serkland, land of the Saracens land, presumably refers to an area by the Caspian Sea.

Tola had this stone raised to commemorate her son Harald, brother of Ingvar. Ingvar is mentioned in the Icelandic sagas as Ingvar the travelled. Ingvar's fateful expedition through Russia to the Caspian Sea is said to mentioned on almost 30 runestones in the valley around lake Mälaren.

Hälgulv (?) and Öulv they had this stone raised
in memory of their brother Kätilmund and
(built) a bridge in memory of Soma, their mother.
But Brune (?), her brother, carved (the runes)

Happy Easter

2011-04-25T21:58:00.001+02:00

A little late now that Easter is almost over, but we have been busy enjoying the incredible Easter weather in Sweden this year - more about that later.

Spring is coming

2011-04-19T21:38:00.002+02:00

By now almost all the ice is gone - and yesterday we saw the first trees sporting new leaves. At the same time we are trying to get used to the fact that it is already 2 years since we left Switzerland.

Bicycle counter

2011-04-07T20:57:00.002+02:00

While busy removing all the gravel of a long winter and the last piles of black'ish snow Lidingö municipality also found the time to do a little something for their image as 'Island of Health' by putting up a bicycle counter on the bridge to/from Lidingö.

Horse with Muffler

2011-03-21T21:45:00.000+01:00

On ice

2011-03-07T21:14:00.003+01:00

Skating is Tue's boss' hobby, so it probably had to happen sooner or later: a group skating trip.
On a beautiful sunny winter Saturday we met up at Norrviken. Tue couldn't actually remember having had on a pair of skates before - and once they were on the result was much like the famous clip from Disney's Bambi. While the others skated a proper trip Tue focused on building up a few basic skills - realistically, it will require several hours on the ice before it becomes real skating...

Lunch with a view

2011-02-26T12:10:00.002+01:00

We had barely told you of the return of fresh snow and extreme frost to Stockholm before our faithfully returning camp visitor announced his arrival in order to experience some real winter before it was too late.

On a clear, cold winter Sunday we went up the tallest building in Stockholm, the Kaknäs tower, and enjoyed lunch with a view to Djurgården and Östermalm.

On this day it was quite chilly on the outdoors observation deck on the 31st floor - but the view towards Lidingö tempted..

Winter returns

2011-02-11T19:55:00.002+01:00

Here we were, actually thinking that maybe the winter and the snow would soon be over with this time around. But when we got up this morning, we had a blizzard raging outside and it turned out that bus traffic was cancelled for all of Stockholm county. We decided to start the day working from home rather than trying to walk to the nearest metro station - not least because experience have taught us that the other elements of Stockholmian public transportation are not always very reliable during times of heavy snowing.

After lunch time the wind died down, the snow stopped falling and the thermometer plummeted. It was well into the afternoon before the buses started running, so we never made to our respective places of work. We did manage to go for a walk in the last light of the day to enjoy the view of the landscape freshly covered with snow.

A century of mailboxes

2011-02-03T08:53:00.002+01:00

This picture was sent to us from a faithful reader and it shows - in a few selected highlights - the last 100 years of development in mailboxes in Taiwan.

Geyser

2011-01-30T15:51:00.002+01:00

We were standing in the tourist office in Napa when we saw a postcard picturing California's 'Old Faithful' Geyser. We discovered that this geyser (which is quite a bit smaller than the more famous one in Wyoming of the same name) should be located just outside of Calistoga in the northern end of the Napa valley, and that it should erupt every half hour on average. We estimated that we had a decent chance of making it before sunset and set course for Calistoga up through the Napa valley.

It was quite easy to find the geyser, which is located right next to Chateau Montelena - the vineyard that was part of putting California on the wine list/map worldwide in the 1970's when their Chardonnay won a wine tasting in Paris beating a long list of French white wines.

We did make it before sunset, but in the late afternoon there wasn't all that much sunlight in the valley.

On the other hand it turned out that the geyser erupts a much more often in the winter time, just about every five minutes allowing us to see it a handful of times before total darkness fell.

Elephant seals

2011-01-29T11:42:00.002+01:00

Our New Year's trip to California included - true to habit - a drive along a stretch of Pacific coastline and - likewise true to habit - a stop just outside of San Simeon. Here is a beach which is popular with Northern Elephant Seals (which have previously mentioned briefly).

Despite having stopped at this particular beach numerous times in the past this was our first time stopping there around New Year. We hadn't been there very long before we sensed that this was a very special time of the year: Excited cheers from the crowd of (human) onlookers and a sudden intensification of the activity amongst the gulls on the beach is apparently the typical way of welcoming a newborn elephant seal.

Newborn elephant seals weigh a 'mere' 60-80 lbs and their skins looks funnily wrinkled and loose, but over the 4 weeks of nursing they can grow to 300 lbs after which their skin looks much smoother ('filled out' in a sense) like on the adult elephant seals.

At that time the pup is left behind by the mother who mates again before going out to sea. In anticipation of mating the large males are busy during this time marking their territories on the beach.

After watching the elephant seals we seated ourselves in the rental car to eat a bit of bread before driving further. There was a bright gull who appeared to know that humans in car with bread meant there might be a chance of getting a bite - so we had company watching us intently through the windscreen from the bonnet until we started the engine and pulled out of the lot.

Revisiting California

2011-01-16T22:25:00.002+01:00

When we left California we thought we would definitely be back soon - but as it turned out it would be almost 3 years before we made it. Over Christmas we were a little worried to hear about massive rain in Los Angeles. Fortunately the rain stopped before we flew in, so we were able to enjoy a bike ride on the beach in pleasant weather. At the same time we could marvel at the backdrop of snowcapped mountains.

In addition to sunshine and grand nature, California - as always - also had a few interesting signs to offer..

Dead Swedes' Society

2010-12-25T16:00:00.003+01:00

To end the blogging of 2010 we would like to take a retrospective look at the year that passed - in particular which famous Swedes' tombstones we have seen throughout the year.

It started last winter when we went on a day-trip to Skogskyrkogården ('the Forest Cemetary') and found the stone pictured above...

...and continued when we had part of our summer vacation on Fårö. The most famous person to have ever lived on Fårö is of course also buried there. Our readers may notice two familiar names on the stone above, so we would like to point out that the Ingrid buried on Fårö was Ingmar's wife, while the more famous Ingrid is buried in Norra Begravningsplatsen ('the Northern Cemetary') near the Karolinska Institutet in Solna:

When we were on Norra Begravningsplatsen this past fall we naturally also had to see the tombs of some other very famous Swedes (click on the image for a larger version):

Gustaf af Geijerstam might not be nearly as famous as August Strindberg but they are said to have been friends - and we think his stone is pretty cool.

Happy Solstice

2010-12-21T12:34:00.000+01:00

We would like to wish all of you a very happy solstice!

White Christmas anticipated

2010-12-20T22:35:00.002+01:00

By now we are feeling pretty confident that we will be able to celebrate a white Christmas in Stockholm this year: it has been snowing most of the weekend that just passed and the forecast promises temperatures below -10 C most of this week.

Ice!

2010-12-04T09:08:00.001+01:00

As we said: It is winter! There was drifting ice on the water between Lidingö and the mainland on December 1st.

Fall 2010

2010-11-28T16:59:00.001+01:00

It has been interesting watching the landscape change during the fall season - see for yourselves how it has been at Laduviken:

And now it is apparently already winter:

Tallinn

2010-11-20T15:53:00.002+01:00

Lisbeth has been wanting to cross the Gulf of Finland for quite a while, so when her job took her to Helsinki once again she booked a ticket to Tallinn with Viking Line.

Tue obviously wasn't with her in Helsinki but he was able to fly from Stockholm to Tallinn so we could explore the old town of Tallinn together.

The etymology of the name Tallinn is debated, but one of the most widespread theories is that Tallinn derives from Taani-linna which means 'Danish City' or 'Danish Castle' in Estonian. As is well-known the Danes took the city on June 15 1219 in the famous battle during which legend has it that Dannebrog fell down from heaven and inspired fighting spirit in the Danish troops. After this victory Valdemar II decided that this flag should henceforth be the flag of Denmark.

Keeping to the historical aspect of the city we may mention that Tallinn also boasts a pharmacy that has been running for at least 588 years.

In Estonia one uses the Estonian kroon (yes, that is essentially the same name as 'kroner' - the name of currencies widely used in Scandinavia) and it wasn't until our last day there that we discovered that they have coins. Notes are by far the most used as they have notes all the way down to 2 Estonian kroon (being equivalent of some $0.17 at the current exchange rate).

Beware of low-flying purse snatchers - Estonian mailboxes - the 'watering holes' of the city are easily recognisable

Some art in the cityscape

Fall trip to Germany

2010-11-07T16:22:00.003+01:00

Last time we went to Germany we had already made plans for another trip. More specifically to go to Munich to visit Matthias with whom Tue shared his laboratory in California in 2004. That's quite a while ago by now, so a few things have happened since then for both parties: Most significantly for Matthias he has married his Gesche and they have two kids (and for Tue the most interesting part is that Lisbeth has come into his life since last time he saw Matthias).

The weather really wasn't all that nice during the October weekend we were in Munich, but to try to make for it somebody (and no, we do not know who) had put up a large Danish flag on the tower of St. Peter's church in central Munich. Despite the weather there were a lot of local surfers out on the man-made Eisbach river in The English Garden.

It starts early this year

2010-10-28T21:24:00.002+02:00

..Yes, this is what it looked like Friday morning last week. And it actually stayed that way most of Saturday as well - which is a good deal more than you can say about the small amount of snow we had last year in October.

The Fan Mail Box

2010-10-12T19:32:00.004+02:00

Even if only few people outside of Sweden have heard of him, Sweden has it's very own pioneer of electronic music.

Ralph Lundsten was building his own electronic instruments already in the 1950's and has released roughly one album per year in the period from 1966 to 2008.

In Nacka municipality (south-eastern greater Stockholm) one finds the town Boo where Ralph Lundsten is living in a large pink wooden house called Frankenburg.

As is fitting for a great artist with his own fan club (Andromeda Fan Soceity) Ralph Lundsten of course has an especially large mailbox which can hold loads of fan mail.

Fiery Fall

2010-10-06T22:03:00.002+02:00

During the first half of October this year the Bergian Garden (some of that page should be available in English, but I'm not sure how much) hosts the exhibition Het Höst. Het is Swedish for hot, while höst is Swedish for fall. However, I can't help but add that the Danish word høst (which is pronounced the same as Swedish höst) translates to harvest - especially since the exhibit is about chilli plants and their fruit, which could be considered a hot harvest.

After having travelled to varied places around the globe we felt we knew quite a bit of different kinds of chilli, but as it turned out there are many, many more that we had never even heard of - both in terms of colours and shapes.

Monkey face chilli

The exhibit included both types normally used in cooking and types normally not used for cooking. Most of those that are not normally used in cooking are not used because they are considered not to have an interesting taste - but they vary in hotness like other types of chilli.

Peter chili

The exhibit spanned the whole range from chillies without any hotness to what is today considered the hottest chilli in the world, the naga jolokia from Assam and Bangladesh. Naga jolokia is some 200-400 times hotter than Tabasco sauce - and about 10 times as hot as a habanero pepper (which is the hottest that has so far been used in Tue's kitchen).

Pinocchio's Nose chili

Horses are traded, right?

2010-10-02T09:41:00.002+02:00

'Hästskojare' (Lidingö)

Considering how small a fraction of Sweden we have seen we think it's quite remarkable that we have found two almost identical sculptures in two different locations in Sweden by random chance. Here on Lidingö we had already noticed the sculpture Hästskojare which is standing on a lawn near Lidingö Centre where we often go to shop.

Therefore we thought the sculpture Hästhandlaren in Sandviken looked rather familiar. As it turns out they were both made by Swedish sculpturer Sven Lundqvist. The one in Sandviken looks a bit older which is only natural since it has been standing there since 1984 while the one on Lidingö has only been here since 2008. Finally, one might speculate as to why the sculpturer has named one of them Hästhandleren, which in Swedish is a fairly neutral term for a horse trader, while he named the other Hästskojare, which in Swedish conveys much more directly the notion of dishonesty on the part of the salesman...

'Hästhandlaren' (Sandviken)

The historic route

2010-09-30T21:52:00.003+02:00

From Uppsala one can go north on a road that an ordinary road map will designate simply as route 272. Where route 272 ends one can continue north on route 83 - all the way to Ånge, some 90 km (~50 miles) west of Sundsvall. This way is believed to have been used as a road for at least 2000 years, which is why it is known as 'the historic route' - and why it has its own homepage.

We had heard that it was supposed to be a beautiful journey through Swedish landscapes and had also been talking a little about renting a car to drive some of the route (the entire trip is 400 km (~ 250 miles)). However, it wasn't until we discovered that the route passes through the Swedish town with the incredibly beautiful name Harbo, that the planning got serious.

In the end we decided on another road trip with our faithfully returning (summer) camp visitor.

Lake Tämnaren

Just outside Harbo we made a stop in Kalvnäset natural reserve where we ate our cinnamon rolls by the shore of lake Tämnaren.

The Dal River

Later the trip continued to Gysinge where the route crosses the Dal River and passes through a corner of the national park Färnebofjärden. Here we had the opportunity to learn a little about hydropower by the aid of an interactive installation.

How a mill can exploit hydropower

In the last hours of daylight we came the very pretty way over lake Storsjön into Sandviken (a city which sadly didn't inspire us to visit it for long) before we headed for Gävle and drove home along the coast.

Down town Sandviken

Grinda

2010-09-25T18:16:00.004+02:00

Lisbeth on Grinda

Just like we made a trip in the archipelago early in the summer, we also went for a boat trip one of the last summery days in Stockholm this year - and by coincidence it was the last day of the summer schedule for the archipelago boats. It turned out we should count ourselves fortunate for bringing along the schedule - the summer schedule had already been replaced by the fall schedule at the boat stops out on the islands (a similar stunt was pulled by SL, the public transport agency in Stockholm county, for the bus schedules).

We went to the island Grinda, where we had lunch and went for a walk around the island.

Tove and Tue eating lunch - Tue is wondering how they can call a piece of toast with a breaded fillet of fish 'fish burger' on their menu..

Election

2010-09-18T13:24:00.005+02:00

Tomorrow it is election day here in Sweden (we'd like to point out that tomorrow is a Sunday, which is interesting to us because in Denmark elections are always held on a working day). Three levels of administration are up for election: the municipal councils, the county councils and the parliament. As non-Swedish European Union citizens we have the right to vote for the first two of those.

Which municipality one gets to vote in is determined by which municipality one has residence in on August 20^th - so we belong in our new municipality. By following the campaign we have learned a few things about Lidingö.

Important issues on Lidingö are summer jobs for juveniles, more dog-toilettes and not least the opening of a second branch of the national alcohol monopoly Systembolaget! Did we hear anyone say 'privileged municipality'?! Lidingö is known as the Island of Health, hence all the parties are in favour of protecting the green areas, a green municipal economy (whatever that entails) and organic foods for the young and the elderly alike.

Where the differences between the parties are apparent, is in what they believe is best for the environment. One of the biggest questions is the commuter infrastructure of the island: should they spend some 100 M$ on blasting a new road tunnel out of the bed rock, expand the existing roads, or simply go all-in on public transportation?

Even though education and schools have been a key issue also in the national campaigns we have been quite mystified as to why it was so central to everybody on this island that the school meals be locally prepared from organic produce - until we suddenly remembered that in Sweden (unlike in Denmark) warm meals are eaten for lunch.

Unlike in Denmark, where you receive one very long ballot containing all your options upon entering the polling station on election day, they use different ballots for each party here in Sweden. These ballots are often distributed by the parties themselves along with the rest of their campaign material in the weeks before the election. This is just one reason why it is easier to vote before election day here in Sweden than it is in Denmark. One can bring along the relevant ballots when going to vote, but all the ballots are of course available at the polling stations as well. The first option is obviously the more anonymous. We have noticed that the Swedish system has been criticised in the Danish media for not being sufficiently anonymous. The solution to this problem is as obvious as it is simple: take all the ballots you like and no one will know which party you are going to vote for.

Campaign posters are used quite somewhat more moderately in Stockholm than in Copenhagen (although that doesn't say much), but the old joke of adding a little extra bonus to the odd campaign poster is obviously also known here. On the other hand we have been running zigzag between the various campaigners every time we've gone to a train station, shopping mall or public square this last week before the election.

Crayfish party!

2010-09-05T17:40:00.005+02:00

The crayfish party season begins on the second Wednesday of August in Sweden and it is impossible to be oblivious to this when shops and restaurants become filled with crayfish napkins, paper bibs, and paper lanterns - in addition to the precooked crayfish of course.

We hosted such a party one Saturday in August - fortunately assisted by some of Lisbeth's Swedish collegues. Unfortunately our photos of the serving tray filled to the brim with crayfish came out blurry but the above photo illustrates the phenomenon quite well: the crayfish are eaten by hand and washed down with light beer and aquavit - preferably while singing songs! - and to add some substance to the meal, bread, aioli, eggs, salad and Västerbotten-pie are served as well.

All if this while wearing silly hats of course:

Miscelaneous Mailboxes

2010-08-29T14:01:00.003+02:00

In Copenhagen we saw the large mailbox pictured above. We understand they are becoming more widespread in Denmark these days. If we have got it right the idea is that you can pick up your parcels around the clock all days of the year - rather than being restricted to the opening hours of the post office.

Since we don't live in Denmark we haven't tried the system. But we would like to add here that in Sweden there are very few actual post offices. In stead the post service cooperates with some nationwide chains. Thus, one most often has to pick up (and send) mail at either Pressbyrån (kiosk) or ICA Nära (small grocery store).

And speaking of Sweden that is precisely where we found the little mailbox with the squirrel pictured on the right. To be more exact we found it on Lidingö along our new bike-way to and from work.

Lastly we want to mention a special kind of mailbox which we didn't actually see - we only saw the sign pictured below. We can inform those not proficient in French that we are talking about a special mailbox for motorists.

Mailboxes on parade

2010-08-15T19:42:00.002+02:00

The mail is a bit different on Fårö: For one thing there are so few inhabitants that they don't care to bother street names and house numbers on the letters - name, town and zip code is sufficient.

Secondly, one finds in certain spots clusters of mailboxes - not unlike what we have seen earlier, but with the difference that in this case the cluster contains all the mailboxes for the whole town in question.

On top of that we found surprisingly many decorated mailboxes on Fårö. Most of them appeared to be made by the same person: over half of those we saw were signed by 'Yvonnie H.' Many of them looked like they'd been made especially for the owner.

Fårö

2010-08-14T15:24:00.004+02:00

We actually only spent a few hours in Visby before taking a bus to Fårösund where we could take the 8-minute (free) ferry over to Fårö (Får-ö = sheep-island), a small island with only some 500 year-round human inhabitants.

Fårö - like Gotland - consists mainly of limestone and therefore one finds also here stacks (known is Swedish as raukar) along the coasts of the island.

There are also good options for finding various fossils.

On the northern coast of Fårö there remains a small cluster of fishing cabins - this was once the largest fishing town on Fårö and people came from all over the island to this very spot to get their strömming (Baltic herring).

We were quite lucky weather-wise for the days we were there (even if Gotland are Fårö are supposed to have the best summer-weather in all of Sweden) - we spent the time biking around in the landscape, counting sheep, and bathing in the lightly salty waters of the Baltic sea.

As is customary on Fårö we had lamb roast both of the times we went out for dinner. For lunch there was a more varied selection available - her a big plate of smoked prawns with aioli:

Sheep on parade

2010-08-10T22:01:00.002+02:00

While the cows on parade in Bordeaux took us by surprise, we were expecting a profusion of sheep on Gotland. We were not disappointed...

Visby

2010-08-08T16:14:00.002+02:00

On a real summer day in July we got up early and travelled through the city to Stockholm's old airport Bromma in order to get a short flight to Visby on Gotland. Apart from the fact that Bromma is much more in the city than Arlanda (which makes it easier to get there) it also has the other advantages of being a small airport: check-in, security check and boarding doesn't take all that much time. However, we are so used to flying from larger airports that we showed up way too early (in fact we were there so early that we would have been able to get on the flight to Visby before the one we were flying on).

Access to the old town of Visby is through any one of the gates in the well-preserved medieval city wall. Inside one finds of course everything one could expect from an old town: small houses, cobbled streets, squares, restaurants and souvenir shops. What can surprise though, is the rather large number of church ruins found in the old town - many of the church ruins are open for tourists to explore by themselves.

Cadillac

2010-07-31T12:07:00.003+02:00

Since we were in the area we couldn't resist going to Cadillac either - a tiny French town which is by mysterious ways the namesake of one of our time's most famous pieces of Americana. Cadillac is in fact so small that you can't even take the train there - but you can take the train to Cérons and in good weather it's certainly doable to walk the approximately 2 km to Cadillac. Arriving that way the last thing you do before arriving in Cadillac is crossing the Garonne river.

The central town is surrounded by the old city walls and in the largest gate there is a list over the worst floods of the river through the latest couple of centuries (given in meters over the normal water level) - for those who weren't there we can report that very few people will be able to keep the head over the surface of the water standing in the gate already when the level reaches 10 meters (which apparently happened last on December 16th 1981).

Apart from the name itself the town is perhaps most widely known for the castle, Château de Cadillac, which over the course of it's 400 years has been the home of French noblemen, a women's prison, psychiatric hospital, and now open to the public for an entrance fee. It was nice to see, but we are a bit sceptical regarding the description of the castle as 'impressive' in our Danish guidebook to Mid-France.^[1] Likewise, we are puzzled about the claim of 'innumerable small, cosy restaurants ' from the same book - we had a splendid lunch by the town square, but we didn't exactly spend hours deciding which restaurant to choose...

^[1] (C) Politikens Forlag A/S, 2007

Cows on parade

2010-07-29T21:44:00.002+02:00

It turned out that Bordeaux was hosting a cow parade this summer. For the uninitiated we can report that cow parades are a currently increasing phenomenon. Since the first cow parade in Zürich in 1998 more than 70 cities world-wide have hosted cow parades. In a cow parade a number of artists are invited to design cows in realistic size. Some of the projects are chosen for realisation and the cows are placed at various sites in the public space of the hosting city.

For most of the cows the design consists 'merely' of the painting of a standing cow, but quite a few cows also have more interesting shapes.

Of the the 60 cows on parade in Bordeaux we managed to snap shots of about 50 - most of those can be seen in the 'co(w)llage' below. If your internet connection isn't too slow we recommend opening the image in the original size (about 4.5 Mb - done in most browsers by first clicking the image to view the image only, then clicking it again to zoom to the full size)... a few non-authentic cows have found their way into the 'co(w)llage', so try to spot them.

A whole lotta sand...

2010-07-27T20:25:00.002+02:00

Even though the plan was for us to just relax in Bordeaux we couldn't keep ourselves from making a couple of excursions. Especially not when closer reading about the area revealed the presence of the largest migrating dune, Dune du Pilat, in all of Europe on the coast just outside Bordeaux - this was an opportunity we found ourselves unable to say 'no' to.

When one Monday morning it was overcast we knew this was our moment: this had to be the best day for climbing a migrating dune.

First we took the train to beach town Arcachon - picturesquely located by the shallow waters of Arcachon bay.

Here we rented bicycles and rode south along the coast through Pyla sur Mer - some 5-10 km - before suddenly finding ourselves at the northern end of migrating dune. The dune is quite impressive in size, but the otherwise difficult climb up its steep sides is eased significantly by the temporary stairway which is in place during the summer season.

We intended to walk along the top of the dune to its southern end. But we gave up when we'd been walking for about half an hour with no end in sight and the sun beginning to come out.

On the way back we stopped in Moulleau for a couple of local oysters and a nice pot of mussels with fries (so-called moules et frites).

Vacation in France

2010-07-25T16:19:00.004+02:00

IECB (European Institute of Chemistry and Biology), Bordeaux

We had a feeling that this year we needed a relaxing vacation without too many planned activities. Thus, when it was confirmed that Tue was going to a conference in Bordeaux in the beginning of July, we decided it might as well be there we had our vacation - that would also give us an opportunity to practice our French a bit. When the conference was over Lisbeth showed up in southern France and we moved into a cosy little flat we rented for the purpose.

Bridge over the Garonne river

Not surprisingly it is warmer in Bordeaux than in Stockholm - especially when there's a heatwave in Bordeaux. Therefore it was not shocking that it was extremely popular to cool down by the water mirror at Place de la Bourse.

The water mirror at Place de la Bourse

As expected we spent most of our time there reading books, relaxing on the sofa, watching movies, walking around in the old parts of town by the river, relaxing in parks, shopping at the market, cooking, eating a lot (perhaps even too much) cheese and drinking locally produced red wine.

Our 'loot' from the big Sunday market

Stuffed ball-round zucchini - a variation over these two recipes

Of course we added to that a couple of visits to museums - of which we would particularly like to mention the very interesting video exhibition 6 milliards d'autres, shown in impressive fashion in an old submarine base. We also found the time for a couple of day trips, but more about those later..

La base sous-marine - the old submarine base

Midsummer in the archipelago

2010-07-01T22:42:00.003+02:00

This year the Swedish midsummer wasn't till the weekend after the solstice. We managed to get up early Saturday (Midsummer's Day) so we could get on one of the two boats that left from strömkajen in central Stockholm at 8:30. The two boats followed the same route out through the inner archipelago until Vaxholm, although they took turns at stopping for more passengers at the possible stops along the way.

After almost 3 hours we reached Finnhamn - named such because the boats to and from Finland used to stop over there. Currently, Finnhamn has a restaurant, a store (the sign correctly advertises 'affär' in the singular), a hostel and a village of cottages.

Stugby

Ahhhhh...

Punsch

2010-06-26T06:02:00.002+02:00

In Sweden, as well as in Denmark, one can buy a cake - made of mix of crushed cookies, butter, cocoa, and liqueur - shaped like a small rod. In Denmark these are either coated with green marzipan or simply dipped in chocolate. The latter is probably the more sensible with regard to the Danish name: Træstammer = 'logs'. Until very recently we only saw the green variety in Sweden. They are sold under the name punschrullar = 'punsch-rolls', but for questionable reasons they are better known as dammsugare = 'vacuum cleaners'.

On the occasion of the many parties of the season (the National day, the wedding of the princess-heir, the many graduation parties ... or even midsummer!?) an alternate version in yellow and screeching blue is also available.

It might just be those of us who grew up with the green ones that find the blue-and-yellow ones to look significantly more poisonous - or.. ?

Together

2010-06-23T06:05:00.001+02:00

Many of you may have noticed that Sweden - and especially Stockholm - has been quite focused on the royal wedding lately. Ikea decided to contribute with their own celebration of the couple: under the name Together (allow us here to point out that for those of us remembering the 2000 Lukas Moodyson movie this might not give the very best associations regarding the future happiness of the princess) they put up a pavilion - an Ikea-tent-castle if you prefer - close to the royal castle in the old town.

Ikea had thought of most details: there were a set of golden skis in the garage, a gallery of ancestors in the hallways, fitness equipment in the bedroom and of course the dining hall had been decked up for a grand dinner. They even had the menu figured out...

("I want meatballs from [the world's largest Ikea]")

...as well as prince-preparation-exercises for Daniel...

...and of course a bed worthy of a real princess.

Lidingö

2010-06-20T11:31:00.002+02:00

Our new home on Lidingö ('Liding'-island)

The main reason nothing much has happened on this page for the past month is that we've been busy moving - well, the moving itself took less than 4 hours. But then we also had to clean the old apartment, and everything needed sorting out in the new apartment - add to this a trip to Ikea (complete with the mandatory serving of ridiculously cheap meatballs)... it all takes time.

On top of that we've spent some time getting to know our new area. Lidingö boasts being the 'island of health'. This could in part be due to it being the richest municipality in the Stockholm area, but it is certainly helped along by the large green areas with many an inviting path for walking, running and biking.

Although it thus seems a bit more like the countryside, it is in fact only marginally farther away from central Stockholm than it is from Solna. However, every trip into town must go via the Lidingö bridge.

Vappu

2010-05-22T12:27:00.002+02:00

The purpose of our most recent trip to Finland was to experience Vappu in Helsinki. Vappu is the Finnish version of Walpurgis Night, but it is celebrated rather differently in Finland. One thing to be noted is that Vappu is about student traditions - many people found their student hats and donned them. Not just young people with relatively new hats like in the picture, but a lot of older generations had also dug old their old student hats for the occasion.

The many different overalls in characteristic colours were also hard to miss - connoisseurs will be able to deduce people's line of study by the colour of their overalls.

The attitude was generally one of fun, dressing up, and drinking sparkly - and apparently lots of balloons were also required.

One of the main details of Vappu in Helsinki is when the Havis Amanda statue (seen as a symbol of Helsinki) is fitted with a student hat in a complicated ceremony involving multiple crane trucks.

After proper dressing with the student hat, the crowds responded by waving vigorously with their own student hats.

Bothnian archipelagos

2010-05-20T20:57:00.002+02:00

It was bound to happen sooner or later - so we took advantage of one of the long weekends of the springtime for going to Finland by boat. The crossing took about 11 hours, but we succeeded in sleeping for most of the trip..

The last light of the day over the Stockholm archipelago

Sunrise over the archipelago (far) outside of Turku

Spring trip to Germany

2010-05-08T09:20:00.001+02:00

By pure luck we managed to plan a trip to Germany for exactly the last weekend before the European air traffic was interrupted due to volcanic ash.

To be more exact we went to Mülheim an der Ruhr where John (an old study and house mate from California) is currently doing a post-doc at Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung - before John and Tiffany go back to California.

John & Tiffany

Since Mülheim is not a particularly big city we were expecting to visit either Essen, Düsseldorf or Köln (= Cologne), but in fact we ended up spending the whole weekend in and about Mülheim. Therefore we also had time to visit Mülheim's Camera Obscura in the Broich neighbourhood (on 'the other side' of the river Ruhr).

Camera Obscura is Latin for 'dark room', but most people can probably figure out that in the long run you cannot run a business that consists of charging people for letting them into a darkened chamber. In principle you just need a large, smooth, white screen inside the room and a pinhole in the wall. Light from the outside enters through the pinhole and you can (when the room is dark) see a picture of the world outside (upside-down) on the white screen. The tower in Mülheim is more sophisticated than that - the pinhole is located in movable part of the of the tower on top of the dome (so you can watch all directions from the tower) and is furthermore equipped with optical lenses making it possible to focus on different distances. Now that we have tried it, we are sorry we didn't visit the one in Edinburgh.

Since John had been complaining about the lack of soft corn tacos in Germany we decided to bring him a bag of corn flour. This was a sufficiently strange item for it to require scrutiny and questioning when we passed airport security - but since corn flour is not in the least bit wet we were allowed to bring it in. Thus we spent our Saturday evening making a stack of soft corn tacos.

Easter excursion - part 2

2010-04-20T21:44:00.002+02:00

The high age of the university in Uppsala hints to the city's importance for the Christian church in Sweden, and it doesn't come a big surprise that Uppsala also boasts the largest cathedral in all of Scandinavia.

Inside the cathedral we finally at long last got to meet the king whose name we've been coming across over and over again here in Sweden: Gustav Vasa.

But Uppsala cathedral isn't just a place with a long history - it is also a place where new ideas are welcomed.

The collectomat

Easter excursion - part 1

2010-04-18T22:10:00.002+02:00

The guy depicted here on the left is the first your eyes land upon when exiting the train station in Uppsala - and that was where we chose to go on a day trip during Easter.

Uppsala is perhaps most widely known for its university which is the oldest university in all of Scandinavia. The city did bear signs of a healthy population of students. For example, we were far from the only young people not with Swedish as native language to sit down by the banks of the Fyris river on this sunny (but relatively cool) afternoon to enjoy a refreshment.

Swedish Easter

2010-04-07T20:36:00.003+02:00

Already last summer we were wondering about the differences between Danish and Swedish traditions: In Sweden there is a bonfire for Walpurgis Night instead of for midsummer - and this quite without burning witches. This year we have concluded that this is in part because the Swedish witches are sent off to Blocksberg already around Easter. However, this isn't symbolised by burning witches. Rather little witches appear equally prominently as eggs and chickens in the Swedish Easter decorations - and supposedly kids are also dressed up as witches to go around trick-or-treating (although this last bit we haven't seen for ourselves). This latter tradition would seem to be closely linked to another great and very visible Swedish Easter tradition: Easter Candy!

Around Easter all major supermarket chains dump the price of pick-and-mix candy from the already cheap Swedish level to about 30 SEK/kg (yep, that's 30 Swedish kroner pr. kilogram - less than $2 for a lb of candy). This of course also means that in Sweden an Easter egg is most commonly not a large chocolate egg but instead a large cardboard egg filled with pick-and-mix candy. The 'Caramel King' also argues that the traditional brush of twigs should be decorated with Easter candy - but most of those we have seen have been decorated with coloured feathers. Both feathers and witches make it all quite reminiscent of Danish Shrovetide celebrations - another example of a mix-up in the pagan Nordic spring traditions.

Just to add to the confusion we decided that in our little home witches, feathers and egg hunting should be replaced by an omelette in Easter colours and a home-baked 'hen'.

Easter weather

2010-04-05T14:26:00.002+02:00

After an long winter it was nice to see these this past Saturday

After enjoying an Easter holiday with lots of sunshine and temperatures approaching 10 degrees (C) it was a bit of a shock to wake up to this sight on Easter Monday:

View from our living room this morning

Now we just have to hope all the flowers make it through anyway..

This is the first time since New Year that we see these two with flowers on

A world of ice

2010-03-28T22:49:00.000+02:00

Lisbeth's job once again brought her to Greenland but since this second trip was much shorter, the camera didn't make it out of the bag until the flight leaving Greenland - this time from the international airport at Narsarsuaq in the South.

As you can see above, there is rather little snow and ice in the Southern part but before getting a chance to capture the lovely fiord scenery, the plane hit the cloud level.

However, it was worth keeping out the camera since it was an amazing 'trek' across the ice further to the East.

The clear conditions made it possible to see some of the flow patterns in the ice and above it is even possible to distinguish the ice shelf of the glacier.

Amazing, eh?!

The centenary of the matriarch

2010-03-26T07:15:00.001+01:00

On Friday, March 18^th 1910, the proprietor of Brændeskov Dairy in the southern part of the Danish Island of Funen got a daughter. This daughter who got the name Rigmor (and who - many years later - got a grandson called Tue) would prove to be made of sterner stuff than people are most. At first it might not sound like she ventured very far into the world when we tell you that a hundred years later one finds her living on her farm just outside the village Brudager, less than 3 miles from where she was born. But the number of people that showed up for the reception, and the abundance of flowers they gave, bears testimony of a life spent being active.

About one third of the flowers

Even though the number of centenarians in Denmark is increasing more rapidly than the population in general, one still receives a note of congratulation from the Royal Court - and Rigmor also made the front page of the county news paper. But when one of the Danish television channels called to ask if they could come by and ask a few questions she declined - she didn't have time for that on her birthday. We originally thought that she would take an afternoon nap after the reception and before the evening dinner with the more immediate family, but she was far too busy looking at the many flowers and the corresponding cards...

Tue and his maternal grandmother, Rigmor

We admittedly felt a little weak after the big dinner when we realised we had to give in and go to bed before the birthday girl - and it didn't help one bit that she was up and about earlier than the rest of the next morning.

Swedish spring preparations

2010-03-14T12:42:00.002+01:00

This weekend we have been able to watch a team of workers removing the snow from the building next to ours - a task that takes a surprisingly long time.

Snow on roofs is in general taken much more seriously here in Sweden than it is in Denmark - perhaps there's a lesson to be learned for Danish farmers before more innocent livestock is caught under a roof caving in to the snow masses..

The last ice

2010-03-11T19:46:00.002+01:00

As the pictures show there is still lots of ice on the Stockholmian waters - but since the days are rapidly getting longer and we have had thawing conditions during the daytime for the past week or so, it can't last much longer now.

Greenlandic Mailboxes

2010-03-06T07:18:00.002+01:00

It comes as no surprise that Greenlandic mailboxes are quite similar to the Danish ones, but interestingly they are found with a couple of different logos on them.

Greenland too has - which is obvious from a Danish and/or Greenlandic perspective - a Christmas mailbox. As anyone should know, Santa Claus lives in Greenland - not in Finland.

Arctic signage

2010-03-03T21:20:00.001+01:00

Road signs are just different when sleds and snowmobiles outnumber cars (and bicycles for that matter).

For our non-Danish-reading readers we should explain that the signs above give directions for Police, Apartment Building K (charming name, isn't it), and Shop, respectively. Doesn't exactly give the impression of a bustling metropolis, does it now..

Sled dogs

2010-03-02T19:52:00.010+01:00

Being located above the Arctic Circle, Sisimiut is dotted with groups of sled dogs being kept between the houses. Planning has a quite different context when discussions on housing issues include discussions on where to keep the dogs!

As Air Greenland doesn't fly on weekends, one must fly in Friday in order to be ready to start working Monday morning. This provided time for more leisure-like activities, such as a long dogsled ride Sunday. Above Lisbeth - all dressed up in sealskin on top of her usual winter attire - and apart from the inconvenience of almost not being able to move, it did keep her warm through the whole trip. And below is the lovely ride...

Greenland

2010-02-28T17:14:00.002+01:00

The week before last Lisbeth's job took her to Greenland. They had some long working days while there, but fortunately there was also time for enjoying and exploring the Greenlandic landscape, as well as the arctic lifestyle and traditions.

The first stop of the trip was in Sisimiut - a picturesque cluster of colourful wooden houses at Ulkebugten (Bullhead Bay) north of the Arctic circle. There had only fallen a very small amount of snow this winter, so in fact Tue could play in significantly larger volumes of snow back home in Stockholm!

More royal establisments

2010-02-24T07:40:00.000+01:00

More examples to illustrate that it is easier to sell the product if the store can somehow associate themselves with the good name of the king..

The last one might be a bit outside of the category - but since they are found in Sweden we'll include them anyway.

This is likely a record for us...

2010-02-22T19:31:00.001+01:00

This morning one could see the following on our balcony:

Ice

2010-02-21T14:37:00.001+01:00

The continuing winter weather with varying temperatures gives rise to a number of curious forms of ice around town.

Life signs in the snow

2010-02-20T14:09:00.005+01:00

By now Stockholm has been covered in snow for 2 months - and nothing really seems to indicate that the winter will be over any time soon: all day today the thermometer has been showing -14 C (7 F) and the snow is drifting around us in what I believe is technically known as a "moderate breeze" (26 km/h = 16 mph) from the north-east causing it to feel more like -24 C (-11 F)..

But fortunately - on days with nicer weather - we can see some signs of life in all the snow.

Semlor

2010-02-17T22:18:00.002+01:00

A semla is the Swedish version of the Shrovetide bun, but the season has become rather extensive: ever since New Year one has not been able to pass by a bakery or a convenience store without being faced with adds for semlor (as they are called in plural). In fact the usual mania for kanelbullar (cinnamon buns) has receded a bit to let the semlor rule.

A semla consists of a sweet, cardamom spiced bun with a bit of marzipan in the middle - cut open and re-assembled with a generous amount of whipped cream. Honestly, we are the biggest semla fans imaginable, so we might have to produce some of our own variety. Apart from that we are looking forward to finding out just how long the semla season will last.

London BABY

2010-02-07T06:41:00.001+01:00

Before we can say farewell to the (travel) year 2009 we need one final chapter. We did go to Jutland to celebrate Christmas, and since that meant we were already half-ways towards London what could be more obvious than to go all the way and celebrate New Year with Rune and Nadja there?!

It Tues first time in the city, and even though London true to tradition bid us welcome with lots of rain he might be up for more visits in the future. We went shopping, we ate vegetarian by Radha Krishna, we saw the statue of Lord Nelson and the Tower of London, we rode a double-decker bus, we drank British ales in a pub, we visited Borough Market, we admired the food department in Harrod's, and we generally just enjoyed being in the UK.

On our last day there, we got to see the better side of London weather - the museum of natural history was very picturesque on such a day:

And since it was the New Year we were there to celebrate, Tue had to have his hair done up for the event!

BT7: Correios 2

2010-02-05T06:00:00.000+01:00

Not surprisingly, the Brazilian mail service has the same name as the Portuguese one - but their mailboxes look quite different.

We did not see many private mailboxes in São Paulo - not of the free-standing variety at least. Most places we saw mailboxes built into the houses. But of course, we are talking about a city where lots of people surround their homes with tall walls topped with barbed wire.

BT6: Cataratas do Iguaçu

2010-02-03T06:34:00.000+01:00

When it was time for us to pick the main destination for spare time in Brazil, the decision was easy: both of us really wanted to go to the big waterfalls - Iguaçu Falls - located on the border between Brazil and Argentina.

The distances in Brazil are quite big, so we flew from São Paulo (and back again). But we did set aside a good amount of time for exploring the waterfalls from both sides of the river. The Brazilian side allows for a panoramic view over most of the falls (as in the picture above), but it is also possible get up close using the installed walkways - that's a rather wet experience!

In Argentina there is the option of looking along and down the falls - one of the main attractions is walking to the top of the largest single waterfall, Devil's Throat, and looking down into it. Again, a rather wet experience when the wind suddenly changes direction. Apart from that it is hard to describe the sheer force and the deafening roar of the falls. These factors don't really come across so well in pictures. You have to go yourselves to get the full experience!

The day we visited the Argentinian part the sun was burning from a cloudless sky, so we had the bonus of seeing lots of rainbows in the mist from the waterfalls.

BT5: Feliz Natal

2010-02-01T06:50:00.000+01:00

It was just around the transition from November to December that we were in Brazil - so of course they were busy decorating the city for the approaching holiday season. Interestingly, in Brazil they associate Christmas with the same symbols as we do in our own, more northern, region: snow, rotund Santa Clauses in heavy, red coats, decorated Christmas trees, and polar bears (?!). Snow undoubtedly seems exotic and alluring in these latitudes - in a country where snow and frost is hardly ever seen (except in the mountains in the southernmost states). But when sweating profusely in the early subtropical summer a couple of wads of cotton in the hedge just don't appear very convincing.

On Avenida Paulista it seemed a bit like the large banks were trying to outdo each other with opulent Christmas decorations. It is possible that more came up after we left the area, but otherwise our first prize goes to the establishment pictured below. In broad daylight it merely appeared a bit overloaded with Christmas decorations, but starting in late November and every evening between 6 and 10 pm for the rest of the year they put on their Christmas show with talking mechanical puppet dogs, a dancing and Christmas-medley-singing choir, and snow machines every twenty minutes.

Did we mention the Christmas trees? A metropolis the size of São Paulo unsurprisingly requires a large and impressive Christmas tree - never mind if it is actually a single large real tree.

But it was certainly big: looking closely one can just make out the man standing near the top - just by the ladder leading up to the large Christmas star.

BT4: Butterflies

2010-01-30T15:03:00.001+01:00

National parks obviously have certain wishes for the behaviour of the visitors, but it wasn't particularly easy to avoid touching the butterflies in Iguaçu - both because there were overwhelming swarms of them in some spots and because the more adventurous of them didn't hesitate to park themselves on backs, hats, backpacks etc.

BT3: South American wildlife

2010-01-25T20:53:00.001+01:00

One of the most important reasons for choosing to splurge on the hotel INSIDE Iguaçu National Park was the anticipation that early morning walks in the park would provide us with good opportunities for wildlife sightings. And we were by no means disappointed in this regard - here follows some of those we managed to snap photos of.

This (extended) family of coatis (a South American relative of the raccoon) let themselves be observed quite unperturbed so long as we didn't try to get MUCH too close to them. The four parents were busy eating and didn't appear to pay any attention at all to the kids. This resulted in one of the small ones standing at one side of the road looking quite lost and sad when it missed crossing the road together with the rest of them. Fortunately a sibling came halfway back across the road to lead it on the right track - then it bolted across the road at top speed!

When we saw something behind us on the road the following morning we expected it to be another coati, so we were quite surprised when we realised it was an armadillo. These should be nocturnal, so we hadn't counted on seeing any. It disappeared in the bushes before we got a good look at it, but it was kind enough to re-emerge shortly after to cross the road again. What a strange creature!

Another animal which might not seem very exotic at first was this guinea pig which we saw in the Argentinian part of the national park(s). But it was truly surreal for us to see this common pet sitting on a lawn grazing like some squirrel or other wild animal!

Last but not least we were amazed at our first sighting of the South American swan. We both knew of the black swans of Australia, but neither of knew that there was a specific South American variety of swans. But there is - and it can best be described as looking like a cross between black and white swans...

BT2: Phone booths

2010-01-22T21:05:00.002+01:00

While the trend most other places is for phone booths to decay and disappear, Brazil is obviously still putting up new ones. In smaller towns one often finds but a single phone booth, but otherwise two or three are mounted on the same pole - and as seen here one of them is usually mounted lower down on the pole to facilitate use for disabled persons. The phone booths are clearly also being used - even though in this case we are puzzled as to why the caller didn't chose one of the other two...

In central São Paulo there's still a couple of well-preserved phone booths from a somewhat different era.

BT1: São Paulo

2010-01-21T20:29:00.001+01:00

For the past couple of weeks we have been mainly blogging about Swedish Christmas traditions, snow and ice. But we actually started the holiday season with a serious dose of summer and sunshine. So in order to recap our trip to Brazil we are going to start a little series of blog entries which we have decided to call Brazilian tales.

Our starting point on this trip was São Paulo. Even though we have been to large cities before we must admit that São Paulo's extensive area littered with high-rises surpasses all we have previously seen. Lisbeth flew in over the city in broad daylight and seeing from above just how far the city stretched was incredible. Flying in over Los Angeles one is flying over the city for quite a while as well, but most of it are villas. In Los Angeles there can be no doubt as to the location of the city centre - that feeling of orientation is lost in the concrete jungle of São Paulo.

The vast majority of the buildings are of course concrete monstrosities, but in between those there were a number of older, colonial style houses and mansions. In the central business districts a little more attention had been paid to architecture - both in the form of interesting details and mirror facades:

São Paulo isn't a city with any particular 'must-see' sights; the experience consists largely of simply being there and experiencing such a dense and complex city. They do have a beautiful monument commemorating the 'Bandeirantes' who explored (enslaved and colonised would be another way to describe it...) the inner regions of present-day Brazil in the 16th-18th centuries.
Does it look a bit like something which has been seen in another - and certainly related - place?!

And if anyone should be in doubt as to whether or not we went to the tropics, we submit this evidence:

Red ear

2010-01-15T06:48:00.000+01:00

Those of our readers who know Tue well know that he isn't a great fan of headgear. And as the old saying goes (in Danish, anyway) "if you won't listen, you'll have to feel". During the first week of January Tue found one evening, after biking home in -15 ^oC (5 ^oF), that one of his ears was red and swollen - also a couple of hours after he had returned to the warmth of our home.

The swelling went away in a couple of days and after that the ear behaved just as if it had been badly burned under the sun. Said one f Lisbeth's Finnish colleagues: "Only teenagers go out without a hat in the wintertime". As Tue got not just one but two hats for his birthday, there's no excuse for biking without one from now on.

Yule Post 2

2010-01-13T12:13:00.001+01:00

Denmark can't just stand back and ignore Swedish and Finnish special Yule mailboxes - especially not in Varde, a town known as town of gnomes.

And with that we've come to the end of Christmas this time around. Which is quite fitting as we've been told that in Sweden Christmas is considered over today. That is: Christmas ends on the twentieth day after Christmas, a day known in Swedish as Tjugondag Knut. This also means that they will finally (from our point of view) be taking down the Christmas decorations.

Gift basket

2010-01-12T20:26:00.002+01:00

This past Sunday Tue had his birthday. The gift forecast didn't look fantastically overwhelming as by Friday evening only one letter had arrived for the birthday boy - and we knew that the Swedish postal service doesn't deliver on the weekend.

Which is why Tue was caught by surprise when Lisbeth presented him with a veritable gift basket full of goodies. The basket contained a hat, socks, tea, chocolate, chutney, jam, lemongrass paste and saffron. The magazine in the picture wasn't actually a gift, but it arrived by mail a few days before the big day, so Tue insisted on opening it together with his birthday mail.

Later in the day we enjoyed a piece of freshly baked birthday cake - more specifically a pecan nut cake with a caramel frosting.

To alleviate the worst withdrawal symptoms on the day after, Tue could open the additional greeting cards which arrived by mail Monday.

Snow, Ice and Sun

2010-01-11T21:29:00.002+01:00

This past Saturday we had beautiful sunshine. We went to the old centre of the city to look at broken ice.

Contrary to our expectation it was literally teaming with swans, ducks and coots in the partially frozen water around Skeppsholmen.

Walking on the water

2010-01-03T23:03:00.003+01:00

Safely back from our combined Christmas and New Year vacation we noted that the weather in Stockholm hadn't really changed while we were gone. As the sun was out this Sunday we decided to dress warmly and defy the -10 ^oC our thermometer told us it was outside. Our purpose with the trip was see Haga park in pretty snow. We expected this to be particularly lovely next to waters of Brunnsviken.

But as it turned out, Brunnsviken was iced over..

..and the ice was sufficiently thick to support us.

In fact there was a throng of people - on foot, on ski, on skates - when we got out onto the open part of the ice.

Interestingly, Tue would be able to reduce his commute to and from work by some 25-30% if he were to go in a straight east-west fashion rather than having to go around the southern tip of Brunnsviken. And yet, he hesitates to bike on the ice..

Yule Post

2009-12-24T06:37:00.000+01:00

One does not only find special Christmas mailboxes in Finland - here in Sweden, during the month of December, one has the choice of posting in three different mailboxes:

And since it is the season, we would like to take this opportunity to wish our readers a happy holiday.

Snowy Stockholm

2009-12-22T21:49:00.006+01:00

These weeks, Stockholm has been covered in a thick layer of snow..

.. and the short days result in very long shadows - even at noon:

The bikes are left in the racks...

.. while the toboggan run is much more busy ..

.. and it is just a lot more fun being outside!

Pepparkakshus (Gingerbread house)

2009-12-18T14:33:00.005+01:00

Another christmas tradition the Swedes take very seriously is the tradition of building gingerbread houses.

In an era of cutting corners obviously you can buy a ready-made kit with walls and roof so the task is 'just' to assemble and decorate it.

However, some people do take the tradition MUCH more seriously and may partake in the Architectural Museum's Pepparkakshus 2009 competition. This competition has been running for 19 years and it seems to be an integrated tradition (well, at least to admire the contributions) among the Stockholmers.

Lisbeth saw a selection of the participating "houses" yesterday and was really impressed by the level of ambition and the imaginativeness. Below is shown the winners but all contributions can be seen on this list. The theme of 2009 was 'Monster' and the participants were divided into three groups: children, bakers and architects, and others. Our readers can make their own guesses as to which contributions are attributed to which participant category...

St. Lucy's day

2009-12-13T21:48:00.002+01:00

From growing up in Denmark, we are familiar with the tradition of celebrating St. Lucy's day, but the Swedes take it to the next level. This time of year the common cinnamon bun (kanelbulle) has been replaced by the saffron containing lussebulle (also known as a lussekatt).

Furthermore it is more or less impossible to avoid running into several St. Lucy processions. So far we have seen them in the old town (the picture), at university, in the metro, and ... in the supermarket - both in the clothing and in the produce sections (!).

Where we are

2009-12-02T19:07:00.001+01:00

The blog is rather quiet while we're travelling but if all has been according to plan, at the publication time of this blog post we should be staying here:

Crazy as well as qualified guesses on our exact location are welcome in the comment section :)

In the heart of Sweden

2009-11-24T16:45:00.001+01:00

For those of you who don't know exactly where the Swedes keep their heart this photo might give you a hint:
Thats rigth; in 'Dalarna'!
(For more info on the Dalecarlian horse: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalecarlian_horse)

Lisbeth visited the 'most Swedish' of Sweden in relation to her job and that even in the infamous village of Tällberg. Even if she didn't have much time to enjoy the lovely country side, she did have the best 'kanelbuller' (cinnamon rolls) yet, enjoyed the Dala hospitality, heard a fantastic performance by Dala singers, practised her understanding of the local dialect, and was generally inspired to visit again during summer where the view across the lake can be better appreciated.

Throng on the balcony

2009-11-21T22:06:00.003+01:00

When we put up the large fat ball last Sunday we were wondering how many weeks it would last.. during the week we had to adjust our expectations, as it was no longer just a Great Tit or two that paid us a visit from time to time: Thursday morning there were no less than ten House Sparrows on the balcony. And sure enough: by this Saturday morning fresh supplies were in demand.

Tomatillos

2009-11-19T06:30:00.002+01:00

It is true that the Swedish autumn is cold and wet and grey and dark - one doesn't get to see the sun all that much even during the 7 ¹/₂ hours it creeps above the horizon this particular time of the year.

But for now, Tue forgives Sweden all this and more.

But why?

We were about to leave Hötorgshallen when Lisbeth noticed that one of the greengrocers had the fruits pictured here. These are the so-called tomatillos that you have heard Tue lament not being able to get ever since leaving California. But here they are - in Hötorgshallen in Stockholm. In size and shape they are quite similar to green tomatoes (plus the recognisable papery husk). Although that's the right family, the plant is actually more closely related to the goose berry. And they are the proper ingredient for making Mexican salsa verde - we celebrated the finding by making green enchiladas with prawns and goat cheese.

That's why!

Traffic on the balcony

2009-11-17T06:25:00.003+01:00

After looking for them in vain for several weeks we finally found some fat balls at the supermarket. We put one up on the balcony and a few minutes later there was quite the traffic of Great Tits out there.

Tube chanterelles

2009-11-15T16:56:00.003+01:00

On Hötorget (in front of Hötorgshallen) there is often a market with fruits, vegetables and flowers. This time of year they are also selling mushrooms from the Swedish forests. They start out in the morning selling them at 20 SEK pr. hg (roughly 1 US$ pr. oz) but late in afternoon the price drops and the sales tactics get more aggressive if they still have a lot left. When we came by this Saturday afternoon we had thought about taking advantage of the lower prices, but the good man wasn't so easy to stop once he started stuffing a bag with tube chanterelles. Suddenly we had 100 SEK less in our pockets and were carrying a surprisingly heavy bag of mushrooms.

Home again we learned that the bag contained some 2.5 kg (5.5 lbs) of tube chanterelles (which means that the price was down to 4 SEK pr. hg (or some 20 cents pr. oz) half an hour before they had to be off the square). After spending some time rinsing away the pine needles and the moss we made ourselves a pot of mushroom risotto - and threw a bunch of bags with mushrooms in the freezer..

Dry skiing

2009-11-08T22:41:00.003+01:00

The weekend that we went from October to November, Bertil came to visit us with his two personal servants Martin and Caroline. We went for a walk in the brown landscape of autumnal Stockholm. We may be well into the Swedish fall, and it may already have been snowing a few times, but it isn't really weather for skiing yet. Fortunately there are ways to deal with this if the withdrawal symptoms are getting to be too much.

Blowing leaves

2009-11-02T21:59:00.002+01:00

By now Stockholm is well into autumn and there's a good deal of brown leaves on the ground. That sort of problem is apparently best dealt with by blowing the leaves around. Normally we see gardeners with a small device on their back and a hose - some sort of reversed vacuum cleaner. But in a larger park we saw the same tactics applied on a grander scheme.

Saluhall

2009-10-28T06:46:00.002+01:00

After wondering for while about the fact that we hadn't seen a single butcher shop in Stockholm we were told that butchers are to be found in the three large market halls (so-called Saluhalls) of Stockholm: Hötorgshallen on Hötorget (literally The Hay Market), Östermalmshallen on Östermalmstorg (Östermalm being a part of Stockholm located east of downtown), and Söderhallarne on Medborgarplatsen (literally The Community Square).

Tue went to 'saluhall' to look for cuts of meat not available in the supermarkets. This he found - he returned with a beef tongue and a beef heart, each approximately 6 lbs. It should be noted that this is by far the largest tongue we have bought so far - normally they are about half the size. The heart was halved but other than that not prepared. When the fat, sinews and veins had been trimmed there was some 3 lbs left.

Curiously, both were served during the mid-October weekend that Signe was visiting us. Thursday we had the heart as the Peruvian speciality anticuchos de corazon and Saturday we had the tongue as the Mexican speciality taco de lengua (Tue stayed home to cook while Lisbeth and Signe went to for a café+shopping). We forgot to take any pictures of Signe as well as of our trip to the East Asian Museum, so you will have to settle for pictures of the food we served her..