Happy Solstice

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

White Christmas anticipated

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!

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

Fall 2010

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

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

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

..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

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

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?

'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)