Weekend from Heaven

This weekend, Mother's Day weekend, was absolutely beautiful. When the sun comes out and the air is warm, the Swedes and everyone else come out to relax in the sun. Every open meadow, pier, or flat rock has somebody on it enjoying the rays from 93 million miles away.

The weekend was unusually busy, too. Most weekends in the winter were pretty quiet. This one has been busy from the time I left work Friday. First, we met a colleague at a restaurant. He'd brought us some things from the US and J had gotten he and his wife some things they missed from when they lived in Stockholm last year. We had Thai food at a great little Thai place on Kungsholmen called Mamadou's.

I took a 70 kilometer ride with a colleague, Mark, on Saturday morning. Mark showed me a new route, a place where he trained for a very long ski race called the Vassaloppet last winter. He'd train on roller skis on the bike paths in the dark wearing a headlamp.

I did not carry a camera on the bike ride and I really regret it. The cherry blossoms were maxed out and the fields were abloom with flowers (mostly dandelions but still pretty). I did have a small problem: a spoke broke on the rear wheel so even after I tried to true the wheel, it still rubbed the brake all the way back. I took it into a bike shop and we found several more spokes on the verge of breaking. It's all because my chain got wedged between the spokes and the rear cassette. Of course, the bike shop did not have the "competition" spokes I use and naturally they can't get to it for another two weeks. So this week I'll try to find another bike shop to do it quicker.

Bike ride done, I met another colleague, Paul, who's moved to Stockholm from Boulder and is still awaiting his family. J, Paul, and I went kayaking for two hours. We had smooth water, no wind, and Spring bursting everywhere.

J had been invited by one of the members of the American Women's Club had invited us on a 2.5 hour dinner cruise - an old diesel ferry that left the City Hall on lake Mälaren to Drottningholm palace, where the King and Queen of Sweden live, and back. The boat is the Prince Carl Philip. By an amazing coincidence, we had one of J's old High School acquaintances on board. It was very nice to discuss the old times and places. After the boat ride we went to the apartment of one of the members of the American Women's club. It was hospitable for them to invite us into their home; it was fun!



Sunday, Mother's Day, arrives and J and I take a nice little stroll to Långholmen, a small island just a quarter mile from the apartment. I took lots of pictures of the boats in the narrow channel between Södermalm and Långholmen: I call it "Boat Street." Then we went to Östermalm to shop for shoes. Okay, maybe not the whole weekend was fun, but most of it was. After that fatiguing experience, we came home and I decided to write this blog.

The bottom photo here is of the fountain in the center of the roundabout at Sergel Torg. In the winter it's a dry and dirty. In the nice months it's white water everywhere, as shown. Plus the city puts out flowers everywhere. They bring in the giant pots by truck (and forklift) which are full of flowers and they have folks come around weekly to water them. Then, in the fall, the trucks return to take them away.


As usual, there are more photos on my Flickr pages. Please leave comments! You can also click on the links in the text to get more.