D & J's Marvelous Sweden Adventure - Välkommen

NOLS WMI Class in Sweden

2011-11-04T14:26:00.001+01:00

NOLS WMI Class in Sweden, originally uploaded by Let Ideas Compete.

Kayaking in the Stockholm archipelago is one of the best weekend activities in the summer....

Archipelago Sampler

2011-10-29T19:48:00.001+02:00

Here is a nice collection of photos I took in the Stockholm archipelago. I think they are very representative of the archipelago, at least in the summer months.

An Achipelago Sampler

2011-09-15T21:27:00.001+02:00

An Achipelago Sampler, a set on Flickr.

Some of my best Stockholm archipelago memories....

Catching Wind

2010-10-12T20:52:00.001+02:00

Catching Wind, originally uploaded by Let Ideas Compete.

This blog is just about over.....This will be my last entry. I thoroughly loved Sweden but am back in the sweet USA now. Muy one gigantic reget is that given all the beautiful sailboats in Sweden, I didn't get a ride on one. Several Swedish friends told me "I'll take you out on my sailboat sometime" but that sometime never happened. Oh well.

So long.

Mixed Company

2008-09-21T08:53:00.001+02:00

Mixed Company, originally uploaded by Let Ideas Compete.

Did you know that swans all gather together in the fall and winter? In the summer they go their separate ways and then meet up in the fall. Around Stockholm you can see groups of 20 or so.

Don't Leave, remake

2008-09-21T07:59:00.001+02:00

Don't Leave, remake, originally uploaded by Let Ideas Compete.

The leaves are beginning to turn in Stockholm. I am told that next weekend, the boater will begin the annual ritual of pulling their boats out of the water for dry storage on the land.

My sister came to visit

2008-09-12T19:51:00.001+02:00

, originally uploaded by Let Ideas Compete.

What a great time. My sister and her friend came to visit me in Stockholm. They spent 5 days with me and J and then flew to Paris since "we're so close." Fortunately we had pretty good weather while they were here. We kayaked, biked, took a boat out into the Stockholm archipelago, hit some nice restaurants, and got plenty of walking in, especially in Gamla Stan, the old part of Stockholm. Check out the collection here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/question_everything/collections/72157607020055154/ . Some of the photos have the privacy set to family and freinds so you might not see all of thm if you haven't gotten registered as a friend.

Mushroom Picking Season in Sweden

2008-09-12T16:35:00.001+02:00

Mushroom Picking Season in Sweden, originally uploaded by Let Ideas Compete.

I am amazed by how many folks go out into the forest and pick mushrooms. Chanterelles are very popular but J didn't get any of those from this hunt.

Two weeks ago I wnet on a bike ride - one of my usual routes. I noticed a car here or there parked in a funny place - like they have veered off the road to the edge of the woods. On my way back, I saw folks at those cars, the trunk open and bags of mushrooms inside. This is serious business.

Archipelago Beauty

2008-07-27T09:03:00.002+02:00

Archipelago Beauty, originally uploaded by Let Ideas Compete.

J and I took a day trip to the island of Grinda. This is a very popular island and it was covered with visitors wanting to get away from the city into nature and quite. The rocks and beaches were covered with flesh covered with sun screen. The Baltic around was brimming with boats of every kind. In fact, the collection of photos has way too many boat photos even after I culled them down!

Click here for little over 100 more photos on Flickr.

Blue in the forest

2008-07-27T08:54:00.002+02:00

Blue in the forest, originally uploaded by Let Ideas Compete.

J and I hiked approximately 15 kilometers (9 miles) Friday (and we're tired!) in Tyresta National Park. This huge park has several very blue lakes - I did not color enhance these photos. I actually went skinny dipping (a very Swedish thing to do) in one lake: Stensjön.

You can view 70-something photos here.

Skäggdopping

2008-07-21T15:29:00.001+02:00

Skäggdopping, originally uploaded by Steffe.

I saw one of these while kayaking near Björkvik in June. I couldn't catch a good photo myself so I blogged this one from Steffe.

In English it's called a Great Crested Grebe.

Bay View

2008-07-21T11:15:00.001+02:00

Bay View, originally uploaded by Let Ideas Compete.

There is a sub-culture of sailboaters with families. They come here annually during the summer. Many of them have come for lots of years and know most everybody else. They bring a lots of food and supplies on the boat but they also buy some of it on the island (at redicicoulsy high prices). They walk about two kilometers from this bay to a tiny little store to make their purchases. Then a courier driving an ATV with a trailer delivers the stuff to the bay later in the day.

Friends we met on Nåttarö.

2008-07-21T09:14:00.004+02:00

Friends we met on Nåttarö., originally uploaded by Let Ideas Compete.

See all 121 photos from the outing to Nåttarö on Flickr.

Clouds floating like boats

2008-07-18T15:45:00.002+02:00

Clouds floating like boats, originally uploaded by Let Ideas Compete.

If I could do it again....

I'd find an apartment to live in on Lille Essingen. It's a charming little island. Definitely, if I extend my stay, we'll move to a place where we can view the water - even if it's a tiny place. The east side of Lidingö is also very nice. However, that's too far to commute to work in Kista.

if we extend our stay ...
we have to have figure out a way that my kids could visit at least twice a year. Missing them on major holidays is particularly acute.

and, what to do with the dogs???

Good vibrations...

2008-07-18T15:24:00.005+02:00

Good vibrations..., originally uploaded by Let Ideas Compete.

J and I went to the opening night of the 2008 Stockholm Jazz Festival. Some friends of ours (Bo & family and friends) saved us some seats). This was a really fun evening. We heard pure jazz from The Rigmor Gustafsson Quartet and the Bobo Stenson Trio. The we heard a top notch should band, Tower of Power, who've been making soul music for 40 years (well some of the original members are still with the band). Finally we heard Mary J. Blidge. My ears are still ringing from that. The base vibrations were so strong it cleaned my teeth.

Photos here.

Green Woodpecker

2008-07-14T20:30:00.001+02:00

Green Woodpecker, originally uploaded by dekayne.

I've seen two of these beautiful woodpeckers this summer. I think they were even more colorful than the one seen here, but that might be my imagination. In both sightings I was riding my bike on a trail in the woods and the bird flies out of the underbrush. They must like to be low....I couldn't have photographed them if I wanted to: they were way too fast.

(Note: the photo is not mine!)

Stockholm to Baltimore to Seneca and back

2008-07-14T16:39:00.009+02:00

I went back to the US last week for 7 days. It's been almost a year. What surprises me most is that things I used to dislike in the US I now admire. Similarly, things I initially dislike in Sweden, I now like. Odd how that works.

I flew to Baltimore to meet my daughter and her fiance. We then drove 10 plus hours to Oconee county South Carolina to meet other family members, including J who'd been there already for several weeks spending quality time with her family (and mine). There we celebrated my Mother-in-law's 80'th birthday and gave my daughter a bridal shower. It was family fun for several days. I can't believe how gracious my wife's family was in giving my daughter and her fiance such a nice shower!

One thing that amazed me was the fireworks show put on by Neville's RV campground. It must have cost 10 or 20 thousand dollars. Heck, I don't know anything about fireworks - could have costs anything... It was just as good as the one at Folsom Field in Boulder! But the most amazing thing was that we watched it from a pontoon boat in the middle of a wide place in lake Keowee. But we weren't the only pontoon. There must have be a hundred. Just before dark they all just moseyed out from all directions, stopped and waited on the show. As the show was going on, you could see the silhouette's of all the boats and the fireworks reflections on the water - an amazing sight. I realize that pontoon boating is a sub-culture - just like anything else (like bicycling). When the show was over, the engines cranked and they lumbered off like zombies.

You can see my photos of the trip here. Those of you that are registered in Flickr as family (you have to do that) get to see more pictures than everybody else - I didn't want to embarrass any family members by showing their photos to the whole world. I have a collection of more generic photos for the rest of you.

Below you see a picture of me. Please remember that I was once young, had hair, and some muscle definition. My head looks like a smooth river rock with moss on it. Time changes everything. Oh well. The water was nice.

The Archipelago in a nutshell

2008-07-14T16:19:00.003+02:00

The post is really a promotion of a tourist brochure. I like it so much I thought it should be available to my readers.....

To see it, click here. It's a downloadable tourist brochure (pdf) with some great information on the most significant Stockholm archipelago islands and some great photos. Doing the island hopping sounds like a wonderful week long vacation!

As you know from some previous posts, I've done a few day trips and it is very nice to go out on one of the ferry's, tank up with coffee about as thich as coal tar, down a sweet roll or two, get off at the island for the day, explore on foot, by bike, or kayak (or in the case of Finnhamn, a tiny motor boat), and then return on a late ferry where you can sip a glass of wine on the top deck in the open air. Striking up conversations with other archipelago visitors is also fun. A warm jacket is required on the top outside deck, even in the hottest part of summer. Well, the adjective hot doesn't really apply in Stockholm.

I will caution you about the photos in the brochure, though. They were taken on the best of days by really good photographers. I suspect they did some photoshopping, too. There are quite a few rainy days in Stockholm. Even still, I love going out into the archipelago.

Stratified Sky and Silhouettes

2008-06-29T15:22:00.002+02:00

Stratified Sky and Silhouettes, originally uploaded by Let Ideas Compete.

I thought this was a cool photo so I'm blogging it. This is the Västerbron (west bridge) near my apartment. I cross it every day going to work. This photo was in the late evening around 10:30. I did enhance it a little bit with photshop, that's ok, right?

Vätternrundan Weekend - Motala Rocks

2008-06-29T14:22:00.007+02:00

The Vätternrund is a prestigious bike ride of 300 kilometers (186 miles). It's part of the Swedish classic of four events, Nordic skiing, biking, running, and swimming. I did only the biking part June 19'th. I started at 8:32 PM and rode through the night. Eleven hours and 54 minutes later I crossed the finish - a very mediocre time. Next time I'll know how cold it can get ... and I'll take better rain gear. I lost an hour trying to warm-up. I found some plastic bags that bread was in at one of the rest stops which I used over my soaking and freezing feet.

Riding through the night worried me. I thought I'd get really sleepy or I'd crash because I wouldn't be able to see the rider in front of me (while drafting at a pretty fast pace). It turned out that I could have gone without lights, but lights were a help (and they are required). I also didn't get sleepy. Watching the three-quarter moon glimmer on Vättern and later the sun rising over it was absolutely stunning.

The rest of the weekend was spent sightseeing all around Motala. A Swedish friend and his wife and young son took me to Motala, I stayed with his parents and they treated me like a king. Great food! They cheered me at the start and at the finish. They drove me around showing me the special places in Motala. Watching the boats climb a hill though the lock system on the Göta canal was fascinating.

Motala is a picturesque town of about 20 thousand. The annual ride they've sponsored since sometime in the sixties now draws almost 17,000 riders. This does not include the shorter rides they sponsor on the previous two weekends. This is a big event for any town and it's especially big for a small town.

Where am I?

2008-06-29T13:18:00.011+02:00

While my wife is out-of-town I decided to explore more of the Stockholm archipelago. Back in 2000, on my first job assignment here, I visited quite a few islands including Sandhamn and Möja. This past weekend I decided to go to Finnhamn to kayak. P., a buddy from work, was visiting on a business trip so he joined me. This is a story of us being lost and found and lost again and found again.

We wanted to rent kayaks but they were all rented out. (I did call twice to reserve the day before but the line was busy or so they said.....) So we rented a tiny motor boat with a 4 horsepower motor. After having a 20 minute ordeal of getting it cranked, off we go, hugging the shoreline of Finnhamn. By following the shoreline we reasoned there'd be no way we'd get lost. We also had a map but the coves and bays were hard to correlate with the map. Some places were difficult to see whether they were part of the island or maybe another island really close. We concluded, too, that the map simply left off some of the really small islands. That should have been a clue.

Two hours later we are tolally confused. Where was Paradise Bay, which we were told was very beautiful? Had we somehow missed it? Did we miss a channel somewhere? Finally, in desparation we went up to a house. The owner came out and met us at the dock. He was a bit incredulous when we said we were lost and trying to get back to Finnhamn where we started. He laughed and asked us to look behind us: "there's the Finnhamn dock hardly a half a kilometer away." We looked at the map in amazement. I thought we were on the opposite side of the island and P. thought we were still in another place. Wow.

So we decided to stay "close" and just park the boat on some of the small islands and explore them on foot. Nice and safe.

After several islands we decided it was time to return the boat. The person that rented the boat to us said there was 4 hours worth of gas. We checked the tank when we left and it was full. Apparently though, he was wrong. The motor went silent and we were sourrounded 360 degrees by islands that all looked the same. No distictive landmarks and all the houses we saw were the classic Swedish red with white trim. The only possible markers were two signs that had "8" on them and a red bouy and a green bouy.

So we called the phone number written on the life vests. I happened to mention there were two signs with the number "8" on them. "Ahh!" he says. "You're 200 meters from the rental dock. Do you have the oars?"

Yes, we had oars so we rowed in. Again, we were amazed that we could be so lost when trying not to be and yet be so close to where we wanted to be.

I think I need a Garmin.

You can find photos (more than you probably want to view in my Stockholm Archipelago collection. Within the collection, you'll find Finnhamn where I got lost. You'll also find Ornö where I spent three hours biking around. The other sets within the collection represent other trips or just the boat ride itself going out into the archipelago. Kayaking in Björkvik was nice, too.

I finally saw a Moose!

2008-06-04T14:04:00.001+02:00

DSC_0090, originally uploaded by etilfors.

A fellow bicyclists showed me a riding trail through a forest yesterday morning (my commuter bike is almost a mountain bike so I can ride dirt roads and not-so-rough trails). Riding through the forest, we came upon a meadow and he spotted a young female moose. Despite being young, she was large!

One of my goals was to see a moose in the wild while in Sweden. That's done.

The photo is courtesy of a colleage. It's a moose that lives on the archipelago island where he has a cabin.

Still trying, paunch and all

2008-06-02T00:05:00.002+02:00

Still trying, paunch and all, originally uploaded by Let Ideas Compete.

May 31 was a beautiful day for a bike ride. I did the "Destination Nynäshamn 130 kilometer ride in 4 hours and 15 minutes by drafting every rider I could. The fast riders finished in a little over 3 hours.

The ride route went out into rural Swedish farmland and forest. It was very beautiful.

Right after the start, another rider noted my Colorado jersey. It turns out we have a common friend in Boulder, Colorado. It is a small world.

Because people click on color

2008-06-01T22:42:00.001+02:00

Because people click on color, originally uploaded by Let Ideas Compete.

J and I took a short day trip to the island of Fjäderholmarna. It's a 30minute ferry ride from Slussen. The ferry also stops at Nacka Strnd and it was nice to see the place I worked in 2000.

Fjäderholmna has a small museum of old, and I mean old, boats. I've been told that one of them is a reconstuction of a viking boat which was fould when construction crews found remants of 13 such boats while excavating for an underground garage. The authorities asked local craftsmen to build replica's using only the tools available during the Viking era.

There's also a glass blowing shop where you can buy grossly overpriced glass made on the spot.

We enjoyed some snacks in the sun while we were there. There's a fine restaurant on one end of the isand and also a whiskey distillery!

All in all, this is a great place to show first time visitors to Stockholm when there's not enough time to explore further into the archipelago.

Blues in Stockholm

2008-06-01T21:31:00.008+02:00

I've found another little Stockholm jewel. The first was the Fashing jazz bar where world class jazz artists frequent. This jewel is called Stampen (Swedidh for stomping, or dancing). It's in Gamla Stan, the old historic part of town. J and I decided to have some fun on our 31'st anniversary and decided to try Stampen.

We first had a nice dinner at the Krypin which included reindeer. Then we strolled over to Stampen. It turns out we were an hour before the show and the place was mostly empty. We heard the show was going to begin at 10 PM so we sat at the table closest to the stage. This turned out to be the best seat in the place. Any closer and we'd have been on the stage.

While waiting we met a nice Swedish grandmother who lives in London but comes to visit her children every few months. She said she always visits Stampen when she's in Stockholm.

At 10 PM, the band comes out and says they'll mix up some Swedish and English ("for the tourists"). The front man, Bill Öhrström, was (and I guessing) in his mid-fifties but still had the energy of a young man and was amazing.......so into his music, it was as if a switch turned on when he gave the signal for the music to begin...stomping, jumping, singing, and playing the harmonica. His enthusiasm created fun for everyone.

After a few songs J and I happened to look behind us. The room was packed with standing room only. Yet we had comfortable seats right at the stage's edge. Wow.

Missing Colorado...

2008-05-26T15:09:00.007+02:00

My friend Art sent me a photo he took on one of his Colorado bike rides this spring. This photo captures what I miss about Colorado - the stunning beauty and the great bicycling roads (and tolerant drivers). My Sweden rides aren't bad though (when the weather is nice). The Colorado rides can be at or above timberline as Art's was. Mine are at sea level. I ride along water decorated with white sails, Art is riding among 14,000 foot peaks decorated with white snow. Plus, there are hills in Colorado so the climbing muscles get a workout. I do miss those hills (and the descents!).

As you can see from this blog and my Flickr account, I often take my camera with me in Sweden. I haven't yet hooked up with a bicycling group so my rides are a little more casual - I can stop for a photo anytime. One of my standard rides includes a short ferry ride between two islands. That's where I see the sailboats most. The photo here shows a bunch of sailboats preparing for a race.

The photo to the right is farmland near Drottningholm . Farmland is also a familiar site on my rides: forest, farmland, and lakes. Also beautiful but I prefer the Rockies.

The last photo is taken on a bridge in the small town of Ekerö. I've taken many photos from this bridge of boats going underneath. It's a good way to glimpse "boat life" in Sweden. It is unbelievable how many people boat in Sweden! There's also a huge variety of boats. Check out my boats until you're sick of 'em collection in Flickr.

Third try - more blue, more silver

2008-05-19T13:06:00.002+02:00

Third try - more blue, more silver, originally uploaded by Let Ideas Compete.

I often check the photos on the Flickr account to see how many times they have been viewed. Many show zero or once viewed. It helps to have good keywords so people doing searches can find them. I find that photos of dogs, cats, and girls in bathing suits can get a lot of hits, especially if the keywords are judiciously selected. Sometimes, I find myself a little too obsessed with seeing how many times photos are viewed.....I happen to like the original of the photo here a lot but it got very few hits. So I tried to make it more eye-catching by enhancing the colors - more blue in the sky and more silver in the water. It's still not as spectacular as the real life shot, which had the added advantage of the feel of the wind and the slight acrophobia of being a few hundred feet above the cold Mälaren water.

Kayaking on Enhanced Water

2008-05-19T12:20:00.004+02:00

Kayaking on Enhanced Water, originally uploaded by Let Ideas Compete.

This is another colleague, Paul,from my home office who has also taken a two year assignment in Stockholm. Mother's Day weekend, my wife, Paul, and I went kayaking. In this photo I took some liberties with color enhancement - the water is not really that blue. We stayed near the shore just in case we capsized - hypothermia can render you helpless in 20 minutes or so.

From my photos you can tell that I've taken to kayaking. It's perfect blend of exercise and exploration. My old back sometimes needs a magic dose of ibuprofen afterwards, though....

Fountain in a roundabout

2008-05-19T12:13:00.002+02:00

Fountain in a roundabout, originally uploaded by Let Ideas Compete.

What you do not see in this photo are the hordes of people taking in sun on the many benches between the fountains and the large building in the background. This area is what I consider the center of Stockholm, where the city hustle and bustle is maximum. You should also note that the red bus is run on ethanol to minimize polution. Swedes are very serious about being good environmentalists - I admire that about them.

Cold and wet...

2008-05-19T12:08:00.002+02:00

Cold and wet..., originally uploaded by Let Ideas Compete.

There are blooms all over Stockholm now. The plazas and shopping areas have giant cement pots/planters that are full of annuals and brought in on trucks and forklfts. Plus there are numerous flower gardens maintained by the city government. The cool wet spring and summers are perfect for some kinds of flowers. I suppose the long days don't hurt either. One thing I can confirm, the flowers are yet another reason to celebrate summer here because it was so so so dreary in the winter.

field of color

2008-05-13T17:36:00.002+02:00

field of color, originally uploaded by dukematthew2000.

This photo, taken by one of my contacts in Flickr and posted here with his permission, shows how pretty some of the Swedish countryside is. This one is from Skåna in southern Sweden but it could easily have been on one of my bike rides out into the countryside around Stockholm. I think the yellow is dandelions but, hey, they are prettty when they are yellow and so many.

Dukematthew2000 has other good Sweden photos. Check out his Flickr collection sometime.

Weekend from Heaven

2008-05-11T21:07:00.018+02:00

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.

Fun Weekend....

2008-04-27T20:06:00.006+02:00

My street on a beautiful day, originally uploaded by Let Ideas Compete.

This weekend has been just great. Saturday I went on a long bike ride and met some members of the Fredrikshof bicycle club and got invited on some of their club rides. Then Saturday evening J and I went to see the new Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman movie called The Bucket List. Excellent movie. We're still talking about it.

Sunday we decided to have breakfast out so we rode our commuter bikes to Slussen and followed the bike path along the shore to the Grand Hotel. There we had an elegant breakfast with great views of the ferry boats. Then we strolled all around the Stureplan area and later we met some folks at the beautiful horticultural gardens and restaurant called Rosendahl to discuss the teachings of Eckhart Tolle. He's an amazing guy with an uncanny ability to integrate the wisdom from all religions, history, science, and psychology and articulate it in a very compelling way. I am sure certain religious figures will malign him but they would be demonstrating some of his points about ego if they did. Anyway, we sat outside in light jackets (it's still a bit chilly) and discussed some of his ideas. "Tolle" groups like these are all over the world. There's a web page to assist you in finding them. No, it is not a cult and it's not a new religion. It's a way of thinking about your spiritual self and Presence with that which is Sacred.

Church, Death, and Bicycling and I'm not Sambo

2008-04-27T19:50:00.003+02:00

Salems Kyrka (Church), originally uploaded by Let Ideas Compete.

J and I have had several encounters with the Swedish medical system now. In general, I'd have to say it's a good system (but neither better nor worse than the US system). Both systems have their strengths and weaknesses. One thing I definitely beleive is that one should not believe the statistics oft quoted in the media, by politicians, and by other agenda toting individuals.

For example, we often hear that there are "47 million un-insured Americans" which works out to about one out of every eight Americans. If you remove the 12 million illegal immigrants, we're down to 35 million. Remove those that are economically able to buy insurance but opt not to (for some strange reason) and you're down to around 32 million. Consider that 47% of those reporting "no insurance" are only temporarily without insurance (they'll be back on an insurance plan within a quarter), and we're down into the 20's. I suspect that if you consider that many opt to make payments on a big screen TV, a motorcycle, or some other toy rather than pay for insurance and the number take another big cut. I wonder whether the survey question would deem someone wanting breast implants but was not covered to be "un-insured." Remove the prostitues and drug dealers whose employeers typically do not provide insurance, we're donw to the real number of truely poor. Ahh, but I digress....

So here's the real reason for this blog post. Thursday April 13, I started feeling like I was contracting the flu around 3:00 in the afternoon. I told colleagues I needed to go home early, which I did do. Once home, I laid down on the sofa and did not get up till the next morning at 9:00. All through the night I had cold chills and occassional sweats. My joints and muscles ached. I was not nausous and had no cough ot sore throat.

I drank a cup of coffee, while still lying down. Shortly after I felt a sharp and intense chest pain just under the sternum. It lasted 20 minutes or so and really scared me. I had several more episodes. Finally, J convinced me to go to the doctor around 11:00. By then the pains had stopped but while walking to the doctor, I had another. I had visions of dying on a Stockholm street.

When I got to the doctor's office and stated I had chest pains, I expected "emergency" treatment since I'm an over-50 guy. Instead, I took a number just like everyone else and waited...about 30 minutes. Now I've been to the doctor twice before and J's been to the doctor a several times. Not once have they weighed us, taken our blood pressure, pulse, or temperature - all standard practice in Colorado. (This keeps costs down and they don't need to worry about zazillion dollar lawsuits.) This time they did take my blood pressure. The nurse wrote it down on a post-it note (although my file was up on the computer). Later I saw a doctor and he listened to my heart, took some blood (to detect a heart attack and other things), and had me do an EKG. Now my opinion about the lax attention was changing. I was beginning to get very thorough attention.

After all this, he said he could find nothing wrong with my heart and it was probably a viral thing compounded by my heightened exercise (because I'm training for a 180 mile bike ride in June). However, to be cautious, I needed to go to the hospital for observation. "Don't walk." he said. "Take a taxi or ride the bus." I would have been taken by ambulance in the US at a cost of another zazillion dollars. Anyway, once at the hospital, the quality of care takes another step up. I was admitted to the cardiac unit and the competence of the nurses and doctors was much higher. They took blood every 5 hours, more EKGs, an ultra-sound image of my heart, and more listening, thousands of questions, and finally an EKG under physical duress (a stationary bike). Negative. They can say with 99.999% confidence it is not my heart, not a heart attack, not angina, not pericardisis, not any arterial blockages. Whew! They agreed with the first doctor that it was due to a viral thing coupled with exercise.

Since then I learned that a friend came down with the flu the day I was admitted to the hospital. She was in such discomfort, she too, was admitted to the hospital. However, the thing most notable about her condition was that she was also having some intense chest pain. Only she's around 30 and so they didn't go the "possible heart attack" route.

The odd thing is that in Sweden and in the US there will be no way of correlating her condition with mine unless we saw the same doctor or unless there was an epidemic. We have the technology, I wish we'd use it. Maintaining privacy would be relatively easy to do.

One thing I made official at the hospital: I am not a sambo. I had to answer the question "Are you single, married, or sambo?" Sambo mean co-habitating with someone esle, presumably of the opposite sex. I think "sambo" os a contraction of some Swedish words, but don't recall what they were. Sambos are frequent in Sweden. However, this is not indactive of loose morale values. Indeed, I think the Swedes are very moral and compassionate and truely caring for others. They are not hypocritical (at least that I've seen). So sambo's are not causing the decline of morales or anything dire.....

I was told there's also "mambo" which means "still living with mom."

The photo above is from my bike ride last weekend, a true test of my heart. Riding past, I thought that the week before I might have been in a grave like one of those in the photo. Ahh, but I escaped. Oh, death also reminds me of a movie J and I just saw. The Bucket List starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson. Five stars in my book....

Excursion to Ireland

2008-04-20T12:24:00.002+02:00

, originally uploaded by Let Ideas Compete.

J and I took a little excursion to Ireland last week. We drove a car down to Cashel in County Tipperary and stayed at one of the best bed and breakfast, The Hill House, we've even been in. It was built in 1710 and has quite a colorful history. The photo above, of the Rock of Cashel, is taken right out the front of the B&B.

We then drove down to County Cork and stayed at Clonakilty. From there we took short sightseeing tours along the rocky colorful coast, often on one lane roads where somebody had to find a wide place in the road when there was oncoming traffic - the occasional car or tractor.

The funny thing about driving in Ireland is that the passenger does the driving. To adjust for this little idiosyncracy, they all drive on the other side of the road, too.

Ireland is rich in scenic beauty. In fact the scenic beauty is so plentiful that sometimes they squander it away with litter and such...but not often. I have stored some pictures on flickr but the pictures, many of them, are hazy because it was hazy. We were lucky to not get rain. However, we did get howling winds, which the photos don't really show.

Never too old to soak the sun

2008-04-10T11:56:00.001+02:00

Never too old to soak the sun, originally uploaded by Let Ideas Compete.

The Swedes are an outdoorsy people but when the sun comes out, they tend to enjoy it. This photo is of two elder Swedes enjoying the brief break in the rainy weather to sit on a bench. I somehow think it ironic that these two elders choose a church graveyard to soak up the sun.....

Longskating -- Långfärdskridskoåkning

2008-04-01T13:27:00.007+02:00

One of my colleagues, Eje, shown in the lead position in the photo, is an avid long skater. The photo was taken by Gregor L. and is available in the original size here. Long skating is known as långfärdskridskoåkning in Swedish. I asked Eje about his hobby and here's some info he provided:

The poles are "ice probes", which are used to check the thickness of the ice, but also used as support when stepping over wider cracks in the ice, and as normal ski poles on bad ice in a tough headwind.

Drafting, like bicycle racers or race cars do, is very common in head wind, but as you see on the flag I am carrying the picture is taken in downwind, hence people spread out and don't draft.

In all normal cases the safest spot is the same track. That is, every skater follows the leader, skating over the same ice. Ice that is so weak that it might break has a "critical radius" of half a meter, hence it doesn't really matter. However, a group of skaters in high speed on thin ice pulls a big wave, to avoid that you would normally skate with some meters distance, but the same track.

Weak "black ice" sometimes experiences a wear effect, hence it could be advantageous
to skate your own track some meters away.

We carry maps, GPS, compass, the lot. Navigation is very similiar to what you do in a boat doing 10-15 knots, but like in orienteering it all becomes more difficult while doing physical exercise.

The speed and distance varies a lot depending on the skill of the skater and the ice of the day. Stronger skaters do day tours well over 100 km every year, when conditions are really favorable.

Groups I lead ofte do distance between 40 and 80 km in a day, the shorter in December/January due to thinner ice and shorter daylight. Speeds in excess of 30 kmph are common among the strongest skaters, I normally try to offer
my groups a very constant pace in the region of 17 (headwind) thru 23 (tailwind) kmph, which is normally very appreciated, rather than short sprints.

A lot of valuable skating time can easily be wasted probing thin ice, passing difficult cracks or walking on land between lakes. Hence I rather skate around all problems, again often very appreciated in groups I lead.

Ice is a very special material (the only having material lower density in solid form than as a liquid?), and I could talk forever about it...

You can see a 7 minute video of Longskating by clicking here. I got this video by searching YouTube - it is not of Eje.

Cold and Blue

2008-03-23T21:54:00.001+01:00

Cold and Blue, originally uploaded by Let Ideas Compete.

I took a bike ride this weekend and rode in the snow. It was under freezing but a beautiful day otherwise.

I ride a mail train, mamma -- Bob Dylan

2008-03-23T21:52:00.001+01:00

I ride a mail train, mamma -- Bob Dylan, originally uploaded by Let Ideas Compete.

We've had snow the past week. It's been the coldest of the entire winter season. In fact Easter day was the coldest since last summer.

Stockholm is deserted this Easter weekend because many Swedes have gone skiing or elsewhere. Most businesses in Stockholm are either closed or on shortened hours.

The photo above is of the train yard just outside the main (I think) post office receiving and distribution center. If you send me mail or a package, there's a good chance it goes through here.

This week...Like a Rolling Stone

2008-03-09T14:14:00.004+01:00

Is it wrong to enhance?, originally uploaded by Let Ideas Compete.

This week J and I joined the American Women's Club (spouses were invited) to see the new movie "I'm Not There." It's the new movie about Bob Dylan, my all time favorite music person, with Kate Blanchett playing Dylan in much of the movie. The showing was at a small theater in Östermalm - a funky little place that oddly did not sell pop corn (so I ate a bag of chocolate balls like it was pop corn).

The movie was bizarre. I know a lot about Bob Dylan and know a lot of his songs (not just the hits). The movie pulled from events in his life and the dialog wove in phrases from his songs, interviews, etc. If you don't know much about Dylan the movie will be very weird. Many people in the theater walked out. If you do know a fair amount about Dylan, the movie will still be bizarre and weird but you'll see the creativeness of the director and want to watch it again: there is so much symbolism you miss a lot.

J and I met at the movie since I was coming from work. While waiting on me, she saw a man enter the theater with a large trench coat and two electrical wires coming up out of his collar into his hair. The wires were scotched taped to his neck. She called me wondering if she'd just seen a terrorist. Hmmmm. She saw the guard and told him. He basically reacted with a roll of the eyes and a hmmm. I suspect he thought "you Americans think everybody is a terrorist." Must have been some sort of medical device....

This week also provided a few cracks in the pewter sky so we could see some blue sky and white clouds. The photo above was taken from the Tranebergsbron (bron means bridge in Swedish) on one of those nice days. These boats are interesting to me and you can find multiple shots of them on my Flickr account.

Tree line

2008-03-06T06:42:00.001+01:00

Tree line, originally uploaded by Let Ideas Compete.

One more from photo from the France trip, then I'll resume Sweden photos. This photo was taken on the approximate 1 mile hike from St. Benoit to the Loire river. There were graveled trails between the agricultural fields, often along irrigation ditches throughout th area. I generally think mountainous areas are the prettiest but the flat Loire vlley had a special beauty, too.

Quiet street in Saint Benoit

2008-03-02T21:05:00.001+01:00

Quiet street in Saint Benoit, originally uploaded by Let Ideas Compete.

This photo really captures St. Benoit. It's quiet. It's old. Colorful shutters are common. Many folks use bikes like the one in the photo to run errands.

I'll diet tomorrow or the day after...

2008-03-01T18:18:00.001+01:00

, originally uploaded by Let Ideas Compete.

I took my bike shoes and lycra outfit with hopes of finding a bike rental place in the land of the Tour de France so I could ride like a racer (only a lot slower) though the French country side. I didn't find a place to rent in the the small village (population 1200). Instead, France tested all my weaknesses (well maybe not ALL of them): pastries and coffee, wine, crepes, and other food in sauces. Now I urgently need to do some exercise...

Gray Pari!

2008-03-01T17:17:00.002+01:00

, originally uploaded by Let Ideas Compete.

J and I took a short vacation to France this past week. We stayed in Paris for two gray days and then took a train to Orleans where a friend of a friend picked us up by car. J has an old friend, actaully a priest that used to be the campus priest at her college, who has a house in the small town of Saint Benoit in the south Loire valley. St. Benoit's population is 1200 and it's the home of the Benedictine monks. WE were able to take day trips to nearby cities like Sully Chateaunef, Bourges, and Gien. This part of France is agricultural but it is very quaint and rustic. It is not the spectacular French alps or the Pyrennes.

This trip only made me want to visit France again...perhaps Provence.

It is noteworthy that we not even once experienced any rudeness from any of the French. Based on stories I've heard, I expected complet rudeness. Instead we experienced very friendly and polite people.

There are plenty of pictures on Flickr - enough to bore anybody - but check out some of them.....

We did have a few days of nice blue skies but mostly we saw gray. The trees were bare and pruned down to stubs. The vines and flowers were dormant. We can only imagine the spring and summer must be beautiful (except for all those pesky tourists). I have a suspicion that France would collapse without the tourists, though.

Day trip to Gävle

2008-02-17T10:15:00.001+01:00

Reflections in the Plaza, originally uploaded by Let Ideas Compete.

Gävle is about 100 miles north of Stockholm. I went there to visit a factory. However, I did have about a hour to walk around and take some photos (go to my Flickr page or click on the title under the photo above). Gävl is famous for two reasons (that I knnow of). First, it is the home of Gevalia coffee which is a global brand. The coffee itself is imported, of course, but the processing is done here, or used to be. I think the main Gevalia headquarters is still here.

The second reason for fame, at least within Sweden, is a tradition of building a large "Christmas goat" in town which every year gets burned down. The story says the police can't find the vandals even with video cameras except for one year an American thought he'd uphold the tradition of burning the goat. But being a "dumb American" stood around to watch it burn. He was caught and served some jail time. So goes the story.

Baptism

2008-02-17T10:01:00.001+01:00

Gustaf Vasa Church Dome, originally uploaded by Let Ideas Compete.

J and I went to a Swedish baptism this Saturday. The mother was from Maine and had married a Swede. She moved to Stockholm with him approximately two years ago and now speaks Swedish fluently. It helps to have a spouse to teach you the language.

Anyway, J represented the "American" side because her relatives couldn't fly out for the ceremony. J read two passages from the Bible in English. The rest of the ceremony was in Swedish. After the baptism, the proud parented treated us to a fine meal at a nearby restaurant. We all had a delicious meatball which was about the size of a grapefruit. It was made of a mixture of veal and venizon.

After the meal, we took the train to their apartment and had "fika," the traditional coffee and sweets in mid-afternoon. J and I had quite an adventure trying our limited Swedish on the grandparents, who spoke very little English. Most of the relatives on the Swedish father's side were from northern Sweden in a small mining town called Skellefteå. From their descriptions, it's a very picturesque seaside town of 35,000 people.

Me and my Stockholm Winter Commuter Bike

2008-02-17T09:20:00.002+01:00

Me and my Stockholm Winter Commuter Bike, originally uploaded by Let Ideas Compete.

Here I am with my winter commuter bike just coming home from work. Notice the saddle bags which contain my work clothes, some tools and two spare tubes. The handlebars sport a "Lights In Motion" halogen light and there are red flashers on the seat post. There's a bell on the front handle bars to alert pedestrians walking inthe bike path...

I'm wearing jeans over lycra insulated biking tights. The jeans are just to make me fit in with the crowds a little (reduce the nerdy edge). I'm wearing three thick jerseys and a hood to keep my head warm.

I'd prefer a mountain bike with front suspension but this hybrid bike seems to work just fine. I don't ride in the snow because I haven't purchased the steel studded tires that many folks use here.

The bike is an old 21 speed Trek 720 - not a racer but certainly well suited as a commuter.

And yes, I am 20 pounds (5 kgs) over weight! But I'm loosing....

Little man from Dala, some Swedish debate, and two pieces of chocolate

2008-02-01T19:43:00.000+01:00

I had a business dinner at the restaurant DalaNisse's Wednesday evening. Nisse is a nickname for Nils but also means "little man." At Christams some of the kids dress up in a Santa Claus suit... They are called "Santa Nisses" (translated to English).

I was a quiet listener to the table talk, when not talking business. I had thought that all Swedes had basically the same political and social views. Yet I listened as two debated the merits and demerits of the state owned liquor monopoly System Bolaget. One felt that the buying power and the state regulated profit margins was good for the average guy but he allowed that for the discriminating drinker with money, the selection might be poor. The other argued that the choice in a free market was much better and that prices were approximately the same on the mass marketed brands due to competive pressures, which drive profit margins down.

Then they repeated the debate about the state owned monoploy Apoteket, the pharmacy. One felt that the high regulation prevents abuse, accidents, and victimization of people by the vicious advertizing and dubious claims of big pharma. The other thought it was awfully nice to be able to conviently buy ibuprofen in a grocery store.

Then the discussion took a turn when I was expressing some admiration for the single social security number, called personnummer, which accesses everything from library records to bank records to tax records to video rental to ... everything. This seemed to be a sore spot. Apparently there have been examples of government abuse in countries with a similar system. It wasn't quite sure whether there were abuses in Sweden or not. Perhaps one of my Swedish readers could comment....

Many of us at the dinner table ordered "Well hung steak" which I discovered doesn't refer to maleness of the bovine. It means the meat was air cured, which is supposed to tenderize it, by hanging from a hook. Yummee.

Ok, that's all about the restaurant DalaNisse. Fast forward to Saturday evening. We had some Swedish friends onver and they brought a box assorted chocolates by Maribu, called the Aladdin box. We were told that this is a standard gift brought to party hosts. These chocalates, made in Sweden, are very popular with Swedes. The box has two layers of assorted treats. However, most Swedes have a tradition that you can't select from the bottom layer until the first layer in empty. The first layer has two pieces that most people dislike: chocolate covered cherries in a liquor flavored syrup. This means that sometimes one must wait till someone finally braves it and picks the "undesirables."

One more fast forward to Sunday. We met some new friends through the American Women's Society that invited us to have coffee. Their flat was fantastic! It was probably the most stunning residence we've been in in Sweden...with nice views of Mälaren. The inside was expensively upscale. They had decorated with unique furniture, lights, and art.

In other news...we finally got some snow...

Swedish Movies, part 2

2008-01-27T08:51:00.000+01:00

January 12'th, I posted a list of four Swedish movies we'd seen. This we've seen three more since. The first, Ett Öga Rött which means "One Eye Red," was simply excellent, especially in these days where immigration issues are in the headlines. It's about a Moroccan family that immigrants to Sweden and encounters some "issues." It's also about reconciling your past with your future.

The second is called Blåbärskriget which means "The Blueberry Wars." This may be even better than Ett Öga Rött! It's a tale of multi-cultural scamming in a Swedish wilderness town and it all started (and ended) over blueberries.

We also saw Nina Frisk, the story of a beautiful airline assistant and dysfunctional her family. It's a worthy movie but the previous two are my picks as "best."

Note, however, that these movies only got around 5 stars out of 10 on www.imdb.com. Maybe I'm too excited by the Swedish style of movie which is new to me?

3 of photos published!

2008-01-26T15:03:00.000+01:00

Take a deep breath. It might take a minute to load.

Schmap published two of my photos and one of J's in their latest Stockholm tourist guide: Vasastaden, Brunnsviken Bay, and the Sweden House. The Brunnsviken Bay one was taken by J.

See if you can find them using the widget below to brouse their web site. Hints: use the pull down menus to select sets of photos. For example, the Vasastaden photo is under "Neighborhood Guide." The map will have small markers which you can click on. Note: they found these photos by searching Flickr.

A Skirt, photos sets, and Facebook

2008-01-21T14:53:00.000+01:00

My wife told me she'd seen a male construction worker in a skirt and I thought she was somehow mistaken but noooo. Check it out here.

Also, some of you have not been keeping up with my Flickr pictures (over 1500 now) so I made a set of my last 100 and a set of my 48 most interesting as determined by Flickr, which is determined by Flickr's interestingness measure.

Btw, I'm on Facebook now. I finally caved in to the pressure....anyway it is useful for some thing. I've ranked a lot of Stockholm restaurants there, for example.

Swedish Movies

2008-01-12T09:25:00.001+01:00

J and I have watched three excellent (English subtitled) Swedish movies lately. These movies tend to develop characters and represent real life. No expensive special effects, no cars exploding, no chase scenes, etc. Just dialog. At first they seem incredibly slow but enduring them always leaves you rewarded. J and I continue to talk about them long after viewing them.

Here they are:
Farväl Falkenberg - (Farewell Falkenberg) A story of friendship, alienation and depression is a small Swedish town.
En Kärleks Historia (A Swedish Love Story) directed bt Roy Andersson. It's a story of finding love. For me, it feels very Swedish. I'd wonder whether Swedes agree.
Den Nya Människan - (The New Man) This one is about a time in Swedish history (1930-1950-ish) where they practiced eugenics (sterilization of people deemed undesirable). It is a very emotional movie! The US also practiced eugenics, too.

I'm not sure whether these movies are available in the US but it's worth checking Netflix or the foreign film section of your local video rental store.

Another excellent one we viewed before coming to Sweden was: Under Solen - (Under the Sun). This one has some nudity, so put the kids to bed.

Get some popcorn and watch these if you can.

15 days in Oconee County

2008-01-11T17:47:00.001+01:00

J and I just returned from a nice 15 day visit to our birthplaces in Oconee county, South Carolina. The weather was superb for January: some days were warm enough to get by with just a long sleeve shirt, no jacket. There were some really cold days sprinkled in too.

On the visit we went to J's annual family reunion. There were about 35 there and we had an amazing selection of good food. One of the enduring traditions at the reunion is fresh coconut cake, a specialty of our beloved and deceased Ruby. We visited a new museum in Walhalla. It's free and I recommend all residents of Oconee to go there to see some of Oconee's past, including some Cherokee and Catawba Indian history.

All the brother's and sisters living in Oconee had us over to their homes for a nice time. Having a large home with acreage is a far cry from the fourth floor 800 square foot apartment in an 95 year old building we live in Stockholm - totally different lifestyles.

We also did some hiking. This is where you can experience the natural beauty of Oconee. It is unfortunate that many residents don't appreciate the natural beauty and tolerate some awfully ugly buildings and general junk. One of the most valued principles in Oconee is the notion of property rights (and it's a good principle). A person can do just about anything on their property as long as nobody gets hurt. Government taxation, regulation and interference is despised, probably because it smacks of "occupation" which the original Irish and Scottish settlers viewed as very "British," who occupied Scotland and Ireland for the better part of 800 brutal years. However, I wish there was a better balance with the principle of preserving nature and natural beauty (which would increase property values!)

One thing we now observe about Oconee that wasn't there in the past is the broad range of homes from run down mobile home parks surrounded by junk cars to well kept but modest farm homes to disgustingly opulent beautiful multi-million dollar lake front properties with a dock jutting out and cluttering the lake shore. This is because Upstate SC is a popular state for retirement and summer homes for wealthy people.

Bernard-Henri Levy (in American Vertigo) says that Americans, unlike Europeans, don't mind letting cities die. The old parts of both Walhalla and Seneca seem to be dying. It's shame. The unregulated sprawl is moving out to the 123 by-pass and other areas. Some places are a hodge-podge of signs and cheap store fronts. It is criminal to blight such a pretty area this way.

Oconee's "exports" are wood (mostly pulp wood), electricity from Oconee Nuclear station, and lake front property. There is also some industry but much of it is moving to China.

My two son's and daughter-in-law also met us there (unfortunately our daughter couldn't make it). Out out-of-town brothers and sisters and their spouses also drove in. It was so nice to reunite with them and the extended family.

I have posted numerous pictures from the trip here.

Happy Holidays Everybody

2007-12-24T06:37:00.000+01:00

To all our Christian readers, Merry Christmas. To my friends of other religions, happy holidays.

J and I are getting ready to visit South Carolina. We leave early, very early, Christmas morning. We are exciting to visit family we haven't seen in a long while.

Stockholm is very festive with Christmas lights everywhere. The NK department store has some amazing window displays. Kungstragården has a Christmas market and an ice skating rink (they flooded the area around the statues. In fact Christmas markets (Jul markets) are in every square, it seems.

The PUB department store, which has a sexy underwear department whithin it, had a provacative display of a manekin clad in sexy underwear pushing a wheel barow full of dildos. They had another even a little more provactive. Both were removed after some complaints but before I could take a photo.

It is dark and cold outside but people get out. The strollers are covered. Ears are covered. Fingers are covered. But peope are out. How cold is it? Actually it's around freezing but it seems much colder because of the humidity.

Most people put lights in their windows. Candles are extremely popular. Many stores mark that they are open, not with neon, but with candles on the sidewalk on either side of ther entrance. It's all quite nice.

I've added some more photos to the Flickr set called December Stockholm 2007. I'm sorry so many are a bit dark. The days are short here and I'm usually at work during the light part of the short day. Plus, we've had a lot of gray skies - nature paying us back for the beautiful summer skies we had this year, I guess.

Looking back over this year, we are thankful for all that we had, then new friends we've made in Sweden. We've missed our familiy, dogs, and old life, too. Although there is an adventurous aspect to this sojourn and we've enjoyed getting to know the Swedish culture and even a little of the language, returning home will be so sweet. Christmas makes us homesick.

I'm Back

2007-10-08T11:07:00.000+02:00

The past four and a half months have been very hectic. We visited our home in Colorado for three weeks as part of the festivities associated around my oldest son's wedding. Click here to see some pictures from the visit. Some are for family only so you may not see everything if you don't share some DNA with either me or J.

On returning to Stockholm, we immediately had to move from our furnished apartment in Vasastan to another in Södermalm. It is nice because we have two small balconies: one facing east and one west so that we get sunlight on both ends of the day - that's a summer thing. We're also close to lake Mälaren, Långholmen and Söder Mälarstrand. There's lots of pictures of these areas here.

We are beginning to explore all the nooks and crannies (I'm still looking for a nook without a cranny or viceversa) of Stockholm. Our friend BJ showed us a very special jazz bar, reminiscent of Nissi's in Lafayette, called Fasching. World class jazz musicians play there.

Our furniture and household things were delivered some five weeks after being loaded on the truck August 22 in Colorado. We lived like college students (sans beer, textbooks, and other things I'd rather not imagine because I have college age kids). We had an air ma tress for a bed, an old sofa and two stools left by the landlord.

J and I took Saturday Swedish classes in the fall. We enjoyed them hugely! One funny thing happened. The teacher asked me in Swedish what I do in the evenings. I answered is grossly mispronounced Swedish that I take off my clothes. He said, "You mean change clothes." "No, take off clothes." The class is laughing thinking I'm walking around naked. When you're weak in a language it's hard to say what you mean and hard to understand what's being asked.

J also took five days per week, two and a half hours per day intensive class. They take no prisoner's in this class. We were looking forward to taking the second part of the Saturday classes but it was cancelled due to low enrollment. Hopefully, we can take it in January.

The nights are extraordinarily long, as is to be expected this far north. November and December have been dark and dreary. I really miss the Stockholm summer and now appreciate why the Swedes relish summer so much. We have visited several Christmas markets in the Stockholm area where locals sell handmade or homemade things from Christmas decorations to foods to toys to antler knives to sausages, herring, etc.

Sweden has also celebrated Lucia. I am constantly amazed by how much tradition is here. One tradition I find interesting is pepperkocker. It's a ginger cracker that is supposed to make you nice. It derives this reputation from the days of old when people ate them in the dark winters and felt that ginger improved their moods or so I'm told. I've found that just about any cookie with a tall glass of milk improves my mood.

I hope to have more frequent posts from now on. Stay tuned...In the mean time you can browse my photos which I've been collecting the whole while here.

Tall Ships in Stockholm

2007-07-28T13:57:00.000+02:00

The Tall ships race came to Stockholm this year. I went a little wild with the camera: I managed to pick 70-something photos from over 200. Click here to see them and notice how the weather changed.

The last time the race stopped in Stockholm was in 2000 (and I happened to be in Stockholm at the time). They race in the Baltic every four years.

This year there are 119 ships moored at the Stockholm quays. The Tall Ships races have been going on since 1956. Part of the mission is to engage youth in cultural exchange, teach seamanship and pass on maritime traditions. Half the crew must be between the ages of 15 and 25. The fleet will be moored for four days during which almost a million visitors are expected.

What is a tall ship? Well from what I can tell the signature of a tall ship is tall masts with horizontally secured sails (square-rigged). Wikipedia tells more plus it gives a complete list of all the world's tall ships and pictures and facts about most of them. I was on the Norwegian Statsraad Lehmkuhl, for example. Although these ships can sail into the wind, they cannot do it as well as the newer sailboats with the sails secured vertically. The reason is that most of the propulsion of the sail is from the wing-effect. It's easier to get the wing effect with vertically mounted sails.

One of the brochures at the exhibition indicated seven types of tall ships: the full-rigged ship identified by at least three masts and is square rigged, the barque recognized by three or more masts and square rigging except for the fore-and-aft rigging, the brig which has two square rigged masts, the barquentine which has three or more masts all fore-and-aft rigged except the foremast which is entirely square rigged, the brigantine sporting a square rigged foremast and fore-and-aft rigged main mast, the topsail schooner having two or more masts with a square rigged foremast, and a schooner which has two or more fore-and-aft rigged masts.

I think Pirates of the Caribbean was a full-rigged or barque.

What's a Cutty Sark? What's a clipper ship? How to they fit in? From what I glean from Wikipedia, the Cutty Sark is a clipper ship. Clipper ships are tall ships mostly made in Britain and the US in the 19'th century. Clipper ships are a category of tall ships.

Sailing boats get even more complicated. There are sloops (like the John B the Beach Boys sing about), cutters, and many more. This web site has a short summary.

Hard Job, missing vowels, colors and a Fokker

2007-07-19T17:09:00.000+02:00

Last Thursday J and I went to the Zagreb, Croatia office. I had several business meetings (and is now dreaming up some more for the future). J got a few hours to walk around the center of Zagreb. Later that evening we got to experience a very fine Croatian meal which included some Croatian fig brandy, Croatian fish, Croatian squid salad, Croatian wine, and Croatian desserts. At 5:30 AM the next morning, one of my colleagues allowed us to ride with him on the four hour drive to Split, on the Dalmatian coast. Along the way we paused at a rest stop to look out over the canyon into the blue waters of the KrKa National Park. By the way, some of you haven't been waiting long enough for the images to load with maximum sharpness. These should be really nice images so if it's blurry, you have a slow connection and need to wait.

Later, he dropped us off at a hotel and came back later to pick me up for the meetings. After the meetings, we had a short guided tour of Diocletian's palace: he's the Roman emperor that killed a few Christians. In the beginning of his reign, he tolerated Christians but later decided not to keep them around. Read all about Diocletian on wikipedia.

Diocletian is also the first, if not the last, Roman emperor to voluntarily retire. He is also sometimes cited as the emperor that accelerated the demise of the empire by breaking it into four parts, so that there were four envious, suspicious, power hungry leaders. He was a Croatian and, therefore, thought it fitting to build his retirement home in Split, not far from where he grew up. It was a four star palace until he died and the Christians decided to vent some anger. They demolished all the statues and busts of Diocletian and completely ransacked his sarcophagus. They turned his chapel to the Roman god Jupiter into a baptismal room with Jupiter replaced with John the Baptist. They had other decorating ideas, too, but to avoid boring you too much I'll move on....

Split was just excellent (and cheap). Apparently lots of other tourists discovered that before me. In fact, I think if Croatia didn't have tourists, they'd be in dire straights. Check out my 50 or so Split pictures here.

We took a day trip to the island of Hvar. It's got some history behind it, too, which (don't click away yet), I won't bore you with. My pictures from the ferry ride from Split to Hvar are here. My photos on Hvar itself are here.

One thing you will not find in Croatia is an abundance of vowels. In fact, sometimes they just do without for the whole word. How about the Island of Krk? These folks would have been good programmers back in the long forgotten day when programmers had to use mnemonics of six characters or less. So we'd abbreviate "Next Value" with "NxtVal." Seems like Croatian to me.

Croatian is one of the Slavic languages. English is a Germanic language (and I always thought it was romantic! Uh, I mean a romance language.). Both languages are Indo-European.

Both Split and Hvar are on the Adriatic sea. The water is so clear you wouldn't believe it. Those tourist photos I used to suspect were photographically doctored are probably not.

We came to Croatia on a jet from Stockholm to Vienna and then took a small prop plane, a Fokker, to Zagreb. We left on a Fokker 100 from Split back to Vienna. I thought Fokker was long gone and Airbus and Boeing were the last two contestants. Guess not.

Descending down to Stockholm as the sun was low (as it is just about all day long) we saw the amazing number of islands and waterways. The water was granite grey, the island flush with green but dotted with the typical Swedish burnt red, custard yellow or white buildings. The green pastures were littered with the giant hay bails covered in the white plastic. The skies were blue with the white fluffy clouds. Contrast those colors with the colors in Croatia. Deep blue water with some greens mixed in, white rocks, white or grey buildings with the red Mediterranean tile roofs, and blue cloudless skies.

That's when I began to think how people correlate with the colors, or maybe it's the temperature. Hmmm. Guns, Germs, and Steel and Colors? I guess I have to factor in the Swedish winter's too where the colors change. In fact, most summer days have not had blue skies and white clouds: they had grey clouds and not much sun. No wonder Swedes worship the sun.

A few notes on the paint: The red paint so popular in Sweden uses a residue from copper mines, the most famous, which was in operation before the year 1000 is near Dalarna. This paint, although it tends to look old quickly is an excellent protector of wood. The wood can last hundreds of years in harsh weather with a fresh coat every 15 years. The yellow paint is sometimes associated with wealth because long ago the wealthy folks painted their palaces this color, I'm not sure why.

Sik, Abborre, Gädda, and Gös

2007-07-10T11:29:00.000+02:00

These are the most prevalent fish in Lake Mäleren. Sik are whitefish, abborre are perch, and gädda are pike. gädda is pictured in the first photo, which was taken from Atomeyes' collection.

The grilled sik (whitefish) are from photographer Olidaone.

One interesting thing about Gädda is that they are slow, often just hanging still in the water. Some fishermen have exploited this characteristic by making a lasso, dropping the lasso in front of the fish, and then startling the fish right into the lasso.

In the ten months that I've been here in the Stockholm area, I've scarely seen a single person in the act of fishing and I'm near water a lot. However, this past weekend, in a beautiful break in the otherwise gray and dim weather, I went on a bike ride from Hornstull to Vårby. In Vårby I saw at least ten people fishing from the Målaren shore. There must be a lot of fisherpersons in the area because there's a very popular fishing supply store just a block from me and the one time I went in there to check the price of a legendary Abu-Garcia reel, made in Sweden. The store was crowded with customers and sales seemed brisk.

Drottningholm and a little further

2007-07-06T21:31:00.001+02:00

Saturday morning. I took a morning bike ride before B got up and before the rain comes down and while J was doing other things. I headed toward Drottningholm and got slightly lost a few times. Nevertheless, I took some photos which you can find here. The area just beyond Drottnigholm where the city becomes country is really special. There's forests, wheat fields, horse farms, and an occasional building. I found a church out in the middle of nowhere, although there must have been a population center nearby, just hidden.

B Visits

2007-07-06T21:29:00.001+02:00

Our first visitor from home: our youngest son Benton. We had a grand time. He was here for about a month in the year 2000, so it was fun for him to re-visit some things. Some of the highlights of his visit were kayaking. He and I went from Svima Sports all the way around Stora Essingen, Långholmen, and Kungsholmen and then up Ulvsundasjön to the big bridge. I took ibupfofen for two days after. Later in his visit he went again with J in Brunnsviken. B also had some fun enjoying the Stockholm nightlife. Nobody is a stranger to him! we walked along Strandvägen. We hit several nice restaurants including the trendy summertime-only floating restaurant called Stranbryggan and the sushi restaurant in our neighborhood called Raw. We saw Die Hard 4, visited the Nordic Museum, wandered around Gamla Stan, worked out at the fitness center several times, and B got royally cheated by a taxi driver late one night. He was out so late the buses and subway had stopped. B had spent all his kroner and told the driver "I only have American dollars." The driver said "That's ok, you American's are rich." B said "Not this American." After a very short ride from T-Centralen to S:T Eriksplan, the driver said "$40." He paid and later found out it should've been $6.

We'd like to take this time to express our appreciation to B for taking care of some of our business while we are away.

Utö and Ålö - a perfect day trip

2007-07-06T21:20:00.000+02:00

B is visiting so we decided to take a long day trip from Stockholm to the island of Utö (pronounced ew-ter). We left the apartment at around 7 AM, took the pendeltåg from Karlberg to Västerhaninge, a bus to Årsta brygga, and finally a ferry to Gruvbyn pier on Utö. Each leg was about 40 minutes.

Right off the boat is the quaint center of Gruvbyn. It's mostly tourist and Swedes visiting their archipelago cabins. The permanent residents of Utö number around 400, IIRC. We then rented "urban" bike. It was still misting rain and the skies were the color of faded asphalt. We rode the bikes south from Gruvbyn on the primary dirt road toward a fish restaurant we'd been told about on another island called Ålö (pronounced oh-ler). There is a small bridge connecting Utö with Ålö. The ride passed through plush green forest and meadows loaded with ferns. "This is the Sweden I love," said J. It looked like the movie set from Jurassic Park. There were some houses and farms, too. The whole bike ride one way was about 10 kilometers (6 miles). Once at Ålö, we had to wait on the restaurant to open so we explored around the small bay and sat on the dock watching the sea gulls, a few boats passing, and talking.
The restaurant served mostly smoked seafood from the nearby waters. J had smoked salmon. B and I had a combo plate with smoke salmon, raw salmon thinly sliced, and smoked prawns. All served in a wooden box. The prawns still had eggs in them. We ate the big black eyes, some red organs, the meat and the eggs. Not bad. The cost of this lunch was high, IMHO. One beer, two waters, and the three meals was 495 SEK, $71.
The ride back was much nicer because the sun came out, the clouds parted and became the white billowy cumulus clouds. It seed the grays all became blues. You can see how the colors changed by viewing the Flickr slide show (66 photos) from start to finish.

Ice Bar

2007-07-05T20:50:00.000+02:00

The Stockholm Ice Bar is a a tourist trap but a trap a tourist might want to experience once. The glasses, chairs, walls, and the bar itself are ice. The inside temperature is kept at 27 degree F (-5 C). The ice comes from ice harvested from the Torne River on the border between Sweden and Finland in Northern Sweden. Absolut Vodka is a sponsor so all the drinks are vodka based. The cover charge of 160 SEK (approximately $23) gets you in for 45 minutes and one drink. Additional drinks are 85 SEK (approximately $12). Ouch. However, given the expense, I'd have to say the novelty of it is worth seeing, once. As you can see from the photos, they provide a warm cloak with a hood and gloves. The glasses are also of ice. They replace all the ice (the walls, bar, seats) twice per year. The seats are covered with deer skin (or reindeer?).

Saltsjöbaden

2007-06-24T21:22:00.000+02:00

J and I took a small outing today. After several gray rainy days, today was finally sunny so we took the green line to Slussen station. From Slussen we walked along Katarinavägan and Fjällgatan to get some views of Gamla Stan, Skeppholmen and the boats in the harbor. I stored 24 of the photo's here. Upon returning to Slussen we got on the train east to Saltsjöbaden, a place I remembered as picturesque from my visit in 2000. It had changed quite a bit. Half a dozen new apartment buildings we built right next to the train station - it used to look much more quaint.

It's still a beautiful place, though. It's a favorite place for boats because they are closer to the "big water." We had a light lunch, wandered around taking photos and admiring what "big money" can buy. There's 15 or so photo's here.

We also stumbled upon the coolest thing I've seen in a long time. We first saw 5 or 6 small wooden boats on the shore. There were people gathering around them. Every 5 or 10 minutes another car would drive up with one secured to it's roof. After awhile there were probably 10 to 15 of these boats. I asked a woman what all the bustle was about and learned it is a "society" that allows it's members (young people from 11 to 20-something) to build these boats.The organizer and founder of the society has an old Swedish Navy boat that is full of machine tools for steel and wood. The "members" build their boats on the Navy boat. Now when I say build a boat, I mean everything except a few fasteners and the sail fabric. They make the metal parts, build the boat, mast, the sail, everything.....It takes from 1000 to 2500 hours. These young people have been working weekends for at least a year. Now, today, they were taking their finished masterpieces out on a three week archipelago trip. The instructor and some others will escort the armada with cargo carrying boats and some other boats in case of emergencies. Check out my 44 pictures here.

This has to be an amazing experience for the young men and women. I know the parents were beaming with pride. In the US there are a thousand reasons this would never work and all of the thousand reasons boil down to lawyers. If a minor were to get hurt using one of the many tools needed to build a boat, or have a problem on the camping trip, or whatever, the parents, at the urging of a lawyer, would want somebody to pay and insurance companies wouldn't touch this....and so we don't have things like this and it is most unfortunate. Our young people that don't choose sports or heavy academics will be playing video games, since we've essentially outlawed work for minors, too......

Midsommar 2007

2007-06-22T19:11:00.000+02:00

J and I are in an abandoned city today. June 21, midsommar (mid-summer) holiday is probably the most cherished Swedish holiday. The residents of Stockholm have all left for the countryside and the archipelago to celebrate the longest day of the year with traditional foods, drink, folk songs, and friends and family. Based on the number of cars around the apartment, I'd estimate that 80% of the residents are not in the city. It's practically a ghost town. J and I meandered to Odenplan this morning and found a coffee shop that was open - there's almost nothing else open - and had a couple of coffees and Swedish desserts as we watched even more Swedes leaving the city (we assume a rolling suitcase means leaving). Then we came back to the apartment and watched a movie or two, writing to this blog. We opened a bottle of Barbera d' Asti, a package of Färdiga skivor (excellent cheese), and a box of Breton original wheat crackers and did very little else. We probably should have gone to one of the many public celebrations but, honestly, we need some rest.

The weather today is overcast. We hope it will improve tomorrow because we've planned a party for my management staff. They've been fantastic in supporting the new guy: me. They represent the best of humanity to me. We have our disagreements but they are professional differences: as people they never cease to impress me.

D & J - a personal note

2007-06-21T20:24:00.000+02:00

How are we doing? Truth is, we miss our kids. It is harder for J - she misses her job and all the fantastic folks she worked with. It is harder to break into society without a job and the interactions a job provides. I also miss my colleagues, but have met plenty of great people at the new office in Kista. J misses the jogs around Waneka lake and I miss the lunch time "pack" bike rides over Olde Stage road and Lee hill. J misses the pets and I miss my woodworking. We've discovered "Skype" - a low-cost way to communicate (although sometimes the connection quality is poor) with famiy and friends.

We've also found lots of good restaurants, but we don't go out very often. Prices are really high here in Stockholm...even most Swedes eat at home.

J is experiencing some career withdrawal pains. However, she's really learning to get about in the city and I'm not worried about her safety - Stockholm is a safe city. Swedish language classes at the Folk Univerity in Stockholm were full the last session: she'll probably take them in the fall. However, she's seriously considering attending Regis University online. This would be quite a boost to her career when we return to Colorado two or three years from now.

I'm extremely busy working. I feel I'm doing a pretty good job but I've made a few blatant mistakes. Live and learn. I wanted to start learning Swedish in a big way but I don't know where I'd find the time. I'm still working long hours and try to get in some exercise. After that, there's not much left. I do enjoy my bike commutes to work but I'm growing a little tired of the same old route every day. It's time to find some other routes. Plus, I still don't ride if it even looks like rain...and that's pretty often these days.

Back in 2000, when I lived in Stockholm I dwelt on the differences between Swedes and Americans. This time I tend to see more similarities. I am seeing many preconceptions some Americans have about Swedes to be wrong and vice versa. There is usually an element of truth in stereotypes but often it's greatly exaggerated. There's also a matter of scale. Sweden is approximately 9 million people so comparisons should be made with 9 million people in the US, not to 350 million. Similary Swedes (and others) sometimes extrapolate attributes of one small group of Americans or one city (especially New York city) to all Americans. I'm learning to let first impressions simmer awhile and they will almost always soften.

We've got several Swedish freinds that make the Swedish experience so much richer. We also got some other American friends also on assignment that enrich the sojirun. Several folks in our apartment building have become our friends, too. They are from all over Europe. Of course, we still communicate with all our friends in the STates through this blog, email, and the good old telephone.

You can learn a lot from trains

2007-06-21T19:40:00.000+02:00

Trains are an apt metaphor for many things in life. I'll spare you the obvious ones.

I was at the Helenelund train station today watching trains go by and was noticing how the wire that contacts the pantograph goes left to right and right to left from pole to pole. As I mentioned in the "pantograph" post, this is so that the contacts wear evenly and last longer. But the analogy with politics came to mind. It seems we need to wave left to right and right to left to prevent wear patterns and preserve the contact with the government.

There's more. The insulators that separate deadly amperage from the ground are made of polished and glazed ceramic. The smooth surface is chosen to prevent dirt, grime, and dust from clinging to it, especially when it's wet. I don't know what happens when it's raining and the whole thing is wet. I suppose the electrical shorts arc and cause it to dry until it gets wet enough to cause the next short? If you look at the insulators, they look like stacked bowls with about an inch of air between each one. This is to increase the distance the arc would have to go since the current flows on the surface of the insulator (easily explained with Maxwell's equations). My colleague R. told me all this and pointed out that it takes about 100,000 volts to arc one centimeter so when you see static sparks from carpet, there's a lot of volts involved. But volts don't kill. Amps kill; amps= current. So the insulators for the trains must have a heck of a lot of current. So what metaphor could one derive from this?

Here's the thing. I probably wouldn't have noticed the structure of the insulators or even wonder had R. not pointed it out. Yet they are so common. We see similar familiar things in people but often stop to understand why they are the way they are. It makes since when all the facts are out.

The train station was pretty quiet today because most Swedes had left the city as part of the Mid-Summer tradition. This triggered a little melancholy which reminded me of Bob Dylan's classic song "It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry".

Well, I ride on a mail train, babe
Can't buy a thrill
Well, I've been up all night
Leanin' on the window sill
Well, if I die
On top of the hill
And if I don't make it
You know my baby will.

Don't the moon look good, mama
Shinin' through the trees ?
Don't the brakeman look good, mama
Ragging down the "Double E" ?
Don't the sun look good
Goin' down over the sea ?
Don't my gal look fine
When she's comin' after me ?

Now the wintertime is coming
The windows are filled with frost
I went to tell everybody
But I could not get across
Well, I wanna be your lover, baby
I don't wanna be your boss
Don't say I never warned you
When your train gets lost.

I suspect he'd have sang something about pantographs and insulators except he mostly saw diesel power or coal powered trains that had lonesome whistles that make you want to cry. Funny thing, though, after reading this over, it makes me laugh so maybe Bob was wrong, it doesn't take a lot to laugh.

Astrid Lindgren Jubilee - Sunday June 17, 2007

2007-06-18T18:55:00.000+02:00

Not only was today Father's Day in America (Sweden also celebrates Mother's Day and Father's Day but on different days), but it was also the day we chose to visit the Astrid Lindgren exhibit at the Kulturhuset (Culture House) downtown Stockholm. This exhibit was very moving especially to J as she remembers reading these books in America as a child.

Astrid Lindren is the beloved children's literature writer born on her family's Näs farm, near Vimmerby in Småland. 2007 is declared an Astrid Lindgren jubilee year to celebrate Astrid (in Sweden and all over the world) as she would be 100 years old this year on November 14. She died at the age of 94. She is the most successful author of children's books in the world. Her books, toy characters and Pippi dolls are seen all over Sweden.

There are plenty of nice websites for information and pictures from her own collection and the Astrid Lindgren celebrations and about her in general.

Beginning with Pippi Longstocking, her works are among the most read and translated (about 85 languages) children's books over the world. The characters and places are drawn from her own childhood:
The Children From the Noisy Village, Emil in Lonneberga, Bullerbyn, and, of course, the Pippi series. The display included many photographs and collections from Astrid's own private collection. The most striking thing to me was how Astrid herself had a playful side and a twinkle in her eye that looked as if the child in her spied the child in you. And then she would bring out that part of a person....the fun loving playful side.

One photograph showed her climbing a tree at the age of 75ish. The caption quoted her as saying "The Ten Commandments do NOT say an old lady can NOT climb a tree!!!!"

In an episode in one of the Pippi books, the kids put a message in a bottle that read "We can't survive much longer on the island without more snuff." Astrid says in a television interview that that story was based on a true story about some kids she'd known while growing up. In real life, the message was "Bring liquor and snuff, we can't survive on the island much longer without." The kids got in trouble when an uncle found the bottle floating near shore in the weeds. In the book, Astrid removed the reference to liquor to avoid a public outcry.

Recently, it was discovered that there were thousands of her books in a warehouse in Turkey. They had decided not to distribute them (for reasons I can guess). Too bad they don't view her as the global treasure she is and was.

In one film of the exhibit, Astrid tells how vivid life is to children. ..yet she reminds us that child is always alive in each of us. She spoke fondly of the wooded meadows and farmland she played with her many friends and siblings, the animals, the barns, the houses, the smells of the earth and trees. She states that every rock and tree was a living being to them. Astrid cared deeply about animals, nature, peace and children's rights.

Although she acquired fame and fortune, she stayed the same. Many have told me that she was seen shopping and living life normally around Sweden. She lived in a modest apartment above a restaurant for some 40 years before she died. Visitors commented on how someone so famous would live so modestly. The world is certainly a much better place since Astrid was here!

Picnic & Kayak & Stockholm Marathon & Sushi

2007-06-09T18:16:00.000+02:00

Saturday was a busy day. J and I walked 2.5 miles to Brunnsviken kanotklubb to meet M and J and their kids for a picnic and kayak rental. That we did and it was nice. We spread out blankets on the lawn of the club and watched the kayak crowd hustle and bustle around.

We left to go home and decided to explore Fredhelmsplan. Then we happened upon the Stockholm marathon which has around 17,000 runners. We wandered around and finally got back to our neighborhood where we found a nice little sushi restaurant. We'll be returning there sometime soon.

The Pantograph

2007-06-09T09:30:00.001+02:00

The pendeltåg gets it's power from overhead wires. The apparatus that facilitates electrical contact to the wires is called a pantograph. There's a lot of science that goes into these things. First they are places on the train to minimize the effects of air turbulence. The actual contacts are aerodynamically designed and the spacing is such that the bouncing and loss of contact is minimized. The wires above actually zigzag from pole to pole to get even wear across the pantograph contact pieces.

Some trains have two engines and multiple pantographs. One of the pantographs is used to power the engine, the other for the cooling equipment which runs even when the engines are off to keep debris out.

Koelreuteria Paniculata, and I mean it.

2007-06-09T07:57:00.000+02:00

The Golden Raintree, Koelreuteria Paniculata, is also known as the Chinese Flame tree. As you can see in the photos here, it has nic yellow flowers. They smell good, too.an excellent tree and unrivaled for late yellow flowers. In th fall, the Golden Raintrees display contrasts 2 inch golden seed pods against a dark green-leafed background. The seed pods look like tiny Chinese lanterns. It has rounded outline, spreading and ascending branches, open, reddish copper-colored foliage in the spring. It is a tough and an adaptable tree used for many landscaping applications. They are very tolerant of polluted air environments.

Multi-Cultural Apartment Grill-Out on National Day

2007-06-09T07:54:00.000+02:00

According to Po Tidholm and Agneta Lilja in ther small book Celebrating the Swedish Way, Sweden has celebrated their "National" day on June 6 since 1983. They say: "This is the date on which Gustav Vasa was crowned ling in 1523 and on which a new constitution was adopted in 1809. The original idea came from Artur Hazelius, who founded the Skansen open-air museum in Stockholm and held a national day celebration there on June 6 as early as the 1890's." They go on to state: "In 1916, Hazelius's idea was officially adopted and June 6 became Swedish flag day. The name celebrated the fact that Sweden had acquired its own flag following the dissolution of the union with Norway."

So this year, J thought it would be a perfect opportunity to meet the neighbors in the apartment building by inviting them all to a bar-b-cue in the back yard. So we did. It was one of the most fun times since we've been in Sweden. There was a German man who works for the Swedish power company, a Norwegian woman who works for the transportation department, another Norwegian woman who is a writer for a large multi-national company, her Swedish husband who is a writer for a prestigious financial news organization, a Canadian woman on a 2 year assignment much like me who manages projects and has many other interests, and her Swedish friend who is retired but runs his own consulting company. Everyone brought meat to grille and a dish to share. The food was excellent but the conversation was more so. We all had a blast critiquing each other's culture. They all have lived in the United States plus other countries. J and I are plain ol' monolingual people who've only lived in one country (although some would argue that Texas is another country!). Nevertheless, our brief stay in Sweden and our few European vacations give us just enough perspective to identify with and see the humor in all that was said.

We discussed views on customer service in each country, views on nudity and especially the nude beaches in Germany, places to travel to and special tourist destinations, transportation methods, languages and especially Swedish dialects, winter sports, and about food in each culture, especially holiday food.

Near the end of the evening Janis spotted a tiny baby bird that had fallen from it's nest. So we decided to return it. However, the nest was behind a grate in the building about 10 feet (3 meters) above the ground. Plus we knew we couldn't touch the baby because the mother would kill it because of the wrong smell. So using a paper plate and the balancing skills of the tall German, we managed to save a bird. Not a bad way, at least symbolically, to end a multi-cultural grill-out.

Kayaking Brunnsviken

2007-06-02T18:15:00.000+02:00

What A beautiful day to Kayak. Last weekend I kayaked for 3 hours (resulting in 3 ibuprofen every four hours for 2 days). I rented from Point 65 North kayaks at the Pampas Marina. The weekend before that both J and I rented from Svima Sports, not far from Point 65 North. Both of those trips were on Lake Mälaren. So today we thought we'd try kayaking in the Baltic. (You really can't tell much difference.)

Last weekend, I saw several topless gals out sunning. Today, I suppose because my wife was present, we saw two completely naked old guys. It reinforces my feeling that nobody over 40 should ever be seen naked.

The real memory of this little 2 hour jaunt was us coming back through a little channel. Going through the first time we followed several other motor boats. Coming back we waited for it to be clear and we just started paddling through. Then two large boats started approaching - coming at us head on. The channel was narrow and J scraped one of the boats which caused her to veer into the path of the second boat. The second boat, although only going maybe 5 kph, slowed even more and the driver said something rather loudly to us in Swedish. We apologized in English and he said, we were supposed to wait on a green light. "Where's the light?" I said. "Over the sign." he said. Then we saw it: traffic lights, just like at an intersection.

After the kayaking we rested in the sun and people watched. Two young guys rented kayaks and it was obvious they'd never kayaked before. They took their boats to the dock and set them in the water. One of them took a phone call on the dock. The other, apparently remembering his phone upon seeing his buddy with his, got his phone out of the waterproof kayak compartment and put it in his jeans pocket. Then he stepped into his boat. In an instant he was in the water and the bottom of the boat was getting some sun. There was some thrashing around for a few seconds before he was able to pull himself up and get back on the dock.

Once out, he pulls out his cell phone and is trying to sling the water off. We left maybe 45 minutes later and he was still trying to dry it out. My guess is it won't be receiving any calls for a long time.

The rental guy switched the two kayaks for a single wide canoe.

The walk to the kayak club, Brunnsviken Kanotklubb, was about 2 miles (3.3 kilometers). So we decided to take the T-Bana back. To do that we walked to the Stockholm University campus where there was a music festival going on. It was free so we sat in the grass and listened to music for a little while.

A good day. You can see some photos on flickr by clicking here.

Some Famous Swedes' Quotes and Proverbs

2007-06-02T08:32:00.000+02:00

"Living in Africa had made me a better European. From a distance, I could see the cracks (in Europe) more clearly." - Henning Mankell, best selling Swedish author, qoute taken from Scanorama magazine, March 2007.

“Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get." - Ingrid Bergman

“I hope I never get so old I get religious.” - Ingmar Bergman, movie director

“What makes loneliness an anguish is not that I have no one to share my burden, but this: I have only my own burden to bear.” - Dag Hammarskjold, Swedish statesman

"Fear less, hope more; eat less, chew more; whine less, breathe more; talk less, say more; hate less, love more; and all good things are yours." - Swedish proverb

"What breaks in a moment may take years to mend." - Swedish proverb

"Shared joy is double joy. Shared sorrow is half sorrow." - Swedish proverb

"Those who wish to sing, always find a song." - Swedish proverb

"My greatest point is my persistence. I never give up in a match. However down I am, I fight until the last ball. My list of matches shows that I have turned a great many so-called irretrievable defeats into victories." - Bjorn Borg, one of the World's greatest tennis players, some say the best ever.

"If I have a thousand ideas and only one turns out to be good, I am satisfied." - Alfred Nobel, inventor of synomite and the Nobel prizes

"Our idea is to serve everybody, including people with little money." - Ingvar Kamprad, founder of IKEA, and source of the first two letters in IKEA.

"We have to still develop the Ikea group. We need many billions of Swiss francs to take on China or Russia." - Ingvar Kamprad

"If a tree dies, plant another in its place." - Carolus Linnaeus

"I don't sleep with happily married men." - Britt Ekland, Swedish porn star

30 Years in a flash

2007-05-27T17:19:00.000+02:00

Today we (D & J, that is) celebrated our 30'th anniversary. Actually, although we'd been talking about it for weeks, it was mid-day before either of us remembered. I won't mention which one of us remembered...

We'd hoped to celebrate early last weekend on the island of Utö but decided the weather wasn't warm enough. Hopefully we'll do that sometime soon (and write a blog about it).

I went on a kayak trip today. The trip started at the Pampas Marina. Point 65 North has a kayak rental place there. The trip started around 1:00. I headed along the north shore of Ulvsundajön till I past the Carlsberg brewery. That's a good 30 minutes of constant paddling. I passed a nice looking Swedish woman on the shoreline sunning topless. She was sitting in a chair reading a book. I tried to read the title of the book but was close enough. She was still there on the return trip. AN was still there .... just kidding.

I then headed toward Kristineberg among some large boats and large wakes. At first I was afraid of capsizing in the cold water but soon felt very confident. I saw a few people swimming but they could stay in long.

Next I paddled completely around the Kungsholmen island and saw several other stunning topless young women sunbathing - actually sitting up with the headlights pointed right at me. I underestimated how long it would take and was hurting by the time I got back to the rental place. About mid-way around the island, one of us remembered the anniversary and called the other....

J stayed at he apartment today and caught up on some reading and emails, did a little watercolor painting, and corrected some of my spelling errors on one of the other blogs.

She also collected her photos from the previous evening's party.

Tonight we'll have a small celebration but reward ourselves for putting up with each other for 30 years next weekend (probably) with two nights on Utö. The accomplishment of 30 years of marriage is dwarfed by the accomplishment of raising three wonderful kids that somehow managed to succeed despite us!

BBQ at the Apartment

2007-05-27T08:00:00.000+02:00

(Folks, I'm going to switch to first person in the post, third person was sounding silly.)

We decided to have a little BBQ at the apartment. We invited two American families also on assignment in Sweden and also one of our dearest Swedish family (although the husband was on business travel). We had 5 adults plus us, plus 7 kids from 18 mos. old to (I'm guessing) 13. J did most of the planning but because we're in an apartment for 2, we had to supplement our plates, cups, utensils, etc. with disposable ones. We aso had to buy some additional bowls, etc. and also the grill.....all without a car. J and I went to the grocery store with our roller suitcases to buy everything. In fact we went three times: she the day before as well. We also went to IKEA to find some miscelleaneous kitchen items (and just to find the place because we may be making some large purchaes when we move to an unfurnished place in October).

This being our first BBQ here with a new grill, we had a few glitches. But the guests were patient, gracious, polite, fun conversationalists, and helped overcome any problems. One glitch was my management of the BBQ. I bought some charcoal but it was a type I'd never seen so the quantity and the timing was wrong. It turns out, they sell two types here: the one I'm used to with the small bricqettes and the kind I bought which are not compressed. So the grilling took an unusually long time and several repairs to the charcoal bed (which included extra lighter fluid and fanning the embers). Thanks to some of the guests for helping lift the grill loaded with meat up so we could revive the dying coals....over and over until we got it right.

In the end and after testing the patience of the hungry guests, the meat and other food was good. The long wait was tempered by good Australian wine and some really great homemade salsa and guacamole. After dinner we also had a sampling of some yummie Swedish candies and ice cream with strawberries. Yum! We will work out extra hard next week...this is not a usual occurance!

In the photo, you can see the brand new grill all by itself in the apartment back yard. The kids played back there and also in a nearby park. I think the kids had a great time too. The older kids were amazingly mature: sweet and patient in helping out with the smaller ones. These are the good things in life.....ah...a nice evening in Sweden with food, wine, friends and making new ones! Well worth all the effort for the wonderful memories of a good Saturday night in Svierge.

Norrviken, Frog Stains, BBQ, and Woodworking

2007-05-26T08:54:00.000+02:00

Last weekend, a Swedish colleague and his family invited D & J over for a barbecue at his home in Norrviken. Norrviken is just north of Kista and is a clean small community that developed on a thousand year old trade route next to a shallow swampy lake. In recent years the lake has dried up so that it's now about 3 kilometers in diameter. It's still a great spot for summer swimming and winter skating. Norrviken also borders a large forested park which is a favorite mountain biking area.

The most interesting thing about Norrviken, however, is the annual 2 week period of frogs. They emerge from the swampy areas of the lake and overwhelm the streets and neighborhoods. The city puts up signs to warn motorists of the road hazard (both to protects the motorist from sliding on squished frogs and to protect the frogs from death by Volvo tires, I suppose). The mass migration of frogs reminds me of the Mormon crickets in Utah. D & J once encountered them on a desert road in Utah and the wheel wells were full of blended cricket parts - it couldn't be helped.

The hosting family showed extreme hospitality, like all our other Swedish friends. They had a nice large yard with fruit trees, many flowers and a vegetable garden. The houses in the neighborhood were built in the 60's during some boom years for Sweden. The houses are brick which most Americans would prefer over wood, but in Sweden, wood or stucco is usually preferred. The gutters are made of copper! Imagine that today. The interiors, like most Swedish homes and buildings, have a special warmth and feeling of wood.

The hosts have an interesting life story that includes many foreign sojourns, notably in Ohio and Japan. They also own a 27 meter long freighter boat, which they spent 10 years refurbishing and actually lived on in a Stockholm marina for several years before buying the house. They take a 2 week trip in the boat each year into the interior of Sweden via a series of lakes, canals, and locks. The trip is with a group of other small freighters, all joining as a community.

The barbecue is very popular in Sweden, and is considered an American pastime that Sweden has imported. The host was a little nervous BBQ'ing for the "expert American." However, it was excellent and the American expert is not so expert. They BBQ'ed roast, wieners, and bratwurst. The dinner itself also included fresh cheeses (Sweden has great cheeses) and fresh breads. One of the delicious cheeses also had a sharp aroma. So sharp the Swedes call it balcony cheese because you should leave it on the balcony to keep it from smelling up the house. I tried it and liked it. Just goes to show you that you can't judge a cheese by it's odor... well not totally.

The dessert was glass (the Swedish words for ice cream) covered with fresh strawberries. So far every dinner D & J have had at a Swedish family's home has been excellent and this one maintained that standard. D & J worry that they can't come close to matching the culinary skills of the Swedish hosts, especially since D & J have a temporary kitchen and are less familiar with where to buy certain ingredients (all the ingredients are in Sweden but sometimes the Swedish words are not in our dictionary, especially spices).

The garage in the basement, like D's in the US, had been converted to a woodworking shop. Only this one had several industrial sized tools like an 18 inch joiner, a shaper, 20 inch bandsaw, and planer. He bought these from a Swedish tool maker for cash to get a really sweet deal. He also used German Festool routers, the brand D considers top-ot-the line. In the US, Festool's are about 70% higher than their competitors. But they are so much lighter and have higher precision than the other brands.

360 degrees at Karlsberg

2007-05-17T10:02:00.000+02:00

I took a series of photos from the Karlsberg footbridge near our apartment which you can vie at Flickr.com by clicking here. It was a semi-cloudy day, unfortunately. Especially since there had been several absolutely beautiful days with nice blue skies and fluffy white cumulus clouds. The 360 degrees, taken in eight photos, shows some typical scenes from water to apartment buildings to just plain old city concrete.

Some Boats and Bridges

2007-05-12T23:24:00.000+02:00

I want a boat and a house on the water. In fact, I want two boats, a kayak for physical explorations, a sail boat because they are just so elegant and somehow I can use the elements. Of course, I need two kayaks: one for me and one for J. We'd have to learn to sail but that's easy: just spend a little time in the Stockholm archipelago at sailing school. Lyle Lovett wanted a pony and a boat and to put his pony on his boat.

"If I had a boat
I'd go out on the ocean
And if I had a pony
I'd ride him on my boat
And we could all together
Go out on the ocean
Me upon my pony on my boat."

I'd replace the pony with a two bikes! My sail boat would be big enough for my bike and my sea kayak. Oh, and I want to be rich enough to not have to work.
J and I would have coffee in the early morning, kayak a little while, sail in the afternoon, bike around, sail back, watch the news, and read a book. Pardon my little fantasy.

The photos in this post are mostly in and around the island of Stora Essingen, where one of my American colleagues and his family live. They had us over for a nice dinner and tour of the island. The island has four thousand residents and is only a couple of kilometers in circumference. There's a French school there so all the French expatriates prefer to live there.

As the date for us to move from the furnished apartment to an unfurnished one approaches, we need to make many decisions and purchases. We'll have some furnishings shipped from Colorado (We're allowed 20 cubic meters) or about the volume of a regular sized bathroom. So let's see....gotta have the hobby stuff first. More bicycles, J's crafts, more warm clothes, more books (including my collections of Rick Steves and Lonely Planets), a couple of chairs, and a tv. Not much else will fit in the 20 cubic meters. So then it's off to IKEA.

The last photo in this post is of the spectacular Tranebergsbron Bridge. The photo is taken on a perfect day from right outside the light rail station.

Excursion to Ireland

2007-05-05T09:01:00.000+02:00

Part of D's job requires a monthly trip to Dublin. J joined him on this trip. They added a Saturday and Sunday to be tourists before the workweek.

After arriving on a Friday to some of the best weather possible in Ireland, D & J sampled the obligatory Guinness and some "meat and potatoes." On Saturday morning, they took the LUAS train into Dublin, from the outlying hotel. The LUAS was a clean modern train and the stations were clean and safe. Perfect for tourists. Once in Dublin and St. Stephen's green specifically, the cameras were brought out. You can view some of the photos by clicking on over to flickr. Don't forget to come back here.

After strolling down around St. Stephan's Green and Grafton street, they took the DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transit) to Malahide, a quaint seaside town north of Dublin by about 15 kilometers. Malahide is a treasure trove of photo opportunities. There's also a little bookshop: Village Books. Mary, the owner, is a most well-read owner. She has a "Bookshop Ladies Guide to a Good Read" with numerous new and good novels. Some samples are Brick Lane by Monica Ali, Oracle Night by Paul Auster, Lie in the Dark by Dan Ferperman, Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseni, The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing, Atonement by Ian McEwan, anything by T. Coraghessan Boyle and anything by the Colorado writer Kent Haruf, and A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth. Of course, D bought enough reading for a year.

Sunday was used for an all day tour by bus into the Wicklow mountains. This scenic ride was punctuated with a couple of tourist traps. One of the most interesting stops on the tour was Glendalough, the location of an 1200 year old Celtic monastery. The Celtic traditions gradually absorbed Christianity, often blending some old traditions with the new (1200 years ago) Christianity thing....At one time, the monastery was a thriving place for students all over the world to visit.

Summary, Ireland is a great place for anyone to visit. We as former South Carolinians enjoyed it immensely because of the kinship we have with the Irish. The western parts of South Carolina were settled by the Irish and Scots. They're both so green and also have old music traditions: the fondness for bluegrass, which owes it's origins to the Irish folk music. It also explains the fervent adherence to property rights, since the Irish and the Scots have a long history of having their property seized and reallocated. We saw more similarities, but that's another blog!

War Children (Krigsbarn)

2007-04-23T08:03:00.000+02:00

Another one of my Swedish friends (of Finninsh heritage) had this to add to the post about the Battle of Hullock and the Easter Rising:

"I saw this movie Saturday and was wondering if you know about the warchildren (krigsbarn).

During the WW2, Finland was under attack and it was decided that Sweden as a "neutral" country would take some of these children to live in peace until the war was over. 70 000 children between 0-14 years of age were shipped to Sweden during 1939-1945, my father's family included. Some returned to Finland, others stayed for good.
It was emotionally very stressful for the children and their parents. The children were shipped off, all alone, with a tag around their neck, to a country were nobody understood their language.

I guess this is the tightest bond between the countries in modern time.

Norway and Denmark had effects on their children as well, but in different ways. Their description of krigsbarn is different. I'm sure they too must've sent children to Sweden, but in 1945 Norway wanted to send 9 000 children to Australia because they had German fathers, for example..."

J Arrives

2007-04-21T19:47:00.000+02:00

J arrived just three days ago. It was wonderful to see her after just over four lonely weeks. She came out of the airport with a single bag. When I asked where the other bags were, she said "we have to go pick them up."
"You just walked past them in the secure area. I hope security lets you back in."

They did. That could never happen in Chicago or Heathrow!

After days of nice weather, J's first three days have either been rainy or cold and windy. We spent more time at the grocery store than I had spent in the previous 4 week but we now have a stocked kitchen. My staple of peanut butter, bread, milk, a few oranges, and, well, that's about it, is now supplemented with meats, eggs, cereals, pasta, vegetables, and spices.

Find a short photo collage of the D&J Weekend on flickr.com.

Here's what J said in her first email back to family (with slight edits for the blog):
"D met me at the airport and we took a cab to the apt. I slept from the afternoon until 12pm today, mostly jet lag. Today, I got up and unpacked and organized the whole apartment to know where everything is and to make room since there are hardly any closets. But there is a little room off the bedroom....a nice study w/desk by a window and nice shelving on the wall. That is where I must put my clothes-on those shelves. It is actually cozy and I like it although it's a little non-traditional.
The apartment is very European and Swedish (at least to me)....tall ceilings, dormer windows that are tall w/big ledges, hardwood floors, decorated in Ikea furniture, lamps, pictures, curtains, and objects. We have 7 rooms that are big...just no closets. But we are here 'til Oct then get to pick a new place.

D and I walked to the grocery store. Imagine walking to King Soopers or Albertsons (although closer) and having to carry what you buy home. You'd buy just what you can carry and go often....and have to dress for all types of weather. Those cloth grocery bags from Whole Foods are coming in handy!

That is my lifestyle now....all walking and carrying....no car.....out in all types of weather. It has rained since I got here. D says it was nice before then and is the first rain since he arrived mid-March. And it is chilly and windy...it is a cold wind. I am glad I packed my silk undershirt and several jackets.....only a few sweaters but I can layer and I have my down jacket and a raincoat w/hood.

Since you walk so much here, shoes are a big deal. You're always walking on concrete and going up and down stairs in all weather. D says many people have walking boots or shoes and leave other shoes at their work. Rain boots are common. And maybe I will need to buy a warmer waterproof coat come winter. Maybe my long wool/cashmere will do?? I will definitely need a hat! But the point is, we will need a variety of weather gear.

Buying groceries was a challenge....products look different when the labels are in Swedish. Many are packaged differently. I need to bring a dictionary to grocery store.

Oh and I forgot to tell you that a teenage boy opened the toilet door on me while in flight as I was sitting on the john. It was my fault since I didn't have it latched well. We both gasped. No dignity left in me. He had to close the door 'cause if you're sitting it is hard to reach lath because as it opens in a odd way. But I could reach the lock once he closed it...er slammed it. Afterwards, I laughed and laughed. What can you do?"

The Battle of Hulloch and the Easter Rising

2007-04-21T19:19:00.000+02:00

My adventure is spiced with meeting interesting people with interesting stories. An Irish colleague told me an interesting story about Irish history, with a personal irony folded in. We often hear of the human sacrifice in the Irish revolution of 1916, especially during the Easter Rising. The Easter Rising was a failure costing approximately 380 lives but did lead to eventual Irish independence from England. At about the same time, the Germans were gassing members of the Royal Dublin Fulisers in Hulluch, France. This was the first gas attack of the horrific World War I.

My colleague says "As my grandfather was fighting in the trenches with the Royal Dublin Fulisers, I regret that we, the southern Irish, don’t remember their courage and sacrifice. There were 35,000 Irish killed in WW I who are more or less forgotten. The victors write the history books and in this case it was the Irish Republican Army (the original IRA) who fought and eventually won independence. My personal irony is that my other grandfather was in the IRA shooting British at the same time as my maternal grandfather was in the British Army. Should the two of them have been in Dublin in April 1916, I might not be here saying this!!! Thankfully, my other granddad was from Cork (250 km south of Dublin!)."

This sort of imbalance is frequent all over the world.

As I write this, the BBC and CNN Europe airing in Stockholm are dwelling on the tragedy of the Virginia Tech shootings and suicide. They are interviewing the shooter's former teachers, roommates, classmates, etc. trying to understand the psychology of the shooter, a Korean immigrant named Cho. They are evaluating and scrutinizing the gun laws in the US. It seems ironic that 33 people die tragically in the US, a country of 400 million while the ticker at the bottom of the TV screen says 166 people died in a suicide bomber blast in Baghdad, Iraq, a much much smaller country. If they did a psyscho-analysis of the Baghdad suicide killer equivalent to the one afforded Cho, I think we'd all learn a lot: the West and the Islamic world. Instead we over-simplify it as a horror of war or the insanity of fundamentalism or whatever....

Ah, I wax political, sorry.

Getting the big bucks...or what a 50 says about a country

2007-04-17T00:17:00.000+02:00

The 50 kronor bank note has Jenny Lind on the front. She's a Swedish opera singer that died in 1887. It's noteworthy that Swedish money has a female on it. I'm pretty sure American paper money of any denomination does not. Having a female on some of the money is apropos given that Sweden has the most gender equality of any nation on Earth, or pretty close to it. On the back, you see a Nyckelharpa (Swedish harp) which is consistent with the Swede's love of music.

Wikipedia has more on the kronor.

Oh, BTW, these bucks are bigger than American money so technically these are "the big bucks."

Helenelund and Ulriksdal

2007-04-16T23:02:00.000+02:00

There are subcultures with every hobby whether it be bicycling, bass fishing, woodworking, orienteering, traveling, chess, wine tasting, or socializing. One of the favorite Swedish hobbies is sailing on the many waterways in the Stockholm archipelago. I visited a small communuty marina in Helenelund (or very nearby in Sollentuna) and saw people making a social event out of sailboating and they were on land! Now that I think about it, sailing combines the exercise and fresh air of a casual bike ride, the joy of woodworking, the intellectual challenge of chess, travel opportunities, and offers a perfect place to sip wine and to socalize. One could even fish. What a sport!

I also discovered something the Swedes call colonies, one shown in the photo here. They are a group of tiny houses with a small garden. Up close they look like quaint one room houses. I'm told they are just little getaways. People, apparently those that don't go sailing and those without a cabin in the archipelago, go to the colony for some summer weekend variety. I saw people, mostly older folks out in their garden and tinkering around there house. It seemed like a peaceful place.

The other thing I discovered just off the bike path between my apartment and work is the Ulriksdal castle. (There are plenty of Flickr folks that have nicer pictres than mine of the castle and grounds. Just do a search.) It's not a giant stone castle like you find in Germany but it is a large well kept estate - now a park. It always surprises me how taking a slightly different path can produce rewards.

You'll see a few of these shots on my flickr.com collection called April 15, Spring Sunday. Remember you can view as a slide show or individually if you want to see the a short description of each shot.

Shots from fabulous spring Saturday

2007-04-15T12:11:00.000+02:00

This Saturday was a warm spring day that brought the masses outside. It was the first day since my arrival in mid-March that I was able to ride my bike in shorts and no gloves. I really want to take photos of people but haven't yet figured out how to do that. Asking them if I can take a photo always makes them suspicious and saying the photo would be on www.flickr.com would probably not appeal to them. Being quick with the telephoto is also hard. However, the spring day did bring out a lot of interesting people. I want to get some shots of the incredible healthy looking old folks (my age!). The kids are also interesting, fashion-wise, that is.

Click over to flickr.com to see the 30 shots from my Saturday. I recommend viewing as a slide show. If you want to view the description of any photo, just click on the photo when you see the whole collection displayed as thumbnails or click on the link "details". For those readers who are new to www.flickr.com, when you view as a slide show, moving your cursor provides you with different options. Putting the cursor near the top of the photo give you the option of speeding up or slowing down the show. Putting it at the bottom shows you the whole collection as thumbnails. Putting it off to the side maximizes the picture being displayed.

Of Church Boats and Wife Carrying

2007-04-14T07:03:00.000+02:00

Some of my colleagues are Finnish. They've described to me two very Finnish pastimes: church boat racing and wife carrying races. I have stolen the photos here: the church boat photo came from wikipedia and the wife carrying came from a web site. I also stole some of the descriptions.

There are records of church boats from the 1600s. At that time the church started to demand that everyone confess and take part in church services. In the lake districts and by the shores, a boat was the fastest transport because the journeys were long and roads were non-existent. Church boats disappeared by the 1920s because railways, steamboats and coaches and the freedom of religion law made church boats unnecessary. Now church boats have become racing events. One Finn told me it was because originally the men would get their family into the boat and see a neighbor close by in his boat. Then the testosterone would kick in and the two men would unofficially race. Nowadays, church boat racing is popular at Finnish campgrounds and competitions.

There has been a revival in church boats in recent years. Finland's Rowing Association sponsors many church boat racing events and many competitors trains. One Finn told me he trained a lot but didn't train by actually rowing a real boat. Then during the race he developed terrible blisters.

The following is quoted from the web with a little editing on my part: The idea of Wife Carrying Competition originated in Sonkajärvi, Finland. In spite of its humorous aspects, it has deep roots in the local history. In the late 1800’s there was a brigand called Rosvo-Ronkainen in the area, who is said to have required his troops to prove themselves physically. Since, in those days, it was common to steal women from the enemies villages, being able to carry wives (the enemies wives) would be a desirable trait.

In those days the soldier would not only get a new wife but as an incentive to route the enemy, receive the equivalent of the wife’s weight in beer. Nowadays, the old custom morphed into a racing competition, the winners get beer, a bag full of wife carrying products and a statue with wife carrying motif. There are also prises for first and second runners up and "most entertaining" couple. I assume that the modern events do not include village sacking and other men's wives. I also have no idea what would be in a sack of "wife carrying products."

There are a team and sprint competition as part of the more serious wife carrying world championships.

In the team competition the track is the same as Wife Carrying World Championships but three men in the team carry the wife in turns. At the exchange point the carrier has to drink the official "wife carrying drink" before continuing the race. The winners receive wife carrying products and statues. The team with best costumes will be awarded with wife carrying products and statues.

In the sprint competition the length of the track is 100 meters, and the surface of the track is sand and gravel. The track has a water obstacle, about one meter deep. The contestants run the qualification round 5 to 10 couples at a time and the first three of each heat will continue in the next round until there are just three couples left to compete in the final. Winners will receive MP3-players, wife carrying products and statues. MP3 players! Whoa, now that seems out of place.

There is a cheerleaders’ competition for the spectators. Four to six spectators or fans form a group that takes part in the competition. They often have "helpers" in the audience to add humor to the event.

I suggest thigh exercises and a petite wife to be competitive.

I ate a vacuum cleaner.

2007-04-13T21:15:00.000+02:00

From my February post entitled "Puncherelle - not for dieters" you know that a vacuum cleaner, "dammsugare," is a delicious Swedish dessert. I finally bought one. It was indeed delicious. I highly recommend them for people without athletic ambitions. A healthy breakfast might be two dammsugaren and coffee (with no sugar).

I also bought two tubes of McVities Digestive Crackers, actually Digestive Biscuits, imported from Britain. The fact that they call these digestive implies all the others are not digestive. It's it a bit like buying "combustive" gas or a "drivable" car? Anyway, I can down half a tube with a glass of milk. Better than Oreos, I think.

On another note (a "different horse of another color" as Groucho Marx once said), my quotes became stars this week. Specifically, my new computer has a Swedish keyboard so the "-key has moved and the *-key is there instead, right next to ö, ä, and å. My fingers keep closing parenthesises when I want to open parenthesis. The trickiest thing, though, is that some keys have three symbols. Press the key to get one, press shift plus the key to get the second, press the ALT Gr key to get the third. I wonder if Mavis Beacon )the famous typing teacher) has a *Teach Yourself Typing" DVD for these keyboards.

Where's the Kayak Trip office? And why not?

2007-04-09T18:24:00.000+02:00

I found some nice multi-day kayaking trips in the archipelago near Stockholm. So today I decided to scope it out. First I had to take the pendeltåg to central station, then get on a subway to Tekniska Högskolan (Technical University) and then take a bus to Norrtälje. I really needed to go to Västermäs but I ran out of time. Looks like I'll have to try again next weekend - it's still too cold to kayak now, anyway. I took a few photos in Norrtälje . Be sure to click on slideshow. I had a quick snack and headed back to the apartment.

Coke also has it's "zero" add campaign going on: I saw three Zero adds at bus stops. They are self-explanatory.

A Morning Jaunt to Kungsträdgården

2007-04-08T18:45:00.000+02:00

I walked to Odenplan this morning and took bus #2 to Kungsträdgården (The King's Garden). I was actually looking for the Catholic church. I found several church's (kyrka) but I passed the Catholic church several times before I found it. It's entrance is part of an office building and was marked by a small gold cross outside. Even the Lutheran church just on the otherside of the park was easily identifiable as a church.

I've never seen a church in an office building. Once inside, though, it looks traditional.

It was Sunday on the Easter weekend so many businesses were closed. However, I still found many resturants to choose from. I like the food in Sweden but, when I saw a Friday's (aka TGI Friday's) I felt I needed a greasy hamburger. There are exactly two Friday's's in Sweden and both are within a kilometer of each other. I think I got more greasy fat today in one meal than in all the past 3 weeks.

I wound up walking the area for two hours and taking a few photos, which I put on flickr. Click
on "slideshow".

J Speaks

2007-04-07T16:15:00.000+02:00

Easter Weekend/Holy Saturday Post: Well, well, it's time I enter a blog. I am considered the "trailing spouse" in such corporate LTA (long term assighnments), and true to the name-here I'm trailing behind! I've yet to experience with D the adventures of Sweden as I am handling last minute preparations. (Picture me cleaning the yard of winter's remnants; dead leaves, broken tree branches, and of course the constant dog poop!) If that isn't a pretty picture, I am also having fun (quit my job 3 weeks ago) sharing the news with friends, meeting friends and my children for lunches and coffee here and there. Also, cancelling subscriptons, changing mailing addresses, visiting the bank, filing income taxes, and prepping the house for the August wedding of our oldest son. Then there was the one day D called and said "go buy long underwear....I've heard it is a must for the winters here"...and off I went. Also, I've run out for extra luggage and circuit adaptors. D has needed me back here to DHL (think intern'l Fed-Ex) papers back and forth that needed his signature. One day I visited his work 3 times and had to recruit all the secretaries for faxing, copying and notorizing. Thanks, girls....this is taking a whole TEAM!!!! Everyone there is just great. Whenever I am over there, I see people in the halls, etc. and someone always asks how things are going. It feels like family. Also, we couldn't do this without the support and enthusiasm of our 3 children. They are incredible human beings. Our oldest and his fiance are taking the dogs and our youngest will be staying at the house for awhile and taking care of it and our cat. What would I do without them?????? I will miss them the most.

I also needed to get all required immunization shots and my doctor visits up to date such as dental cleaning, physical exam, much of what was required for me to pass thru the immigration board. I am happy to say I passed thru and I have a work permit also! Will I work? Maybe...I will see. If I can go to D to Ireland or wherever, I'd love to have a flexible schedule so I can go. D was rushed thru immigration to get onto the job site asap. But for me....it's not SUCH a rush although I will happy to be a couple again. Can I say that again???? I will be happy to be a couple again!!!! Plans are for me to fly out Tues. Apr. 17th. I've loaded my ipod and started packing.

I did get to visit Sweden in '00 when D was there for a 6 mos. assignment, so I remember much about it. Living there for longer will be very different and I look forward to it and see it as a gift and a blessing. My job is to go and support D in every way I can. Also, I look forward to learning Swedish and seeing old friends whom I met both there in Sweden and here in the States. I've already bought some language CD'S and have started learning. I can't wait for the adventure to begin over there!!!

My Easter Dinner

2007-04-06T23:17:00.000+02:00

Let me tell you about a fantastic Swedish family I know. They had me and some other visiting Americans over for Easter, treating us to a traditional Swedish Easter meal, which includes herring and eggs. More on that later. The meal included fresh cheeses, a lasagna-like dish, roasted lamb, a Mediterranean salad with black olives and ricotta cheese, lax (thinly slices smoked salmon), and potatoes. Bo said that a Swede, especially the older ones, will ask "where's the potatoes?" like a I might ask "where's the beef?" Potatoes are a stable agricultural product of Sweden and they are, indeed, excellent.

Four types of herring were available. Herring is one of those foods that takes a bit of courage to take the first bite. ("Twas a brave man that first ate a raw oyster" or maybe very hungry.) I like, but not love, herring in tomato or mustard sauce. The picked ones are stronger and I've heard is an acquired taste.

The dessert was a thin chocolate cake, almost a brownie, sprinkled with powdered sugar with fresh raspberries and ice cream as a topping.

This family is amazing. They all speak at least two languages and play music and have traveled the world. Below you see a photo of their basement sound-proofed music room with the family plying a song for us.

The other American family is also fantastic. They also are world travelers. One parent hales from Australia; the other from Calgary, Canada born of Norwegian immigrants. She speaks some Norwegian and will be learning Swedish, a close relative, very quickly. Both are avid orienteers, a sport originating in Scandinavia and very popular all over the world. Orienteering may become a new hobby for D & J, too.

Both families have relatives spread all over the world and yet manage to maintain close family ties. They visit each other periodically, write or email frequently, and use the old fashioned phone: skills D & J will be honing in the upcoming months.

Easter is one of the most important Swedish holidays. They stress Easter witches more than the Easter bunny, although candy plays a big part. Read all about the Swedish Easter traditions here, which says "In Finland and Sweden, traditions include egg painting and small children dressed as witches collecting candy door-to-door, in exchange for decorated pussy willows. This is a result of the mixing of an old Orthodox tradition (blessing houses with willow branches) and the Scandinavian Easter witch tradition. Brightly coloured feathers and little decorations are also attached to willow or birch branches in a vase. For lunch/dinner on Holy Saturday, families traditionally feast on a smörgåsbord of herring, salmon, potatoes, eggs and other kinds of food."

Friends in a new country make the experience far more rich than simply doing the tourist thing....

My trip to Täby - Easter Eve 2007 (5 photos)

2007-04-06T13:38:00.000+02:00

Täby is a small town north of Stockholm by about 15 kilometers (between eight and nine miles). I took bike paths all the way which took me by some water and through neighborhoods, as you can see in the photos. The day was very clear and sunny but cold (9 Celsius = 48 Fahrenheit) and windy, which made it seem even colder.

The homes are very consistent in color. I am told that the Swedish government has an approved color list, much like my Home Owners Association in Colorado. Only these colors are permitted to keep the countryside looking consistent and to prevent eye-sores. The two colors shown in the photos are the most prevalent. I have seen some older homes in white or grays. I've also seen some modern homes in other colors.

This Easter, many homes had picnic tables and chairs in the yards for family gathering but I think the cold prevented the hoped for outdoors meals.

How did Superman Do it?

2007-04-06T09:01:00.000+02:00

If you're standing on the commuter train (pendeltåg) platform (spår) and the marque says "se upp för passerande tåg" which means the next train is coming by really really fast and if you aren't where you're supposed to be you will die. Whne this train does whiz by, the ground shakes and you remember the Doppler effect. You can feel the giga mega zillion units of momentum (mass times distance divided by speed, kg x m/s). As the photo shows, the speed tops out at over 200 kilometers an hour, about 125 mph. I wonder how Superman could be more powerful than a locomotive. I can easy beleive he was faster than a speeding bullet and able to leap tall buildings, but being more powerful than the Arlanda Express is just too hard to believe.

America should have more mass transportation but I honestly don't know how we'd idiot-proof the stations. There are no fences to prevent idiots from jumping on the tracks or drunks falling on them. In America, idiots and drunks win multi-million dollar lawsuits killing good ideas senselessly and encouraging even more people to become lawyers.

Yes, occasionally a person is killed in Sweden by a train or subway - usually a drunk person or a suicidal person. However, nobody sues. So the trains and subways keep on rolling, as they should. (P.S. My apologies to whomever I stole the photos from on Flickr.com.)

Norrmalm Sunday Afternoon, Photo Collage

2007-04-01T14:12:00.000+02:00

Shots from Apartment to Office by Bike

2007-03-25T18:18:00.001+02:00

Stockholm and the surrounding area and most other places I've been in Sweden is riddled with bike paths (a good thing!). Many adults use bikes to run errands and commute to work. Most bikes are "urban" bikes and many are old are left outside, sometimes locked to a gutter or fence. The subway stations and train stations have bike parking areas. It's not unusual to see a 50 or more bikes at these stations.

The first time I tried to bike from Norrmalm to my Kista office, I got lost several times despite having a good bike path map. The ten mile route was easily fourteen. Coming back I made half the mistakes so it was maybe 10 miles. That was last weekend.

Today I tried again and made it in 45 minutes. I used paths not on the trail map.

Most of the route is city with large office buildings and city traffic. However, the bike path does have excursions into the stereotypical Swedish pastoral scenes: the signature earth-tone painted homes and wooded areas. This post shows some shots from my bike commute. It begins with a smart car parked outside my apartment with "Have you got a job?" in Swedish painted on it.

The second photo is one of two small communities on the way. The homes are small, probably 300 square feet and yet they all seem to have small gardens, many have small vegetable greenhouses. These are not typical of Swedish homes, however. More typical homes are in the next collage of photos.

You notice that the bike commute goes by water. In this case it's part of the Baltic sea. The Baltic close to Stockholm is calm by sea standards. It's almost like a lake and not very salty. Everything in Stockholm is close to water, either the Baltic or lake Mälaren. Lake Mälaren and the Baltic are separated by a lock (a sluice) at Slussen (I think that's Swedish for "the sluice"). Boats can use the lock to go between the two bodies of water. I think they lock desgn prevent salt water from entering the lake.

The sailboats are still mostly stored for the winter - on shore under plastic (maybe a photo later). I have noticed more and more boats showing up in the docks near Gamla Stan.

The last picture is of the largest tree mulcher I've ever seen. It was being used to clear a swath through the forest for something. Another bike trail? A power line? I don't know.

Around My block on a cold dim day, mostly pictures

2007-03-24T21:40:00.000+01:00

My apartment is on the second floor (European count the ground floor as zero, it's the third floor by American convention) just above my bicycle in the picture on the left. The next photo (below) is of the back of the building.

The two carts are used by a mail man or maybe a junk-mail man. They were full of sales flyers - I saw no real mail address to a real person. About twice per week I get about half a dozen slipped through my mail slot.

The stroller is one of the rugged winterized types so common in Sweden. Notice the tractor tires.

Of course, there's the kiosk to buy parking tickets, and the "exit" (utfart) from a small parking lot (the bottom photo).

There are plenty of "urban" bikes (as opposed to road bike or mountain bikes or bmx bikes) outside the apartment buildings.

The tiny "Smart" cars always catch my eye. They are perfect for city living and can park anywhere. The reflective disk were in a nearby park, one of many. These are small parks, just enough to have some grass, several benches and four or five shade trees. Usually each park has some piece of outdoor sculpture or art: these disk are an example but the pieces vary tremendously.

Near this park was a pigeon feeder. Stockholmites take walks even in the cold. This day it was approximately 32 degrees Farenheith, zero Celcius. Yet folks were strolling the avenues and streets for fun and to buy stuff, like groceries. Some stopped to watch the pigeons feast.

I haven't taken photo's of the numerous small shops and restaurants around and near my block. That will come in a later post. I also plan more people shots in future posts.

Door to door

2007-03-20T17:21:00.000+01:00

After frantically trying to tie up loose ends with house repairs, packing (especially my bicycle), redirecting mail (check out Remote Control Mail), and paying bills, J took me to the airport. I had to pay $254 for excess baggage. Hope the company picks that up!

Lufthansa has a direct flight from Denver to Frankfurt. The direct flight and the unusually short wait time in Frankfort allowed me the shortest travel time ever.

J and I left the house at 2:30 for a 6:30 flight. That put me at the airport 3 hours early, but I'm extra cautious. I wanted to make sure we could react if they disallowed some of the luggage. J purchased a whole bunch of over-the-counter drugs since they are hard to find in Sweden (and if I did find them I wouldn't recognize the Swedish label). So I feared I'd be arrested or, at least, interrogated as a drug dealer. I guess terrorist don't travel with 40 bottles of ibuprofen - a waste of money if you plan to blow up the plane. So leaving my house to the starting of the jet engines: 4 hours. That gave me time to read half a book and meet two couple from San Diego going to Italy. They planned to follow much the same itinerary D & J did two years ago.

The whole airport screening thing strikes me as un-American. First, you are assumed guilty until proven innocent. Second, there's an encroachment on our privacy rights.

Another thing bothers me, too. The terrorist no longer have to blow themselves up on the plane. They just get in line to be screened. The line folds back and forth like the line to a Disney World attraction. Once in the middle of the line, the terrorist could kill just as many as on a plane and he didn't even have to buy a ticket. I hope you don't pass this blog post to a terrorist who might be willing to wait in line.

The flight to Frankfurt in coach class is torture. In fact, speaking of terrorist, we should just put suspected terrorists in coach class on a trans-Atlantic flight. They'd be confessing like a child long before the final descent, especially if they, say, had a slightly pinched nerve that causes their leg to switch every few seconds for hours after hour. Flight time 8 hours, 20 minutes .

The wait in the Frankfort airport was unusually short: 90 minutes. Yippee. Of course the screening in Frankfurt is as slow as Denver so I began to worry that I might miss my connecting flight.

The flight from Frankfurt to Stockholm three hours (I think). Fortunately, I was able to sleep. I have perfected sleeping in my own lap, folded like a wallet. Sometimes I rest my head on the tray table but got tired of the flight attendant, heartless they can be, waking me up because "the Captain said..."

Arrival at Arlanda, I caught a taxi whose driver spoke no English. That's a definite tip that he wasn't Swedish since all Swedes speak English. There were other clues, too, like skin color and name. Anyway it was fixed price so I wasn't worried about a run-away meter. We got to the apartment office while the snow came down like confetti. Then I discovered the office was not in the apartment complex. So after unloading my 17 tons of baggage, I had to load it on a second taxi. (Actually the taxi driver's were very helpful.) Then we drove to the apartment about 15 minutes away in Norrmalm (the north part of town). It's on Kadettgatan, if you want to find it on a map. The time from exiting the plane to entering my apartment door was two hours.

So the door to door time was 17 hours and 20 minutes, a new (fastest) record for me. Usually this trip takes 21 hours, especially with the United Denver-to-Chicago-to-London-to-Stockholm coach class torture.

Here's some photo's looking out my apartment front and back window. I've managed to find a grocery store and buy my subway, train, and bus pass. I also bought what I thought was milk but it turned out to be a lactose free thing....Note to self: learn Swedish word for milk (mjölk, not låglaktos mellanmjölk).

As I write this, after my first day of work, I realize (again) that Sweden is a magical place if you look beyond the cold and semi-dark winters and the occasional gray skies. Getting to know my Swedish colleagues the first day was like mingling at a party where everyone is an interesting character. This is going to be an adventure.

More than a number: the National Id continued...

2007-03-15T23:06:00.000+01:00

Rather than answer the oft asked question "what's in a name?" we should ask "what's in a number?"

Is there rhyme or reason in your id number (the social security number for Americans)? The Swedish National Id, mentioned in a previous post, full of structure. This post describes that structure. It is formed as follows:

Take your birth date, say March 13, 1962. Encode it as 620313. This constitutes the first 6 numbers.

Now append two digits corresponding to preassigned birthplaces. A special two digits were reserved for foreigners and for people born at home in Sweden. Obviously this means there are fewer than 99 possible birth places which is not true nowadays. Let's pretend you were born in a hospital in Stockholm that was assigned the number 37. Now our id is 63031337.

Then, you get one digit for birth number: odd number for males, even for females. Suppose you were the second male born that day, then your number would be 3. Now the ID is 630313373. Hospitals that had more than 5 males or 5 females born in a day got multiple hospital codes - the two "birth place" digits mentioned above.

We're not finished...

Now the interesting part. The last number is an error checking value (called a parity digit in the previous post). Here's how it's calculated:

So far the number in our example is 620313373. The error checking consist of several steps which are hard to describe in a blog, but here goes anyway....

Multiply the first, third, ... the odd digits by 2. Multiply the even ones (second, fourth, etc.) by 1.

6 2 0 3 1 3 3 7 3
x2 x1 x2 x1 x2 x1 x2 x1 x2
---------------------------
12 2 0 3 2 3 6 7 6

This pattern of alternating 2's and 1's prevents someone from switching two digits while typing them, a common human error. I doesn't work if the digits are identical but in that case who cares if they are switched!

We're still not done.

Now add all the digits on the last line:
1+2+2+0+3+2+3+6+7+6 = 32

I don't know what this step does but I know it has a purpose. When I find out, expect another post.

Now round up to the nearest decade. In our case, that would be 40. Subtract 32 from 40 to get 8. The last digit in the ID for this example would then be 8. The final ID is then 6203133738.

Now how are they accounting for the population boom and foreign influx. They are breaking the pattern a little: first the second pair of digits which correspond to the birth month would have only twelve values. Throw that away and allow all 100 possibilities. Similar for the day of the month. Rather than allow 01 to 31, permit all 100 possibilities.

Is there a similar structure with American social security numbers? Yes, there is some structure which is described in Wikipedia: chapter 3 under Social Security Number. If there had been more structure in our Id's, then the identity theives would know a lot more about us.

I have no idea about the re-use policy of either country. That is, when a person dies, is the number returned to the pool of available numbers?

The photo's are just in the theme of numbers. The top photo is the Nils Eriksson Bus Terminal in Göteborg (aka Gothenburg). The bottom image is from a store in Sweden. Neither picture is related to the National Id.

Långfärdskridskoåkning

2007-03-11T21:22:00.000+01:00

Anybody up for Nordic or Swedish skating? It's called Långfärdskridskoåkning in Swedish. I am told that you can take lessons which include requiring you to escape death from falling in. Actually, there's very little danger, you just get a real jolt of cold for a minute or so before you get out. You can see the sport in a YouTube video by clicking here. You notice from the photo below that some sort of stick is carried. It's for testing the ice. The sound of hitting the ice gives the skater enough warning before it becomes dangerously thin. However, if the skater does fall through the ice into the freezing water, he carries two sharp tools which are designed specifically for clawing your way back up onto the ice. Of course, this is a sport that's done on groups so there should be someone to help you, provide some warm cloths and otherwise prevent disaster.

Size - Area and Population

2007-03-05T15:17:00.000+01:00

The population of Sweden is 9,016,596 *estimated July 2006). For reference to states within the USA, Georgia has 9,072,576 (2005 estimate), North Carolina has 8,683,292, and New Jersey has 8,717,975.

In terms of land area, Sweden weighs in at a mighty 449,965 square kilometers (= 177,732 square miles). Again, for reference, Sweden is between California (163,707 square miles) and Texas (268,601 square miles).

In terms of population density, Sweden is 20 per square kilometer (51 per square mile) which compares to Iowa, Arkansas, and Oklahoma.