Weekend from Heaven

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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


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

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

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....

15 days in Oconee County

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.

Hard Job, missing vowels, colors and a Fokker

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

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.

B Visits

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

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.

Saltsjöbaden

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

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.

Kayaking Brunnsviken

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 Boats and Bridges

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

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!

Helenelund and Ulriksdal

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

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.

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

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

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".