Picnic & Kayak & Stockholm Marathon & Sushi

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

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.

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.