With weather that mostly invites to hibernation and a constant blaaahhh feeling, I’m starting to dream about travelling. Dream about fleeing this grey, shitty weather. This stressful every day life!

On days like these, when all I’m longing for is sun and warmth, one of the first dream destinations coming to my mind would be Thailand.

Turquoise blue water, white sand, palm trees, yummy drinks and food, diving… all that combined with seeing a totally magnificent culture. Oh, how I wish I could be there right now… SO relaxing, SO awesome, SO the right place!

J and I would rent a little hut right by the beach. We would sleep in every day and then have a long brunch with fresh fruit like pineapple or mangoes.

We would spend  our days in a hammock, a book in one hand and an ice-cold drink in the other- and at the beach. Sometimes we would take a boat out to go diving. I can almost feel the warmth of the sun on my skin and totally envision all the colourful fish. In the evenings we would go out and try out the tasty local cuisine.

On some days we visit some of the cultural treasures of this beautiful country. Or how about riding on the back of an elephant through the jungle?

A vacation in Thailand would offer so many new exciting adventures!

Dreaming about travelling sure is a nice thing – especially on a grey november day. But unfortunately reality is catching up with me. Tomorrow it’s back to work to bring home those travel bucks!

So, what place tops your list of dream destinations and why?

This weekend we drove up to the in-laws in Värmland for the first time since last December.  Usually we went there every other month so you can imagine how bad we felt about not visiting in such a long time. Somehow there was always something getting in the way.

Anyway, my timing sucked still, since I’m feeling totally bad. You know, throat pain, pain in all joints, headache. Can’t really do much at all, I’m feeling so tired. I wonder if these are the common short-term side effects of the flu shot I got yesterday or if I’m getting sick from a flue for real? We’ll see if it gets worse. For now it’s back to the couch with a cup of tea.

In todays post I would like to present the town I’ve been calling home for nearly 9 years now a little closer. The features I like best about this city are actually its surroundings: the sea and archipelago, the forests and lakes and the heath. The pictures I shared with you yesterday, give you a good impression about all that and therefore I won’t go into it any further today.

Instead I will focus more on the city itself; the center with its parks and canals, the harbour and the sights you shouldn’t miss when you are visiting.

Gothenburg is with its 500.000 inhabitants the second largest town of Sweden. It’s a fairly mellow place; big enough to have all the culture a city should offer but still small enough to be able to walk everywhere. Its location at the mouth of the river Göta Älv which is feeding into the Kattegat was very favourable for the towns development as a harbour- and trading city.

Water is always present in Gothenburg: be it the Kattegatt with the archipelago in the west, the river and the canals in the center or the rain. The canals are a heritage from the dutch founders of the city, but unfortunately many have been taken away to make space for roads. In the picture below you see one of the canals that is left.

I love the old houses in the neighborhoods of Vasa and Linne. That’s where all the students hang out and many of the restaurants are located.

Haga is one of the oldest parts of town with picturesque wooden houses that haven’t been sacrificed during the building boom of the 60’s and 70’s when many concrete desserts took shape. Luckily people have been fighting for saving their Haga and we can now enjoy the cute little shops there and hang out  in one of the many cafés. When visiting Gothenburg you should definitely plan in an afternoon in Haga.

Otherwise I have a favourite café that is located on top of a water tower in Guldheden. It’s super cosy inside, people come there to play board games and read and you have a gorgeous view over the city.

The topography of Gothenburg allows for many nice view points like this one in Keillers park overlooking the harbour. It’s a great place for a picnic!

The next picture is showing the central Avenue where most of the chain stores and fancy night clubs are located. It’s ok to go there every now and then, but I usually prefer the cozier parts of town and get stressed on the crowded Avenue.

Another nice place to visit would be Liseberg, the amusement park that’s particularly pretty when all lit up for Christmas.

Next to Liseberg you have the Universeum, with rainforest, underwater world and other hands on science exhibitions – always good for a rainy day.

Gothenburg is also a green city with many parks. My favourite and also the biggest one is Slottsskogen. It’s great for jogging, a round of frisbee or just hanging out for a cup of coffee. It also has a little zoo.

But most of all I would recommend to take a boat trip in the archipelago where you for instance can have a great seafood meal at the restaurant Tullhuset. That’s what’s making Gothenburg special!

Ever since I moved to Sweden light has become so much more important to me! It changes in such an extreme way during the seasons and people up North seem to be very affected by those changes. And so am I, maybe even more so than the folks that grew up here. But I also try to take advantage of the different character of the light during the seasons, when I’m taking photos. The big fascination of photography for me lies in the concept of light and the possibility to capture it. The photo below was shot on an october afternoon and I love how the light is shining through the leaves that are just about to start changing the colour.

Or this one of the juniper taken in the late afternoon of a frosty november day in the heath near to our house.

In November the dark season is really hitting us and since the weather is mostly grey and wet, it sometimes feels like it doesn’t get light at all. From now on until the beginning of february I will definitely get symptoms of lack of light. I will have a really hard time to get up in the mornings and be very tired when I get home in the evening. I will have much less energy and prefer to light candles (or a fire nowadays ), have a cup of tea, cuddle up underneath a blanket and read instead of going out. On sunny days I will try my best to take a walk during lunch break and then really soak up the daylight! The picture below was shot during one of those lunch breaks in february.

Yes, also winter light is beautiful! Two years ago in January we had a pretty nasty storm, but when the sky cleared up I took the opportunity to shoot some sunset photos (at 3 pm) by the sea close by. I love how the light is captured in the photo below!

Anyway, winter is at it’s best when there is snow! It’s reflecting the light and I suppose that it is thanks to the snow, that people in Northern Sweden survive the time of year when it doesn’t get light at all. I really want to travel up there some day to experience Northern Lights! The picture below was taken last Christmas close to where my parents live. Because sadly, here in Southwestern Sweden we rarely get any snow at all and if we do it’s disappearing in no time!

In March finally, during those first warm days, people here in Sweden open up just like blossoms and absorb every warm sun ray. People start to go out again, are in a better mood and more extrovert!

2 months later the wood anemones come out and cover the whole forest. That’s spring to me!

In summer it doesn’t really get dark at all. I love to spend evenings by the sea, when the water is totally calm and looks like silver in the evening light, like here around 10 pm.

Around midsummer in late june the sun sets around 11 pm and driving out to the sea and watching that is one of the best things I know.

I also remember my student days, when we sometimes walked home at 4 am after a night out and saw the sun rise and heard the birds chirp! Then I could just overflow with happiness and energy!

This little guy had made himself a comfortable home in our hedge last year. So cute, we thought, whenever he came out of his hiding place. We were always so excited to watch him.

NOT ANYMORE.

Maybe he wants revenge, because we took away his home – our hedge- maybe he’s just hungry. Anyhow, this cute little guy is eating our new plants and has thereby evolved into our enemy number 1! Whenever I find a plant that he destroyed without even eating it, I just think what a nice roast he should become. Seriously. We now built some small fences that hopefully will keep him away.

That’s how times can change.

A propos change, here are the results of our garden work that had kept us busy during the last 2 months. Shortly after we found out, that it would cost us way too many thousands of dollars to have our hedge removed by a company, we got busy ourselves instead. The following two weekends were spent with cutting down and shredding the old hedge. Boring, hard work!

Phase 2 of the project was more fun, at least for the husband. To be able to dig out the roots we needed to rent a digging machine. What a fun toy for J to play with!

After that was done we needed to build a wall to keep the garden up. The ground work was fairly horrible and boring again. Who would have thought that there needs to be so much macadam and stuff underneath and behind the wall? Not me, anyway. Stacking the stones though totally satisfied my need of seeing progress. It was really fun! Afterwards we had to shovel all the soil back! Oh the joy!

And then, two weeks ago, the new plants finally arrived! And the weather couldn’t have been worse! We spent the whole weekend literally digging in the mud, but luckily were able to get all the 200 new plants out. Here is the result:

And if the little bunny stops his destructive behaviour, the hedge should look like this hopefully soon:

in front of the house and

to the side, where we want to have a good protection from view.

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Ok, I started out a day late but nevertheless fully motivated to take on the challenge of writing one post per day throughout the month of November. This is hopefully all I need to infuse fresh life into this blog, that I had been neglecting so badly over the past months. One post a day: bring on the challenge!

against the swine flu, that is the question I’ve been pondering for a while now. The debate  in Germany where members of the government get a different vaccine without the additives is definitely a scare factor. Next comes Switzerland where small children and pregnant women are advised against getting the shot. 4 people died in little Sweden shortly after vaccinating themselves. Let alone all the other horror reports from all over the world. Government and pharma industry here are doing their best to disguise the dangers with the vaccine and get people to go and get the shot.

Fact is though that a relatively high number of people died from the flu in a small country like Norway. Thousands are reported sick.

Most of my colleagues don’t seem to worry too much about the shot. They are vaccinating themselves and their small children like they are told to. And I also don’t want to spread a disease and transmit an infection to somebody that might die from it.

Still I really don’t know what to do…

How are you feeling about it? Do you have second thoughts about vaccinating yourselves?

After a last of Davids big English breakfasts we hit the road to London on Sunday around lunch time. The drive went smoothly and so did the rental car return at Heathrow. I was really prepared that they would find something that the extra insurance wouldn’t cover. But no, everything was fine. We took the tube to our Hotel in Kensington and just took it easy that evening. On Monday it was rainy and grey so that we decided to do a Museum Day at the Science Museum. I’m not a big Science freak but the Museum was really interesting even for folks like me. J loved it of course and could have spent 3 more days there. In the evening we walked around the Notting Hill neighborhood a bit and went back to the hotel fairly early. On Tuesday the weather looked much better; perfect for some really good sight-seeing! We started at the Tower, crossed the Thames over Tower Bridge and walked along the Southern bank towards the London Eye.

The last 2 times when we had been to London we had skipped the London Eye because of the long queues but this time we were in no hurry and decided to take a ride. The view is of course amazing, but the cost for the ride as well.

 We crossed the Thames again and walked towards Trafalgar Square passing the Houses of Parliament. Come time for dinner we went to Chinatown where we had a great meal before we went to see the Musical “Sister Act” for which we had gotten cheap tickets. It wasn’t overwhelming but the atmosphere was great and London is ALWAYS good for a night at the theatre.

On Wednesday we did some more sight-seeing and shopping, went to the Buckingham Palace, Covent Garden and to the famous Brick Lane in the East end for a good curry. In the evening we met Gill again who was in town for some sort of training. First we had a few drinks at a bar followed by a really good Thai meal. At night we went back to the Houses of Parliament in the hope to get some good night-time shots.

 

Also Thursday was spent with more sight-seeing, good food and a fun night at the Comedy Store.

On Friday it was time to pack and say Good Bye. After a stressful day with the Stanstead Express on Strike and exceeded baggage weight discovered by Ryanair we arrived at my parents late that night. 

When we arrived at  the cottage in Yorkshire it was already appropriately decorated with a Swedish flag and it was so great to see David, Chris, Debbie and Sven again! We all had a lovely evening with drinks, dinner and silly games.

On Sunday we went for a “little stroll” to the pub, but before we arrived there we had to climb many walls, get lost, get followed by a herd of little bulls and get very muddy.

 

After lunch and checking out pretty Kirkby Londsdale we walked back home: for miles and miles along the road.

 Finally back home it was time for a lovely BBQ and a fun night with board games.

On Monday, after a hearty English breakfast, we went to the Yorkshire Dales for a wonderful hike! I really love that area or for that matter the whole of the UK for all the lovely undisturbed views! When we came back to the cottage it was my turn with kitchen duty. I prepared Schnitzel and fried potatoes and a raspberry mousse for dessert.

 

On Tuesday the shitty weather had caught up with us again. We therefore went to the Aquarium at lake Windermere which was fun and then had Fish ‘n’ chips in Ambleside. It was raining on and off  though, so  that we decided to drive home, light the fire and bake some apple pie!

On Wednesday we had planned to go canoeing on one of the lakes and no bad weather could keep us from that. We got into some really warm wilderness survival clothes, bound together both of our canoes to make kind of raft that could withstand the waves better and off we went! Going through the waves was actually so much fun that we sometimes intentionally went towards the “dangerous” middle of the lake. And it wasn’t like we were unprepared: we even had some hot tea against the cold.

Our picnic had to be improvised a bit in the rain but as you can see David even brought a burner for our Creme brulées.

After lunch we took a short hike to the waterfalls and then went back home for a cozy evening with roasted Marshmallows, the ”Mamma Mia” DVD and Uno games.

On Thursday we visited Fountain Abbey and got pretty silly for a while. As silly as we used to be 11 years ago during our Erasmus year. We had so much fun!

Also completely in the Erasmus spirit we visited the Black Sheep Brewery, a small place where the brewing seems to be more like a craft still.

Yes and here comes just a pic of our glass recycling by the end of the week (without comments). Also the Erasmus spirit I guess, even though the quality of the wines might have improved a bit over the years…

On Friday was our last day at the cottage and therefore we just HAD  to go out for a last hike despite the rain. Let me just say we made the best of it again!

On Saturday it was already time to leave but not without making plans for next time already. We are thinking about Tuscany as the weather there probably will be much kinder to us.

We spent one last night at Davids place in Leeds with a good last Fish ‘n’ Chips dinner before it was time for us to head down to London on Sunday morning