Helsinki becomes Madrid

I’ve been in Helsinki since Sunday at a transportation exhibition. I have so much on at work at the moment, so I would have happily avoided being away, but it was all arranged in advance, so here I must be. I had this feeling that it would be a tough week and as the e-mails poured into my laptop I had more and more to do. Being away from the office can be a real pain sometimes.
Helsinki is not my favourite city, its ok but the food nothing to write home about and it can be hard to find places to go to in the evening if you’re not a local.
Now my business partners in Spain need me in Madrid, so I have had to leave the exhibition early and fly to Madrid. Just arrived at the hotel in Madrid and am tired and ready for bed. We shall see what Madrid has to offer. I have to fly home on Friday, Caroline is flying to Stockholm on Friday night and I have to be there to meet her.

Caro's party weekend

I was flying to Cologne a day earlier than usual, as I wanted to be there for Caroline’s Birthday and her Birthday Party. For a change I took the SAS flight to Dusseldorf. It’s a turbo-prop plane and it takes a little longer. It was arriving an hour late and Caroline collected me in her friend’s car. It’s a longer drive but with light evening traffic were home in 45min.
Caro opened the little presents I have with me for her and she seemed very pleased and happy with this moment together… another first, a birthday together.
On the Friday morning Caro was working at her school and I went to meet her at lunch time so I could see the place she’s been at for the last few years. We got home after some last minute shopping and we made the final preparations for the party in the kitchen.
Soon all her friends are arriving and immediately there’s a very friendly atmosphere in the flat. It’s interesting to meet all her friends, who all seem very keen to meet me and talk to me. Most are speaking very good English and after a few drinks they relax even more and I have some really good conversations with some of them, which surprises me with the language differences, but we manage just fine.
There are some immediate differences between a party in Germany and Sweden. First the drinks are supplied free by the host and the guests bring food. This is almost always the opposite in Sweden, as drink is so expensive I suppose. Second the guests have their shoes on in the flat! This never happens in Sweden. Funny how these small cultural differences are so intriguing. There is so much good food and we only manage to eat half of it…lots in the fridge for the coming days.
In the evening we visit various art exhibitions and gallery open days as part of an art event in Köln. We go with Mattis and it’s nice to see and meet Caro’s art teacher too. I enjoy this art world and like the art too.
Sunday is an easy day with a bike ride to a flee market, a “fika” and lots of good talking about all sorts of things and planning for her move to Sweden. Home to Sweden and lots of things to look forward to over the coming months with Caro’s move to Sweden in June.

Ducati at Barkarby

The sun was shining, so what better to do than go out on the bike. Today was mc day at Barkarby airfield, where several motorbike makes were on display and available for test. Hannah and me and my friend Josip rode over to see what was happening. There were some queues for the more popular bikes, but we decided the Ducati 1098S was well worth the wait. Both Josip and I tried out the Ducati on the short test track. What a bike… loads of low end power and great exhaust tone and easy to lift the front wheel with a twist of the throttle. Hmmm a nice mc but expensive… the TT600 will have to do for now.