On my way home

A week away and I’m looking forward to getting back home… longing for my girl and her warm embrace. Caro’s been alone all week and I know we will be spending the weekend together, catching up on together time and all that.
After a very busy week here in Chicago and Pittsburgh I’m at the airport and trying to phone, mail and MSN all at the same time before boarding. Having run for the plane from Pittsburgh to Chicago and caught it!, I am for once at the airport in time here in Chicago. Plane leaves in an hour and a half… eight and a half hours flight… landing at 7:45 tomorrow morning.

Away from home, in the US

It was only a matter of time after the summer before I would need to be away from home on a business trip, and here I am, away in the US again for a week. Caroline is at home alone in Solna for the first time since she moved. We're both having to get used to a new set of feelings and missing each other. And Caro has to cope with being alone in her new Swedish home. Its not so easy I’m sure, not having her friends around the corner for support, but I think she’s getting to know Stockholm now, so I hope she’s managing being alone.
I flew to the US on Tuesday and started the trip in Chicago. I think it’s a nice place and I have some time on the day we arrive to do a little trip round town with Bo, a guy from work who’s with me on this trip, and who hasn’t been to Chicago before. We take in the city views in our hire car and it’s a hot day. The lake looks great in the sun and such a contrast to the high city skyline. We eat a steak for dinner, as you do in Chicago, then we go into the Hancock Building and take the lift to the 94th floor and the observatory level to see the city by night. Cool to view the city skyline at night.
Wednesday, and an intense customer meeting, which I’ve been preparing hard for. It goes unexpectedly well… what a relief, it makes the trip well worth while so far. Then its lunch, and a drive to the airport and we're lucky to catch the earlier flight to Pittsburgh. We land at 19.00 and drive straight to the PNC Park to see the last half of the baseball game! Cincinnati Reds vs the Pittsburgh Pirates, it’s a fun thing to do and it’s another first for Bo.
Time for bed now… only 2 more days to go.

In the search of elks

As I am living now in elk-country, time was ripe to see some real elks. The only elks I saw so far had been lying on the ground in Skansen (an open-air museum in Stockholm), sleepy and lazy, and I didn't get the chance to actually see them in full size. And it's not like they were running around here everywhere in the countryside, even though I might have assumed this before I first came to Sweden... ;-)
Therefore we decide to make an excursion to Kolmården which is the largest zoo in Skandinavia and 150km south of Stockholm.
They have a regular zoo-section there and a part where you can drive through with your own car - the safari park.
We get a ticket, read the safety instructions and soon we are on our safari ride. First we enter the section with the Skandinavian animals....but what's up here? All elks and deers are lying on the ground. We stop for a while thinking about how we could activate the lazy bunch... but then another elk appears in front of us. It approaches the others and all of a sudden all the others jump up and move around. Finally - several elks in full size and so close!! We sit in the car, excited like children and watch the scene. One elk even crosses the road right in front of us and yes, they are really huge, and beautiful, at least I think so. They have a very pretty head with big eyes and a sweet soft nose.
The ride through the safari park continues being adventurous. We pass the animals of the Savannah where a giraffe nearly manages to stick her head in our car, we pass a bunch of sleeping lions lying one meter away from the car and we drive through the part with the big brown bears and the wolves.
After our safari we stroll through the zoo and visit the rhinos, penguins and the monkeys and we watch a dolphin show. It's a nice day and the weather keeps up until the end so that we just manage to get back to the car before it starts to rain.

I was seeing elks - in full size. Mission completed :-)