The earliest Christmas market ever!

This weekend we have been to Öregrund, a small place at the sea ca. 150 km up north from Stockholm. We had booked a hostel for one night and set off Saturday morning. The night before it had snowed for the first time, and everything looked like slightly powdered in white.
As we arrived in Öregrund we took the ferry to the close Island Grasö, as we couldn't go to the hostel straight away. The Lady from the hostel told us, she would be visiting the Christmas market at the hostel on Grasö, and so we decided to go there too. Even though we thought it might be strange to go to a Christmas market in the beginning of November.
But in the end it was not so christmassy as we expected. A few stands of locals selling all kinds of homemade stuff like jam, cookies, sausages and knitted socks and fancy Christmas decoration.

In the evening we could choose between two places to have dinner. Everything else was closed. Places like this just seem to go to sleep during wintertime. We then had a nice and cosy evening in our hostel that we had just for ourselves.

On Sunday we took a long walk after a great breakfast with ham and eggs, before we set off back home. It was so nice being outside, cold but sunny. On the way home, we stopped in Uppsala and had a look in the huge cathedral there. The largest church in Scandinavia with a long and interesting history.

A short but nice trip, and once again I got to know a bit more of my new country.

Mission without success

One of the very swedish things to do at this time of the year, is probably going out in the woods to pick berries and of course, mushrooms.
On this Saturday it was cold, but with blue sky and sun, so that we decided to wrap us in warm clothes and to try our luck.
It's not very much that I know about mushrooms and I have never been out to pick them myself. So Richard was in charge to find a good spot and to explain me, what signs and hints I should watch out for.
Equipped with plenty boxes and bags we started our mission. We left the path and made our way right across the trees.

But we were not very lucky. We found lots of nice things in this beautiful forest, like places covered up with pretty moss in different colours, but not a single mushroom. At least none that looked in any way eatable. And no berries either.
We might have been just a couple of weeks to late. But it was a nice excursion anyway, with a yummy picnic, sitting on a big stump and enjoying the late autumn sun :-)

Week away

I’m away from home this week on a business trip in Jönköping and Poland. Two rail exhibitions in the same week… someone should really plan these things better so they don’t coincide. Jönköping was ok. We were involved with a big event with the Swedish rail group, and organised a dinner and visit to an ice hockey match for some 120 customers and partners. That was actually quite good fun and only the 4th time I’ve seen a live hockey match in Sweden after all these years here.
Now I’m in Gdansk in Poland for another rail exhibition and head back to Stockholm tomorrow evening.
Caro has been on her own with the girls all week, and as far as I can tell from my phone calls, she’s been coping well with that, as I thought she would actually. It’s obviously another first for her in the process of living with me and the girls. It’s a new experience for her to live with two teenage girls in the house and I think she is doing a great job of getting acclimatised to that.
I’m very much looking forward to seeing them all and to see Caro tomorrow. She’s coming to the airport to collect me… mmmm, I get hugs and kisses as soon as I land :)

Swedish autumn light

I think I am more a summer girl, but I love the autumn too on days like this week. It's sunny and a clear blue sky! Many trees are already coloured and everything is bathed in a beautiful warm light of the sun that is already quite low.
I love riding my bike back home through Haga Park, the huge Park just around the corner from where we live. I took some pictures today.

Hope you all have some lovely sunny autumn days! Go out then and enjoy all the colours, marvel at the long shadows of the trees, find some conkers and smell, it's autumn :-)

First trip back to Köln

A long weekend in Köln, long planned in advance as I wanted to be there for my friend Friederike's leave to her 7 months trip around the world. I arrive Thursday evening. My friend Katja picks me up and soon we are on our way to Köln-Nippes to meet Tatjana in a restaurang. Now only Friederike is missing to complete the great four. She is still at home, busy with travel preparations, but we need her with us. We command that he has to take a taxi to join us and soon we are united again - after three months!
Friday, I finally manage to visit Tatjana in her new shop that she has just opened in the beginning of August. I haven't seen it so far and I am absolutely curious how it looks like! And of course it looks fantastic, just as I expected ;-) I spend a couple of hours there, watching her dealing with the customers and it's very obvious that she loves it! The shop is very pretty and nicely renovated, selling fruits, vegetables and some other selected yummy items like wine and italian desserts. A little paradise!
Later on I go to see Andrea. We spend a cosy evening in her kitchen, eating and drinking together and catching up with whats happening in our lives.

Saturday morning means packing! I assist Friederike and try to advise her what to take and what to leave. I can remember well how difficult this was for me when I went travelling... We argue a bit about the amount of pants and socks, but in the end there is even some space left in her backpack - good job ;-)
After that I meet Steffen for a late breakfast in one of my favourite cafés in town. He has his computer with him and he shows me pictures from his trip to Canada this summer. Now Canada is even higher on my travel-list!

In the evening Friederike has invited some friends to a pub and many many come for some Kölsch and to say good-bye. It reminds me of my saying-goodbye-evening three months ago...
Some close friends and I are taking her to the airport early in the morning. Friederike is sad and tearful, but eventually she goes courageously through the security and disappears into her great adventure...

Tatjana and me have another mission on this Sunday. We have a performance with Lamäng, the playback theatre group I have been a member of for the last 2,5 years. One of our members Albert celebrates his birthday and we are playing for him and his friends. I have been a bit unsure whether I would manage to just join in again after some weeks without rehearsal. But we are all in a good shape and the audience delivers great stories for us to play! We all have fun and I really enjoy to perform with my group.
After a calm and cosy evening with Katja in her flat and another night, it's already Monday morning and I have to pack my bag again. I have still one bike in Köln that I want to take to Sweden on the plane and it has to be prepared and properly packed for that. Fortunately I have my friend Cornelia to help me, as it turns out to be a bit more tricky than expected... But eventually, after overcoming several hurdles at the airport, we manage to get rid of the huge package and I catch my plane back to Stockholm.

Both my bike and me arrive safely in Arlanda and Richard already waits for me to take me home. Well, yes, it feels more and more like home here. My first trip back to what was my home for a long time has been really good. I enjoyed it very much and I managed to see nearly everybody who is important for me.
But I am also very happy to be back here! And that's probably a good sign, isn't it?!?

Together in Poland

A new chance for us to travel together again, as I have to go to Poland for a sales conference in Warsaw and we have the chance for Caroline to come along with me. We fly to Warsaw on Saturday morning and arrive before lunch at the hotel. We throw our bags in the room and head out as the suns shining. We walk along the main street which is a pedestrian shopping street full of shops and café’s. We pass many of the churches along the way, which are all busy with weddings. It’s fun to go into one of them and see part of the wedding service and all the guests. We reach the old town and see a little of the main square and the old houses before we head back to the hotel. In the evening we eat out in a popular lounge bar and restaurant called the Living Room, nice. On Sunday we take breakfast in bed and enjoy a lazy morning while the rain stops outside. We take a walk in the city, have lunch and checkout the new shopping centre by the central station. In the evening we try an old restaurant in the old town and test some traditional Polish dishes. On Monday my conference starts and I get an introduction to the Polish railways while Caro gets her hair cut and relaxes. In the evening she joins me at the conference and after a mingle we go on with the other company representatives and the Swedish trade Council to a restaurant for another traditional Polish meal, but this time with more courses. Tuesday was the last day of the conference, which ended just after lunch. In the afternoon we had a few hours to walk into the centre again and visit the imposing Palace of Culture and Science, a huge building complex which was a gift from the Soviet Union from the 1950’s. The view of the city from the panorama level on the 30th floor is worth the small entry price to get a feel for the layout of the city. We head off for the airport and catch an evening flight to Stockholm… all in all, an interesting trip and a fun weekend together away.

This is England

Emma, Caroline and I went together to see the film “This is England” on Sunday. The film is set in the north of England in the 80s, and is about a young lad who’s Dad has died in the Falkland’s war and is being bullied at school. He meets a gang of skinheads, who befriend him and take him into their small gang. Life starts to look up and he enjoys their company and adopts their style. When an ex-gang member returns on the scene, things start to go wrong in a big way. At this point the film turns sharply in direction and the gang have difficult decisions to make as the nationalistic ideals of the new leader threaten to destroy the statuesque.

The film made me laugh at times, but is quite disturbing in many ways. It’s filled with great actors and loads of great northern accents… one to recommend, if you can take the bad language and sometimes serious violence.

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 :-)

A walk through Millesgarden

This Saturday we are planning a bike trip to the Island Lidingö to visit the sculpture garden of Carl Milles, a very famous Swedish sculptor.
The garden is beautiful with loads of amazing sculptures in all sizes, many fountains and a great view over the water.
The weather is really nice with clear blue sky and we are incredibly in love with each other that day :-)
We stroll through this amazing park, enjoy being together and of course we have a nice fika in the sun...... just a perfect day!

Difficult decisions

The second week I ease up a bit. Richard goes back to work on Monday and being on my own during the day is doing me quite good. I now have lots of time to rethink my study plans. I talk to several of my friends to hear some different opinions. I am so unsure what to do and I feel like I could never make up my mind about whether I should cancel it or not.
But I realise more and more that I don’t want to go to Maastricht, that I am concerned that this project is just too much.

But how for god’s sake am I supposed to cancel this? This cunning plan!
The more I think about it the more I realise that this cunning plan is not fitting me anymore. Now as I’ve moved here, now that I am living here I get more and more the feeling that the most important thing should be to actually BE here and to concentrate on getting used to here.
One of the points that attracted me most in the beginning was that my move here would be a bit more a step-by-step thing. I would not have to cope with everything at the same time. Well, but things change and being here doesn’t scare me so much anymore. More scary seems to be going away again soon having to cope with even more changes. And what outweighs even more is he fact that my integration here will be delayed for at least half a year.

Apparently a clear decision, isn’t it? But strange resistances are keeping me very hesistant. It somehow really hard to accept that I might have resolved too much. And even harder, to actually allow myself to take my time to settle down here.
To convince myself that I won’t be lazy sitting around and neglecting my professional advancement I sign in for a psychodrama course in Köln. That’s a good plan, I am really interested in psychodrama and I get the chance to be in Köln regularly.

Unfortunately the course is cancelled two weeks later... I’m very disappointed but at the same time I think maybe it’s not the right time to do something somewhere else than here...

Survival of the first week

The first week I feel completely upside down. Not one day goes by without me crying for at least once.
On Tuesday we try hard to sort out the kitchen, to have at least one room reasonably tidy before we leave for a short trip to Malmö on the next day. It’s not easy, of course all the cupboards I open are full with stuff. So a big sorting out is necessary and we have to decide about nearly everything whether we want to keep it (if it’s double, mine or his) and where it should be. In the flat, in the attic, in the bin or in some boxes for whatever.
On most things we agree quite easily but nevertheless the whole process quite puts me under pressure. My need to unpack boxes as quickly as possible (as I always did when moving, probably having my things around knowing where everything is gives me back some security) can’t be met as I need Richard’s help in every corner, apart from my wardrobe we bought a couple of weeks ago – it’s wonderfully empty :-)
So I get quite impatient from time to time, even though I know that he can’t sort out in three places at the same time. I’m sorry for being quite tense and stressed in these days even though he is doing such a good job trying to make space for my stuff everywhere. But it’s not easy to move from a flat of my own into a already inhabited flat and I realise that this is really a challenge, especially not even having a room for myself.

In between the whole unpacking procedure we spend two days in Malmö as Richard needs to be there. The first day it’s nice weather and we rent some hotel bikes to explore Malmö for a while.

It's a cosy town with a friendly and lively atmosphere and a very pretty centre with loads of restaurants and cafés.
In the evening we go out for dinner and while talking about our plans again my doubts concerning my Maastricht plans pop up. This time quite insistently. I slowly get the feeling that I maybe shouldn’t expose myself to another big change in such a short period of time. Another foreign country, another living situation, more new people...
The next day we try to explore Lund as we don’t fly back until the evening. It’s pouring with rain all day so that we are not keen on walking around very much. But it seems to be a nice little town.

The rest of the week we are busy with diminishing the amount of boxes in the flat. And we are doing quite well! For a change and to see something else we go to a barbeque at Aaron’s on Saturday. I feel strange and a bit alien, even though it’s a nice gathering.

It's been a tough week - but I survived it.

Last leg of our trip

The drive to Sweden was easy, driving through Denmark and then taking the long bridge which joins Denmark with Sweden. Passing into Sweden, an emotional moment for Caro, as we cross the bridge, and she entered Sweden for the first time… with the intention of staying in Sweden. There was a policeman just after the road toll station and he waved us down to talk to us. We wondered if he would want to look in the van… hoped not, as it was so full that things would fall out if we opened the doors. He asked if we had been shopping in Denmark. No I said, were moving my girlfriends things from Germany to Sweden. He looked at Caro and said “Welcome to Sweden”. That was nice… we drove off feeling personally welcomed in to Sweden. We drove to Karlskrona, one of the towns on the south east coast of Sweden and check into a hotel for the night. We celebrated my birthday with a meal and a lovely night together in our cosy big hotel bed. The next day we drove the last 500 km to Stockholm and arrived at the flat in the afternoon. We had some help to unpack the van from Josip and Martin, and this went very quickly. Soon we had a flat full of boxes, but we were home, and together. Caroline was very emotional and in the end it was all too much, she broke down and cried in my arms. She was tired and confused, but she had me and I was there to hold her and listen and love her for being here. The next day we began the job of unpacking.

A trip to Sweden

After handing over my flat and a last ride to the dump site we eventually leave Köln with the van on Saturday morning. Our destination is Kiel where we spend the night at my friend Anika’s house. I feel quite good and not as confused as I expected.
As usual the A1 up north is quite busy and just before Hamburg we manage to miss the turn to the Elbtunnel and end up driving all the way through Hamburg city.

But eventually we arrive in Kiel and spend a relaxed evening with Anika and Daniel.
Both Richard and I are very tired but it’s his birthday at midnight and I really want us to stay awake somehow. Can't wait to give him my present... ;-)

The next day we continue our trip. We arrive in Puttgarden in good time to catch a ferry to Denmark.
The actual leave from Germany by ferry I experience in the toilet... but anyway I could feel it that now, I am leaving my country.

After leaving the ferry we drive through Denmark until we reach the Oresundbridge.... the link to Sweden. But where were all the happy feelings as we eventually cross the bridge and enter Sweden??
I more feel confused and melancholy than enthusiastic.


We make it until Karlskrona after another 500km. We find a nice hotel and later on we go out for a birthday dinner at a restaurant in town and Richard finally gets his birthday card. It’s the first and a very special birthday as we are on a very special trip together.

The next morning we manage to hit the road pretty early. The last 500kms and I am even more contemplative at that day. The nearer we get to Stockholm the more confused I feel. How can I already miss my friends and my life in Köln? Shouldn't I be happy?

We arrive in the afternoon and Hannah welcomes us. It’s really nice and warm, perfect welcome weather! But nothing helps and finally I burst into tears. I hardly can keep me from telling Richard that he has to take me back again....
Of course I stay and we unpack the van and I finally feel slightly better when I view
my beloved kitchen cupboard in the kitchen and how wonderfully it matches with the wall colour.

Now I am here. With much more different feelings than expected - but I am here.

Thanks that we arrived safely.