Times are Changing.

Today we switched from winter to summer time. This coincided with Carina's birthday which therefore lasted only 23 hours. We celebrated the day by going for a brunch buffet at Skarholmen restaurant with a beautiful view of lake Mälaren (for some reason brunch are severed from 12-4pm). With the increase in temperature the ice on the lake became too thin to skate on. The following pictures were taken on the deck of the restaurant showing the lake where we skated only a few weeks ago.

Finally after almost 10 months of continuous winter (starting in South Africa and now ending here) we are entering summer again.

R&C

"I want to ride my bicycle..."

Spring is coming meaning that the snow cover is slowly disappearing. Currently all the roads, including the cycle pathways, are almost completely clear from snow and ice. We therefore bought bicycles and started this week to cycle into work. I spent less than 14 minutes on the road to work (but 19 minutes going home since we live in Malma Backe, which translates to "Malma hill"). Carina have an average travel time of 20 minutes.

Here we are before our weekly trip to the stores.

However, before anyone think of us as cyclists we should highlight the differences between people using bicycles in Sweden and South African cyclists: Here anyone can travel by bicycle and not only fitness fanatics. Also the dress code for cycling is more relaxed and although helmets are encouraged no one wears spandex inspired superhero clothes when mounting a bicycle. The big difference however is that cycling is a basic transport and not a sport, therefore bicycle users gives way to other road users. Being fair, all road users are more polite here.

(Just a note on the weather: the pictures were taken in a very nice +5°C)

R&C

There and back again...

It has been one and two weeks respectively since Carina and I returned from our trip to South Africa. We left on the 19th of February from a snow covered Sweden and arrived the next day in sunny South-Africa. The change in temperature was a bit more than 30°C from a chilling -10° to a warm +23°. Thinking that the heat was going to be a shock we were prepared for it (and it was not so bad after all). We were, however, completely unprepared for the visual shock we experienced (see the following photos, no color adjustment were made).

(Friday 19/02/2010, 12:00, -10°C)

(Saturday 20/02/2010, 11:00, +23°C)

More color commonly found in South-Africa

The best part were of course the time we spent with our families.

Celebrating the arrival of the small one in green,

and trying to convert some of them to Swedes.

But we are very glad to be back and are looking forward to more real seasons with noticeable changes. Currently the temperature is +4°C and all the snow is slowly melting. This means that the landscape is still mostly white dotted with increasing patches of brown and green and puddles of slush puppy water everywhere.


R&C