Visitors from the South

Our visitors from the south have left Sweden. Unfortunately we have been swamped with things to do since our return to non-vacation life (including catching up on some of our Swedish lessons). However we will provide a blog on the holiday in the coming days.

But we leave you with a sneak preview in the following pictures of what we did...

R&C

They are here!!!

This is a mid vacation update blog. The clan Nelson arrived three days ago and it seems that they are enjoying their time here. We will give a complete report at the end of the holiday but for now, let the festivities continue.

Ronnie, Ronnie, Sarie, Carina and the infamous Cindy.

ps. Cindy was set free in the Gipen but we found her again.

One year in Sweden

To celebrate our one year Sweden-versary we compiled a video with some of the highlights. We successfully survived many of the things we were warned against such as the winter, the darkness, the strange customs and the Swedes.



There are also a number of other small videos on our YouTube channel which can be found by clicking this link:

http://www.youtube.com/user/robroy865

We hope that this blog helped to keep us close although we are very far because we miss you.
R&C

Parents in Sweden

In exactly one week my parents will be in Sweden. We are looking forward to this event and have a full schedule. This includes showing them how we live, what we eat, Uppsala city, castle and cathedral, Gamla Uppsala, Stockholm, many museums, a boat trip, train trips and much more. Their arrival will also be exactly one year after we moved here (we will have a post on this soon). We are well prepared for the vacation and will upload stories and pictures afterward.

R&C

Mora

We took the advice from Jaco (Ronnie's PhD-supervisor), still sharing his wisdom, and took some holiday. We went to see more of Sweden.

However, for this blog we are experimenting with the idea of video blogging. Our vacation in Mora is therefore available in this format (note that the whole vacation is summarized in a neat 3 minute video clip, and you need not worry about watching hours of boring holiday footage or slides). Click on the video below or click on this link (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKm5Po0v-mM) for a high resolution on Youtube.



Please let us know what you think about this format compared to our traditional blogs. Is it, too slow (downloading), less informative or better?

R&C

p.s. We are glad that the darkness is returning during the night. It is really nice to go to bed when there is less light. Looking forward to winter...

Semester

The Swedish word "semester" means holiday. As an outsider it currently feels as if the Swedes are the chosen people and that rapture happened. When I cycle to work the roads are quiet and I cross the usually busy intersections without seeing a living soul. When I arrive at work I find that all the doors are locked and need to dig deep in my bag to find my unused key. All the lights are turned off and the building feels spooky. During the day two Chinese colleagues appear and later one Polish guy. At lunch the four of us discover our British colleague and we discuss the absence of all the Swedes.

Apparently holiday in Sweden is very serious. During the summer most of the cities are emptied as the populous goes to their summer retreats in the Swedish wilderness. Many have summer cottages, often in remote areas only accessible by dirt roads through heavy forest (including a few kilometres of hiking). Also popular is owning one of the millions of small islands, which are often only a few hundred meters across. Usually there is a cottage on your island but everything else, including drinking water, need to be ferried in the small boat with you, to your small kingdom. Some Swedes are also reported to travel to other European countries just for fun or to see relatives.

It is very strange to see how a whole nation disappears within a few weeks. Now we can only wait, with the other slightly frightened immigrants. We shall see if the Swedes will return or remain feral. With their return we are promised that all the shops will reopen and longer business hours for the few that haven't abandoned us, doubling the number of busses which have been reduced to meet the current demand, and even more exiting programs on TV.

But until then, we have some work to finish.

R&C

Lyon

The conference I attended in Lyon was very busy. I met a number of interesting people and we spoke mainly about work. The conference centre (Cité Internationale) is located in beautiful surroundings and is encircled by the Rhône river on the one side and a huge park (Parc de la Tête d'Or) on the other side . The city architecture is a mixture of old and modern buildings and the public transport is excellent with subway connections, electrical trolley busses and trams to everywhere you want to go. The conference package did include a 5 day transport ticket that you could use on all the public transport, which was very useful. Conference activities continued to 20hoo which left only a few hours to explore. However, since the sun set quite late this time of the year I could squeeze a few things in. The one evening we went for a glass of wine on a restaurant ship anchored in the Rhône. The Rhône river has a funny turquoise colour but looks very beautiful in the evening with the lights of the city and the bridges reflecting from it. The conference dinner was at a famous brasserie (Brasserie Georges), which was established in 1836.

Below are a few picks of the river, conference centre and the park:

Rhône River


Cité Internationale Conference centre:




Parc de la Tête d'Or:






Park with conference centre in background:



C