Monday 27 April Yesterday we woke up by early birds and the sun. Had breakfast outdoor in the garden. So, what to do on your “big day”? Why not have some fun with the video camera, which has been my companion for seven weeks now, but never been used so far. I have a variety of “missions” from children out there, and one of those is “Turning Torso”. So we packed our things and asked Gullan to direct us to this spectacular building. Took us ten minutes to get there in the Sunday empty streets of Malmö. People were gathering around [View Full Entry]

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Saturday 25 April Friday morning we said good bye to the couple who own Hotel Flora in Bad Grund. We had a terrific stay there with good food and lovely surroundings. We can really recommend it if you find yourself on your way through Germany one day. And the witches? Yeah, it had something to do with Goethe and Faust, who had a connection to this Harz place. Every last of April they celebrate with a huge festival and the witches are all over the town, and everyone has their own witch disguise. And on top of that they build the [View Full Entry]

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Thursday 23 April Yesterday’s weather: Sun and 20 degrees! And we spent the whole day in the car. Racing on the Autobahn, where 130 km/hour are considered slow… Keep up with the pace! 600 km later we were in Bad Grund. Yes, K came up with the idea to see our “own” place again, Park Hotel Flora in Bad Grund, Harz. (See the entries from 9 and 11 of Mars ). The lovely hotel garden is now blooming, the food is great, the owner is lovely, so we decided to make it an extra day here. The woman who runs this [View Full Entry]

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Wednesday 22 April Mrs. Kimmel, the German woman we met at the hotel the other day, was absolutely right. The small wine village in the Alsace area was adorable. Vineyards around the whole village, and the wine maker’s picturesque shops in the city. The only problem was that the wine maker Lichtle with “chamber du hotes” apparently had closed. No one in sight at that place. We walked the village and found a hotel. A pretty standard hotel, but with a nice English speaking man behind the counter, and a fantastic surrounding. Grapevine plantings as far as you can see! This [View Full Entry]

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Tuesday 21 April Jura, which MiL tipped us about, turned out to be a wine district and a very rural place as well. Lots and lots of small villages in the countryside and we found a lovely hotel with a touch of luxury over it, compared to our normal standards. We started the evening at the local winemaker, tasted their wine, and bought a package of their Brut Cremantes. The sun was all over the place and it turned out that our room had direct access to the pool. Great! We swam for half an hour, together with a really cool [View Full Entry]

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Sunday 19 April Today we said goodbye to Bonson. And Sixten. And Nathalie, who gave us a special present with candles which got a certain scent, so “we always would remember her”, and even the grumpy old man with the “rabbit farm” stood there on the parking lot and talked a lot which we couldn’t understand and waved at us when we left! K had tears in her eyes: “I love this place!” It’s hard to understand that in a couple of weeks another couple would be staying in the tower: “In our house!” We drove north on the 202, waved [View Full Entry]

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Saturday 18 April When we took a walk around our “block”, we noticed this; Sixten’s got a home! And a bed as well. We got really warm in our hearts and felt a lot better about leaving him. After all, we are heading north any day now. And Sixten will be staying in lovely Bonson, and enjoy his comfortable bed. Puh! What a relief! Yesterday we went to Carrefour and bought 40 bottles of “The Best of France”, according to us; bordeaux, champagne, rose, calvados. We put it in towels and sheets and stuffed it in every corner of the trunk… [View Full Entry]

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Friday 17 April We’ve had a couple of great days with our dear friends K and P. They arrived, in a rental car from Rome, a wet day, and left us on a wet day, but the three days in between was great. Sun and like 20 degrees. I finally got the opportunity to take a dip in the sea. It was really nice. Not exactly warm, but definitely warmer than Kivik in July 2007… And K and P didn’t just provide us with a great present (tickets to a summer concert with Thåström/Ternheim for the four of us), singing and [View Full Entry]

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Sunday 12 April Yesterday we got a visitor. Gustav. A member of the frog choir. We didn’t actually hear Gustav sing, he was quiet like a mouse. But his pals sang with strong voices. Just before we met Gustav we took a walk in the neighborhood, and noticed that the Mediatheque was open. We popped in and said bonsoir to the 5-6 people gathered in the tiny library. The librarian looked terrified and told us quickly “I don’t speak English”. I offered my usual: “Je ne parle francais”. And that could have been the end of the conversation in the Mediathequ [View Full Entry]

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Friday 10 April Every night when you go out on the porch, it sounds like in the movie above. It seems to be coming from the parking lot on the other side of the olive grooves. What it is? Give us a clue. Birds? Frogs? When we try to get close to them, they silence. Don’t know if it’s because they really silence or if there is an acoustic phenomenon which makes the sound harder to hear from the place where it seems to come from. This morning was special. I woke up at 8 (!) and couldn’t resist going down [View Full Entry]

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