This summer, the only holiday abroad went to the Netherlands - and I had the vacation part for myself, since my dear partner went there for a conference. For the first time (!) I went to Utrecht. This city is more or less equivalent to Malmö in Sweden when it comes to number of inhabitants, which means it hasn't got 300,000 of those yet. The city has a history from at least Roman times, when it was a part of the Northern frontier, with a fortress where the city centre is today. The city centre is very small and crowded, especially [View Full Entry]

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Saturday, March 7 We got our rental car at Pershing square, and decided to leave our friends Loki, M and A to venture north. As usual, it was yours truly who had to drive in the city traffic, but with a map reader, that wasn't a big problem. We actually began by visiting LA Ink again, this time to buy Kat von D's own book, only signed by herself and not by the other TV show artists, but still. Of course neither of them were at the place, either, we assumed that they nowadays only work there on occasion, and never [View Full Entry]

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I got the reaction "LA? Why on earth are you going to LA?" when I told a friend where I was going this time. The reason was simple: my beloved got a scholarship to go there, and I could meet a couple of friends that I hadn't seen since something like 2001. Since I have been to the US (see ) before, I knew what to expect, but La welcomed me with an enormous line to get OUT (!) of the airport, but on the other hand a very nice immigrations' officer. I was met by my good friend M, and [View Full Entry]

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Tingberg, Lödöse, Sweden Since there are so many friends asking for pictures, I might as well make a travelblog about our new home. The outdoor pictures are from October 2008 and the indoor ones from December 2008, unless otherwise stated. So what's there to say about Lödöse? A lot, if you could stay for a history lesson, but I'll stick to a few bits and pieces. There's a very good museum showing the history of the city and the region, since this was the metropolis of Western Sweden in the 12th to 14th centuries. There are only [View Full Entry]

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Forest walks and Conclusions of Canada We did two excursions during out stay, the first one to the ravines of Toronto. In the south of the city, there is an old ravine, that was supposed to be a new rail road, but never became a success. Nowadays, it's totally overgrown and obviously a great place to go with your dog ... but not very good if you do not want to get drooling dogs all over you. I even managed to get allergic outdoors, because almost every *** dog needed to see if we had anything to eat. But the walk [View Full Entry]

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We had not much planned beforehand, but one thing was certain: we were going to see the Niagara Falls. I've heard about this since I was very small (got a feeling it was from a children's book), so this was an absolute must. There were flyers at the hostel saying that we could go there with a bus for 45 Canadian dollars, but we wanted to check out the train option. We passed some kind of tourist office on the way to Union station, and the lady there tried to sell us a more expensive bus trip than we had seen [View Full Entry]

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It all began with another conference. We're lucky to have all these conferences for an excuse to go to new places (and old, for that matter)! This time, it was in Canada, in the city of Toronto, and in November. Freezing, we expected, just like it had been at home before leaving. But luckily we checked the weather forecast before leaving home: 17 degrees Celsius!? For several days?? Yes, it was true. A proper Indian Summer (warmth after frost). Wonderful. We decided to stay at the Clarence castle, a nice place in a quiet park, just around the c [View Full Entry]

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Since my last blog, we've visited Suðuroy (Southern isle) to both see the island (which is much less visited by tourists) and visit a metalhead that slept in the same cabin as Klas on the way here. It is always interesting to meet locals, of course, and this time we even got to borrow a car! So we went to see the place where they say that some "Turks" (actually people from one country or the other along the by Christians so-called Barbary Coast) were buried after they had come to get slaves from Suduroy, and then we went to Fámjin, [View Full Entry]

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Yes, we ended up at the Faroe Islands this year! I've been wanting to go here for quite some time, and then the occasion turned up to take the ferry from Bergen in Norway, so here we are. Today we mounted Satan. Actually, we went up the mountain Sátan, close to Leynar on Streymoy, the biggest of the Faroe islands. It's almost 666 meters high, and starting from sea level as we did, we had to climb every darn metre. But we conquered Sátan, while fending off his horned, evil, dark minions. But the day actually began with the bus to [View Full Entry]

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European Capital of Culture 2008? After a couple of hours on the oldest remaining railroad division in the world, we entered the Liverpool Lime Street station. During 2008, Liverpoool is denominatend the "European Capital of Culture". As a gothenburgian, remembering the strict prohibition of any construction project during the World Championships in Athletics 1995, I was very surprised to see that virtually the whole centre was a construction site! I read in the loca [View Full Entry]

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