Reskaninen

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 when it's summer and the city is invaded by 1,300 conference participants, but I guess it's the same when the university starts in September, since the universities in this city have some 60,000 students! As ... read more

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 could start by seeing LA from its true side: from the freeways. This is indeed a city of cars, and more or less only in Downtown, and on some shopping streets (parts of Melrose, and ... read more

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 was very relaxing apart from that, and it was often hard to realize that you were still in the middle of a city that size. Oh, à propos absolutely nothing but out usual wastes of ... read more

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 corner from the bustling King street and a couple of blocks from the shop-filled Queen street. This place was a pearl, with really nice staff and a simple but straightforward service: breakfast (cereals, bread, etc.) was included, but ... read more

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 Vestmanna, which is actually named after people from the British Isles (people from Scandinavia were called Easterners). There, we bought tickets for a boat trip to the caves and mountains on the west side of ... read more