summer parties

It's sad to say it, but it is noticeable... the days are getting shorter here in Göteborg. I was told that you can really notice the difference in the length of the days in Scandinavia. Actually, that statement is only half true. I didn't really notice at all when the days were getting longer. Going the other way, however, it's a whole new kettle of fish. When days get shorter, it is very, very noticeable.

And for those readers who have no idea what a whole new kettle of fish is. It's an Australian expression meaning it's a different scenario. Where does it come from? I don't know, and don't care. Just accept and continue.

Now what can I do you for? (another Aussie expression). Oh yes, with the ending of summer, it's time for a couple of parties. First up I organised an "Aussie" party at my apartment. What makes a party Aussie? Buggered if I know. Usually it's just a lot of booze and loud music.

What would you do to make a party seem like an Aussie party to mixed group of Europeans? This is what I came up with:

1. The host (i.e. me) wears a wife beater, shorts and thongs.
2. Have vegemite on hand for the guests to enjoy.
3. Play AC/DC and Midnight Oil albums all night long.
4. Have footy (proper footy :) on TV.
5. Have a footy on hand to demonstrate with.
6. Provide a fridge full of beer (especially VB).
7. Serve fairy bread.
8. Have a few stubbie holders, including a novelty bikini girl stubbie holder.
9. Serve ANZAC biscuits.
10. Have the party go on long enough and loud enough for it to be shutdown by the "authorities".

Note: in Sweden, the police don't call a close to parties. Rather the building management hirers leather clad, pierced, biker types to tell you to shut up shop. Sweden's not always as pleasant as it seems. No worries, we moved to a club down the street for more good times.

The Aussie party weekend, I also had a mate from uni over at my place, Graham. He's also working in Sweden for a couple of months - but over in Karlskrona, a smallish town on the other side of the country.

We spent the weekend with some Spanish colleagues and their mates who were visiting from Madrid. From canoeing on the lake, to playing frisbee golf, it was an outdoors weekend for the rest of the time.

Frisbee golf is fun... walking around a forest, throwing frisbees... and possibly, also, drinking beer.

Okay, that was the Aussie weekend. A couple of weekends later, it was time for a Swedish weekend.

At some stage in Sweden's history, it was against the law to catch crayfish over summer. At the end of summer, the ban would be lifted, and then the crayfish population would suffer the brunt of a pent up demand for tasty crays. It's not the law any more, but the tradition of an end of summer crayfish party lives on.

Olly, a mate from work, kindly offered to take me down to Skåne, where a mate of his has a farm in the small town of Sjöbo. Perfect for a loud and crazy crayfish party.

These things typically kick off mid-afternoon with some silly games. Split into teams of 6, this allowed everyone to mingle. Competitions included: a dash to the back of the paddock and back - chained to a partner; nailing nails into a plank of wood in the least number of strokes; throwing a hefty lump of metal as far as possible; popping balloons tied to ankles; and drinking some truly awful homebrewed liquor.

Formalities out of the way, it was time for dinner. Crayfish eating isn't for the squeamish.

Step 1: break tail from head.
Step 2: lift up shell, eat brain.
Optional step: celebrate if you were lucky enough to get a pregnant cray with "caviar".
Step 3: crack tail shell, dig out meat, eat.
Step 4: Repeat.

All along the way, keep the liquor flowing. The aquavit limbers up the vocal chords for some Swedish drinking songs. The host, Mikael, needs to be praised for his foresight. He provided song sheets for those who don't know Swedish drinking songs; or who may have forgotten the words due to aquavit consumption... or both.

Of course this all lays the foundations for a decent party lasting well into the evening. Could this be a tradition that I could import into Australia? I hope so!

stockholm revisited

On her last weekend in Sweden, I took Belle to glamorous Stockholm. It was a scorcher of a weekend. No rain in sight - and this time, we were wondering where the air conditioners were.

We caught the high-speed train service across to Stockholm. It was equally as fast as flying and probably a little cheaper. Best of all, however, it put us right in the heart of Stockholm when we arrived. I'm tempted to try out the high-speed train to Ballarat when I get back home to see if the Victorian services are as good as the Swedish ones.

Since I'd been to Stockholm before, this trip involved a mixture of what I thought the best sights were when I visited last time, plus some I missed out on, plus some Belle thought sounded good.

First up was a visit to Gamla Stan - the old town of Stockholm. Stockholm used to fit all on one island, and this is where Galma Stan is. It's a nice walk down from the CBD to the island. Everything quickly transforms from modern city to cobble stone streets and wonky old buildings. We made a quick visit to the palace. Note to potential jewel thieves: the British have way more crown jewels than the Swedes. After, we made a more extensive visit to the Nobel Prize museum around the corner.

It was perfect weather for walking out in the sunshine. This put grabbing some ice cream and having a laid back afternoon firmly on the agenda.

The sunshine, lasting well into the evening, ensured that Saturday was perfect for heading out in trending Östermalm. After some mighty fine Lebanese cuisine, we headed to a great cocktail bar. It stocked Tanqueray Ten gin, so I was a big fan. (My wallet may have whimpered in pain, but I duly ignored it ;)

Stockholm is deserted on Sunday mornings. And surprisingly, brunch is a bit difficult to find. Pushing on, we headed to the next item on our list: the History Museum. I was quite surprised at how interesting it was. The prehistoric display was well set up, with sounds, video, stories, and exhibits of bones, clothing, etc.

The museum was setup so that it posed questions back at the visitors instead of dictating the museums' point of view. As an example, there was a cloak that dated back thousands of years. It was found in a bog, with similarly aged knife. This cloak had knife holes in it. Of course no one knows the true story of the cloak and the knife - so the museum presents some plausible situations and throws it back to you to imagine. Was it the cloak of a murdered victim? Where's the body then? Maybe it's the cloak of someone who was in a fight - they had been stabbed, but ultimately won. Why throw away the cloak then? To hide the evidence from a worried girlfriend? Who really knows?

Sunday was also a great day to be outdoors. We ate lunch next to the water and watched the yachts pass us by. We paid a quick visit to Vasa museum, which didn't seem as good as I remembered it, and then we headed back to the hotel for our bathers.

We were on a mission to find a beach (or at least I was!). However, with hindsight I can give this warning: do not attempt to find a beach in Stockholm. Yes, it's on the water. No, there's no where good to swim. Probably if we had a boat and headed out to the archipelago there might have been better beaches. But near the city - and for a city on the water it's surprising - no good beaches. We went to one, and had our swim, but it was pretty crap.

The sun set on our weekend in Stockholm, and alas, Monday morning came around too soon. It was time for Belle to head back home. We said our sad goodbyes at central station and that's that for another 60 days.

soaking in oslo

Summer time is a time for most Scandinavians to take a vacation. Most... but not all. Construction workers kick into overdrive over summer, building new roads, tram tracks, and unfortunately for us, performing train track maintenance on the route from Göteborg to Oslo. After an increasingly confused 10 to 15 minutes at Göteborg Central. Wondering where in the hell train platform 54 is? We was decided that perhaps "buss" actually did mean a bus, despite our train tickets definitely saying "tåg" (train).

No problem, replacement coaches were taking us to somewhere in the country where the train would meet us. Belle and I were off to Oslo for the weekend!

We arrived in Oslo around lunch time. After checking in, we went to the restaurant next door which advertised traditional Norwegian cuisine. Whale was on the menu... and I ate it. A tough meat, I think it's kind of like kangaroo (if kangaroo was tough, which it's not), but doesn't taste as good.

After lunch we headed out to explore Oslo. It's a compact city, which makes it perfect for tourism on foot. The main street, Karl Johans gate was packed full of people and street performers. I was reminded again how much Scandinavians celebrate summer compared to Australians. Then again, Australians never have to suffer through Scandinavian winters. It does make the cities have a great vibe in summer.

We were able to check out Central Oslo's main sights in one afternoon. The old castle / fortress, Akershus Festning, provided a good vantage point to look over the city and the harbour. We also were able to get a crash course in Norwegian history.

Wandering back down the hill we visited the Nobel Peace Prize museum. It currently has a thought provoking exhibition about slums. It was a multimedia display where you could "walk into" various slum houses. These houses were projected onto blank walls. Audio recordings would play and the inhabitants would tell their stories.

It was quite interesting; some who were interviewed had always lived in the slum area, and enjoyed life there. These people were usually disappointed that their slums were always slated for demolition. Others were educated people who couldn't get jobs. They were justifiably annoyed at the prejudice against them just for where they live; it makes it harder to get a job.

In Jakarta, entire families live under bridges and have to be careful not to fall into the rivers below. These families tell their cousins in the country: don't visit me, my house is small and very far away. I'll visit you.

It was also interesting because these people don't have any property rights. While the slum areas aren't a good way for people to live, at the same time, when governments are encouraged to do something about it, it usually means ignoring the people inside the slum areas. The lack of property rights, leads to a lack of any opportunity to claim compensation for the dislocation they will endure.

The slums outside Mumbai have a gross economic output at around $1 billion a year - including an impressive plastic recycling industry. Yes, of course, it has significant water supply and public health issues too, but it will be interesting to see how the Indian government handles improving the area, as well as maintaining the industry.

Also at the Nobel Prize museum, there was a display on global warming, with an inventive way to visualise it: a model of Oslo with a melting ice block suspended above it, slowly drowning the city. It seemed only appropriate that after that, we visit Oslo's newly redeveloped docklands area, right on the water, and have a coffee - and to marvel at the price of steak in the steak houses. About $60 for the cheapest. Well over $100 for the most expensive! We finished off the day with a walk up to the Royal Palace (very nice) and cocktails and dinner down town (also... very nice).

What did the next day have in store for us? In one word: rain.

What the hell? It's summer damn it!

The rain was here to stay. Like in Copenhagen - there's no such thing as a passing shower in Scandinavia. It just kept getting heavier and heavier. Should we have brought wet weather gear? Maybe. Should we have at least bought an umbrella that morning? Definitely.

It didn't stop us though. First thing on the "Oslo Plan" for Sunday - our handwritten scrap of paper with sights to see - was a trip to Frognerseteren. Almost 500-metres above Oslo, at the end of the #1 metro line. The plan was to hike to the TV tower, and get the view from there. As you can see from the photo above, there was no good view to be seen on this day.

We abandoned that plan, and took the metro down a few stations to Holmenkollen. This is home to Oslo's most famous sight: the Holmenkollen Ski Jump. Again, it would have been a lot better with some visibility of the city below. We climbed to the top, and it's quite horrid inside. Graffitied. Rusty. Leaking.

The current jump is slated for demolition, and a newer, bigger, and hopefully nicer, one will be built in time for the world championships in a few years.

After stopping for coffee - with the wishful thought that maybe if we give it 20 minutes, it'll stop raining - we pressed on. All the way back down the mountain to Vigeland sculpture park. The brain child of Gustav Vigeland and the Oslo city council, the park is full of Vigeland's naked statues. There are people in all sorts of poses, of all sorts of ages, and of both sexes. Kind of like an older version of the Bodies exhibition. You might realise by now that the weather was oppressive, so we made a quick decision to head for cover in the near by museum dedicated to Vigeland.

The decision was a good one. I thought it was a lot more interesting to know a bit of history about the statues than to be oblivious of the stories behind them if we'd simply wandered in the park. For instance, he was well known before 1905, but when Norway gained its independence, he was in a fortunate position to be able to accept a number of grants from the newly independent government looking to establish Norwegian identity. The park itself was guaranteed after the Oslo city council wanted to demolish his house to make way for a library. He argued to have the city give him a brand new studio, and a section of Frogner park. In return, the city owns all his works, sketches, models, etc.

The sculptures are quite evocative - showing all emotions and stages of life. His most famous sculpture is one of a toddler throwing a tantrum. I'd recommend a visit if in Oslo.

We couldn't stay at the museum all day, nor could we stay in Oslo forever, so it was back into the rain for us. Jealous of umbrella carrying sensible people. Annoyed at wet feet, soaking jeans, but all in all... having a great time.

a visitor

Who's a lucky boy? Ja ha... That'd be me. I recently had a visitor drop in for a couple of weeks. My girlfriend, Belle, visited me in Göteborg.

It was time to share my knowledge of Swedish customs (lunch at 11:30am), language (tjena! hur är läget?), and food (inlagd sill). Of course it was a lot of fun showing off the city I'd been living in for the past four months, so far away from her and Melbourne.

First of all I had to serve some traditional Swedish foods. I served a mid-summer's style meal of inlagd sill, otherwise known as picked herring in English. Remember it's sill, and definitely not seal! Also served up with some fresh potatoes, boiled. Some of the herring was excellent, some of it not so.

Typically during the day we'd meet each other for lunch, as I was still working during the day. Something different in Göteborg compared to Melbourne is the ferry across the river, so typically we'd be catching that to meet in either Lindholmen or Järntorget. During the first week the weather looked pretty threatening, but usually it kept from raining too much.

It didn't stop us from checking out the sights around town, including walks along the canal, visiting the animals in Slottskogen (a large park) and going for after work drinks along über-trendy Avenyn.

Although the weather isn't always this cooperative in summer, in Sweden, luckily for us the weather did improve. The second week of Belle's stay was sunny and, would you believe it, hot!? Now it was time to get out an enjoy the best Göteborg has to offer. Personally I think the best activities are the outdoors ones too:

• cruising in the archipelago
• a picnic next at Delsjön
• outdoor dining in Haga
• drinks in the sunshine along Avenyn

We went on a cruise in the archipelago. It combined the lovely views of Göteborg's southern islands at sunset, and a wonderful summer meal: salmon, mussels, and as much shrimp as you could fit in (or be bothered shelling!). Highly recommended when in Göteborg (in summer... with good weather).

walkabout in london

As Wimbledon drew to a close for another year, I decided it was time to visit London. Touching down late on Friday night, I got the grand tour from Stansted in the North East to where Carmen lives, Wimbledon, in the South West. Similar to going from Melbourne Airport to Frankston, this took about an hour and a half.

After a justified sleep in on Saturday it was time to take "the tube" to see one of London's most famous sites: the Tower of London.

The Tower is not a single tower, rather it is a fortress (with 4 towers), surrounded by two defensive walls. The walls have many more towers.

The complex has plenty of strange, interesting and bloody-thirsty history to offer. Not only that, it also stores some impressive collections of historic weaponry: from suits of armour to bayoneted rifles.

A funny tradition at the tower, is that a minimum of six ravens need to roost in the grounds, otherwise legend has it that the tower will crumble and the monarchy will fall. Of course this is the first time I'd heard of ravens being crucial to the structural integrity of a building and the general well being of a family, but you never know I guess. Just to make sure the legend is never tested, they keep eight or nine ravens there. Not superstitious at all; just cautious. :-)

Of course to complete any self-respecting royal fortress, you require royal guards. The British have pretty distinctive royal guards too:

These lads were on their way to guard the crown jewels. And do the British royals have a lot of crown jewels? Yes.

That night it was time to change the scene a bit. From down town royal castles, to inner city Camden Town. We caught a Mexican wrestling (Lucha libre) show at the Roundhouse. Former railway shed, and then more famously, live music venue. These days it's been revamped into a theatre. The wrestling was a ridiculous, well choreographed show with oiled up men wearing masks. After the show we went back to the centre of London for a night on the turps.

We were supposed to have brunch on Sunday morning, but we scrapped that plan in favour of sleeping in again. Today was the main event: Wimbledon men's final. No, unfortunately I didn't have tickets, but being in London meant I could at least watch the final in daylight hours! True to form, it was raining by 1pm, and still raining at 2pm when the final was due to start. We headed into a sports bar, and settled for watching a very wet British Grand Prix.

Finally the weather cleared, and Federer and Nadal took the court for what was about to be an epic 5 set final. This being London on men's final Sunday, meant it wasn't going to be fine weather forever. Of course the match got interrupted again. When the weather forecaster said the delay would be at least an hour, we decided to head to Cynthia's, and watch the remainder of the final at her house. (We weren't even sure if it was going to be continued that day!)

The rest is history. The rain cleared, play continued, and Nadal broke Federer's five Wimbledon winning streak. We watched it in comfort at Cyn's place, eating some excellent sushi.

aussie rules karlstad

After the fun of a very Swedish midsummer's long weekend, the next weekend it was time to spice things up with a bit of a road trip in celebration of Australian culture. I hit the road with the Berserkers: the Göteborg Australian Rules Football Club to take on the Dragons from Karlstad.

Aussie rules has to be modified a bit to be played here. For example, we play on a rugby pitch, with nine players per side on the field. Since the pitch is fairly short, there was a one bounce limit before you had to pass.

Göteborg was boosted by a few ring-in's from Oslo: three Aussies! So the final make up of the Berserkers was 5 Aussies and 6 Swedes. It was a sunny day, with a moderate wind down the ground. We lost the toss and kicked into the wind in the first quarter. While slightly down at quarter time, a heated 2nd quarter made sure we were in front at half time by a goal. Unfortunately our ruck man was knocked out after a heavy tackle.

With the loss of the ruck man our mid-field was significantly weakened and Karlstad took full advantage kicking 6 or 7 goals in the first 10 minutes of the third quarter. It's not called the premiership quarter for nothing. From here we never recovered.

Karlstad def. Göteborg: 18.19.127 to 9.14.68.

Postscript: Mattias, the ruck who was knocked out, was at training the following Monday, suffering only a "slight" headache. Suffice to say, he opted out of the scratch match at the end.

midsummer's eve

Midsummer in Sweden is a big deal. It's the holiday of the year. Celebrations usually involve friends, family and lots and lots of spirits.

There can be nothing more Swedish than raising a May Pole, dancing around it singing about little frogs, then settling in for a hearty lunch of pickled herring, new season potatoes, and strawberry cake. Lunch should be punctuated with frequent drinking and singing.

Luckily for me, I was able to get involved thanks to a work mate, Anders, hosting some of us for midsummer's eve. I had company as well, Carmen joined me in Göteborg from London. Also from work there was a couple of Spaniards, a couple of Chinese, and a few more Swedes just to make sure it was a Swedish enough day!

Did I mention the May Pole?

What's it look like? Squint a bit and use only the slightest bit of imagination. Yup, that's right. It symbolises a giant cock being shoved into mother earth, hence kick starting another year of fertile ground, good crops, etc.

After the raising of the May Pole, kids and parents are encouraged to dance around the pole. One of the more popular songs is Små Grodorna, or Small Frog. Basically it goes something along the lines of: small frogs are funny to see, the have no ears, and no tail. And they go kvack ack ack, kvack ack ack.

That's a funny conversation to have over a few drinks: what do animals "say" in other languages. In Swedish, frogs say kvack, kvack, and definitely not ribbit! I forget some of the others now, but commonly ducks, dogs, pigs and birds say things other than quack, woof, oink and tweet in Spanish, Swedish and Chinese. Cats seem to be the only animal that is the same in all: meow.

It was hungry work standing in a park on a Friday afternoon, so soon enough we headed back to Anders' place for a traditional midsummer's eve lunch.

Note: when a Swede offers you "seal" don't jump to conclusions. They do not slaughter baby seals in celebration of midsummer... There's a nicer explanation, as we found out. The Swedish word for herring is sill... Actually the English speakers were fine, as the Swede's told us sill is herring, but the Spanish call herring, aringa, (which is actually an Italian word!). No wonder we were all a bit confused! But don't worry: if you are in Norway, and they offer you seal, then it's a good chance it actually is seal!

After a lunch and a few Aquavit's: O. P. Andersen, and Skåne, to name just two. We headed outside for a game of Kubb. This is an old Swedish game, where you take turns to throw sticks at each other... sort of...

The game is played informally in back yards and parks all over the country whenever the sun is out. The playing field is set up with six kubbs either side, and one king in the middle (pictured). There are six throwing sticks, and two opposting teams. The teams throws all six sticks in a turn to attempt to knock over the kubbs. Once one teams' kubbs are all knocked over, it's time to knock over the king. The king should not be knocked over until the very end, otherwise you lose instantly (kind of like the black ball in pool).

Kubb was really enjoyable. Standing around in the sunshine, talking, and occasionally throwing sticks (and insults). All in all midsummer's eve was really enjoyable! Thanks to Anders for hosting us.

sunny bergen

Bergen is Norway's second biggest city. Which actually means, it's Norway's biggest country town! It's located on the Western side of the country, deep in fjord territory. The city is surrounded by seven mountains. This is good for tourists as it's very easy to get a good view of the town.

This photo was taken from Fløyen, the easiest of the seven mountains to access. It has a funicular, a kind of tram on a cable, that takes you up the mountain at a 45° angle. Of course... it is Swiss built.

Three hundred meters above a city, on a beautiful mountain, you'd expect it to be nice and peaceful. Not so actually. Bergen has a big reputation for it's music scene, and sure enough I could hear plenty of noise from the city. There were two marching bands battling for attention; one somewhere beyond the left hand side of the photo, one somewhere near the right hand side. Smack bang in the middle of the photo, in the harbour, a jazz band were playing on a boat. Combined with the noise of boats coming and going in the harbour it was quite a cacophony.

The Norwegians have a few sly jokes at the Swedes expensive, as discovered when buying lunch that day. As I rummaged through my wallet for Norwegian krona, I muttered something about having Swedish krona mixed in there too. "That's too bad" said the barmen, "they're worthless these days". The Swedish krona used to be stronger than both the Danish and Norwegian krona, but it's not the case any more. It's annoying though, as Norway is expensive! This local brew cost around $12 Aussie! Damn!

Again, you can see I was pretty lucky with the weather I had on this trip. Bergen is even further north than Oslo. The sun set around 11pm, and it was dusk until well after midnight.

Since it was a Saturday night, and Bergen had a reputation for music, I decided to have a look at whatever bands were playing at Garage. Equivalent in Bergen to the Corner Hotel in Melbourne. That's what I had decided. What actually happened though, was I walked out of my hostel and headed down a cobble stoned street. Just around the corner there's bar that looks like it's someone's living room. Turns out it is.

Cafe Sanaa is a small bar, in a living room of a house. Hungry at the time, the owner told me I could simply look at the menu from next door - a Vietnamese restaurant - and order it to the bar! Nice. We then started to chat, how long had the bar been open? Only 9 months. What band is playing tonight? My husband and his jazz band. It was time to change my plans.

I stayed for a few pints, and then a few more.

pining for the fjords

What better to do on Sweden Day long weekend, than to bugger off to Norway. Land of fjords, and the lovely Norwegian Blue parrot. My plan was to hitch a ride to Oslo, catch the train to Flåm, then a ferry to Gudvangen, a bus to Voss, and a train to Bergen. Stay a couple of nights in Bergen, fly back to Oslo, and then hitch a ride home again. Nice plan, but I had to make a few alterations along the way.

A friend from Swedish language classes, Marcos, works as an engineer for Volvo. He was visiting some friends near Oslo, and offered to drive me up there. Either half of Oslo commutes to Göteborg, or there quite a few others had the same idea. The traffic was quite heavy crossing the border.

We got to Oslo about an hour later than predicted by the Portuguese speaking GPS receiver. The awesome thing about Scandinavian summer is, however, it was only just dusk; at 11pm! I checked into my hostel and hit the sack, I was getting the early train to Bergen.

The next morning I had breakfast with some Norwegian troops who were also staying at the hostel. Breakfast was very Nordic: boiled eggs, cheese, ham and bread.

As I settled in on the train, I realised that I should travel this way more often. The train station was in the centre of town, only a short walk away from the hostel. There was no stringent security, the seat was large and comfortable, and of course the window is massive compared to an aeroplane!

Soon we were scooting through scenery that later, when showing Carmen the photos, she exclaimed that it must be fake, as if I'd made the photo up! I assure you it's real :-)

Unfortunately my pleasant train journey was interrupted by an announcement: The train is cancelled between Gol and Bergen due to fires in the mountains. This threw a spanner in the works!

The train company organised bus replacements, and gladly it was quite well organised. The buses were at the station waiting for us. Sadly I didn't get to the descend from Myrdal to Flåm, which is reported to have wonderful views, and for an interested engineer like me, also some interesting engineering to get the train down the steep decent. However, the bus ride did have it's highlights with some impressive hairpin bends in the road, and similarly steep descents. There were also a very long road tunnel. Twenty-four kilometres long. Until I just looked it up on Wikipedia then, I didn't realise that it is the worlds longest road tunnel! It's called Lærdalstunnelen.

Flåm was tourist central. Lunch was very expensive (but then, so was the rest of Norway). Surrounded by a number of snow capped mountains, and positioned on the edge of the water, it was very pretty.

I would have liked to spend more time there to climb a mountain or two. Instead I had to make a detour to a tourist office overrun by people from the cancelled train. The train wasn't running from Myrdal, or Voss, so no one could go to Oslo or Bergen from Flåm without catching a ferry or a bus. I opted to catch the "express" ferry to Bergen.

While it was labelled "express", the ferry still stopped at a few villages along the way, and took five hours to reach Bergen. When the countryside is as beautiful as World Heritage Aurlandsfjorden and Sognefjorden, there's no need to rush. Below is one of the villages we stopped at:

As you can see I fluked a sunny day. Western Norway is a bit like Tasmania: expect around 280 days of rain a year, and many more cloudy days on top of that. While it was a bit chilly in the wind outside on the boat, the days were warm and calm, with great visibility.

After a while I went inside and had a nap. At this time of year in Bergen, the sun sets at 11pm, and dusk lasts well past midnight, so I needed a daytime nap! Here's the view we were leaving behind:

No matter, Bergen was equally as good... but more on that later.

välkommen til sverige

As I'm flying back from Melbourne after quick holiday, I think it's interesting to reflect on what it's like to live, work and relax in Sweden.

Did I get culture shock? Damn straight! They don't pack your shopping bags in the supermarket. You have to do it yourself. How uncivilised! It took me a number of weeks to work up the coordination to pack my groceries while simultaneously signing the credit card authorisation. On the topic of credit cards, they also need photo ID with a credit card purchase if you don't have a PIN number on your credit card. Bizarrely the Victorian drivers licence seems to satisfy the requirements for photo ID.

What about eating? Talk about flipping the day on its head, not only have I shifted my day 8 hours into the past, I now eat my main meal at lunch time. The Swedes have a culture of large lunches and light dinners. Every restaurant has a set lunch menu with 3 or 4 dishes (ie. one meat dish, one soup, one fish and one vegetarian). This is called "dagens lunch" in Swedish, which is translated as lunch of the day. Around work all the restaurants publish the whole week's menu on the web, so we can decide before going out where we go. Once at the restaurant you pick up a tray and load your food up like you see on American high-school TV shows. Included in the price is a salad and usually a drink and coffee. Coffee is essential when returning to work after such heavy lunches! No wonder the Swedes are the 2nd highest per capita consumers of coffee.

The phrase (in English) "after work" is a noun in Sweden, e.g. "lets go for an after work". Go drinking! What if it's too cold? It doesn't matter, the bars give you complimentary blankets if you are drinking outdoors! That's right... there's no such thing as too cold, you just haven't got enough blankets yet.

I've spotted some productivity improvements Swedish bars could make: get rid of unisex toilets! Urinals are fast and efficient, forcing the guys to queue for cubicles is just bad business practise. The faster I'm out of the toilet and back at the bar, the sooner I can buy more beer! Mind you, buying beer at Swedish prices is not something you want to rush into... better check with your bank manager first. It's not uncommon to pay around 50kr for a 400ml beer ($10). Yup, that round of 3 beers just set you back $30. A Swedish mate offers this phrase whenever I complain: "welcome to Sweden: last communist state on earth". Thanks Olly.

Another not-quite-right Swedish-English expression in common use is: "how many are we?". Which the reply could be: "we are three". You'd use this when asking how many people are going to lunch (or to an after work!). I think it's a cute expression, and it's shorter than asking properly "how many of us are there?".

Mind you, you'll be eating alone if you are not on time. Swede's are punctuality freaks. You might find they even turn up early to meetings! Crazy I tell you. A meeting time is the time to leave you desk and make your way to the meeting in my books. And keep in-mind lunch is at 11:30am, no later, or you might miss out.

When visiting a friend's house in Sweden, don't forget to take off your shoes. The best way to lose a friend in Sweden is to, turn up to their house late for dinner, and then keep your shoes on. It's probably quite a practical piece of etiquette though, since I suspect it's pretty muddy here in winter.

What are some of the good things about living in Sweden?

• The public transport is usually on time, and it runs all night.
• Holidays are no problem, the rest of Europe is not far away.
• Summer has awesomely long days (though, I'm glad I'm not here for winter darkness).
• Everyone speaks English - this is good and bad - makes learning Swedish hard.
• Innebandy, see my previous post on that.
• Most people eat lunch out, it's good for socialising with workmates, and getting out of the office.
• Fika: a Swedish coffee break, everyone attends, lasts at least 15 minutes, and sometimes includes cake.
• No water restrictions.

What's bad?

• 25% GST.
• Coffee is usually bad, unless you find "Italian" style coffee.
• Pizza is terrible. And it doesn't come pre-sliced.
• Eating out costs heaps if it's not dagens lunch.
• Queuing is taken way too seriously here.

I'll finish this post with a few amusing things.

• You order beer like so: en stor stack tack! This literally means, a big strong one thanks.
• Fart, bra and slut are all common words: go, good and end.
• If it's over 20°C and sunny, then everyone in the office goes out for ice cream.
• Oh... and seriously... everyone drives Volvo's.

Postscript: I found an awesome list of "you know you're Swedish when..." from an Australian perspective at http://www.coolabah.com/sweden/youknow.html.

pong on berlin

Berlin has a crazy bar called Dr. Pong. Combining drinking with competitive sport. Awesome.

Basically everyone is in at the start, and you keep rotating around the table hitting one ball at a time until there are only 2 left. They then play out a game.

Does anyone think that the guy in the dark jacket and white shirt in the video looks like Roger Federer?

on to berlin

Finally, on my long weekend (which was a few weeks back now!), I met up with Carmen, Cynthia and Shanaka in Berlin. Thankfully, it was a bit drier in Berlin than in Copenhagen.

Note to the intrepid traveller: travelling in Europe on May Day long weekend can be annoying. In Copenhagen there were noisy protests with police in armour looking on. In Berlin the buses were on strike. Luckily they ran "emergency" buses, which were packed to the rafters (if buses had rafters). Also note: don't buy the German version of the lonely planet guide if you can't speak German. Good thing I tried to read it straight after buying it. Interestingly the English version is €5 more than the German one!

Being in town the night before the others I went on a scouting mission to find good food and maybe a bar or two. Not too difficult in Berlin: head to Friedrichshain. They have a passion for graffiti and the drinks are cheap. The food was pretty good too. Interestingly I had to pay €1 deposit on my glass - maybe they have a problem with them going missing? Getting broken?

Berlin is the capital of Germany, and it has famous symbols such as the Reichstag and the Brandenburg Gate, I suspect however it is best known for the Berlin Wall (and the fall thereof). The start of the cold war can be characterised by the Berlin Airlift. The Americans and the English airlifted food and supplies into the city after the Soviets blockaded the western half of the city. At one stage a plane was landing at Tempelhof airport every 90 seconds! Tempelhof is currently being closed and replaced by the other two airports in Berlin. I used both the other ones, and they're crap. Hopefully by having only two airports they can focus on making a couple of decent ones! The residents near Tempelhof disagree with me given the amount of protest posters on street poles, shop fronts and alley ways.

The most interesting I discovered during my visit was that West Berlin was an enclave inside East Germany: the wall surrounded West Berlin entirely. I'd imagined it was a "vertical" spilt down the middle of Germany. Not much of the wall remains. Mostly the route of the wall is traced by metal "tracks" in the pavement. One section is preserved and protected - ironically - protected by another wall! Really it's only a fence, but it's amusing none-the-less. Another section called The East Side Gallery, is open for anyone to graffiti: it was quite interesting. We visited it at dusk:

Personally the wall raised all sorts of interesting questions for me. For instance, so many East Germans fled to West Germany. This prompted the creation of the wall. But the again, many East Germans did not flee. When is the point at which you decide it's time to flee a country? When are conditions so bad, that you are forced to move? What made people stay? What factors weigh in when deciding to stay? Family? Friends? Work? Familiarity? Habit? The unknown?

The fall of the wall is also amazing in its randomness. One time-poor, unbriefed, government minister, reading the incorrect information caused the wall to "fall". What the chances of that? One single utterance changed history!

I really liked Berlin. The very recent history. The graffiti, while not always great: the vast majority is just plain old "tagging"; the best stuff was artistic, and the political commentary was also good. I even found some graffiti supporting Internationalised Domain Names (IDN's):

This system is a non-issue in Australia and the USA: it allows "extended" characters (such as: ß or ä) to be used in domain names (such as: www.google.com). It must be quite important in Europe and the rest of the world however! The German domain name system has allowed IDN's since 2004.

I'd definitely recommend visiting Berlin. It's dirty, relatively cheap and very interesting.

next stop: københavn

Next stop on my long weekend was Copenhagen. It was a bit gloomy when I arrived in town, and as I read the hotel guide book to the city I began to worry. It had a list of common phrases in English, with the Danish translations, such as:

Excuse me, which way is ___? Undskyld, hvad vej ligger ___?
and
How much does this cost? Hvor meget koster den her?

... but that wasn't what worried me... it was this phrase that worried me:

Does it EVER stop raining here?? Holder det NOGENSINDE op med at regne her??

Yup, even the emphasis was included in the guide book. "Meh" I thought, "how bad could it be?", and so I continued on my merry way to grab some brunch. I have no qualms about recommending BarBar Bar for brunch either, the food was excellent. By the time I'd finished brunch however, it had begun to spit with rain. "Nevermind" I thought, "it'll just be a passing shower", and so I set off on a four hour self-guided walking tour. This is me at the half way mark, just before giving up:

Cold. Wet. Slightly miserable.

Consulting some more guides I decided to go back to my hotel, grab a change of clothes, and head indoors to some of the museums around town.

On my way back I passed some May Day protests, they seemed to be tame enough, but given the police presence, complete with protective head gear for the constables, I wasn't sticking around to find out. Trekking further towards the hotel I walked down a street that the Danes claim to be one of the longest outdoor shopping strips in Europe. That's fine... except when it's raining! BYO umbrella!

The Danes are masters of modern design. The Danish Design Centre provides some museum-esque exhibits of the history of Danish design, as well as an exhibition space for some of the latest pieces. Danish and Scandinavian design, whilst being modern, also tends to include a lot of wood. To force modern-ness on such a natural material they developed methods of steaming, bending and moulding wood.

It seems that the Danish design ethic is to be functional, aesthetically pleasing, and without ornamentation. From a computer-science view of the world, I like that this usually means that the objects have Affordance: that is, how the object looks, implicitly suggests how to use it. Sometimes, however, the objects were slightly abstract:

Looking at this jug reminded me of something... The beer is cheaper in Denmark than in Sweden! Time to head to a bar for a few brews.

Not content with only modern product design, I visited the Arken Museum of Modern Art. It's well worth the visit. Most of the pieces in the museum were created after 1990. Frustratingly they don't allow cameras inside. Some of the pieces in the museum were definitely worth a picture or two. I could describe them, but they really are visual things, so I wont.

The museum itself looks like a ship anchored to the nearby lake. Here's a view from the front:

That concluded my short, and somewhat soggy trip to Copenhagen. Two and a half days of long weekend still ahead of me, it was back to the airport, to fly to Berlin.

kicking things off with a parade

Last weekend was a nice, long, four day weekend. I think it was for most of Europe, whether they were celebrating May Day: for workers rights; or Ascension Day: a Christian holiday; or even Walpurgis Night or Day: a confused holiday for either Pagans, Satanists, or Roman Catholics.

In Göteborg they celebrate Walpurgis Night with a parade by Chalmers (a University in Göteborg) through the middle of the city. The parade is called The Cortège and students have been selling programmes for the event on the streets for a couple of weeks beforehand. The programme tells you what the floats in the The Cortège are all about. The Cortège satirises the previous year's worth of news, current affairs, and the affairs of shady celebrities.

A colleague of mine from Australia, Deepika, has an apartment overlooking the route of The Cortège, so we were able to avoid the crowds, and frantically try and work out what the hell each float was all about. Between bad attempts at translating the Swedish in the program, a little local knowledge and watching the floats, we were able to work out most of them.

Here are some of the floats. Such as this one, regarding the attempts to shut down The Pirate Bay, a Swedish bit torrent tracker:

Quite a number of the floats seemed to be a good excuse for the male students to cross dress. Paris Hilton is an easy target...

And the final photo I'll put here shows that Göteborg has the opposite problem to Melbourne with the weather forecasts: they get told it'll be sunny, but it seems to always rain! Can't say that's really been my Göteborg experience so far... thankfully! As usual more photos are here.

a netherlands teaser

This was always going to be ambitious. One weekend, three cities. Den Haag, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and a visit to Kinderdijk thrown in for good measure. It was good, tiring, and fun. And in the end it was easy to conclude: you've got to spend more than just a weekend in the Netherlands!

I arrived late in the evening on Friday, and met up with Carmen, Cynthia, and Roland. We had our own personal tour guide as Roland is from Rotterdam, but now lives in London. They'd been touring around before I got there, and so they met me for drinks in Den Haag after I arrived. Since the weather was good there were plenty of locals out drinking too. Den Haag has some old squares where you can buy drinks in the bars, and then take them out into the square which has tables and chairs set up. It's all very cool.

Saturday was reserved for Amsterdam. We took a canal tour that let us travel around the city at our own pace. We hopped off at the Rijksmuseum, home of many Rembrandt paintings. In addition to its' most famous images, the museum also documents a lot of the Netherlands "golden age": when trade, rather than a monarch or a religion, ruled the land; when the Dutch East and West India companies were trading and bringing back treasures from around the globe - either that or stealing them from the Portuguese!

The detail in the paintings surprised me. Some of the paintings depicted scenes with shiny metal objects, and the painter went to the effort of painting the reflection of other objects in the painting on the shiny surfaces. It made me laugh as I thought this must have been the equivalent of 18th-century gamers: always aiming to get more and more rendered realism, more pixels, more detail.

What better than to follow up a museum visit on a nice day, than with a walk in a park. With spring well and truly established, Amsterdam locals were out in force. It was so nice to see people cycling, lounging around, drinking, and generally not being in any kind of a hurry. Not hurrying also applied to the waitresses at lunch... slowest service... ever... Did we mind though? Nah, it was nice sitting in the sun.

It would have been nice to do what these locals were doing. Having wine and cheese in their very own canal boat.

The conundrum of the how long to spend at lunch - and when to get back on the tour boat to see more of the city - pushed us to keep moving on in the end. We sailed up to Anne Frank's house. This was a far more sombre affair contrasted with the Rijksmuseum. The later celebrated the Netherlands golden age, where as the former commemorated some of the Netherlands darkest years. The house tells the story of Anne and her close friends and relatives. It also explains the story of all the Dutch Jews. Of around 100,000 Jewish residents in the Netherlands, a puny 5,000 survived world war II. The quote from a holocaust survivor in the guide book accurately sums this up for me:

One single Anne Frank moves us more than the countless others who suffered just as she did but whose faces have remained in the shadows. Perhaps it is better that way; if we were capable of taking in all the suffering of all those people, we would not be able to live.

First impression of the house is that it is bigger than you imagine it would have been. Then it dawns: this was Anne and her seven relatives and friends home/prison for two years straight. The windows were blacked out, so there was no sunshine. And when it all came down to it, after two years in the dark, they were betrayed and sent to concentration camps. So it goes.

By the time we concluded our lap of Amsterdam by boat the sun was starting to dip in the sky.

At night the landscape changes... to a wonderful shade of dodgy red. You may have heard of the Amsterdam red-light district. Well, it's not so much a district, more like... most of the alleys and lane ways in the centre of town. Fun. Strange. Dodgy. Tourist attraction. Drug dealers. Drunks. Tits.

We didn't stay too late in Amsterdam because we wanted to avoid having to catch the night train back to Den Haag (which stops all stations).

The next day took us to Rotterdam. The most modern of the three cities, mainly because the Germans destroyed most of it in 1940 when they invaded. This has liberated Rotterdam from heritage that might have stopped them building interesting looking things like these apartments:

Bizarre aren't they? I'd love to return and see more of Rotterdam's modern architecture. Time constraints meant we had to move on, catch a boat, and see the most quintessential of all Dutch symbols.

That's right, no whirlwind trip to the Netherlands would be complete without a trip to see some windmills. We visited Kinderdijk, a world heritage listed collection of 16 windmills including one we could go inside and check out 17th century engineering.

Ingenious design really: the wind turns the wheel, which turns a drive shaft through the middle of the building. This turns either a worm drive type arrangement, or a water wheel, to move water from lower ground to higher ground. This allowed the Dutch to move flood-water out of the fields into the canals and rivers quicker that it would naturally drain. Fields were back in production quicker after heavy rain. If only Australia had this problem! You can solve flooding with 17th century techniques, but there is no solution to drought.

All too soon it was time to head back to the airport, with a vow to return.

exploring göteborg

Over the last two weekends I've had some time to explore Göteborg. The weather has been warming up... and it was even sunny last weekend!

The town is putting on its summer face. Restaurants are adding outdoor dining tables, people are picnicking by the canals, and the tourist boat tours are starting up.

Slottsskogen (translation: Castle Forest) is a large park and recreation area in Göteborg. It was developed as a English garden, but these days there are soccer pitches, a "zoo" with Swedish animals, and areas for frisbee golf. I haven't played frisbee golf yet, but it looks hilarious; rest assured there'll be a blog post on that when I do end up playing it.

Two weekends ago on a slightly cold overcast Saturday, a colleague of mine, Deepika, and myself went exploring around Slottsskogen. It's quite nice. We found an aviary in the middle of the park. It had all sorts of birds including rainbow Rainbow Lorikeets from Australia! But that wasn't the most interesting thing about this aviary. This aviary included aquatic bird life: penguins! Didn't expect that.

The next weekend was wandering weather. I like to wander aimless in a new city if I have the time. It's a great way to understand the dynamic of the city. What are the flashy expensive suburbs? Where are the grimy blue collar towns? Where is the university? There's sure to be some student pubs around the university - always good to find that :-)

I decided to follow one of the canals through town, and see where it lead me.

It lead past the construction site of a new football stadium. Past their main football stadium. Past a highway leading to Oslo, or Stockholm, or Copenhagen. And then I decided to follow a road up a hill instead of the canal, loosely heading towards a fortress in the distance. On my way up the hill there was a church with a statue of Mermen (that's right: men, not maids) out the front, throwing rocks at each other. The juxtaposition of Greek mythology and Christian architecture was quite bizarre.

April is when the tourist boats start doing tours of Göteborg's canals and harbour. This really illustrates how the historic 17th century centre of the city fits in with the industrial ship-building harbour. These days the ship-building is gone, but repairs are still done here.

Sunday was equally as sunny, and so Deepika and I headed to one of the islands in the mouth of Göta Älv, Göteborg's river. There's heaps of islands in the mouth of the river, and most of them have names ending in "ö". We caught the ferry to Brännö. This car-free island is home to around 800 people. Instead of cars they have funny looking three-wheeled motorcycles. The architecture is very Swedish, and some of the houses were very old and small.

We decided to hike out to the edge of Brännö where it is connected to another island, Galterö, by a small sand bank. Galterö seemed to be uninhabited except for the odd hiker, or family on an outing.

I'll be very happy if the weather stays this good! This weekend I'm off to Amsterdam / Den Haag / Rotterdam, and it's supposed to be warm and sunny. Make sure you visit my photo album, as there's heaps more photos there!

stockholm in a weekend

Not last weekend, but the weekend before, I went and visited Stockholm; Sweden's largest city and capital. From my Australian perspective it's funny that the largest city is the capital - seems like it's getting everything its own way. Makes you realise Canberra is an anomaly, but we already knew that right? :-) Anyway, the Swede's are quite generous when it comes to "the youth". In Sweden you are a youth until you are 25, which means that I get discounted public transport tickets - and even better: discounted airfares with some of the Swedish airlines. Invited to a party in Stockholm, I checked the airfare, and it's less than $200.00 Australian. Going to Stockholm for the weekend was a no brainer.

Another thing an Melbourne native should get used to overseas is most big cities have a rail-link from the airport to the centre of town (Melbourne doesn't!). It shouldn't be a cause for excitement, but hell, I was anyway: the Arlanda Express took 20 minutes to hit Stockholm Central (40km away), and most of the way it was travelling at around 185km/h. (Possibly the fastest I've been on land?..)

The party was fun. Met a bunch of people from work and elsewhere - both Australian and Swedish. And also an Aussie couple that had become Swedes! There was plenty of discussion, nachos, music and red wine. The low down is that you need to visit the Vasa and Gamla Stan when in Stockholm.

The weather gods have been favouring me so far. Awesome snow on arrival, and now only a couple of weeks later Stockholm produced a sunny Saturday for all to enjoy.

First stop when exploring Stockholm is the tourist bureau. Purchasing the Stockholm card seems to be the sensible thing to do for a weekend - it allows unlimited use of the public transport system and entry to all the museums and other attractions. It's a short walk from there to Gamla Stan - otherwise known as "Old Town". Gamla Stan exists completely on the island of Stadsholmen (literally: City Island), and until the 19th century the Stockholm was contained on the island. Given medieval towns were prone to burning down, Gamla Stan contains architecture from the 17th century onwards. This includes the Swedish royal palace which burnt down in 1697 and had to be rebuilt. The palace is still in use today as the official residence of the head of state, and it's open to visitors. It wasn't that interesting however. I should have visited the Swedish parliament (the Riksdag) instead, but I didn't know I was looking at it, even when I took a photo of it! Ooops, haha.

Stockholm city hall is an impressive brick building on the corner of one of the islands. Unfortunately the hall was closed for a function on the weekend I visited.


Wandering back out onto the streets, I almost missed the Nobel Prize museum. Don't miss it though - it is really interesting! Over head is a rail which constantly rotates profiles of each of the winners, down the middle you can read about the things that have been "prize worthy" through-out the years and the social and political context these have fitted into. To one side there is a theatrette showing 3 minute interviews with the prize winners - explaining their inventions, discoveries, or contributions in their own words.

At the back there is a space for temporary exhibitions. Currently the museum is hosting "Design4Science", an exhibition dedicated to the sculptures, illustrations, sketches and models that have helped advance molecular biology. For example the structure of haemoglobin was not known until Max Perutz built a model of it from x-ray images he'd taken. Some of the most complex ideas can be simplified by models, such as Ahmed Zewail's 1999 prize winning invention, a method to photograph chemical reactions. The video below demonstrates the concept: a laser is broken by a spinning disc with slots in it, this is aimed at a fast moving 'thing' (i.e. a chemical reaction).

Not content with finishing a day of tourism just yet, I headed to the Armémuseum. Yup, that's a funky Swedish spelling of Army. The museum documents military history in general as well as specific Swedish history. Unfortunately all the information is in Swedish! I got by, but I'm sure it's a lot more interesting if you know the language ;-)

A quintessential Swedish military innovation is moving their bicycle infantry around not by marching, and not even by the soldiers peddling their bikes, but instead the bicycles were towed by a tractor!

That's enough science, culture, and history to work up an apetite! So that night I met up with Shona, a friend from university and work, and one of her colleagues for dinner. We had Indian, and after joking with the waiter that Swede's can't eat hot food, they served up the hottest vindaloo you've ever had! We barely got through it alive. It had to be washed down with beer - of course! After a false start in a crappy bar (though it was cheap), we then hit the suggestively named Berns Salonger. Berns' is quite fancy, and with fancy came the famous Swedish alcohol prices (i.e. expensive!), but it was fun.

Sunday brought an overcast day, but that didn't matter too much, I headed indoors to check out the massive Vasa. The Vasa is a 17th century warship that the Swede's built, and then it promptly sank on its maiden voyage. In fact it didn't even get out of Stockholm! Why? This is a classic study into not being able to say "No" to a demanding customer. The King demanded a massive ship: it was to carry 64 guns, all to be heavy artillery, and 300 soldiers. Ship design in those days usually had one gun-deck, but to accommodate 64 guns the Vasa had two. Putting heavy artillery on the upper deck made the ship unstable and top heavy. The ship was to be manoeuvrable, and so it was built too narrow to support its weight. A stability test (30 men running from side to side) showed that it was unstable, but the Admiral ignored the results because the King was fighting a war in Poland and needed it immediately.

Can anyone see the parallels in software engineering here? Customer demands every feature, plus a few more; testing shows its got bugs but the customer needs the software today; deliver the software and then watch it crash!

Given that it sank, you'd expect this all to be history, but the Baltic Sea isn't as salty as other seas. The ship was well preserved in these waters, and in the 1960's it was found, lifted, sealed with plastic, and then put in a museum. It's all quite impressive and well worth a visit. It's so big that I couldn't get far enough away from it to get a good overall photo of it.

Just down the road from the Vasa is Skansen - a Swedish version of Soveriegn Hill. I was mainly attracted by the promise of seeing some bears. The promise was fulfilled: they had recently woken up from hibernation and were roaming around their enclosure, and even play fighting a bit.

There were an array of other Swedish animals from wild wolves, wolverines, elk, otters and seals, to domesticated horses, ponies, sheep and goats. The main purpose to Skansen is to preserve what life was like in Sweden before and during the early parts of the industrial age. Not that thrilling really.

After Skansen it was time to get back on the Arlanda express, head to the airport, and get whisked back to Göteborg and work for another week.

sport in göteborg

Back in Melbourne I don't shy away from playing a bit of sport. Usually tennis, more recently basketball, and when convenient (and not wet!) I'll ride to work.

Before I left for Sweden I was already thinking about Sweden's tennis heritage: Edberg and Björkman are the ones that come to mind. But there have been more recent Swedish players: Johansson won the Aussie in 2002, and Enqvist lost it in 1999. Most famously Björn Borg only played one Aus. Open because he's soft. Anyway... You'd thinking this great tennis playing nation might have a fair bit of tennis at the amateur (or more accurately: hack) level. Nup, it snows here so they play indoors - limiting the number of courts available.

This doesn't matter though as my work mates have taught me another game. Again, it's been influenced by the snow. It's called Innebandy (or Floorball in English), and it's basically indoor hockey, but also influenced by ice hockey too (you can go behind the goals for instance).

We play three on three, and with no goalie either. It's quick and scores come often.

The other sport I've taken up while I'm here is a bit more ridiculous... I've travelled 15,000kms to join a footy club! Mind you, they've got a cool name: The Göteborg Berserkers! Would you want to play a sword wielding Viking berserker? I haven't played footy in a good 8 years, and it's fair to say I haven't got any better since high school. Luckily, they don't seem to be much better ;-)

Funny thing is footy here is played properly: in the mud! No drought to worry about here, there's plenty of soft turf to land in. Mind you I was doing that on my own accord as I don't have studded boots. Volley's don't have much grip in the mud... actually they have none. Might be time for a trip to the shops.

more on rīga

Like any country Latvia and its citizen's had their funny quirks. Most prominently was their Russian influenced accent. This gave us hours of amusement, it was like being stuck in the dodgier scenes of a Bond film (particularly when we went to Voodoo Nightclub!). The currency in Latvia is the Lat. The Lat is an abnormally large amount of money as a single unit. i.e. It's over AU$2.50, around euro1.7, and more than 1GBP. Said with a burly Russian accent, and being such an abrupt word (lat!), we endlessly amused by the demanding sounding way the locals would ask for payment. How much for a coffee? One lat! How much for a beer? Two lats! How much for a bus to the airport? Ten lats!

Early in the trip I was approached by a shady looking character in the street; he was selling postcards. I wanted a postcard, but when I asked how much, it was one lat for 12. I really only wanted one. As I had no idea what a Latvian "cent" was (Lonely Planet informed me later that it's a santīms - which is pretty much French for "cent" but anyway..) I wasn't really in a position to argue him down. Bugger it, one lat it was.

Lonely Planet also says the Latvians can be "standoffish". This was most evident on our last night in town. We were having a few drinks in the hotel bar. When it came to closing time, the bar staff closed the bar and turned off most of the lights. They didn't come over and inform us the bar was closing - they just closed it around us. We couldn't really be bothered moving so we just stayed there talking. After another hour or two of us sitting there and security watching us and saying nothing, security then turned off the rest of the lights. Again they could have just asked us to leave, but no, they didn't. We stayed and kept talking, by about 3 or 4 in the morning the security guards fell asleep watching us! See what I mean about it's like being stuck in the dodgier scenes of a Bond film?

Mind you, if we'd really felt like partying, the Latvian party drink is coffee with balsam (or.. Riga Black Balzams). No sugary red-bull and vodka for them, it's straight out black-as-tar and bitter-as-hell balsam and black coffee. In a word: awful. Though I'm sure like any good alcohol, you'd get used to it pretty quickly ;-)

Oh, and a note of warning to prospective partying tourists. Latvian bars and club impose "Face Control". A very Orwellian of saying, if they don't like your face, you're not getting in. Like normal really, but just a funny way to say it. Face Krontrol!! Far better than unimaginative "members only" anyway.

Finally I'm not sure why, maybe because they knew I was coming in from Sweden by my phone number? Maybe because vikings are cute... err... sort of.. below are the do-not-disturb and please make up my room signs in the Metropole hotel in Rīga! Bizarre.

I quite like the Latvian flag - it's not straight out red and white, it's a dark red or maroon and white. I've heard it called "Latvian Red" too.