I saw my first elk!

Posted on Tuesday, 30 June, 2009 by anmara

Yes, I am going to be really German in this post. Why? Because Germans are simply crazy about elks. Why that is I do not understand myself. Seems we simply think that they are cool, cute and maybe because they incorporate this calm, almost phlegmatic character that we sometimes wish to have but somehow lost in our modern, busy lives, often dominated by job and having less and less time for ourselves.

Last summer I even saw German tourists, stopping at the most inappropriate place at the road side for – taking a picture of the typical Swedish elk warning sign… That behaviour is a bit too much, if you ask me. And also this. Definitely too much.

Anyway. I lived in Sweden for over a year now and one cannot say that I haven’t been out in the woods here, rather on the contrary. But I never saw one of these animals. Now yesterday, almost dozing off in the evening summer heat on the train between Linköping and Norrköping – there he was! A young male elk that apparently attempted to cross the rail when the train arrived. It was a funny picture, because he went really fast out of reach of the train, but only as much as necessary, then looking back rather annoyed at the big wheeled steel monster that interrupted his evening potter. Cute picture. And a really shiny brown fur he had, slightly glowing in the late afternoon sun. I am not totally crazy about them, but this one was truly beautiful.

Did you know that elks apparently always let the first car or motorcycle pass? So the first driver is always save, but the second one might have a hard time avoiding quite a few kilos of elk attempting to cross the road?
The second driver might even have such a distance to the first driver that he is not aware of being the second one to the elk’s mind…

Being a motorcyclist, I am therefore not that eager to encounter any of these lovely animals on the road…

I do like the Hälge, though.

helge

Midsummer, Sickbed and… Moving Diary Chapter III

Posted on Sunday, 21 June, 2009 by anmara

Last Friday I came back very early (2.40am) from a business trip. Despite being annoyed that travelling back took so much longer than expected, the way back home offered a new experience. Originally I wanted to sleep on the bus – but then I saw that the sun was kind of going down at one end of the horizon while already coming up again at the other end – so even here in almost South Sweden one can see something like “white nights“, at least close around midsummer. First time for me to see this since last year at this time I was out of the country. Of course sleeping on the way home was not on anymore then at all.

From Friday midday the airconditioned environments I spent most of my time in during the three previous days took their toll. Since I do not tend to go very well with air con, this trip was again one of the worse examples for that. Proper cold with fever (and that in summer… grrrrhhh) and all the usual niceties. Strictly bed for two and a half days. Today the first day up again – which consisted of watching the boyfriend moving the next batallion of boxes to the new flat and holding doors open whenever required. Not leaving the old flat that is. But being responsible for lunch catering; definitely the easier task than carrying and packing boxes, although I also packed a few for the kitchen. But that led to me being in an extreme need of a Siesta after lunch. However, the neighbours of course then decided that it would be necessary to play a bit of Death Metal…. .

So how will this be in the new flat? Well, all neighbours on our floor are all pensioners as we figured out already. The direct lady-neighbour is dependend of a rollator, the one “en face” is an older gentleman that cannot really take care of himself anymore. He needs a push chair and sometimes when coming into the entrance area one has the pleasure to notice that he was not quite able to make it to the toilet. To spare you more details at this point. The third lady-neighbour seems to be of similar age as the two others, but she is still able to take her bicycle, even if not uphills anymore.

It looks like us lowering the age average at least on our floor. And who knows, maybe we will be the loud ones? When playing Jazz or some other nice music? As a contra-program for our current neighbours we copied a nice selection of military march music from my parents and surprised them with that on a Sunday morning at a decent volume after they came home hungover the night before. They then woke us up for the first time at 2am with loud music accompanied by “singing” and then at 4amwith noises from a rather very private business… But who knows, maybe our current neighbours would love the march music selection and even ask us for a copy??

Exciting times ahead, I’d say.

Now it is time for the next round of thyme-tea with honey to sooth my throat – yay 😀

Moving Diary – Chapter II

Posted on Monday, 1 June, 2009 by anmara

The weekend was a really good mix of laziness and being busy at the same time.

It started with us having a look at the new flat and most of all the newly decorated sleeping room – veeeery nice indeed, a good job they did. We will now order some more wallpaper for the living room, but that one we’ll have to deal with ourselves. Or better saying the boyfriend’s brother-in-law, who is one of the skilled painters in our family and who will probably start his own company during summertime. Let’s see if we will be his first customers 🙂

Anyway – despite the super nice and warm summer weather we started to pack a little bit now. One begins to realise that all going well, we will wake up in a different room in four weeks time!

The task tonight will be the hunt for moving boxes at Clas Ohlson – hopefully the shop has them in stock as well!

clasohls (Picture from Clas Ohlson’s website)

The laziness part of last weekend consisted of me having finished another Henning Mankell (“Danslärarens Återkomst”) – means around 200 pages in Swedish. Great reading experience and beautiful language. From my perspective, everyone learning the Swedish language and being halfway interested in good stories (not necessarily crime stories), should read Mankell.

The boyfriend on the other hand, unexpectedly found a new mobile phone with Expert Norrköping. His old phone went on strike last week and we were browsing a few mobile shops. Last station was Expert. Last but not least one could say , bevcause Expert was probably the best customer experience ever that I/we ever had when buying a mobile phone. It was Expert in “Varuhuset Linden” and the incredibly competent guy’s name is Robin Ulm. Thanks so much for this great sales experience, Robin – and I can tell you, my lovely man was very excited and most of all happy to get the new gear working. Despite having to transfer over 100 numbers manually from the over a decade old phone to the new one ;).