Winter for a short while

This morning Maria woke up right in time for the sunrise (around 7.30). Not complete cloud cover for once. Relaxing reading time before breakfast.








In the evening there was a mysterious feeling outside, with the city light reflected in the clouds as well as in the snow. Not much darker than during daytime this time of the year.
Unfortunately, the snow may melt tomorrow when it will be normal November rain.

Tourist in Stockholm for a day

Maria's friend had to leave early today, so Maria had the day for herself. She decided to walk to Djurgården and spent a few hours at the Vasa museum (see post below).
The Nordic Museum ("Nordiska museet", established 1873) is dedicated to the cultural history and ethnography of Sweden from the Early Modern age (which for purposes of Swedish history is said to begin in 1520) until the contemporary period.

Some hours later Maria walked downtown. Stockholm is a pretty town to walk in, a many nice old buildings next to a lot of water.






On the way she passed the Royal Dramatic Theatre ("Kungl. Dramatiska Teatern"), which recently celebrated 100 years, as well as the Royal Opera ("Kungliga Operan") where the first performance was given already in 1773.








Stockholm City Hall ("Stadshuset", completed 1923) is the venue of the Nobel Prize banquet and one of Stockholm's major tourist attractions.
The House of Parliament ("Riksdagshuset") is located on Helgeandsholmen in Stockholm. The building was erected between 1897 and 1905.





The Stockholm Palace ("Stockholms slott") is the official residence and major royal palace of the Swedish monarch. (The private residence of the royal family is Drottningholm Palace). Stockholm Palace is located on Stadsholmen ("city island"), in Gamla Stan (the old town) in the capital, Stockholm. Completed 1760

The impressing Vasa warship

Already on the outside of the Vasa museum you see the height of the warship (52,5 m). In the large ship hall stands the impressing warship Vasa - the only remaining, intact 17th century ship in the world.
To get to know the history you could watch a video, as well as join a guided tour.
In front of you are a more or less intact 69 meter long ship made mainly of oak.



Sunday August 10th was the day of the Vasa's maiden voyage. The Vasa ship set sail and fired a salute. But only after a few minutes of sailing the ship began to heel over. She righted herself slightly - and heeled over again. Water started to gush in through the open gun ports. And the glorious and mighty warship suddenly sank!
A third of the 150 seamen was not found afterward, and the 300 soldiers were planed to go on board later.







The main reason for the Vasa capsizing was that the ballast was not enough (obvious from the cross section model) as counterweight to the 64 heavy guns, the upper hull, masts and sails of the ship .




When the Vasa set sail in 1628 she was one of the mightiest warship in the world. At most it could set 10 sails of a total 1,275 square metres. Around 700 sculptures and ornaments decorate the warship, an art treasure. Most of them relate, in a symbolic way, how the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus wished the world to see him and Sweden. Strong, clear colours, in some places supplemented with gilding, were characteristic of the Vasa’s colouring.
(A 1:10 scale model of the ship shows how it probably looked like on its maiden voyage)


Most impressive is the sculpture -filled stern. Only a few parts are reconstructed and can easily be distinguished by the lighter tree against the blackened oak.









In 1961, the 69 meter long warship Vasa broke the surface of Stockholm´s harbour after 333 years on the sea bottom. The ship was sprayed with the chemical substance polyethylenglycol (PEG) during 17 years. It replaces water in wooden objects to prevent them from shrinking when dried, a way to conserve the tree for the future. Afterward it was slowly dried for another 9 years, and today a special air condition helps to keep all the tree intact.

(info mainly from The Vasa museum website)

The main congress day

Maria woke up earlier than planned and took a stroll in the neighborhood before breakfast. Several nice houses, probably hundred years old.





Next to these 'castles' were newer apartment houses, probably expensive condominiums ("bostadsrätter").

Thereafter the real congress sessions started. Quite intense discussions about the future policy document, now in the whole audience.
Nice two-meal lunch today as well, just hard to keep to the time schedule when so many of us should be served simultaneous.
After lunch there was time to elect a new board of the Union.

When the congress was over for this year, Maria took the metro to the north side of Stockholm. An old friend met her and she spent a nice evening and the night in their apartment.

The Naturvetarna congress

During the spring Maria was elected to be a representative for the Northern district of Sweden at the congress of the union Naturvetarna (Natural Science). Yesterday she took the plane down to Stockholm and a train to Saltsjöbaden. Arranging the travel early in the morning was not possible, so Maria stayed an extra night before the congress started at nine this morning. After registration it was time for a short introduction for all congress beginners, explaining the formal procedures during these two days.
At ten we started with the opening of the congress, followed by a speak given by the secretary of the Ministry of Education and Research. After a two-course lunch including nice views over the neighboring water, discussions in smaller groups filled the afternoon. Our group discussed future directions for the union regarding research and climate. Focus were around how can we improve the general attitude of natural science and get more people interested to teach/study the field.

We had time for a short walk in the neighborhood before we all gathered for the aperitif.
In the evening we were served a nice three-meal course. Our table was a nice mix of people, including a few insisting the dinner needed more songs. Some other seemed to think so too, since after our table (suddenly) sang loud, more songs were heard during the evening. The evening then continued in the bar, were live music entertained us all. Now knowing some more people Maria had a really nice evening. A strange situation though, when both Maria and a guy noticed each others faces, but didn't know where we had met before. Half an hour later the guy remembered that we attended the same German class in high school over 13 years ago.
The dancing/chatting continued until the bar closed, and after that a few of us had some small-talk before going to bed for a few hours of sleep.

New office tables

When two more girls arrived from maternity leave in September, we realized the office was not arranged for four persons in front of computers. Old crappy tables, not strong enough to hang the stationary computers as well as two of the girls hitting each others chair every time they moved a little bit. Not at all an acceptable situation. We argued for new tables to the room and finally these arrived today, after more than a month of delivery time. So now the office feels like a "new" office, with new tables together with the new office chairs we got a month ago. Both nice-looking and more functional.

Time for studded tires

Today we started the day with forgetting that it was no longer Daylight Saving Time. We would have been able to sleep one hour more than usual, but instead we started the day a little bit earlier. The main project of the day was switching tires on the car since winter road conditions is approaching. The studded tires have been laying around in the basement since May, but today we had to carry them up to ground level. It was quite easy to remove the ordinary tires, but the winter ones were a little bit harder to fasten because of short bolts. Eventually all four tires were exchanged and we took the car for a ride to see if the bolts were tightened enough (and also to get some food and other articles for the winter).

The bad thing with normal time is that it gets dark already before 4 pm, and it will get even worse as we get closer to the end of the year. Hopefully it will get better when we have some snow on the ground, but on the other hand I guess that we can try to avoid that for another month if possible.

First snow of the season

When we woke up this morning there was something white on the grass. Evidently, the first snow has arrived. It also seemed that most of the lake Maria is biking next to was covered, which means that it also had an ice cover. Perhaps not that thick, but still. Since it is still just October, most of the snow had melted away by noon.

Preparing for winter outdoor activities

Pretty soon, it will be cold and dark outside, most of the day. In order not to sit inside for the next five months also during daylight, you have to do something that takes advantage of the snow. Olle already has cross country skis, but Maria has not owned a pair for many years. Today it was time to change that. We went to the store, were she found a nice pair from last season (they were the same price with the discount as this year's simpler ones, which according to the sales person only would slow you down). You don't have to wax these, you can just hit the tracks whenever you feel like. We will pick up the skis (including boots and ski poles) tomorrow, since the bindings have to be attached to the skis.

New computer

One of our computers was sent in for reparation earlier this year. The screen on the laptop didn't function that well, among others the back light could shut down and be impossible to turn on quite often. The screen colors were not right either.
Today a replacement for that computer arrived. Evidently it was cheaper for the retailer to do this way than to repair it.
It is nice to also have a webcam again.

Moose casserole

Around four thirty we went to Olle's uncle who lives in the city. Beside us, the two cousins with families also arrived. Tonight's dinner was moose casserole. The uncle is a hunter, and today he shot his first moose ever (but the one we ate was from the beginning of the season). It was a really long time since we had game meat and it tasted good. We brought some home baked sour dough bread (we bake that 4 times out of 5 these days).

Exercise Saturday

Today we went to the first group exercise since last December for Olle, and the first one on the floor for Maria since we arrived in Umeå. You could feel that it was a while since last time, but hopefully your body will adapt quite soon.

In the afternoon we passed a big sports equipment shop, where Maria bought a new floorball stick. The old stick broke last Thursday, but it had been used for over ten years so it was time for a new one anyway.

A rainy day

Sunday was rainy in more or less intense showers. Dressed top to toe in rain clothes we were outside for a while. The niece and a friend took two of the ponies for a ride. Unfortunately, one of the horses so badly wanted to get back into the stable, were the other horses were meanwhile, so the pony was hard to steer.
Playing some card games inside, as well as bringing the rabbits to the basement, were more tempting. In the middle of the day some rain showers were really strong, so being inside was excused.
In the afternoon we took the night train back to Umeå. Another night of sleep in the seats, but at least better than a few days earlier.

Birthday party

We woke up to some rain and didn't hurry out after breakfast. Instead we baked cinnamon rolls.
We had planned to watch Maria's nephew driving motocross, but the rainy day didn't inspired to a longer training, so we went back home instead of going watching after dropping the niece off at a birthday party.
Parts of the afternoon passed by while we prepared the dinner for the birthday party in the evening (a la family reunion). Maria's parents and uncle showed up, together with the brother with full family. Naturally the newborn (2½ weeks old) niece were in center for a while. Adorable how small the perfect fingers/nails are.

A trip to the south

Thursday evening we took the night train south. To keep the price down we had normal seat tickets all the way (not beds). Unfortunately, we got bad seats with no possibility to tilt backwards and short distance to the seats in front of us. It wasn't a beauty sleep, more a few necessary hours interrupted often.

Friday morning we arrived in Nässjö and Maria's sister picked us up. We tried to spend this sunny day outside, dressed according to the weather. In the afternoon we picked up the kids after school, while the sister prepared dinner. The niece trained some pony jumping.
In the evening we all went to Maria's uncle for a real sauna (= heated by firewood). Also Maria's brother with his two sons showed up, as well as the parents, so almost the whole family were there. The kids enjoyed playing with water, a useful trick for making them like being in the warm sauna.