Ventilation is back

After a while without ventilation in the apartment, the landlord seems to have fixed it now. We have not enjoyed knowing what food the neighbors have prepared, but most annoying was smelling cigarette smoke several times a day. We're glad to get rid of that again.

Testing our equipment

Probably we will take a weekend long hike sometime in the nearest future, so today we decided to test carrying our new hiking backpacks.
We filled them with tent, sleeping bags, sleeping mats, as well as clothes and food for a weekend. The ordered hiking kitchen has not arrived yet.

We drove northwest of Umeå and hiked next to Vindelälven.
The paths were a mix of broad roads and smaller woodland paths.




Next to many fields up here in the North, you can find an old shed. These were used to store hay harvested during the summer, sometimes a long distance from the farm houses. Then during the winters the farmers used horse and sledge to transport the food closer to the animals. The sheds are much more common here in northern Sweden, compared to the southern parts.

The Långforsen do have some rapids, so the water sounds followed us during the day.








Some of the beaches were rich with stone, other with sand.








The path went through the neighboring forest and sometimes next to the river.











After the walk, we checked the forest for blueberries. Within an hour we had collected more than a liter to enjoy. We had for example blueberry pie in the evening.

Work week on the island

Olle stayed for another week in southern Sweden. While he was there, he helped out with some work. The pool had to be cleaned before it was put away for the year and some electronics in the boat was taken care of. His aunt was there too for a work week.
There was also some time for relaxing in the nice weather.

Long bikerides for berries

This weekend was forecasted with sunny weather, so Maria decided not to sit inside. She looked at the map and opted to bike some smaller roads, probably with less car traffic. On her way on the bumpy gravel road she stopped to see if there were some blueberries in the forest, and luckily no one had passed there the last days. She was mostly alone, if you don’t count the mosquitoes. A few hours later she continued her bike ride, now with around three liters of blueberries in boxes.
She passed some areas "typical" for north of Sweden - the bogs. Further on she stopped next to a lake and found a small sand beach to rest for a while. The water was nicely warm (like 20 C) with some waves, the wind increased during the afternoon. Maria didn’t want to leave the beach, so she decided it would be a nice place to pick for cleaning the blueberries so that that would be done when she came home in the evening. The bike ride home of 20 km wasn’t too fun, with the wind against her.


On Sunday she biked back the same way she took home yesterday, since she saw some nice bushes with raspberries next to the road. After an hour of biking and three hours of raspberry picking, she continued to the same lake as yesterday. Also this day she had a relaxing afternoon, partly swimming in the lake. Living next to a lake would not be totally wrong, so you easily could go for a swim (not to a crowded beach).

In total this was a nice weekend spent outdoors, including both exercise and relaxing time. Not to mention the nice taste of fresh berries, not wrong at all with blueberries on the sour milk in the following mornings.

Sorry for the bad photos, but the camera is still in the south of Sweden and my cell phone is not good at all.

Biking evening

This week has delivered nice summer weather, a pain to sit inside the whole days. At least Maria didn't stay late at work, to be able to sit in the sun with the laptop for example.

After work today Maria decided to bike to Brännland, following Umeälven upstream. Part of the way we biked in June, but the last part was new for her. The sounds from the river, including some smaller rapids, are just relaxing.
After one and half hour on mainly paved roads, she stopped to see the the giant kettles in the rocks, but she saw only smaller ones. Before biking home again, she enjoyed a brick-oven-baked pizza.

Back at work

After a night on the train Maria arrived in Umeå, an hour later than scheduled. A shower later she biked to work, where she noticed that a lot of people still were on vacation. Not that much were done during Monday, but emails were at least checked. Being away from internet over all for a whole week, meant a lot of websites to check. In the evening she went grocery shopping, by bike of course.

Hopefully Maria will be more productive at work in the nearest days, after updating her science brain what she did before leaving for the three weeks of vacation.

Time for vacation at the coast

Monday morning we packed for the third week of vacation, which we had decided to spend at the cottage house of Olle’s parents. Some food shopping on the way and then we met Maria’s parents and the two children of her sister, before taking the short boat ride to the island in the outer archipelago in Östergötland. We spent almost three days together, enjoying the outdoor life a lot. We had barbecue one evening, the next we went for swimming since the sun was shining so nicely. Not so warm in the water (17C anyway), but some stayed in the water for a longer time (read: Maria is usually late into the water, but even more late up).
During the days we went picking blueberries to lunch (the other lunch we had raspberries) and took a rowing tour to a neighboring island, when the weather was on the better half. The days were partly sunny and partly cloudy, with some rain as well – just standard Swedish summer weather.
Each evening we went to a nearby small hill to look at the three light houses visible from there, a relaxing end of the day before going to bed. We and the children slept in the same small house (more of a lot of smaller buildings there, then a big house with several rooms), and fell asleep at the same time as the kids.

On Wednesday our guests went home and we had a few hours (to clean up) before Olle’s parents came.

Thursday lunch we joined some friends to take a boat tour to the light house Häradskär. It took over an hour to go there since they had an open fishing boat not going so fast. We walked around on the island and had lunch on the cliffs. Before we went home our friend asked one of the few year-round locals if there was possible to enter the closed lighthouse – he was on a good mood and toured us. During an hour he told a lot of old stories both about the light house and how it was to grow up on an island in the outer archipelago. Except being really warm in the light house with the lamp on, it was really nice. A rare opportunity. The boat ride back home was dramatic, with over meter high waves, as well as more and more clouds.







Friday evening we went to the mainland to listen to the singer Lill Lindfors together with musicians.

Saturday showed up with really nice weather, so Maria would get a good ending of her vacation. Unfortunately, the wind had changed to west, so all warmer surface water disappeared from our normal swimming place (cold 13C) and you more washed yourself than took a swim tour.



Sunday afternoon we drove to the train station an hour away, since it was time for Maria to go back to Umeå. She took the night train to the north, this time in a sleeping car. Olle will stay for a while longer on the island.

Family reunion

Later on Saturday Olle’s sister with family also arrived to stay over night. Nice to see them since we didn’t have time meet in March, as they live several hours away.
Sunday morning was a relaxing one, with breakfast sitting outside. One advantage with living in a house, instead of an apartment.
Around lunch we all went to celebrate Olle’s grandfather’s 90-year birthday. All the uncles and cousins (except one) was there, so a real family reunion. You had a lot to talk about while enjoying the birthday cakes and later in the evening dinner, all prepared by the sisters-in-law. Good the house and the lawn are big, and the weather mostly nice.

Time to meet relatives

Friday afternoon (the first week) we went to Maria’s brother with family, where we also stayed over night. A dip in a nearby lake wasn’t wrong at all and fun with the two nephews all around you. A longer walk including an ice-cream break, as well as mini golf filled the next day.

You could guess it would be nice to rest in the evenings during the O-ringen week, even if it wasn't that hard work during the days (lot of time to talk to others). But if you are staying in the area just for a short time, it’s better to use the time to meet relatives. One evening we went to see Maria’s uncle (together with her parents) and another evening we met one of Maria’s cousins. The latter Maria hadn’t seen in like five years and her four-month old daughter was cute, even if she was at the time point when only her parents were allowed to hold her (or you had to stand the screams).

Tuesday afternoon we went to Maria’s sister’s home and stayed there over the next day, which was a rest day for the O-ringen runners (so they would have time to tourist in the area as well). Maria’s niece both trained horse jumping with the smallest pony and dressage with the larger pony in the afternoon. To train also the third pony, we went with trolley in the evening, which meant an hour long walk for Maria and their dog.

Like usual on Fridays at Maria’s child home, we went to Maria’s uncle for sauna in the evening.

Saturday was planned to be the day when we packed all our stuff to be able to move on to further vacation places. This wasn’t the case, since Maria and her mother went to help with the clean-up on the O-ringen camping, and Olle took care of the packing. Anyway after dinner we travelled to Olle’s parents again.

O-ringen orienteering race

On Thursday afternoon we went to the organizers’ start show of O-ringen, the largest orienteering competition in the world. Every year this competition is organized somewhere in Sweden, and this year it’s placed just half an hour drive from Maria's parents' house. Our orienteering club is one of 21 clubs helping (voluntarily) to organize the five days of running races, as well as a temporally camping site for a few thousands caravans/tents. We listened to an interesting/motivating seminar by Renata Chlumska, the first Swedish woman to climb Mount Everest. She told some fun episodes from her alone trip around USA when she paddled a kayak from Seattle to San Diego, bicycled with the kayak on a carriage (an unusual sight in the middle of the huge desserts) from San Diego to Brownsville, Texas, continued kayaking around Florida to Eastport, Maine, and then bicycled back to Seattle (all in 439 days). During the evening we also went to the temporally sport shop to take the chance to buy walking shoes, some sport clothes and hiking backpacks (we found the exact brand we want), since the organizers had some discount in the shop this evening.
Maria was as young as 8 years when she completed her first O-ringen competition and there has been several more since. So for her it was obvious to help organizing one year, when you get the opportunity.
{"Orienteering require navigational skills using a map and compass to navigate from point to point in diverse and usually unfamiliar terrain." "Usually, a foot-O is a timed race in which participants start at staggered intervals, are individually timed, and are expected to perform all navigation on their own. The control points are shown on the orienteering map and must be visited in the specified order. Standings are determined first by successful completion of the course, then by shortest time on course." from Wikipedia}

On Sunday was the first race day of O-ringen. We had agreed to help with the start our club was responsible for (one of nine starting places), the one for all the recreation classes (Motion). These classes have free starting time, not drawn lot of starting minute as all regular classes have. This also means the runners were not so stressed when they came to start and something needed to be checked.
Maria's father was responsible for the radio communication between our start and the competition center, while us two where placed in the information tent. The plan was that we should be able to help if Swedish wasn’t enough :-) Nowadays the punching at the control points is done electronically, and afterward you can also get a list of running times in the forest. Some runners had updated the number of the electronic card, but the secretary used a pen not suitable for the today rain (the surface of the bib, where the number should be printed, is very slippery). So the most what we did during the day was to compare with the updated start list we had printed.

The procedure was the same all the other four days of the competition, even if our duties with the card number decreased and instead we helped some runners to prohibit chafed feet (as usual when you buy new shoes or so). The runners started from 8.30 AM, so since everything should be prepared around an hour before first start, these days didn’t mean any late mornings for us.

After all runners had started (at 1.30 PM), we moved the equipment to the starting place for the next day, to get less to do early next morning. Some days we then went to the Camping site center, where we had dinner.
Unfortunately, we didn't have time to see the goal area during the days. So being one of the thousands organizers meant seeing less of the competition than a year when you compete yourself.

To the South again

During last Saturday we drove to the southern parts of Sweden. It took around twelve hours, with just over nine hours driving time. We stopped after every hour and a half to switch driver, and every other stop we also had a longer food break. A little scary to realize how much we filled the trunk with our bags, but being away from home for three weeks means different kinds of clothes will be needed (rain or shine). Not to mention how full the car will be when driving up north again, when we probably will bring some stuff more.
The drive wasn’t too bad, but it took the whole day.

The coming days we spent at Olle’s parents’ house. All of last Sunday rained away, more of a socializing day. Monday we spent outside instead, i.e. cutting some brushes on the house lot and a long walk.
In the afternoon Maria went to pick blueberries for dessert. Together with the taste of strawberries with milk, as well as the gooseberry (“krusbär”) pie we had another day, these are true summer tastes.
A sauna can be enjoyable even in the summer, especially if there is a lake nearby. We went swimming a couple of times during our stay, even if it’s not only nice that the water lilies (“näckros”) like the lake as well, hard to find some area to swim.
We also meet some old friends, who we hadn’t seen for some years (not time for all friends during March).

Today we passed IKEA and Biltema, neither of which are present in Umeå, on the way to Maria’s parents’ house. In their attic we found two bags with hangers, which we missed to bring with us in March (we do need them).
When you opened the door, you have to be careful so the (outdoor) cats didn't slipped through the door. Anyway a welcoming view, and during our stay the cats got less afraid of us.

Vacation next!

So finally it's the last day of work before vacation. Not that much of new experiments done, more of summarizing what I have been doing the last weeks. As well as making a list of what needs to be done when coming back in August, to help the start-up then.

In the evening we celebrated the start of our vacation with a beer together with some (new) friends. Although we had to bike in the rain, it was a relaxing evening.


We will miss when all the fireweeds ("rallarros") is in full bloom up here in the north. It will be a magenta sea in a week or so.

White water rafting on the Vindel River

The people bold enough to participate in today's white water rafting gathered at the University 8:45. We split up among the cars and drove then inland. About 90 minutes later we arrived in Ekorrsele, where the rafting company "Forsknäckarna" (The River Crackers) has its head quarter.

We started with some boiled coffee prepared over a wood fire. This kind of coffee might some times be like a full meal due to its thickness, this time it was quite okay. Other groups arrived and when we were all gathered (a total of 21 people plus guides), we changed our clothes to wetsuits, including a (ice hockey) helmet and of course a life jacket.

About 5 km upstream we boarded the inflatable boats, after some safety instructions. First it was quite calm, but after a while we entered the first rapids (class 4). We had to paddle like crazy in order to have the boat following the right line between (and of course sometimes through) the waves. Quite exciting!
When the water calmed down again, we landed on the shore to do some rapid swimming instead. We walked upstream about 300 meters before the stream pulled us down to the boats again. You really have no choice were to go when you are in the middle of the rapid, without a helmet and life jacket it could become quite nasty.
Before we came back to the company, we passed another area of rapids, but this time you had time to relax a little bit between them.

We had some more coffee and snacks when we were back in "civilian" clothes again. The guides told us that another tour, somewhat harder according to the whitewater rafting rating scale, takes place even more upstream at the rapids called Mårdseleforsen. Since we were only about 30 km from that place, we decided to go there before we went back to Umeå. Most of the road was gravel, but not so dusty. When we arrived at the rapids, we first had something to eat before we took the walking tour around the area.

During our walk we found these quite flowers, to Maria's joy. Moreover twinflower ("Linnéa") is the flower of the county Småland, but also she has another relationship to the name.


Back in Umeå we concluded the day with Ice Age 3 in 3D. It's the first time for to see a movie in 3D, more dramatic than normal.

(We thank Maria's friend Pernilla for contributing with photos, we forgot our camera).

Summer flowers

On the way home from Maria passes several spots of flowers this time of the year.

Red and white clover within the University area.

The harebell ("blåklocka") next to a biking bridge.

The area of both pink and purple lupin flowers is so inviting.

Our "new" bedroom

Finally, after three months of waiting, the bedroom got new wallpaper. During the inspection that was done before we started to rent the apartment, it was decided that the wallpapers in the bedroom was too bad (as you can see to the left). We had to call the landlord a few times before anything happened.
We opted for a wallpaper with some pattern, since the wallpaper in the other rooms have hardly any pattern. All of them go in mild and pale colors.