Mom, Dad - don't look at this one! Karlskrona has been experiencing record snowfalls (like most of Northern Europe right now) and it's given some budding artists the opportunity to sculpt in a new medium. I think they really captured the essence of their subject matter.  

Spent yesterday morning at this incredible 1890's bath house. The pool in the middle is about chest-deep and warm. The change rooms are the curtained areas you can glimpse on either side. Pretty much the whole place is still original fixtures and furnishings! Pretty amazing - this pool is on the 2nd floor, and on the 3rd floor is the cool pool with a jacuzzi tub next to it. So you have the full range of bathing goodness, in total comfort and luxury - 1890's style!  

Look carefully at the text on this tag. Since when did "Canadian National Parks" have a clothing line (linked with the American National Parks, no less!) that was marketed in Sweden?!? Not the last time I checked... At least they're not ripping off the beaver logo... 

This morning, at about 6 am Stockholm time. I was on the way to the airport to fly south to Karlskrona. The white boat (just to the right of centre) is a hostel, where I stayed the night. I'd hardly say "slept" - I'll tell the rest of the story over beer. Let's just say there's a very disappointed suitor waiting for me somewhere in Africa, and I escaped by the skin of my teeth! 

Everybody travels for different reasons. Some for business, some for pleasure, some to understand the workings of a foreign culture or rediscover their roots. Some of us just like to find funny signs and post them to our blogs.  

Kyle and our host in Uppsala, Marcus, in front of the Uppsala Cathedral - the biggest in Scandinavia! The cathedral holds the relics of St. Erik, who did really great things, such as get his head chopped off, at the site of which a spring started to flow, and has been used by Uppsalians (?) for water ever since. ( Mmm, this water taste a bit tangy to you? ) 

Swedes do enjoy their saunas... They also enjoy laughing at silly Canadians who leave the saunas to jump in snowbanks (not naked, for the sake of this blog's G rating). Real snow, real cold. The sauna was the primary entertainment after dark in Funasdalen (going back in time a few days, since I have been offline for a while!). The other thing we discovered about Swedish Christmas is that everybody drops what they are doing on Christmas Eve to watch the Disney special. They dub all of the voices except for Donald Duck and Chip & Dale. Guess nobody understands them much in English, either! 

Check out the gorrrrrgeous bombshell on the reindeer skins. She's gonna melt the ice-bed!  

So we stopped in Stockholm, in Gamla Stan (the Old City) and did touristy things all day. One of which was stopping at a money-making scheme by the creators of the Ice Hotel. For 50 SEK (about 7 bucks) we could go into a chilly room wearing funky silver capes against the cold, and marvel at a single room that was meant to resemble the famous Ice Hotel north of the Arctic Circle. Fair enough, we weren't prepared to travel that far! This is a detail shot of one of the ice-glasses they serve drinks in at the Ice Bar. Pretty coooool. 

Putting the 'up' in Uppsala

Hey y'all! I will post some more pics tomorrow, when I reach Karlskrona, but I just wanted to drop a line to let you know that Kyle and I once again traversed most of Sweden by car, and we arrived late last night to the town of Uppsala, which is just north of Stockholm. We received a warm welcome from Kyle's friend Marcus, who put us up for the night and acted as tour guide today. So far, Sweden has been really wonderful and friendly. It's a lot like Canada, with better fashions. Marcus had a particularly warm welcome when he was in Canada - he was interviewed by two Calgary radio stations and on the jumbo-tron at a Flames game - so he wants to give back some good travel-karma. Niiiiicce. We checked out Scandinavia's largest cathedral this afternoon, then went to the Upplands museum & shopped until the stores closed! After that, beeer!
It's off to Stockholm tomorrow, for a whirlwind tour, before we catch the plane south in the afternoon. More later...

Merry Christmas! God Jul! Gledileg jol! Whatever you say, have a wonderful holiday all! This light is seen in almost every window across Sweden and Iceland - a custom adopted from Hanukkah! It makes the homes look bright and cheerful in the dark long nights. Happy Holidays! 

Here is one of the cross-country ski trails that we have been enjoying. Photo was taken at about 2:30 pm, when the sun was setting. On this particular sortie, I had very slippery skis (brand new from the rental place & I hadn't applied enough wax) so I bailed on the first slope I encountered, which happened to be beside a road. The driver of the car coming down said road at that moment was so busy laughing at my fall that he went into the ditch & had to call a tow truck! Nobody said I was graceful... 

First thing that Kyle and I did after getting the rental car was to stop at a real Swedish IKEA!!!! mmmmm, meatballs.... 

oh-oh-oh, the Swedish thing (it's a U2 song, people!)

I am relaxing in the lovely mountain resort town of Funäsdalen - I dare you to find it on a map. yup, just short of the Arctic Circle, and a smidge away from Norway. No pics at the moment, since the internet may crap out at any time.

Kyle is well, and we both survived a hair-raising trip in our rental car through one of the worse snowstorms I ever hope to see. It took us 8 hours or so to go 600km, from Arlanda airport near Stockholm, to this town we're in now. The up-side is that we are super-far off the beaten track here. This is authentic Sweden. We stocked up on meatballs (yes....) and other goodies, and are going to hole up in our little cabin for Christmas. I brought the duty-free booze, so all should be well.

There's so much more to say, but you'll just have to wait for the next post!

xo

L

Some may say that Iceland is dark in the winter, but it's not true! The locals put up all kinds of lights inside and out of their homes. The sky lightens at about 10am and gets dark around 4 right now. I haven't actually seen the sun because it has been pretty overcast. But, damn! It's warmer than Canada! Woo hoo! 

Sheep of the Damned... No wonder there are so many ghost stories in Iceland... Think about it. You have months of long, dark nights, the wind howls and whistles around eerie rock formations, and sheep roam the wilderness with eyes aglow in the moonlight. Creeeeeepyyyyyyyy. 

Svanhildur made a delicious traditional Christmas dinner (that's two early Christmasses for me so far this year!) which consisted of hangikjot (smoked leg of lamb), boiled potatoes with white sauce, peas, Christmas salad (apples and beets in a mayonnaise dressing), red cabbage, and the star event, laufabraud ( a crispy flatbread cut with decorative shapes - think of the snowflakes you cut out of paper in kindergarten, and that's how they look). All this gets washed down with a drink called "malt" which is a blend of orange pop and malt pop - there's no equivalent in Canada. It was all delicious! Check out the new sweater, too! Hilla knit it for me & it fits perfectly! They have been keeping me on a tight schedule of visits and activities. I get to sleep in the car between scheduled events :-)

After our encounter with the Yule Lads, we warmed up at a natural hot spring near Myvatn. We had the whole place to ourselves! It doesn't show in this picture, but the sky was showing a phenomenon known in Iceland as "glitsky" - when ice crystals high in the atmosphere refract sunlight like a rainbow. Imagine an oil slick on a puddle in a sky, and you'll be close to the effect. It lasted for the whole day's sunlight: from 10am til 4pm. Apparently, the phenomenon is rare. What luck!

Here I am in Dimmuborgir ("dark city" - a volcanic formation that is supposed to be Santa's Icelandic home) with two of the Yule Lads. There are thirteen such Yule Lads, and each one visits on a particular night before Christmas. They have names like "Sausage-snatcher" "Window-peeper" and "Door-slammer." They used to be terrifying imps to frighten children into behaving, but now they have become cuddly cartoons for the holiday season. Their mother, Gryla, is still a nasty witch that will do all the horrible things fairy tale witches do. I am posing with "Stubby" and "Candle-eater"  

I stayed with Asta Sol (here, with her new puppy, Talia) for a couple of days in Reykjavik. We drank some beer, had some girl-talk, and shopped like pros. 

One of the first things I saw in Reykjavik was this fella in a shop window. He's made of solid chocolate. Talk about the perfect man!  

The sky coming into Minneapolis was astounding. We descended through one layer of clouds to emerge over another. Through this cloud sandwich, the sun set. Brilliant! 

This is the whole happy bunch at L & K's new hacienda in Saskatoon. We had a marvellous visit, opened presents (yay early Christmas) and ate way too much. Mmm turkey.... 

This is the prototype of the lovely centrepiece that will be at Lorne and Karen's wedding. "The committee" all agreed on the design and materials. We also managed to find the perfect material to make the guest gifts complete. (it matches the napkins! Oh joy!) 

Of cats and cars

Well, I made it to Saskatoon. Intact. With the cat.

It is an accomplishment worth noting, since said cat refused to eat her Gravol-spiked tuna, and thus yowled for a good portion of the trip. Getting her in the cage was no trouble, since she was accustomed to getting her kibbles in there through a careful program of moving the bowl closer to the cage for several weeks previous to departure. As soon as the cage moved to the car, things got ugly. When the motor started, the complaints began in earnest. Around Drumheller, she started to hyperventilate. She was meowing in rapid, staccato bursts and making a face like a taxidermied cougar. I had to pull over, 'cause I thought she was having some kind of seizure! But ya'know, the moment the engine was off and the cage door was opened, she was calm as could be! Faker...

I took the opportunity to refresh myself with a burger, then we were on the road again.

Anyway, after that little episode, she seemed to calm down a fair bit, and actually remained quiet for minutes at a time, so I think she may have slept, or maybe just passed out from the stress. Despite the fact that I was up until 3am packing my house up (with the incredibly kind and generous assistance of Ronni), I was not the least bit sleepy. I wouldn't eat the tuna with Gravol in it either...but the four cups of strong coffee probably helped!

The trip was made bearable by the extremely kind gift of a shiny new ipod nano from my darling friends at Resort TV (it's even engraved!!! Resort TV channel 12 ROCKS!!!) Since my tape player is jammed, I cranked up the ipod and bopped all the way across the prairie. From the pointy peaks near the BC border, to the flat-ass prairie of the Saskatchewan border, I had Tom Waits, Diana Krall, Aretha Franklin and countless others to help me on my way. For anyone who is not yet converted to the Church of Ipod, I tell you brothers and sisters, it is GOOD. Through instant access to 1000 songs your sanity shall be SAVED. Fall down on your knees and do the HAPPY DANCE OF JOY to the sounds of the HOLY IPOD. Amen.

Now I am hanging out with my brother and soon-to-be-sister-in-law (the wedding's in May) and Mom and Dad, and Karen's folks from Ontario. The guys spent the day doing guy things (installing a diswasher) as the ladies all hit the malls. I have to say - the people in Saskatchewan are so darned friendly! We were in a shoe store, and the post-lady came in. The clerk was in the back room, fetching a pair of boots, so the mail lady just handed me the stack of envelopes. Would that happen anywhere else?!? Yeah, maybe, but it struck me as extraordinary, and a reflection of the totally trusting atmosphere in S-toon. Very glad that my brother is settling here. Also super-happy for he & Karen. They make each other so happy & I hope they continue to do so forever! Gawrsh... He's all growed up...

Next...getting to Iceland. Coming soon.

Home, then away

It was a whirlwind trip to E-town, but I got to visit with almost everybody & had a great time. Many thanks to those of you who gave me shelter & shared meals & laughs. As much as I miss the people there, it's no longer my home, but certainly a great place to visit. How fun it would be to import some of those folks to my new stompin' grounds.

I have nearly accomplished the packing-up of the house, and sent off my final missives to workplaces, so this trip finally seems real. (It had better - I leave B-ville in one day!) So many things to do. I promised myself that I would be organized, since I knew that I was going since, well, the summer, and really there is no excuse. But of course, there is always more to do than you think, and time keeps on tickin, tickin, tickin into the future (thanks Steve Miller)

So - the test run of the photo uploads seems sucessful (see below). Gotta love technology!

Must go zzz now. Full of lasagne & red wine, thanks to some very kind B-ville friends. Lovely send-off from what seems to have become my favorite place on earth.

Thursday, (oh, joy) I get to spend 8-odd hours in a car with a yowling cat. This is how much I love my pet. Can we both be sedated?

Next stop - Saskatoon!

The last time I saw this kiddo was at the Fringe (August) and she was a babe in arms. Now Gemmy-bean is walking and starting to talk! Keywords: Yes, No, Backpack, Book. 

Lookit those cheeks! This is baby A, one of the growing brood of E-town babies. Woodgie-woodgie-wooo... 

Here's the Izzy-punk in a very splashy hat. She's grown so much & can play computer games all by herself! And she's only 3 1/2! I tell ya, it's kids like her that'll take over the world! Happily, with parents like hers, that thought doesn't bother me so much...