places (58)

Blog entries on places in Sweden and elsewhere. List does not include biking, hiking and sailing entries (unless they name a particular place of interest). Otherwise, you can find those under the adventures tag.

Sorted chronologically, newest first. 58 posts.

Really random thoughts from Lancaster
10/9/13
So, I'm at just at home and I thought I'd write an update about my previous week, when I was in Lancaster for a conference. I realized that it was ages since I travelled alone – four years ago to be exact, when I travelled back to Sweden! Read more>>>

The medieval and ultra-modern roll into one in Tallin
10/8/1
Our first trip together abroad as a married couple was not to the beaten paths of honeymoon-cities such as Paris or New York (though I would gladly go there some other time), but to Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. Exotic as Estonia sounds to my ears, it appears that it is not too off the beaten track after all. Read more>>>

Rökstenen, revisited
10/5/15
On a trip to Västergötland county — about three and a half hours' drive away on highways — we took a little stretch / toilet break in Röks church in Ödeshög, where the largest rune stone in Sweden is to be found. Read more>>>


Miscellaneous tales and pictures from Vrinnevi
10/4/18
The first kilometer of the green trail runs a bit parallel to the 800-meter trail, christened the "Experience trail". It's new from last year and it has interactive signs informing guests about the different animals and plants that can be found in Vrinnevi. If you're observant, you can see the "animals" hiding behind the trees! Read more>>>

Philippines 2010, part 3
10/3/7
Metro Manila, or Quezon City in particular and the people I know who populate it – is the Philippines for me to a great degree. They're what I talk about when I talk about "home", such that it sometimes seems to me that the Philippines really isn't a place, but a network of connections that I in turn associate with certain places and events in my life. Read more>>>

Metro shopping fun, a.k.a. Philippines 2010, part 2
10/3/2
When I wasn't meeting friends in the Philippines, I did what most Filipinos do on their home journey: shop. Since this trip was limited to two weeks, and limited to Manila and Quezon City, shopping was, I guess, a must. It's the local Manileño pastime! Everyone goes to the mall, even just to kill time and even if they aren't buying anything. Read more>>>

Philippines 2010, part 1
10/3/2
I don't know where I would have found the time to blog during our two-week stay in Quezon City, which is why the last entry proved to be the only one in February. Just when I was getting used to the big city rhythm in Metro Manila, it was suddenly time to go back home. Read more>>>

Anecdotes
09/12/30
How to blog to reflect the positive in the unplanned and spontaneous? Like when we talk about our stories, not – at least not completely – as we would write about them. ("Anecdote", from Green an- and ektodos, incidentally literally means "unpublished"). So I opted for this freer form, mostly of short and funny incidents, seldom chronological and never consciously with a overarching theme – or any full sense. Read more>>>


Sällskapsresan
09/12/30
Sällskapsresa (-n [definite form], -or [plural]. Noun). (1) A trip arranged for many people to a common destination, e.g. from a travel agency that organizes tours; (2) A group vacation or charter trip; (3) A conducted tour. Etymology: sällskap (company), resa (travel). Read more>>>

The Canaries, Christmas and cats
09/12/25
Hej och god fortsättning! As I write this, it's still Christmas day in Sweden. We came back to this quiet, dark and snowy land this afternoon – it's such a change from the climate I've been exposed to all week. In the plane, as we stowed away our straw hats and sunglasses in canvas bags, out came our down vests and thick fur hats. Donning them was like a mental preparation to come home; our bodies, however, could take more time getting used to these cold surroundings we choose to live in. Read more>>>

I'm dreaming of a warm Christmas
09/12/18
Yes, we're going on what thousands of other Swedes do every year: Fly charter. To somewhere warm. To the Canary Islands. It warms my heart in this -8 Celsius winter coldness to think of sun, beach, and the possibility of going out without wearing 3 layers. Read more>>>

Liiiiiiiseberg!
09/8/12
Liseberg. The largest theme park in Scandinavia located in the heart of Gothenburg city. 35 rides and attractions around hills, trees and water. Running since 1923. I was there last Monday, and I want to go there again! I want to go there again! I want to go there again! (I may be developing hyperactive ADHD.)... Read more>>>

"Blue ridge mountain, Shenandoah river", and food for thought
09/7/23
Okay, we weren't in West Virginia, but in Ljusdal municipality in southern Norrland here in Sweden. The famous mountain in the area is called Järvsö klack and the river that runs through the municipality is called Ljusnan. But that won't make a memorable country-western song, would it?... Read more>>>


Experiences aren't only in the guide books
09/5/1
I heard conflicting information before going on vacation to Prague in the Czech Republic. First, I was constantly warned about tourist traps. I read about the over-charging taxis, their "super professional" pickpockets, streets full of tourist kitsch and overpriced food. Second, the same people also told me that Prague is their favorite city and the most beautiful city in the world... Read more>>>

Warm greetings from Hell... err, Trondheim!
09/2/20
I passed through Hell. It wasn't my last stop after all, and here I am writing to you from Trondheim, Norway's third largest city, where I'm attending the second part of the course on disability policy (1st part was in Oslo last November). At around 400 kilometers under the arctic circle, this is the northernmost point on earth I've ever been to so far... Read more>>>

Hei from Oslo!
08/11/20
Arrived home yesterday evening from Oslo, where I attended a 2-day PhD course on disability research. The course was held in a hotel called Soria Moria, a modern building complex 500 meters above sea level, which affords a view of Oslo city, the fjord, forests, and mountains as far as the eye can see. The hotel also owns a giant log cabin with a lookout point, from where one could see the mountains...Read more>>>

last weekend's trip to Mela
08/10/2
Two years ago, Marcus and I had an exciting whole-day bike tour around the forests of Kolmården, in a mountain north of the city. I didn't bring the camera at that time, so all the images are just in my head. But last Sunday, we went there again by car. It was as beautiful as I remembered, but in a different way, of course... Read more>>>

Where every day is Christmas day
08/8/6
There won't be fat Santas and silver bells at the summery streets of Gränna, but there will definitely be candy cane. Lots of candy cane. They love their peppermint candy canes here. In fact, a yearly town contest is held where the local candy producers compete for the reputation of having the best-tasting candy canes... Read more>>>


Brahehus, Gränna
08/8/4
I took a photo of Brahehus from the car window as we were driving along the E4 highway from Gränna. What looks like a castle on top of the mountain was the mansion of count Per Brahe the Younger, who lived here in the 1600s and founded the town of Gränna. Go to entry>>>

The days are warm and the nights are clear
08/7/29
We tagged along with Göran and his girlfriend Saga-Britt in a sailing trip to the Swedish archipelago and then stopped at an island called Sötmaren near Söderköping. We experienced some of Sweden's warmest days and I even went for a dip – with my life vest, of course... Read more>>>

The journey home from Borgholm
08/7/20
The place that lures most tourists in Borgholm city isn't its small town center, but it's old seat of power: the Borgholm castle, which now lies in ruin. Dubbed as the most beautiful castle ruin in Scandinavia, it's outer walls are mostly intact and it's size is intimidating. I can't offer a more exciting description since I only saw it from a distance. However, I can offer to tell you about another castle, Solliden... Read more>>>

Öland, solen och vindarnas ö
08/7/18
It's challenging to write an entry on Öland because you simply know where to begin. There are so many sights to see that that you cannot exhaust them in a two-day trip, and so many new experiences for the first-time tourist that you simply don't have time to sit down and put words to thoughts before the new barrage of sensations. I was ooh-ing and aah-ing from the time we crossed the Öland bridge from the city of Kalmar... Read more>>>

The saltiest fattiest food you can eat
08/7/16
In the village of Orrefors, is the Swedish National School of Glass. Their website describes glassmaking as the hottest education program in the country -- with the pun intended, as ovens here reach more than a 1,200 degrees C! As a traditional activity here, tourists can go here or in other glassblowing halls on some evenings to partake of the Hyttsill, a traditional dinner with old-style meals from Småland... Read more>>>


In the forest lies the Kingdom of Crystal
08/7/15
Yes, the province of Småland looks sleepy. The occasional dilapidated shack in the foreground of an endless forest gives a hint of the poverty and lonesomeness the whole region must have endured. But in the middle of its black forests with its black mirror-like lakes lie the jewels of Småland. Or rather, its crystal... Read more>>>

Our Amazing Car Trip!
08/7/13
Mats and Margareta invited us to a road trip to remember down to Sweden's Kingdom of Crystal and the country's second largest island, Öland. Three days and literally a thousand pictures later (We've got our hands full trying to sort them!), I'm tired and glad to be home but can't stop daydreaming... Read more>>>

Flygvapenmuseum. Roger that.
08/7/6
Walking in a hangar packed tight with aircraft. Feeling the cold metal of dismantled jet engines, airplane parts salvaged from sea and fire, and autocannons with rounds as big as water bottles. Sitting in the cockpit of a Draken interceptor. Only the smell of grease and the deafening purr of engines would have made the trip to Sweden's Air Force Museum (Flygvapenmuseum) more complete, but it was still a damn exciting trip!... Read more>>>

Trånas, a city between two counties
08/7/2
Despite Tranås' small size it seems to have a lot to offer, not least if you love nature and trekking. There are two nature reserves within the vicinity and a large lake, the Sommen, where you can swim, fish, or take a tour by steamboat. Sweden's longest shopping street, called Storgatan (literally "The big street") is also to be found here in case you'd like to stick to civilization... Read more>>>

Midsummer at Löfstad castle
08/6/20
Some say that midsummer is more important than Christmas up here. There's a lot of anticipation about what the whether is going to be like, panic-buying at the groceries, and a compulsion to do something on midsummer eve to keep the Swedish tradition alive and going. This year, instead of going out to the archipelago, we spent midsummer on land at Löfstad castle, 15 minutes away from the center of Norrköping... Read more>>>


Pictures from Göteborg posted at Multiply
08/6/16
We haven't got the pictures from our friend's camera yet, but I decided to post the pictures from my camera anyway, before I forget about them altogether. Better late than never! Here are some photos from days 1 and 2 in Göteborg... Read more>>>

48 hours in Gothenburg
08/6/2
We were out in the west coast for the weekend, in Sweden's second largest city Göteborg (also called in English and German as Gothenburg). We didn't have much plans and expectations when we got there, but the city weekend turned out to be both hectic and lively anyway. We were up and walking for most of the tour and went home with tired feet, a total of 8 hours of sleep in two days, and ... sunburn!... Read more>>>

Class trip to Söderköping
08/5/27
There's a picturesque little town south of Norrköping where a canal that goes right across Sweden passes through. The canal rests on a foot of a cliff that overlooks the whole town. The town is called Söderköping, and it is here where one of Sweden's biggest middle-age ports used to be. The city plan itself has been unchanged since 1250... Read more>>>

Town and country in May
08/5/23
When I'm bored, I experiment with old pictures using Photoshop. It's addicting. When I get some good results with some pictures, it becomes hard to stop myself from beginning on new projects. Since I'm stalling writing a food journal (it will come soon though), I decided to post a couple of my edited pictures today... Read more>>>

Art and Reality
08/5/12
Walking in the streets of Norrköping, who would expect to see a picture of Norrköping itself? I see this graffiti each time I go to Swedish class... and this is a photo I took two years ago from the school library. The yellow building is called Strykjärnet ("The Iron"), so called because of its odd shape that resembles a clothes iron... Read more>>>


Not only in the Philippines
08/3/24
It's no secret that I don't like Holland. My heart already sank on Day 1 there, when I saw the building where I was to stay for three months as an exchange student. Like the rest of Utrecht, it smelled like piss, there was graffiti everywhere (including the corridors and laundry room), and you were never really sure if the people around you were sober or wasted... Read more>>>

It's the journey, not the destination
08/2/19
Part 3 of 3. So, Helsinki wasn't anything to get excited about, but at least the journey there was something I could see myself repeating. There's just something about the change of atmosphere in a ship that makes one not care about where you're going -- It's a real change from being on a cramped plane seat wishing you were somewhere else... Read more>>>

We survived Hell-sinki!
08/2/16
Part 2 of 3. So, they say that if there's one word to describe Finns, it would be sisu: it's Finnish for guts, tougness, ki. It's something that the Finns believe they are born with, and which allows them to remain tough against all odds. The Swedish host Musse from Rallarsving has it, and perhaps Marcus and I have it too. But of course, sadly, we're not as tough... Read more>>>

Packing our bags and going to the neighbor's
08/2/13
Part 1 of 3. For little more than 750 kronor each, Marcus and I managed to book a cruise to Helsinki, Finland (Swedish: Helsingfors) between the 14th and 16th of February, just before they hiked up the prices in time for sports holiday week. The price includes two nights' stay in our 9-square meter cabin, a buffet dinner and buffet breakfast in the boat, and bus transfers between here and Stockholm... Read more>>>

"Borta bra, men hemma bäst"
07/12/30
From experience, it's always a little more chilly when we go down to Germany than it is here in Sweden, for some strange reason. After days of German frost and a bit of snow, we were looking forward to coming home to a white New Year -- discovering that there wasn't even a centimeter of snow nor the slightest sign of frost here. Strangely, it was even much warmer in the air than when we left... Read more>>>

Yesterday Stockholm, tomorrow Germany
07/12/19
We all got on the bus on a pitch-dark 8AM and watched the sun slowly rising on our two-hour ride to Stockholm yesterday. It has really been long since I went on any class field trip, but funnily it was everything I remembered from before: waking up in the darkness, people missing during the head-count, the sound of lunch boxes and bags of chips being opened 30 minutes into the trip, and one hour later, the sound of people groaning for the toilet... Read more>>>

Virtual Norrköping
07/10/20
Originally, I was going to write more on the school building (in the same way as I wrote about our building Markattan), but having found no websites on the building's history, I searched for the architect's name instead and got to an interesting discovery: S:t Olofsskolan features in a PC game!... Read More>>>

Up the brick tower we go
07/10/8
On the last Saturday of September, Norrköping celebrates the Culture Night (Kulturnatt) -- a misnomer actually, for the celebration doesn't actually take place at night but throughout the whole day. It is a day when the city showcases -- well, as the name suggests -- culture, but in all it's broad meanings and expressions... Read more>>>

Denmark: there and back again
07/9/11
Today I spent four hours on a high speed train down to Copenhagen, spent four very fast hours in the land of Danish pastry, and went back to Norrköping again on yet another 4-hour trip... Read more>>>

Swedish summer
07/7/22
...On the last two days of our sailing, we anchored in a little bay on a popular island called Lundarna, a medium-sized island that lure tourists to its sheltered little bays and a rock height overlooking the Baltic. There are some more islands in the Baltic too, but they look different from the ones on the other side of Lundarna... Read more>>>


Stockholm on a shoestring
07/5/14
It literally pays to plan your itinerary well when you're thinking of going to another city as a tourist. I did exactly that for two straight weeks before Kristine arrived --plain planning-- for a short 3-day stay in Stockholm. The tour plan should (for my sake) be cheap but... Read more>>>

Venice of the North... one of them, anyway
07/5/10
I will be away for the weekend on a trip to Stockholm with Kristine, a high school friend whom I haven't seen in 8 years since her move to the Big Apple. I'm actually planning to be touristy this time compared to last year's trip with Andriana. We're expecting pictures galore, day-long... Read more>>>

Even places tell stories
07/5/5
About an hour ago in the building's courtyard, I was sanding the wooden panels to Juanita when a grey-haired man came to ask about the sound. Thankfully, I didn't disturb him from his afternoon nap as I first thought; he only wanted to store an old military bicycle in the... Read more>>>

Spring and easter, and lots of good weather
06/3/31
Not all flowers and trees apparently bloom at the same time when spring comes. Certain types of flowers are an early sign of spring and even start blooming under the snow, while some others don't sprout out from their dirt beds until it's warm and comfortable outside... Read more>>>

IKEA, the great Swedish export
07/1/28
Saturday morning at Linköping. We might have been too overeager, because we were there 20 minutes before opening time. Some 50 other early birds were with us as well, taking advantage of the free coffee the... Read more>>>


Winter Waterland!
07/1/24
Finally, we have snow that stays. It was "record-cold" for this season today, despite it being "only" -6.5 C degrees out. (Last year in early February, the record was -15). Still, the temperature is enough to be uncomfortable... Read more>>>

First post of the year 2007
07/1/4
Hello friends, and welcome to the future.... zzzap! We took that picture here Mannheim, Germany, where Marcus and I are currently spending our winter break (still snowless BTW) with Liz, Rob and baby nephew Ian... Read more>>>

Excursion to Vadstena
06/11/21
In Vadstena, a town an hour west of Linkoping, stands a castle in a middle of a square moat, facing a giant lake. Originally built as a fort in 1545 by one of Sweden's warrior kings to protect against possible... Read more>>>

The mental world of the Bronze Age (Backlog 2 of 2)
07/10/11
Last summer, classmates Chip and Alice visited us in Norrköping and we showed them to a group of bronze age rock-carvings on a giant piece of flat rock located today in a field just a bit off the highway. The field is called Himmelstalund... Read more>>>

Now, where was I?
07/8/9
Hello friends! In the month or so that I haven't written anything in my blog, I was taking my vacation... at home, here in the Philippines. Now, if you can manage to understand the Swedish in which it's written, the more detailed version of our trip... Read more>>>


Stockholm
06/5/30
...It would just be too cheezy if I posted the honest-to-goodness turista pictures that I took yesterday in Stockholm. Besides, you can probably get that from any website about Sweden. Instead, I'm posting here the... Read more>>>

Walls and Halls
06/5/24
Ahoy, friends! Ika nga ni Val, "I tinkered and I tweaked." These are all pictures of our building, which I took this morning... Read more>>>

More pictures of Norrköping
06/5/23
Anyway, here are more pictures taken yesterday... This is the stream (or river, whatever) that runs through the city (from the next city, Motala. Thus the name, Motala Ström.) Around it are many ducks of different colors... Read more>>>

This is our street
06/5/22
Our street, Drottninggatan... It is 10:40 in the evening, and I took this photograph just minutes ago. Weird... the sun is making up for its absence last winter.... Read more>>>

The Norrköping Times
06/5/19
As you may have guessed, I'm still very unsure of what to write in my (ahem) blog... Still, I guess it's too much of a let-down for you if I announce it, you excitedly go to it, and then... wala naman palang laman!.... Read more>>>