Göteborg

FINALLYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!! We are back in Göteborg!!! Well, for a bit more than 1 month now...
Anyway, we left Hamburg on the 21st June. I must say that I dropped a tear or two when we were driving out of the city....It's been almost 4 years so I guess one gets used to certain things.
I drove almost the whole way since Alex was super tired and slept most of the time. We swapped somewhere in Skåne.
The day after got the keys to our flat. Then meeting the moving company and starting to move in. The whole day....wow....looooong.

A trip to Ikea during the weekend.

A trip to several furniture stores to get a kitchen table, chairs, couch etc....

Succeeded!!!

After one month we've got pretty much all in place.
OK, besides a few lamps, fan above the stove and so on.

Life is fine. Although of course there are some things, small ones, which I or Alex miss. Well I guess he misses A LOT his Volkspark with bike park. Damn it! I promised him hills and a lot of downhill tracks around GBG and so far...hmmm not much. We need to find something!

I miss actually Budnikowsky - I know I know...some time ago I would say that I would never miss anything from Germany. But still...this shop had everything! Incl. Bio veggie spreads for Alex...

I miss some stuff from the fitness place in HH. Not much, just some of these cool cross training machines.

And of course I miss HH friends!!!! We need to meet soon!!!!

But of course I'm happy to be home in GBG, with my friends, nature etc.

I'm not sure how often and if at all I would continue with this blog.
We will see how many adventures we will experience now.

Summer and "winter" in Spain

Long time no hear...
Easter was in Spain, in Pyrenees. We went to visit Txell and Thomas, stayed one day in Mataro, went to Tossa, then on Good Friday we went to Queralbs for hiking to Nuria.
It was a really great time and we had fun, although when we left HH it was 25C and sun, and in Pyrenees in the best case we had 13C...
Anyway, here is some evidence:









When we arrived to our apartment in Queralbs, we decided first to have a shorter hike to one famous waterfall...The hike was nice and not demanding. Ended up with late lunch incl. our pasta salad (which lasted forever!!!):









After the hike we went around Queralbs. A super cozy little village, with a specific architecture for Pyrenees region. Really nice although tiny.









In the evening we had BBQ (OK it got super late) and played cards. Fun!

The next day we woke up early to start hiking to Nuria. It was POURING!!! So we decided to sleep 1 hr more and see what happens... And it got better!!! We had a good weather until 2/3 of the hike... Then it started raining and even snowing. In Nuria we had 1,5C.... Spain, huh? ;) No comments...









After lunch in Nuria we took train down and wanted to visit a nearby village. And then Txell noticed that she lost her super duper hi-tech smartphone.... Thank God Alex sort of had a memory of where it could be. So in rush they went uphill with the train, train personnel helped to spot the phone and get it to the train station, it was a lot of stress but at the end everything turned out fine. Txell got her phone, they managed to come back with the last train. The day was saved! :)

In the evening we did "beer hiding" (as Easter tradition of egg hiding) - Txell and me hid 12 beers for Alex and Thomas. And wow! they found all but one!!! After more than 1 hr or so...But still.





And the grill masters:


Great day!!!

Then Sunday we left. First with a short stop in Ripoll. Then off to the airport. It was such nice holidays!!! we had really fun, despite the weather!!!
Monday we had a day off in HH. Enjoying sun.

This weekend we have Alex's dad here. So there are some outdoor activities, including a BBQ with friends today.

Nice sunny time

Spring is really here!! Well it's been around 15C or more (ok in the morning colder) the whole week.
Last weekend on Sunday we biked towards Poppenbuttel via Alsterwaldweg. Forest, channels with people on kayaks, canoes, boats etc. There were many people biking as well. It's a very nice area, it feels like you are in the middle of country side, and not in HH. I used the bike which Alex got me from RO. It was great!









Otherwise our life is turning around planning to go back to Sweden, looking for flats, taking part in bidding, not getting the apartments...etc etc...
Time is running fast so we are getting a bit more pressure now.

Next week it's already Easter. And a trip to Barcelona for us :)

Spring!

Wow....so much has happened since I blogged last time... I mean in the world. First the war in Libya. Or actually first riots in Egypt - where at least they succeeded that Mubarak gave up. In Libya it doesn't seem to go so fast though. Then tsunami, Earthquake and nuclear catastrophy in Japan. Poor people...It's awful what happens in the World, especially when Mother Nature "gets angry"..

Otherwise things here are OK. Most of the time is filled in by work and daily activities, following hemnet website and checking apartments for sale in GBG, bidding, not getting the flat... :( OK, there is still some time left until we go back to Sweden but time is running fast... Hope soon an apartment can be bought.

This weekend we had a wonderful weather. SUN!!! OK, a bit cold, expecially when it was windy, but still spring is almost here. Actually in the South of Germany they had already 18C. Yesterday we biked to Elbe and had a long walk there. And a bit crazy photo session ;-)

Well Alex kind of succeeded this picture of me:


However, I'm not so good (or half blind) ;-)


Then in the evening we celebrated the Earth Hour - switched off lights and all devices from power, had candles on and played "Memory". Actually quite fun and a different Sat night.

Today we went to Lubeck. Had some marcepan (of course), walked around, took some pictures. A nice town (before I've only been at the train station, or at the small airport near Lubeck) with the typical Hansiatic architecture.





Ähm....the what?!!? ;-)





Now Monday tomorrow. In one week 2 days in Sweden, which may get a longer stay depending if there is any chance to see (and buy!) an apartment.

Waiting for spring

March is in few days. That means spring is coming. Hopefully. I mean it hasn't been so bad - sunny pretty much for the whole week but so damn cold!!! Arctic air.
Today finally some plus degrees.
Last week I was almost the whole week in Istanbul. Some days of work and then Friday off and spending Fri and Sat with Filip. Friday we had sun and +17C!!!! Sooooo nice!

See yourselves - water front 500m from Filip's place:



We had really fun. On Thu evening we went to hamam. Love it!
Friday there was a dinner out with a Spanish connection, then some beers in one club. Nice but we got home at 05.30 so Sat was a bit sloooow.
Anyway, first we had some kind of brunch:



Then off to the European side. Since I have already seen most of the "musts" we just took it easy. Walked a lot. My God! - we were walking for over 1 hr to get some kumpir!!!
We stopped often to have Cay. Chilled out. Discovered many small and cozy streets. This city is amazing!











I was leaving very early on Sunday - got up 0445! So the whole day (again) I was tired. But at least had pretty much the whole day at home. Alex arrived 4 hours after me - from Sthlm. He had -20C and snow... Then in the evening a colleague from Romania came home for a beer. Nice.

Work wise it is ok. Although the international gang is getting smaller again :( Oh well, part of the expat life... The negative part.

Next week - a trip to Sweden.

Cold

It is not really cold outside. I just got cold... Was away quite much with work - first Sweden, then the week after Romania. Got back to the office full of coughing and sneezing people and got cold. Or flue. Bläh.
It feels weird to have one day of work. Hope tomorrow will be better so I can go to work.
Nothing else happens really. GBG was nice, then I had a leadership training for 2 days (part1). Looking forward part 2 and 3 :)
Romania - this time Lugoj. Small town. Nice plant. Cushions - so totally different from everyday seatbelts.

January has passed with warmer temperatures than Dec. And almost no snow...
Well, in the beginning of Jan it was quite bad. I even got into a car accident - I mean a truck tried to change the lane and hit my car. Bleee! Now we are still in discussions with their insurance company about the cost of repair and all of that. Neverending story ;) But hopefully it will be solved soon so my Beetle can be fixed.

Otherwise things are fine. Focusing more and more on going back to Swe.

Oh yeah - last night I baked filmjölksbröd - a bread with the special kind of yougurt-milk (Swedish thing). I had to improvise to make the "filmjölk", and also didn't have the right bread baking form but I succeeded :) Mums!

New Year

My God! Already 6th Jan!! And such a long break in updates...
So much has happened that I don't know where to start ;-)
Well, December passed by fast. I had only 10 working days here in Germany. Then 5 days of holidays in Göteborg (incl. Petra's & Magnus daughter's baptism), meeting friends, looking for apartments, the usual stuff ;)
GBG looked more less like that:





Trip back to HH was already a bit of an adventure, since my plane got cancelled! Technical problems they said..So got rerouted via Frankfurt and was in HH on Sun evening instead of noon. Oh well.

Then my business trip to Tallinn. There was so much snow over there! Work was fine. In the evening we went out for a dinner and saw a local Xmas market. They had glögg! :)



On the way back to HH, I made it to Copenhagen first. Was supposed to fly back to HH around 21.00. At 21.10 they said 23.10. OK...a bit of reading, eating smth, fine. Boarding started before 23. As soon as I sat down I fell asleep. Woke up after ca 45 min ready to get out of the plane but the pilot actually announced that we had to go back to the terminal, since HH airport is closing at 24. What?!!? We never took off!! So the adventure started. First lining up to get a voucher for a taxi and hotel in CPH, together with many complaining Germans. Then lining up for a cab together with 10000 other travellers whose flights got cancelled. Crap weather, midnight, tired.
Shared cab with 2 other guys. As soon as we got to the hotel we went straight away to the computers to buy train tickets to HH for the day after (at the airport they couldn't guarantee that we would get seats to HH for Saturday). Waiting for ages for ticket print-outs since there were many people getting rooms and only 1 poor guy in the reception.
Went to bed after 02. Got up early. Nice thing - Danish breakfast! Mums!!!!
Met a funny guy from Uruguay who was also going to HH so we had a bit of fun with one German and the Uruguay guy.

Got back to the apartment in HH on Sat at 16. Yoohoo! Now repacking and leaving to Poland on Sun afternoon... Didn't even manage to do laundry.

Trip to Poland - only 3 hrs delay. Peanuts! I was so immune that actually had fun and time passed by fast. Met a Mexican guy who was going to visit some friends in Poland. It was fun to teach him a bit of Polish :) And have some tea with 3 other Poles.

Few days in Gdynia passed quite fast. Filip arrived on Thu night and on Fri we took off to celebrate Xmas. Xmas was nice, a bit chaos, presents, lots of snow.
And tons of food!





Then went to Romania. Spent night before flight in a hotel opposite from the airport in Poznan. Didn't want to risk to miss the flight early in the morning.
Flight was a bit delayed to Munich. So I had to run in Munich to catch my flight to Bucharest. Puh! Hardly made it! But did it! :) However, my luggage didn't make it :(
I got it anyway the day after. And funny - the guys who came with the bags made a meeting point at MacDonald's - so all people from Brasov and nearby could come to pick the bags up... There were so many people!!! Amazing!!
We had fun in BV, stayed at Alex dad's place. We were in the city, went to some pub for quizz. Then we went to Sibiu before New Year's eve and visited Alex' friends. And New Year's Eve celebration was in a village outside of Sibiu.
A different kind of party that we were used to ;) But anyway funny to see how people celebrated.








Trip back went fine. Well we had two different flights but we cmae home safe and fine. With all luggage.
Now the first week at work has passed. Happy New Year to all of you!!! Hope it's gonna be a great one!!