Staying Longer

Shock horror news which you may not have all heard - we have now agreed to stay until May/June 2012. They wanted me to stay until spring next year but I suggested that since we were going to survive a whole winter, we would also appreciate some summertime too. So 6 months in Sweden has now become 18 months. This means we have more chance to do winter things we didn't do properly last winter - more iceskating on frozen lakes and also actually try cross-country skiiing. On the other hand it means we have to make it through the whole of winter and also the misery of the days rapidly getting shorter.

Midsummer

Midsummer is a big deal in Sweden - everyone celebrates with their family or friends, ideally somewhere in the countryside. It's a bit like Christmas except obviously it is more likely to be warm and sunny. Dancing around a maypole seems to be a vital part, along with eating shrimp and pickled herring - all washed down with aquavit.


 Most swedes have a summer house somewhere in the countryside - normally something fairly small and basic - so they all head there for Midsummer (and also for most weekends in summer). This means that the city is really quite quiet this weekend.

Since we don't have a summer house, we followed the crowds and went to Skansen. This is the maypole at Skansen which we merrily danced around - here is a man dancing like an elephant.

Here is yet another photo of 'gosh look how light it is'. This one taken from our balcony at sunset (10:45pm) on the longest day. (In the middle of winter the sun will set at 2:45pm - yikes!).

Midnight Sun (also known as Midnight Light)

One of the main things we were expecting to see on our jaunt up north was the Midnight Sun. Unfortunately the weather was not interested in helping. So here is a photo taken at midnight one night, showing a completely overcast slightly gloomy looking sky. Amazing yeah?


To help show that it does stay very light - here is a photo taken at 10:30 last Thursday night at our office summer party. According to the internet, today the sun rose at 3:30 and it will set at 22:08, whereas in Bristol the sun rose at 4:53 and will set at 21:31. So we get nearly two hours extra daylight. Certainly the sky doesn't really get dark at night at the moment.

Lemming Massacre (Not for the Sensitive)

There were dead lemmings everywhere and also quite a lot of live ones too. The little pile of furry corpses on top of the rock appears to be a buzzard dining room since there were more piles of fluff on the ground all around it.

Myth not correct - no sign of lemmings running off cliffs, in fact Snopes suggests that disney staged some footage in the 1950s <http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/lemmings.asp>

Since winter was long and hard this year, the lemmings had ages to breed under the snow so their population has exploded this year. This means it is a good year for the ptarmingan - they don't eat lemmings but it means predators can gorge on lemmings instead of ptarmigan chicks.

On some bits of paths (like the bottom photo) there were little dead things everywhere. They also seemed to mostly be lying on their backs with their little paws in the air and big
sticky-out teeth like cartoon dead mouse. They're hard to pick out but most of the dark-coloured blobs in this picture are lemmings.

A Trip to North Lapland

Disaster as our readership plummets - my parents are visiting so no need for them to read a blog and find out what they have been doing. Hej! to both our other readers. 

This weekend we have been on an epic trip to the very far north of Sweden to experience midnight sun and Europe's largest wilderness. As you can see - snow still there on the mountains and also the odd patch right down into the valley. The lake was still covered with ice when we arrived and you can see that the trees are hardly in leaf yet. Winter is only just starting to loosen its grip on the far far north.

Cards like a Local

 We are not just tourists - we have cards like locals. Here are all the ones I have in my collection.



Stockholm City Bikes card - local version of the Paris Velib or London Boris.


Bonnierskonsthall - Contemporary art gallery - this card came free with the Moderna Museet card.


SL Card - like an oyster, but £69 for a 30 day season ticket


 Friends of the Moderna Museet card. Free entry to the Modern Art Museum, National Museum (like the National Gallery and V&A combined), Architecture Museum and a couple of contemporary art galleries. Also money off in their shop and their very nice restaurant.

Library card - the city libary is one of the classics of Swedish architecture and also has lots of good books in English. This is probably the best of all our cards.

Kayaking

We've now had 3 weekends in a row on the water - two weekends in the archipelago and then kayaking in central Stockholm on Saturday. Lots of fun - will definitely go again - and also out in the archipelago.

It was another beautiful day in the low twenties - shorts and t-shirt weather again. Kayak hire place was about 20 minutes walk from our flat - paddled up to the Stadshuset and past all the tourists on the terrace. After a detour under a low bridge, we crossed Riddarfjärden and paddled betwen Langholmen (prison island) and Södermalm (home).



Here's a lovely photo of us by Stadshuset, looking right into the sun so you can't actually see us.