Dreaming of Freedom

On Thursday night the most amazing snow fell and in the morning we woke up to the Christmas card snow scene. It is a powdery, sparkling kind of snow that is fantastic to look at but pretty tough to cycle to work through. Of course when we got to work yesterday we were all full of glee at having made it in and celebrated with mince pies and mulled wine. Back home the flat is filling up with people, Christmas presents and food, for some reason we have a fridge full of courgettes, baby tomatoes, red peppers and aubergines. It is the most horrendous thing to open the fridge and see a wall of healthy options staring down at you. I think it’s because it’s the same vitamin filled meal times a hundred that makes it so chilling!

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I had a truly exciting moment when on the 29th we walked out to the woods behind the Botanical Gardens only to find the lakes and ponds frozen over and people ice skating and playing ice hockey. Utterly amazing. I’ve never seen a lake frozen over before. We had to go and stand on it but of course it was terrifying especially when we heard the ice cracking. The ice has cracked up now but the canals in Gothenburg still have large sheets of ice floating on the top.
We spent New Year Eve watching the fireworks from our flat window and moving the rest of the stuff down the hill to our new, cozy miniature sized flat. I guess it’s a good way to start the new year - by saving money - but we will miss our old place with it’s view of the lipstick building and any fireworks that may be happening down at the habour.
The family have now all gone home back to England but I am still left with one mince pie and a jar of marmite!

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I now have new rainproof gloves. I believe they are also windproof and they are certainly extremely warm. They have clearly been designed to go with an astronaut suit so they have the added value of inflexibility and hugeness. Now I will cycle in more comfort than ever.

I have been spending some quality geek time making up spreadsheets to record my working hours and to calculate the huge 33% tax they will extract from me. It’s nice to make a spreadsheet to record income rather than expenditure. There’s nothing like a spreadsheet to make you feel you have a grip on life.

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Well after a grueling few days I’m closer to launching Dad’s new and improved website. The website is looking alright and after I transfer the domain name and it’s got it’s own special webspace then I’ll be making you all have a look at it and begging for constructive feedback.

We spent a few happy hours in the sunshine today, cycling up to Partille to have a delicious dinner with our Gothenburg friends. It’s our last weekend of total freedom before K starts his masters course and all the hard work that entails.

The Swedish is coming along slowly… very slowly!

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All K’s hard work has finally paid off and he has launched the first working version of his library look up website. Although the project isn’t finished you can now use it to search for libraries in London. Hopefully it will expanded one day to cover the entire UK. So if you’re looking for a library in London or a certain book in a London library then this is the site for you. Why not have a go.

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I’m currently watching the news about George Bush’s arrival at Downing Street and am disappointed but not surprised at the size of the anti-Bush/war/American foreign policy demonstration. According to the news the demonstrators are nowhere near Downing Street, instead held back by large police lines, and therefore unlikely to be seen or heard by Bush. A clear demonstration of (dare I say it) the lack of true democratic right to opinion in Britain.

It’s also sad to see how small the demonstrations have become over the last five years - I don’t think the numbers represent the amount of anger felt by people over the whole war charade nor the disappointment felt in the government. Many people are however confused about the situation as the reasons for war sold to them have changed every time one became an untenable lie. The success of ‘the great war sale’ has been down to that most effective weapon of all - namely the war propaganda pumped out by the media. Anyone in doubt about this should check out the work Media Lens have been doing.

Here in Sweden the war in the Middle East seems far away and I’ve been spending my days reading books by Bertrand Russell. The weather has turned again and it’s currently raining heavily. I’ve spent a very pleasant day baking cakes and other wholesome things. Yesterday K and I cycled with his friend up to Partille where we consumed pizza, non-alcoholic gooseberry pop and sweet Swedish strawberries.

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I walked up to and around some of Slottsskogen yesterday evening. I came across the birdhouse or Fågelhuset to discover a variety of birds as well as some Humboldt penguins which are pretty much an endangered species. I wandered up the hill to find the rest of the zoo. It’s completely free and you can see a variety of animals including moose and deer. Despite the fact it’s always interesting to see animals I can’t really shake the feeling that it’s unjustified and cruel to keep animals in captivity. It seems that others share this view too and there is actually a campaign to close the zoo down.

Apart from my wholesome walk to see unwholesome practices I spent a good part of my day working on the Norwich page on my website. It’s looking a little better now.

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We have found a lovely flat to move into next month. It’s got a fairly good view of the lipstick building and is in a idyllic residential area. Each L shape of flats surrounds a little area covered with flowers and hosting a miniature playground for children. As it would appear is usual for blocks of flats here, each resident has a key to a laundry room where washing machines and driers are laid on for the residents free of use. It’s a one bedroom apartment and the bedroom and sitting room look out over the city of Gothenburg. The kitchen faces the other way but is also particularly nice as it leads on to a balcony overlooking the said flowers. Enough extolling the virtues - we’re off to sign the papers later. Blocket has been the website that facilitated all this flat hunting.

Although we have been busy flat hunting we have still found time to sit in the candle lit cafe in Konstmuseum and eat the delicious homemade food there.

We have also been indulging in a spot of tec stuff as Keyvan has kindly updated my wordpress so this site is now up to date. I’ve also started creating a whole new gallery to replace my rather grim old one. It’s only got a few pictures on it so far. He has been busy as always working on his code and I have even started on the promised novel.

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It’s been a busy few days. We’ve been mooching around Gothenburg city centre, flat hunting and cycling out to the coast. We’ve even remembered to take Keyvan’s camera out a couple of times and here is one of my favourite pictures of a tram on Avenyn.

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We’ve spent the last two days cycling into the centre in the lovely sunshine. Yesterday we went on a voyage of discovery to the library. There are a surprising number of books in English, that browsing along the shelves you come across. This all seems perfectly normal because in Sweden everyone speaks English. You can use the internet for free for up to one hour even if you don’t have a library card - all you need to do is ask at the information desk and provide identification. You can borrow books only if you have a library card and you can only get one of those if you have the all pervasive personal number - you need to be a registered resident to get one but you can’t really do anything without it.

The library is at the top of the Avenue (big main street in the centre) and right at the top in Götaplatsen (big square) looking imposing and very 1920s is the big Göteborg Museum of Art. We popped in to look at their free exhibitions and discovered for a mere 40 Swedish Kroner (about £3.35) you can have unlimited access to 5 museums in Gothenburg for the rest of the year. The museums are: Göteborg Museum of Art, Göteborg City Museum, the Maritime Museum and Aquarium, the Röhsska Museum and the Natural History Museum.

Today I tried out my pass and went to the Natural History Museum. The museum is a fine example of its kind and if you like stuffed animals you’ll appreciate the place. I was lured by the numerous chairs, the cafe and the free toilets. The museum had a large selection of stuffed creatures in glass and wood cases and would be a great place to take children. It reminded me of the Natural History Museum in London before it was jazzed up, although it’s much smaller. The museum is set in the green of Slottsskogen so afterwards I wandered around admiring the little lake and waterfall in the fabulous sunshine.

Cycling into the centre takes about 20 minutes or so from where we are staying and it’s a nice cycle ride because of the cycle tracks. It’s as if bikes are actually considered a form of transport here; they have their own miniature roads and little traffic lights. It’s a refreshing change to England if you’re a cyclist. The mixture of pedestrians, bikes, cars, trams and buses makes for a good scene. It’s definitely the future, although none of the concepts are new.

Although it’s a short cycle ride, both days we have found ourselves waylaid the the old area of Haga, where small cafes lure you in with fine selections of coffee and cakes. This green city with its cafes and good transport is definitely the place for me.

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