evening views

went for a walk around town this evening. the camera on my phone doesn't necessarily take awesome night pictures, but as i hit this square, i decided to give it a try. not bad. anyway, nothing special, these are just some pictures of one of the squares here in linkoping.

whiskey expo

tonight, a colleague took me to the whiskey expo here in linkoping, quite an experience. i guess there ARE nerds for just about anything that has lots of details and statistics and reasons to call yourself an expert. heh... it was kind of interesting, and i really appreciated the opportunity to taste a number of different scotches (well, since one was from sweden, i guess i have to say whiskey) that i never would have bothered to try if i had to buy a full bottle.

i was just pleasently surprised to have emerged from the event in a relatively sober state. it was fun, i tried some new stuff, but things didn't get too crazy. here are a few pictures and some commentary.

here's the sign for a swedish whiskey. they are developing this product and have even gone so far as to store casks in various parts of sweden to see which storage facility will produce the finest whiskey. it was only 5 years old and it tasted young too. smelled nice, though.


here's the coaster for an independent scotch i tried. it's a speyside, i guess i'm not sure what it's supposed to go on the palatte like, but it was enjoyable.



this is a highland style whiskey, the last i tried. it was pretty good, but it wasn't water, which was what i was craving.

and... tonight, again, proved to me that given the choice, i wouldn't choose islay scotches. i guess i just don't have that sophisticated of a palette. that's ok, though.

afterward, we ended up in a club. that's a different story for a different time. same results for me, though--relatively sober--but it was nice to be able to simply walk home when things were done.

strolling to work the run out of my legs

took a run this morning with a colleague and needed to go for a walk afterward to keep my legs from locking up. well, that and i did have some errands to run like exchanging some more dollars for kronors and restocking the fridge.

one of the things i find so interesting is that there are so many interesting, hidden away places in this town. furthermore, the alleys aren't scary, their quaintness has a gravitational pull. well, at least for me. so, i just wandered away from the shopping crowds and started snapping some photos.

apparently, not all of the oldest buildings were moved to gamla linkoping.



here's a little secondary alleyway.
which is just off of this alley.

so, when i walk around, i find myself looking down. i'm fascinated with some of the common things or configuration of things are on the ground. it's funny, things don't have to be perfectly polished to be considered useful. this is the front step of a salon (i think). but... instead of getting out the concrete to fill this in "for good" they filled in the spaces with small stones. much more personality than concrete.


ok... i guess i should've snapped a pic of the whole row of these trees, but this is one of those amazingly cool things that happen when trees are trimmed and shaped regularly over a long period of time. it looks like it's going to reach out and grab me! this row of trees made me think of the enchanted trees in wizard of oz. i bet it's a totally different presentation when they have lots o' leaves.

kanevad... wow

ok, i have a healthy respect for the skill of woodworking because a good friend of mine, jim sannerud, does some awesome stuff with wood. he's always had high praise for the spooncarvers of sweden, so i'd always assumed they could do some pretty cool stuff. this is definitely more than i expected when i stumbled into kanevad in gamla linkoping (simply because it was one of the few places open on this chilly, snowy friday afternoon), i was amazed. here are some shots of things that made me say wow...

here are some kitchen utensils. pretty cool stuff.


now, here are some burls that are carved out. they look like mushrooms!


now... look at the combination, spoons carved in the same way as the burl. i don't remember if they were little burls or just carved out of big pieces of wood. either way, very cool. very.

vacuum cleaner

here's my treat after walking around gamla linkoping, dammsuga och kaffe. dammsuga means vacuum cleaner, apparently this treat was called that because it kind of looks like a canister vacuum. nice. i know what you're thinking, it looks like a fancy hoho, but let me tell you, it's not!

it was marzipan wrapped around a tube of thick, rich nutty pasty goodness, which was also kind of nougaty. err... not sure exactly what it was but it went well with the good conversation.

tack så mycket, ulf, for the treat.

gamla linkoping

some coworkers took me to a small city called gamla linkoping. it's a planned city made up of buildings taken from various parts of the old city and moved here. it's kind of a tourist place (on holidays and in the summer), but it's really cool to see that these old buildings have been preserved. They really thought ahead when they were redeveloping parts of linkoping.


i'm not going to describe them as i don't really know what each of the buildings is. i just have to say that each of the views just grabbed me in some way and i tried to frame it up in a way that matched how it made me feel.






oh... there were a couple of places open. a woodcarver's shop, a candy store, and a cafe. those experieces to be told in another entry.

not a day for slippers at breakfast

here's what i saw today as i stepped out of my front door to head to breakfast:

i have to walk around the building i'm in to get to the hotel, where they serve breakfast,


and it's a good think i didn't try to head over there in a pair of slippers because it would have gotten a bit cold.

new home for the rest of my stay

my apartment was ready just after breakfast this morning, so i moved in. here's the view of my room from the front door



my little bathroom, at least i don't have to share it with anyone. a shower enclosure, that's high living!


something other than the bed to sit on.



my view of the street. it's not as quiet as being on the back side of the building, but it's not a very busy street either.


and my kitchen...

ugh... which reminds me i need to walk over to the store to pick up some groceries.

wandered around today

i was trying to stay awake and decided that if i kept moving, i'd have a better chance of staying awake. i think it worked! i can't say, for sure, but i don't remember falling asleep (do you ever?), nor do i remember waking up, which is how i usually can tell i was sleeping. anyway, the topic of this is my walk, remember!

walking around my hotel, i use the cathedral as my landmark. i know how to get back to the hotel from it, so i know i can figure out how to get home if i keep it in sight.


my other easy landmark is the canal. it's perfect because i don't need to leave breadcrumbs to find my way home with this either. i know to just turn around and keep walking until i get back to where i started!


not that breadcrumbs would work around here because of the critters who hang out in the canal would likely eat them

small place to call home

for the next day or two, this'll be my home until an apartment becomes available.


ok, it may not be the ritz carlton (sadly, i don't even know the proper spelling for that) , but it's got this super cool feature in the bathroom.it looks like a standard towel rack, but notice, it's plugged in! yes, it's a heated towel rack. plus, that adds a little heat to the bathroom, which doesn't have its own radiator.

bikes... real bikes... for getting around

umm... here in sweden i have noticed that people eat a lot of the things that could make you... er... kinda big in the waistline. like the fried fish i had today with a rich cream sauce. i wonder why most of the people i've seen here aren't (big in the waistline)?





errrm... this many people rode their bikes to the resacentrum on a rainy day? no, i guess i don't wonder anymore.

streetscenes

wandering around town on sunday before the town was really "awake," i snapped a few photos.



this is the street just outside my hotel.



here's the "local" lutheran church.

here's the cathederal (lutheran).
it's just about a five minute walk from the other church.

a museum. in the us, we'd have a high fence around the building to keep you from harming it. making the building the artifact not the contents.

a side alley in linkoping.



a closer look in the alley, this is the building on the left in the pic above. it's living space. i glanced in the windows enough to know that, but tried not to look too long lest i would be chased away for "peeping"
turning off the last alley into another. in the US this is where the dumpsters would go. where's all your slimy crap? well, if you don't buy so much, you don't have as much to throw out, i guess.

here's a blurry photo down by the river. the old guy is fishing.

bikes around town

ok, so we're talking about the utmost utility here, but there are bikes everywhere. i forgot to take a pic at the train station today when i was buying my bus pass, but i'll get a pic tomorrow morning of the racks and racks of bikes parked there.

this is the church parking lot... no, really

and the other lot. really, there's a service going on and there are only two cars parked near the building.

a public bike rack
and getting around town? you just do it on a bike...
in your regular clothes. i wonder if the industry that caters to sport cycling in the US has been the biggest barrier to the practical usage of bicycles. well, not the biggest barrier. there's legislation and the car lobby to blame for that, but the cycling industry itself focused on cycling as a sport, which, i believe, comes from the fact that it's a higher margin sale AND it represents much more return sales as bike nerds upgrade their bikes incessantly.

it's probably easier to stay in business selling new bikes than it is to repair (and stock the parts for) really old bikes. however, that doesn't mean they shouldn't try to sell practical bikes to everyday people.