GM

Just saw a car outside my house. Nothing much, right. The car was a limo. Yeah. You know how big a normal American SUV is? This limo was a seven doors, eight windows long GM Jeep....... And it was boarded by a bunch of Minnesota Vikings footballers. Welcome to America.... land of bling. Football and bling.

Frohe Weihnachten!

Merry Christmas to you all!

Wesolych Swiat!

Frohe Weihnachten!

God Jul!

Glædelig Jul!

Bon Nadal!

Wiener Sänger Knaben:

Pepparkakor

This year, I will celebrate Christmas together with a couple of my colleagues. To make it as close to being North-European as possible, I am preparing some Polish and Swedish dishes. To make it more funny, and because I apparently also represent the Kingdom of Denmark, I have been forced to do something Danish as well. I went shopping for the ingredients, and was looked upon as an alien while in the grocery store - my cart contained foods all but American, hahahaha! Tonight I have prepared the gingerbread dough, as one of the Swedish elements, and prepared some other things for tomorrow. I will not make bigos, but certainly pierogi z kapusta. It took some time to find the Sauerkraut, but once I found the proper shelf, there were quite many to choose from, but for some reason, it is classified as meat....... don't want to know why. I picked the Bavarian style Sauerkraut, to include one more of my favourite lands. After putting my raisins in the whiskey, it is officially time to get some sleep. And you can see for yourself, how fun the baking business is!

Köhncke

The office was very empty Today, half of the staff is enjoying Christmas already. The other half treats you with cookies. Heute bietet die Deutsche Woche Justus Köhncke Timecode, aus Köln. This is one of the great tracks from his album Doppelleben.

Deutsche Woche

Lass uns eine Deutsche Woche haben! Was sagt ihr dazu? Fangen wir an mit Kraftwerk Neon Lights. Gute Stimmung von 1978.

Media Weekend

The perfect weekend reloading activity - playing squash listening to power rock of Christina Stürmer. Now it's time to see Casino Royale! Le Chiffre, du gør det godt!

Kiwi

Looking forward to go to Australia and New Zealand to see the kiwis :)

That old pair of jeans

Fatboy Slim chasing different videos

Remind me

This is more or less how I feel right now - like a Röyksopp video....... Remind me describes it best.

Tadadadada

Is Finn Vine saying "webcrack"? White Rose Movement, Girls in the Back

Testarossa 1986

The wet dream of the 80's: Ferrari Testarossa, served in 2006. Kavinsky, Testarossa Autodrive

Cars 1979

1979, Gary Newman, Cars

Happy Disco

The year is 1983 and WHAM! makes this performance in Germany. More funky than and just as classy as Kraftwerk....... Clap clap!

Thanksgiving

Last Thursday was the big Turkey day - Thanksgiving. I celebrated at Nancy's sister's house in Waizata, just next to a long lake. The nature around reminds me of central Sweden, or Värmland, really cool :) The weather was extremely warm, +15 C, everyone being amazed, cause they usually shuffle snow at Thanksgiving.... We had around 15 people over, mostly Americans, but also a guy from Libya. There was the prayer, the turkey, the mashed sweet potatoes, pistache salad with marshmallows :$ and lots of wine. I had a bottle of Torres from Catalunya, making me miss Barcelona even more. The food was very good, as expected, but that marshmallow sallad.... was a new taste to me.

The Friday after Thanksgiving is called the Black Friday. This is a major sales day and some of the stores open already at 4 am. Since I thought that would be too early, I went there at 5 am instead. I didn't know before, that you could make Americans line up in a queue, but you really can. As long as you put really necessary crap on sale, it's a piece of cake. I found myself purchasing a minnesota vikings football jersey. And the dollar is still getting cheaper.... OH MY, OH MY.......

Natascha

Bob & wine

Natascha & Boris (almost)

From left: Nancy, not Nancy, Nancys sister....

Bob and wine again, the perfect combination....

Black Friday - extremely long line, 5 am

Rush for crappy portable dvd-players

Chillin' pig

Minnesota vikings dude!

Holiday

My first long weekend in the States - Today I am invited to a Thanksgiving dinner (actually two). I wonder how big the turkey will be? The Canadians gave thanks in October. Wonder how big Tigas turkey was?

I win

Like if there were an alternative to the WineScan when it comes to wine tasting: Borat... Has anyone seen the movie yet?

Pen'n'Paper music

Check out the new video made for minilogue by kristofer ström at ljudbilden, using a whiteboard. This is where Moomin's at Today, doing the dj business....... Respect!

Shopping big time

Today's attraction was the Mall of America, the largest mall in this over-sized country, which I explored together with one of my Danish colleagues visiting this distant office of ours. In numbers, this mall counts for 40 million visitors per year, 390.000 m2 gross area, 520 stores, 12.000 employees and 20.000 parking lots, as well as a theme park with two rollercoasters (yes, indoors). The most Danish element is the Lego store, although testing one of the red iPod nanos in the Apple store, someone had changed the menu language to Danish. It was not my colleague, which was really, really strange... The most Swedish element - the one and only IKEA. I like! We rounded off by dining at a family restaurant with a very specific theme - hooters. If you're just after the food, go anywhere else...

Big balls at Mall of America

Catch up: Valencia

I believe, it has been some time now :) I will try to catch up on the reporting. I am now officially in the States, but more on that later. Let's start with some pictures from Valencia, right?! Before the hectic time, Patryk and I took off to the semi-Catalan south. The city is really neat and clean and I can do nothing less than recommend it. If you don't mind experiencing nice architecture, an nationalistic political performance, good weather, enjoying the night on the beach lying on a dozen of deckchairs, not sleeping at all, having a two-hour breakfast in a small café while your pal is sleeping on the table, exploring Roman ruins and trying to sleep on the train surrounded by thirty kids, you should definitely do it! Patryk, I hope you are recovering from the Portuguese adventure :) Cheers!

Goodbye-fiesta for the office, the Barbarian is leaving for now

Valencia - Patryk enjoys(?) Paella Valenciana y mucho, mucho vino. They have good icecream in the creamery in the background

The weather was great for touristing, and so we did

Even here mr. president is popular. Borat?

From above

Valencia skyline

Side B, pretty good solution having the garage underground

Yes

If you wanna be rich.......

Panaderia. They don't have that in Eden Prairie.......

Spanish squirrel, oh so beautiful! Almost like the Danish.......

Roman ruins

Amphitheatre

Yo, Patryk y Pere before leaving for USA/Portugal/studies for this time around :) Pere, we should have it at your place the next time!

Hayling

FC Kahuha - Hayling

Going to US

I am now officially on my way to the States. The Amsterdam - Minneapolis flight which I was supposed to take was cancelled, so I had to stay in Cph until now and am flying over Chicago instead. I've had four hours of waiting, but under controlled circumstances in the KLM lounge, with free food, booze and Internet. Dangerous :p States, here I come!

In travel

Finally I had the time to sleep eight hours. I am at my grandma's in Szczecin, eating all kinds of Polish culinary wonders :) Flew here from Warszawa yesterday, the flight took 50 minutes and the airport outside Szczecin was everything but big, in fact even smaller than the train station in Sitges :) It was really nice to stay at your place, Joanna & Bogi, thanks again! I will post some pictures later, as I am now using the modem connection (even though it's faster than bluetooth, Bogi :)

Welcome, all new Spanish readers :) It was sad to leave you, but I will certainly come and visit you in the near future. It has been great six months, thank you!

In Warszawa I spent some 30 hours, holding a presentation for the Polish office and being introduced to all of my native colleagues (that were present). It was really great, and the office very cosy, so I hope to be back there pretty soon!

Bogi, Joanna und ich

Busy times

The last weeks have been filled with finishing projects and preparations. Last weekend I found some time to join my keen Patryk on a trip to Valencia, more on that later. The travel plan of this week: Patryk is going west, to Madrid and Portugal. I am heading in the opposite direction

Wensday: Barcelona – Warszawa
Thursday: Warszawa – Szczecin
Sunday: Berlin – Copenhagen

Anyone up for packing? Please....... I mean it

Time to go

Pappa har ett hus på Marstrand

"Var nere i Tyskland, sen åkte jag ner till Båstad... Malmöområdet...Skåne... " - killen behärksar ju vädersträcken...

pappa betalar ju...

You have to speak Swedish for this... or... be glad if you don't!

Being Catalan in Igualada

The last weekend I spent together with my Catalan friend Pere. On Saturday we took the car to his family house in Igualada and had a Catalan fika with Peres family. They are fond of good food, the nice people here J During the night we went out to the “city” to have a bite and found a cozy restaurant, and after that we hit the bars. It was supercrowded and loud as hell, so after a drink we went to a club, which showed to be even more crowded, this time with a clientele aged 16-20 with some luck-seeking exceptions of course… we left very soon. Apparently Igualada is not THE Metropolis, but it certainly has nice restaurants. They also have their own El Bosque des Fades (a bar designed as the elven forest), which is bigger and more detailed than the one in Barcelona. On our way home we were stopped for a control by the police and Pere had to blow. Luckily he had only had a glass of wine J I told you man!

Yesterday we had lunch with Peres parents again, this time in Esparraguera. It was the first time I had snails, and it was pretty good, but I prefer the rice and sauce and rabbit prepared by Peres mum. And sorry Pere, but the other thing… I am not used to it! After that we went on a safari to the surrounding mountains, not far from Montserrat, had a walk among the olive trees and ate some fresh almonds.

Pere blowing

Some nice people decided to shoot off fireworks for about 10 minutes at 2 a.m.

In the garden of Peres parents



The well-known siesta, even called drzemka or tupplur

Horsies in the mountains

Olives



Freshly picked almonds... yummie!