29 May 2011

Travel Catch Up - Random Stories

Hi All,
         I went looking for photos of the travelling we have done since we moved to Sweden, I found 2000 odd photos on my iphone so I thought I would post some of the interesting ones.

Walking in the forest
 near our house.
Sweden: Autumn and Winter. Local forests in Swedish Suburbia
Dads end up with snow
 in all the wrong spots.
 There are maybe 15-20km of tracks through this particular forest. In the winter there is a short track that can be used in the dark (the sun goes down at around 1430-1500) for running or cross country skiing and in the summer there are a range of different tracks for mountain bikes, walking, running and horse riding. Around the time this picture was taken we were able to pick wild blueberries from right beside the track - they grow everywhere.   


Snow is fun...for a week or so..... 

Really beautiful, even if the time is 3pm!

secretly we are gritting
our teeth because it is
minus 20 degrees,
not smiling :)

The photo here of us in the snow shows Lili, Will and I at Tomteland (Santaland) about 300km (4hrs) North of Stockholm. It was so cold, just as we arrived the snow really started to fall heavily, it took us about 6 hrs to get home, we used to GPS to predict where the road might be, we couldn't really see it :) The photo to the right shows a sunset (around 3pm) in the local archapelago. We took a ferry tour with our friend Lisa from New Zealand. It was nice to sit in the heated ferry, sip some glogg (spiced wine) and sail through the ice. Now that it is summer again I'm looking forward to getting out and exploring at least a couple fo the 80,000 islands right on my doorstep.
 
Will hanging around in Paris
France: Autumn. Paris was interesting but fairly dodgy......
When we were in Paris we rented a little flat on a market street - it was pretty convenient to everything we wanted to see. We had some highlights like the various parks we went to, hot chocolate at Angelina's etc (make sure you do this if you have kids - they will remember it for life). One thing we did notice though was the number of scam artists and pick pockets around the place. We were prepared for some of this but nothing prepared us for the blatant 'stalking' we had to endure every time we went outside or on the train. In the end we assume it was because Toni wore a red jacket and had a handbag with a sling (which made her an easy target). I learned to pick the 'baddies' pretty quickly after the first day or two. This photo of Willem was taken during a break while walking along the river to Notre Dame, the rest spot was perfect because we had a stone wall behind us and could see people approaching from both left and right (yes, it was that bad).
UK: Easter. So is this a beach?
Willem thought the beaches at Lyme Regis were pretty cool. He had never seen a beach made of rocks, he was in his element until he threw one too many as he got tired and hit himself in the head. We were pretty happy at having travelled to the UK for Easter and finding a week long heatwave (between 25-27 degrees everyday).
So, I have plenty more where those came from. Not right up there in terms of changing the world (at least not for anybody except us). We have seen and done an amazing range of things since we got here. Looking forward to our summer holidays through Germany and Italy.

Thanks for reading.
Pete