David, old favorite on the blog, came to visit us a few weeks ago. We were really excited because we would have one day in Gothenburg, then shoot up to Kiruna for four and a half days of far-north activities: northern lights, dog sleds, ice hotels, Arctic Circle - the works. We did lots of Gothenburg things the day after he arrived.
One big surprise for all of us was Delsjön! It had been (and is now again) ass-cold in the entire country. Lots and lots of snow and temperatures hanging around -5 to -10! I wanted to take David on my "regular walk" through the woods but when we got to the lake this is what we saw:
The entire thing was completely frozen over! I'd never seen that before. In fact, I'd never seen that anywhere. I'd been to the lake the weekend before and was amazed that I could walk out 20 feet. Now we literally walked end-to-end down the entire lake. It was quite an experience and I'm sure it will be one of my favorite Sweden memories.
We ate my favorite place in town (Dubbel Dubbel), then tucked in early-ish for our 7am flight. Everything was going great until we arrived at the airport to be greeted by a cancellation notice for our flight. Six hours of angry phone calls to Norwegian and near-constant harassment of the Menzies personnel (who apparently are responsible for Norwegian customer service in Gbg), we were back on the airport bus home. That was a stupid day.
We spent the next day trying to get money back on things like our Airbnb (full refund - those people are on their CS game) and our dog sled ride (polar opposite). We also did a lot of moping around. The following day, Tuesday, I decided we had to get the fuck out of Gothenburg, as it was "feels like" -20 and it was just going to keep snowing and generally being miserable and also Gothenburg has like two days' worth of activities, max.
A search of flights and... Barcelona, it was! We left two days later.
I'd been to Barcelona once before - in 2011 as I transitioned from the worst job I ever had (PADF for those counting) into something more suitable. At the time I had no money so I stayed at the cheapest hostel I could find and tried to eat cheaply. This time we were all grown up and could do whatever we wanted.
We did some things in town, but mostly we enjoyed not having to wear heavy coats, pinchos, and the Sagrada Familia. I also drag anyone with me on walking tours as much as possible. We did two in the 2.5 days we were there: one specifically for architecture (when in Barcelona) and a general old-town tour.
The Sagrada Familia has changed so much since I was there in 2011. For one, I mostly remember the inside being scaffolding. Now it's a huge, airy, rainbow-filled wonder. I only brought a 50, so it's impossible for me to do it justice here. Still, you can tell that it's a really magical place.
And that is a quick update of the biggest excitement I've had in a while. I know I haven't posted here... the blog was such a mess for a while. I did a theme update this morning, which hopefully makes this much easier to read and will make me more likely to post personal stuff here in the future. I post a lot on my
tech blog but the audience overlap between these two blogs is probably not great.
Here's some life updates:
- Still working at Studentvikarie. It's still the best actual job I've ever had. I love programming.
- George is doing well - just had a paper published.
- I've been doing a lot more yoga than usual the past few months. I'm considering starting a podcast. I'm also considering teacher training.
- I haven't traveled in a while, other than this quick trip to Barcelona and a trip to Oxford where I worked the whole time. I don't get paid vacation until May, so I've tried to cool it.
- During the summer, I'll embark on a five-week work/travel situation in the Balkans and Romania. I'm really excited to see if this works as well as I hope it will. If it's great, it may open the door to semi-permanent working and traveling. Tech can work like that.
Until next time!
