markida: July 2009

Thursday 30 July 2009

A walk in the sun!

Malmö is one of few European cities where the coast is within ten minutes walk from the city centre...

The view through to Pildammsparken (Malmö's biggest park)

http://www.visitsweden.com/sweden/Regions--Cities/Malmo/Sights--attractions/A-city-of-parks/

Sweden's Copacabana and Turning Torso in the distance

Some nice flats

Tim Burton trees

Some old flats being rennovated

Malmö is very green!

One of Ida's old flats!

Well, after nearly two months, we're finally in Malmö! We've pretty much moved down here permanently now, with the odd visit to Hönö and Anderstorp planned when my mum and Emma visit. We drove down here on Monday 27th with Lena and Ida's mum to view three flats and have been staying at Eva's flat in Kroksbäck.

Of the three flats we viewed, only the last one ticked all the boxes - good location, old building, clean, and big! However, it was probably a little more expensive than we can really afford right now (seen as we were looking to buy) and we've now decided to hang on for a rental. Unfortunately, it is notoriously hard to find a flat to rent that doesn't have a huge waiting list, due to the lack of new build flats and strict regulations on renting. So now we're playing the waiting game and are searching everyday for anything we can find.

On Tuesday we spent sometime wandering the shops, before heading to Eva's boyfriend's restaurant for lunch and then met up with Angela and Caroline for a drink. Me and Ida went to the cinema in the evening and watched the new Woody Allen film, Whatever Works. It was very funny and one of his best in recent years, with Larry David a favourite of ours.

We awoke on Wednesday morning to some good news....I have been granted permanent residence for TWO YEARS! I have to reapply within the last year, unless me and Ida marry before then...which hopefully we will! Reinvigorated by the good news, we headed for Systrar & Bröder, a great little cafe for breakfast - http://www.systrarbroder.se/, where we met up with Viktor and Anna. After we'd eaten me, Ida and Viktor had a quick look at the Sonic Youth exhibition at the Malmö Konsthall - http://www.konsthall.malmo.se/o.o.i.s/60.

After saying goodbye to Viktor, me and Ida headed towards the shops and armed with some freshly printed CVs, I targeted the shops I would like to work in and handed out a few. Lucikly, none of them seemed too bothered about my lack of Swedish, so hopefully something might happen. Me and Ida then headed to Ica to buy some supplies for Eva's and then jumped on the bus home. When we got back I applied to be a postman with Bring aka Citymail, as after years of my dad saying he wants to be one when he retires, I thought I could maybe live the dream a little earlier!

As of yet, we have no real plans for today, but will probably head into town later and maybe to the coast for a walk.

Monday 20 July 2009

22nd June-1st July - Kotamaa and The Arctic Circle!

Our location on a world scale!

21st June

We spent most of the first day exploring the various other buildings...

Ida with Morfar (mum's dad) and her mum

The dogs were in heaven!

I'm just a country boy at heart

Ida checking if there's enough wood

If you wanted hot water you had to heat it yourself!

1am...STILL LIGHT!

22nd June

The first of many reindeer we spotted!

Korpilombolo was the nearest town with a decent supermarket and was about 20km away.

Korpilombolo Church - some of Ida's relatives are buried here

One of many hunting towers

My bear bat...just in case!

23rd June

Jokkfall waterfall on the Kalix River

This part of the river is known to be one of the best salmon fishing spots in Europe and has a salmon ladder to the left of the waterfall as the fall had created a natural obstacle for salmon migrating up stream. During our stay a salmon was caught weighing around 45kg and 150cm long! Apparently it's about the same size as Dolly Parton.

Hans, Me, Ida and Morfar

The Kalix River

24th June

Ida on one of our daily walks into the forest

Preparing the sausage for the grill!

The main house

I had never really been bitten by mosquitoes before...but these ones were animals!

Morfar checks on the sausages

After the bbq, we headed for Finnijoki for an arctic swim!

Only me, Lena and Alma (a relative!) were brave enough!

11pm...Ida taking it easy

We had a sauna nearly every night....

25th June

Anton (a realative) came to visit and said we could borrow his car to go for a swim!

I hadn't driven for 8 years, but considering I was more likely to meet a reindeer on the road than another car, nobody was too worried!

Cruising....

Finnijoki again!

Just a few bites!

The weather was hot, so we ate outside when we could

26th June

Today we visited a reindeer skin factory that provided much of Sweden with furs, skins, products made of antler etc. These can be seen at the major airports and in many of the tourist shops in Stockholm. Most of the skins and furs come from the remains of reindeer eaten by the Sami people (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sami_people) still active in Northern Sweden and Lapland.

The shop and entrance to the factory

The factory...furs hung from the roof everywhere you looked

There were a variety of different furs...thinner, darker summer coats and the thick white winter ones.