Solar eclipse

Europe had a solar eclipse last week or so. A colleague from work bought some glasses for viewing and organized a trip out to the construction site as a duo see the eclipse and site outing.

This was our first encounter on site. These are all port-a-cabins where the construction company works. Come January of next year, we will also be in these cabins on site. They are super nice and it was hard to tell they were temporary. There was even an elevator.

This is a view of the accelerator tunnel construction. There's not so much to see, as the name states, it's a tunnel and therefore under the ground.

The site construction part was good. It's crazy to think that when the main building is built, it will be based on decisions I made. That seems really weird!

It had been sunny three days in a row, but unfortunately on the day we went it was super cloudy. That was good for the fact that we could look up without glasses, but we had to wait for breaks where it was less cloudy. The glasses were totally useless since the sun wasn't bright enough for us to see anything except our own eyeball reflections.

There's nothing quite like a bunch of scientists talking about diffraction, attenuation, refraction and diffuse scattering. All reasons why the cloud cover made what we saw look the way it did. I think the lady from the construction site was a bit bored. She asked us how much longer we thought we'd be because she wanted to get some work done.

We were freezing and we couldn't tell there was any less sun because there was already no light to speak of with such heavy cloud cover, but we got a few glimpses of the eclipse and it was a great way to spend Friday morning. We all had a lot of fun!

 

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Waffle Day

March 25 is waffle day in Sweden. It's actually Vårfrudag, which kind of sounds like Våffeldag (when you pronounce them in Swedish). Vårfrudag is Our Lady's Day. It's the Christian holiday of Annunciation. It's the day Gabriel told Mary she was going to have a baby. It's 9 months before Christmas. Waffles have no connection to religion, but the words sounds the same, so why not eat waffles?!

 

Chris planned a light dinner of soup so we could splurge for dessert.

 

Magnus and Christine left a waffle maker in the house. Waffles here are thin and not sweet. The waffles are shaped like hearts, ahhhh.

 

It's traditional to eat them with whipped cream and jam. We had strawberry.

 

I like waffle day!

 

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Spring??

Just like with fall and winter, Sweden goes by a temperature pattern rather than the equinox to determine what season it is. So we've been in spring for over a month now. Never mind that it's only been over 50 a couple of times in those last weeks. Yesterday was a lovely spring day without any sun and it snow flurried all day. It got up to 38 and winds were at 20 mph. Ah, spring.

 

Whether or not it actually feels like spring, there are some signs that it's that time of year.

Easter decorations are out. That just made me realize, I need to get mine out too!

 

 

 

The first signs of life are out. There are surprising patches of crocuses all over. The white flowers actually started coming up in February.

 

It's circus time! We've seen these signs all 3 springs we've been here. When they start putting these up, we know that the dark days are over.

Speaking of, and then there's the sun. The heavy cloud blanket that covers us from October has finally lifted! We will still have mostly cloudy days for a bit longer, but we won't have only cloudy days and we love it! Last weekend it was 49, sunny and pretty windy. We got our coats and hats and a cup of coffee and sat outside to soak up some sun. The sun is such a wonderful thing, and for that we love March!!

 

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Morning walk

There was a bit of sun peeking through the clouds last Saturday morning at sunrise, so I took Charlie for an extra long walk through the fields. Everything was frozen that morning, but he doesn't mind, and the morning sun was beautiful.

 

 

 

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An Urban Adventure

It's been a long winter of not going outside to avoid wind and rain, and these last two weeks I spent sick after recovering from an appendectomy. The hospital experience was fine. Mostly the same as in the US except for the food. Here the food is served buffet style in a lunch room at the end of each hall. I think it's aimed at getting people up and moving around. Otherwise, nurse Chris has been unbelievably helpful and supportive. I wouldn't have made it without him!

We decided that on Saturday the family needed an outing, so we headed to Malmö.

 

Charlie got a bus ride and a train ride! He was such a good boy, and he loves the rides. He sits and stares out the window.

 

When we got to Malmö we were hoping for some sun, but mostly we got clouds. However, there was a tiny sliver of blue sky here and there. I would say we are used to clouds now, but really you are always looking for sun when it's so rare. At Malmö central station, we headed out for Stortorget.

 

Chris and I took turns going into stores for errands and staying out with Charlie. He got to see some culture, statues and art.

 

 

 

There was even a suspicious cat that needed some investigation.

 

 

 

I think he had a really good day. He has even gotten pretty used to escalators. It's funny though, at the end he wants to back up, but then at the last minute he jumps for it!

 

Finally we were back in Lund and waiting for the bus home.

With a little help, we got him to pose for a final pic. Charlie is a little camera shy. It was a good day, and a good urban adventure for the whole family!

 

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The lucky side of the street

I got home after spending a week in a small village outside of Oxford England. It had been a very long travel day. My colleague and I caught a ride with two others who had rented a car. It's a little over an hour from Oxford to Heathrow airport in London. We left early, we had an hour in the car, two plus hours at the airport, we waited in the take off line for 40 minutes. We waited at baggage, it's 40 minutes to Lund from the airport in Copenhagen. The trip to Lund was about 7.5 hours. Once in Lund it should have been another 20 minutes home.

When we got out of the train station and were headed to the main corner we saw lots and lots of steam. There had been a water leak in the district heating. The streets were flooded with water 190 degree water. The police were out taping streets off and closing roads.

 

It was odd. Steam has a specific smell and the air was full of it. Not to mention wherever you looked it was super steamy. When I realized that the road was closed I started walking to where the cabs always sit. Soon I saw that area was flooded as well, and all the cabs were gone. I was going to need to clear the downtown area. I thought maybe I could catch the bus a few stops down.

I was on a mission and I hightailed it through town. I looked up and took this picture.

 

When I did, there was a loud crash. I pulled my iPad down to see a bus coming through the closed street with caution tape flapping around the front like when a runner crosses the finish line. There was a pole sticking out of the windshield and the windshield was shattered. He was still driving kind of fast I thought, and finally pulled to a stop just across the street from where I took the above picture. Then I saw this.

 

As I started to put the pieces together, I realized the bus had just ran over some people. You can see in the picture that the awning for Harry's restaurant is crashed in. There is a lady getting medical attention in the middle of the road and a few across the street on the sidewalk. The bus is just to the left out of this picture. I can't figure out what he was doing. As you can see on the right of this picture there is a police car clearly blocking the street. Maybe he was driving to fast, the steam obstructed his view, he saw the police car too late, and swerved to miss it. But how do you drive up on a sidewalk in a downtown area? The sad news is that one of the people died in the accident. The good news for me, is that I was on the lucky side of the street. You just never know. I wasn't so irritated about how long it took me to get home after I realized, it could have been a lot worse.

 

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Boulebar

Monica Nilsson was the person in charge of our travel policy at work. She had worked at ESS for something like 7 years. Her husband recently took a job in Bangkok, so this was her last week at work. As a going away party the girls upstairs organized a night out at the Boulebar. Boule is a game, better known to me as bocce ball. It's a pretty big past time here.

 

The Boulebar is a cool place. They have food and drinks in the middle section, and on either side there are boule lanes. There are few different packages you can buy, or you can just rent out a lane, like in bowling, and pay by the hour. Our package consisted of an instructor, one and a half hours of playing and a charcuterie plate.

This is Jack. He was our instructor. He was a great teacher and a lot of fun!

This was our charcuterie plate. Mmmmmm!

 

To start the game, you throw the red ball down the lane. It should land somewhere equidistant from each side, and if it doesn't just move it to the middle. Then, standing in the ring, toss the silver balls as close to the red ball as possible. There are some finer points, but that's the gist.

 

Each lane has it's own box with smooth balls, designed balls, a red ball (which coincidentally is also called a Jack) and a score board. We had three lanes and were split into teams of three. Two teams played each other at a time.

 

 

It was a lot of fun! It was easy to play and easy to learn. The games could be quite close.

 

We played two games and the two teams that had won with the highest overage threw one round to determine the overall winner. It was Team Michelle who won!! We got gold medals and a card to come back for a free game!

 

The two ladies to my right were my team members.

 

 

It was such a fun night out. I will most definitely go back again!

 

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