Travelling without moving

If you can not travel for real, there are ways you can pretend you are travelling. Today I suddenly found myself in southern France, racing the Tour de France! And still I never left Stockholm; I just went to my local fitness club! I went there to join a body combat class, but the class turned out to be full and I was suggested to join a spinning class instead. It was a long time ago since I did any spinning, but why not… Once there I found out the class was called Tour de France and the idea is that the class follows a different section of the real race every time. Unfortunately for me, this; the sixteenth section supposedly was the toughest, uphill, uphill, uphill. Oh my God, I am not sure I will be able to get out of bed tomorrow. But, hey, I have been to France on a Monday evening…

Another way of travelling without moving is of course to let someone else do the travelling for you. This weekend I watched the film; Borat!: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. All I can say is; go and see and have a good laugh! It is hilarious! If you have read the travel guide; Molvania, A Land Untouched by Modern Dentistry, and liked it, you will love this movie. If you haven’t read the book or watched the film, you have a lot to look forward to!

Tuesday in November

Ahhhh!!! It is cold, wet and DARK! I can't stand it! Please anyone, take me away from here!

Why must autumn in Sweden be so depressing?!

But, dear friends, in just another two days it will be the first "Tuesday in November" of the year! Something we really have to celebrate!

For those of you who might not yet be familiar with the concept of "Tuesday in November", I can just inform you that this is a tradition to celebrate and cherish. If you have ever experienced November in Sweden or any other northern country (maybe November is not great in a lot of places) you know it is not the most enjoyable time of the year. And it is hard to think of a more depressing day than a Tuesday in November. So, what to do about it?! Of course you should turn the whole thing around! Make something nice of it! Gather your friends around a nice meal and some wine, go to the movies or the theatre, make a afternoon visit to a spa or just do anything that you like and will make you feel better and get you through the month. That way you might even start looking forward to Tuesday in November!

Climatic travels

Last week I made a short guest appearance at Circus Belgrade again. It was good fun to see all the old friends and familiar (and new) places. Unfortunately a party-induced cold prevented me from fulfilling my promise to get very drunk, behave badly and cause a scandal before I went back, but nevertheless it was fun. Worse even was that the cold made me stop the running at Ada, before finishing the whole lap! I am sorry, Wout! That will never happen again! (What was your excuse Sepp?)

What did not improve my health situation was the climatic travelling this trip also meant. Having recently come from Africa to Sweden I had barely got myself adjusted to the cool autumn temperatures when I landed in a sunny Belgrade and 27 degrees. Guess whether the winter clothes I brought felt appropriate or not!

During my stay there it got a bit colder, but that still didn’t prepare me for what I met coming back to Sweden again. Snowstorm with bad traffic chaos! I wasn’t the only one however that was taken by surprise. It is funny, but in a country that every year suffers long, cold winters with lot of snow, people and authorities are still taken by surprise when the snow comes. This time I understand that the meteorologists had even said it would come now. We used to laugh at reports of snow in countries like Spain or Italy, where two centimetres of snow caused chaos and complete standstill, but we are almost there too now!