Had to test

The Traveler IQ challenge ranks your geographic knowledge against 8,841,039 other travelers.

I just had to test this even though I knew it would make me annoyed since the map is to small to really be able to pin the places in the right spot eventhough I know exactly where it is. It also annoyed me that some cities were called capitals although not being capitals. I realise my weakest spots are the North Americas. Sorry, but I am lousy on US and Canadian geography. No good on Australia either…

Football changes everything...

So, the Euro 2012 is over, and Italy did not win the final over Spain. No doubt that Spain was the better team, 4-0 speaks for itself. Of course I would have liked Italy to win, since I am here in the country as a guest, but honestly, since Sweden didn't even make it from the group I don't really, emotionally, care. Somehow, however, I started to think Italy would not make it when I saw how the people here started waving flags and driving around in cars with big flags hanging out and definetly not when I saw a flag-vendor having pasted a obituary over Spain, like the ones you see on walls everywhere here. Then I thought, this is taking it out too much in advance, it can never work out... And it didn't!
However it was an interesting game and Spain played very well!!
It was also quite interesting to see all the flags having been removed when we drove back home and the streets were surprisingly quiet... small things change a lot of things here.

Lovely Italy

I am in Italy for a week. Actually I am here for one a one week course for my work, but since the course is in Rome I came earlier to spend the weekend with my sister who is living just outside Rome. It is always so nice to be here! I just love Italy! It is just so beautiful, has such a nice atmosphere and not to mention the fantastic food! Since the summer in Sweden this far has been very cold and rainy I don't mind it beeing very hot (almost 40 degrees when I arrived) either... Spending time with my family, people who live and work here, I don't only get the romanticised picture of life here. I know life is not always that easy, economy is weak and it is difficult with jobs ect..., but still the country is great!!

And tonight I will have the pleasure of watchin Italy playing Spain in the Euro 2012 final!! We thought about going into Rome and watch the game on big screens in Circo Maximo, but then decided going to an outdoor pizzeria here in Velletri might be more convenient and just as nice. Looking forward!!

Interrail Dreams

I had this idea for what I would like to do on my holiday this year. I would have liked to go on Interrail through Europe! It was one of those things that was really popular in the 80:s and I did it twice, the last time in 1990. It was really nice, but to be honest I think I would like it even more now.

Since I travel a lot nowadays, both professionally and privatly I spend a lot of time on planes and airports, something you easily can get tired of. And often I just stay one or two nights in the same place, spending the day in meetings and the night in some standard international hotel. Therefore I kind of like the idea of letting the travelling take time. Enjoying the feeling of being on the way somewhere and enjoing the travel. Preferably I would not have made much plans in advance but just go where the next train is going to and staying as long as I feel like. I would probably have connected it with a few visits by friends in different places in Europe, but would not let it lead to a social stress trip with a lot of "musts" and "have to". I would have tried to take as little luggage as possibel, but brought some good books. Being a little older and knowing a little more of the world (yes, to all know-it-all-teenagers, you do actually learn more with age, at least some...), having more self confidence and some more money too I think I would have enjoyed it more now than then. Now I would not have to choose everything as cheap as possible but could pick a decent hotel and good restaurants if I wanted to.

Well, since I am writing this you probably understand I am not going to do it. At least not this holiday. I don't really know why or how it happened, but all of a sudden my three weeks of holida were allready planned with other things. But I still like the idea. Maybe next year....

Barcelona

The hotel

Last weekend I went for a short and rather spontaneous trip to Barcelona.



It was the first time for me in Barcelona and I had rather high expectations since everyone who has been there seem to love the place. Even though my visit was very short and I honestly did not see that much of the city I can understand it. It is a very nice city!

La Sagrada Familia

View over the harbour and city

Everything about my weekend there was actually rather fantastic for many reasons...

Routine Travelling

Lately "travelling" has started to have a somewhat different touch. Since I travel somewhere more or less every week. Mostly of course to Brussels, but next week I will go to Barcelona and the week after that to Copenhagen and the first week of July to Italy (and of course a couple of times to Brussels in between). Yesterday, on the flight back from Strasbourg, I was asked to fill in a questionnaire by the airline about my travels and what I thought about this flight etc. One question was about how I feel about flying and one of the alternative answers "flying is nothing special, it is more or less like taking a bus". The I felt that is exactly what it is. Honestly I believe I fly more often than I take a bus, if one excepts airport busses.

Spouse on the house

I have kept a souvenir from South Africa, that I find so funny. It is a beer coaster from the hotel I stayed at in Johannesburg. Ok, it was a cheap hotel by the airport where I only stayed for one night because the transfer to Kruger left too early to make the arrival from Cape Town the same day, but still the text on the coaster: “Free love on the weekend” makes you wonder what kind of hotel it actually was. On the rim of the coaster you can read: “Book a room from Friday to Sunday and qualify for our amazing Spouse-on-the-house rate”.

Have I actually spent a night in a Love Hotel?!? Should I regret I was only there on a Wednesday night? Maybe I would also have gotten a Spouse on the house if I had been there on a weekend?!

Reflections from South Africa (looking back)

Something that quite immediately struck me on arrival in Cape Town was that it did not really “feel like Africa”. Not that I have been that much to Africa before, but compared to Zimbabwe and Ethiopia where I have been, Cape Town felt very much less “African”. And as my friend probably quite correctly stated; you will probably see more black people in southern London than in central Cape Town. However I, honestly, don’t pay much attention to the colour of peoples skin and quite often I don’t even really “see” colour that way. But then all of a sudden something makes you aware of the fact that the colour of the skin can look different, and sometimes it is the strangest things. As for example when you meet a black person with a band aid. The band aid is supposed to be “skin-coloured” not to attract too much attention, but the “skin-colour” is the beige/pink of a Caucasian person, which really do catch attention on a black person. Then it struck me; I have never seen band aids developed for black people. Maybe there are some, just that I have never seen any. Or is our world really still so biased that it has never been developed?!