Happy New Year!

Been a while since I logged on here. Since my last post, I've returned to Bedford and spent 4 months through Christmas. Had a wild welcome home party. Re-united with family and friends and generally been burning the candle at both ends.

Now it's late January and I am once again overseas. This time I am in Memmingen Germany. It is located in southern Germany in the region of Bavaria. Munich is about an hour's drive away to the east. I've been here for a couple of weeks already and the time is really flying by. The days are long at the office and the weekends have been packed trying to cram in as much tourism as possible. I've already been to Munich, Stuttgart, and Lake Constance. Next weekend I am traveling back to Zurich to try visiting my friend Dave.

As I aslways do about this point, I vow to try to post more frequently going forward. We'll just have to see, but this is all I have time to write for now. I'll upload some pics and thoughts again later this week.

Indiana Jones Premiere in Copenhagen

This happened about a month ago, or whenever the Indy Jones movie premiered. Activision invited us over to Copenhagen to see a presentation about their upcoming games (Lego Indy Jones being one of them) and then attend the movie premiere at the Copenhagen cineplex. So, myself and 2 coworkers, Eddy and Mattias piled into the Saab and headed across the Oresund Bridge over to Copenhagen. We met up with Frank (our boss over here) at the hotel the presentation was made at. The presentation mostly consisted of a Danish film critic prattling on, in Danish (which most swedes don't even understand) about, well, who knows what. He said " danish danish danish danish, Harrison Ford, danish danish danish hollywood, danish danish George Lucas..." you get the picture. After the required listening period expired and he wrapped it up, we had some fancy but not particularly tasty food, then they cut us loos to try our hand at using a bull whip to extinguish a candle. I tried hardest of everyone but I was unsuccesful. Both Frank and Mattias pulled it off.

So after that we went to the movie. Meh. The other guys enjoyed it much more than me. It's interesting going to the movies here though. Buying a ticket gets you a specific seat in the theater. There's no general admission. The tickets all cost the same but if you are the last one to buy a seat, your seat will suck or maybe you have to split up... They love raising the curtain before the show though. In this case, they showed some previews, then lowered the curtain, they had some little indiana jones play with actors and sound effects and a staged fight scene that lasted about 5 minutes, then they raised the curtain and started the show.

After the show, Frank headed home. Big mistake. "Shoulda hung out man..." Mattias, Eddy, and I decided to check out Nyhamn (New Harbor) in Copenhagen. There's a strip of bars there, and the guys each had a beer (none for me as the driver). It was pretty dead, I think that part of town is mostly for tourists and it was a Tuesday night. So we decided to get a schwarma (gyro meat on french bread) from a seedy joint on the... seedy part of town. We took a detour down the bad street so we could see all the hooers and pushers, then got to the place. As we were getting cash from the atm, Eddy glanced over at the door to the club next to us. On the door, the sign said "tonight only: Three Six Mafia: 350dkr" That's probably $60-70 each. We all looked at each other and I think we were prepared to spend some dough. We tried to open the door and it was locked. The attendant came over and opened the door. We asked if they were playing and he said yeah but they weren't selling tickets anymore... "Is it just you three? ... ah, come on in" So we didn't even pause to thank him, we just hustled past and entered the hall to the thumping base of "Get the F*ck Out my Face" They proceeded to play for another hour and we had a great time.

After the show we crossed the street, had some great schwarma and blasted Three 6 mafia all the way home. It was a great night, one of those nights that just felt like things were destined to go right and all ya had to do was keep an open mind and go with the flow. Ya shoulda hung out Frank. :-)

Another Internet Diversion

Anybody remember You Don't Know Jack? It was a computer software trivia game that we sold back when I was working in my local Hastings store in college. It's back, in internet form. And since I know you don't already have enough ways to waste your time on the internet, here's another: http://www.youdontknowjack.com/ . Each episode has 7 wacky, irreverant, suprisingly challenging questions. There ya go.

Lazy bones

Howdy y'all. Been a while, I know. Lots has happened since my last post. Nothing life changing, like knocking up a foxy swedish chick; nor all that exciting, like well, see previous; but I have done some travelin, made some friends and had a lot to drink.

I've been to Zurich, London, and Stockholm. Then I spent a few weekends here in Sweden and made better friends with my Swedish homies. UEFA football has been in full swing and i've been watching most of the games, and I've enjoyed some swedish "holidays" like Flag day and Midsummer, both of which require a day off work :-) Yesterday was my 33rd birthday, and I went out with friends for dinner.

Currently, I'm sitting on the patio of a local Irish Pub. Or is it Brittish? Pickwick sounds more Brittish. Anyway, it's about 8:00 and I'm sipping on a guiness looking like a nerd with my laptop out. Better than sitting cooped up in my apartment tho.

Gotta love Malmo, it's just a small town. A friend of mine just walked up so I am going to tie this off for now. I will write a new one soon giving the details on my trips and other assorted observations.

bye bye,
Greg

Sunday Morning Gestalt

Lately I have been waking up with some very clear points of view on topics I didn't even know were on my mind. Usually I just get up and and let those thoughts gradually fade into the din of my Rice Crispies. This morning I woke up as though I had been shot with a diamond... a diamond bullet right through the forehead (yes, I use a lot of pop references, get used to it). I have determined who Obama's running mate should be. Before I get into my explanation, let me say that I know how incredibly lame it must seem that my social life is so dull that it is allowing my subconsious the time to muse on subjects like american politics or when the Cubs will make yank Wood and make Marmol their closer. Much as I would like my subconcious to focus on more stimulating topics like helping Gina Gershon try on blue jeans, ya gotta play the cards that are dealt ya.

So... Obama's running mate is probably not all that much of a suprise, but no one seems to be talking about it. It needs to be Al Gore. Nearly all of the stregnths that Hillary is pointing to as reason for her to be Obama's running mate can be provided, with considerably less baggage, by Gore

1. Gore brings expereince to the job. He spent eight years as vice president during the Clinton presidency. I think a good portion of Hillary's supporters are long time democrats that are nostalgic for the good ol' days of 2000. Usually, eight years is a little soon to be getting nostalgic, but when you go from the penthose to the outhouse in the course of that time, I get nostalgic too. The last 7 years have brought us: Bush stealing the election (twice), 9/11, an unwinnable (yeah I said it) war in Iraq, Osama Bin Laden still at large, the Patriot act & Department of Homeland Security, Abu Ghraib, Guantanemo & waterboarding, Rumsfeld, Hallibuton, Katrina, Enron... did someone blow up a whole mirror warehouse or something?



2. Gore will help win the general election. America elected him on his own and then took the high road after he got jobbed by the Supreme Court.



3. Environment: This is an election issue that Gore would completely sew up for Obama. Americans are finally coming to terms with the fact that it cannot ignore the problem away. They are ready to listen to someone who has some real ideas on how to address the issues. Sometimes Gore can come off as a little preachy but no-one can dispute his expertise on the issue.


4. VP candidate should not eclipse the candidate and should not cost votes. Obama knows that Hillary brings a lot of baggage with her to the campaign and she is incredibly divisive. Additionally, he shouldn't have to be looking over his shoulder for his entire term waiting for different power plays and upstaging. Gore knows how to take advantage of the VP spot to further secondary goals of the administration.

The clarity has already stared to fade, I had other arguments and this has become more about why Hillary should not be the candidate than Gore but I'm gonna run with it. Hillary has already assured herself she will not get the VP spot with her little RFK assassination comparison to Obama. I miss my Sunday morning McLaughlin group.

Peace,

gla

General Update

Well, it's been a while since I've posted. Lots of high adventure here in the land of vikings and meatballs. Actually, I have managed to get out and see a couple of the major cities of Scandinavia. I drove up to Oslo a couple of weekends ago and then last weekend I finally got over and explored Copenhagen.

Oslo was a bit of a rude awakening. I had a completely open weekend so I decided to drive up to Oslo. We had a district manager that I've hung out with a few times here in Malmo that was working in Oslo. So, I left Malmo on Saturday morning and took my time up to Oslo. It's normally a 6 hr drive but I decided to stop off a few times on the way up. I stopped at a little harbor town that one of my coworkers had recommended as very scenic. Once I got there I felt like Chevy Chase in vacation at the Grand Canyon... Deep breath; head nod........ yep. Moving on... In fairness it was quite overcast, but I don't think I was missin too much. Here's a pic:

So, onward. I drove through Gothenburg but decided not to stop. Gothenberg (goteborg is used on the maps here but everyone calls it gothenburg) is the second biggest city in sweden and looked pretty cool but when I tried to double back I ended up taking a tunnel that effectively drove me under the entire downtown area and spit me out north of town so I decided to trudge on. I stopped about an hour north and explored an old castle called Bohus Fasting. It was pretty cool, I wandered around there for about an hour and then decided to make my way up to Oslo.

Once I hit Norway, driving slowed down to a crawl. lots of construction and much more winding roads. by the time I got to Oslo it was 7:30 pm and all the shops were closing. I didn't realize that I had to dail the country code since I was now in Norway and I couldn't figure out why my calls to Eric weren't going through. He finally gave me a call and told me a hotel to get set up in. I booked the hotel at a halfprice rate of about $250 for the night dropped off my bag and met the guys down at the bar. We went to the Hard Rock for dinner and I had a BLT and a couple of beers for about $100. After that we went to a club called Uncle Donald that was actually pretty cool. Like most the clubs, they were playing lots of house/techno/hip hop, but the bar was pretty cool and there were lots of hot norwegian girls. Nevertheless, noone was really up for partyin all nigt and by about 1:30 everyone else decided to call it a night. I walked home to the hotel and left in the morning. All told, my trip to Oslo cost me about $900 ($300 for 2 tanks of gas, $300 for the hotel and parking, and $300 for dinner and drinks) for about 6 waking hours and another 14 of driving. By the time I got home I decided I would be flying from now on, or traveling with more people to split up the costs.

Copenhagen was a little more enjoyable. The weather has been really nice here for the last 2 weeks. Lots of sunshine and temps of about 20C (that's about 70 to US Americans). So I caught the bus down to Malmo central station. I was able to buy my roundtrip train fare to Copenhagen from the bus driver and that includes free bus rides for the day in both Malmo and Copenhagen! Pretty nice huh?

I got into Copenhagen around 11am. there was a sea of people everywhere. I followed the crowd and found myself nect to the city hall and in the first big square. This square feeds into the big walking street thata is the copenhagen shopping district Storget. It was really crowed and as I made my way down the street, I realized there were a lot of people lining both sides of the street just standing around. Then, as I continued on, i began to hear drumming and a moment later there were girls in huge feather headresses and bikinis and shirtless guys wearing warpaint dacing up the street towards me. I steeped to the side and watched as a long parade started making their way up the street.

After about five minutes, I turned and asked someone, "So... is this some kind of holiday, or is this just Saturday in Copenhagen?" they laughed and and informed me it was Whitsun Carnival. I'm not sure what a Brazilian themed carnival is doing in Denmark, buy, who am I to question. I watched the parade for a while and then moved on to the rest of the city. I had lunch at an outdoor patio and then made my way down to the harbor and wandered around for several hours.

I have to say, my ipod does a really good job of selecting the right music for whatever environment or mood i am in. I usually just out it on random play and out of my 2600+ songs, it does an amazingly good job of playing really appropriate music. From the morning when I first stared it up it stared with really rockin music like The Seeker and Superabound (Frank Black) that put me in the mood to get off my ass and catch the train to Copenhagen, to fun fast paced music like Mashin on the Motorway (DJ Shadow) and Captain Fantasy (ween) while walking the crowded shopping streets, to quieter instrumental stuff like Starla (Pumpkins) and Modest Mouse on the more deserted neighborhood streets. Here's to you ipod, you really have fantastic timing and excellent taste.

Well that should do it for now. I'll try to do a little better job of posting, but let's not get too ambitious.

Accomodations

For the first week and a half, I was staying at the Master Johan, an excellent hotel right next to Lila Torg in the middle of the city. I had a great room that had a little living area and a nice big bathroom. I got used to the nice big breakfasts every morning. In sweden breakfast is a little different. A big part of te spread consists of different breads on which to stack a wide variety of cold cuts, mostly types of salami and bologna. there are also some more exotic toppings including caviar (it comes in a toothpaste tube) and of course picked herring. I still haven't had the nerve to try that yet. definitely have not been interested in having it my my morning coffee. Anyway, Anneli at the office was tasked with finding me an apartment and she succeeded in finding me a furnished apartment in Varnhemstorget. It's a really busy part of town with lots of shops and restaurants. My apartment is 85 sq meters and that is very large for apartment size here.

Here is a shot of half of my living room. I'm sitting on the yellow couch now writing this. Nice open floor plan with hard wood floors.

Here we have the bedroom. On the left (out of the frame) there are several cabinets to hang and stack clothes. on the right is the tv (I get all of seven channels and 2 of them are the same. Only one channel is consistently english. I get lots of opportunites to watch cbs sitcoms like New Adventures of old Christine (with Elaine from Seinfeld) and another one with Putty from Seinfeld. Hopefully that scenario will help to keep this blog updated, lots more reading and keep me out discovering the city.

Here is the kitchen. Pretty standard stuff. Not a lot of pots and pans to cook with but i sould be able to get by.

There's no garbage disposal in the sink, and from what I can tell they are not very common in Sweden at all.

Here's a shot of the rest of the kitchen. The views are great from all the windows in the apartment but this one looks right down one of the major roads and you can see everyone commuting. There are pedestrians and cyclists everywhere.

The neighborhood around the apratment is very nice. The square is right across from my apt and behind that is the beginning of Kungsgarten, which is a long narrow park that runs through the city. It's certainly no central park but it is a nice place to walk with lots of trees. There are a number of parks throughout the city and there is a very cool cemetary just a few blocks away from me. I wandered through there for a while this evening and read for about an hour. Lots of old (and suprisingly new) headstones. Seemed like a lot of family plots with multiple...residents. :-) I didn't explore too much but the oldest headstone I found was from the late 1800's.

I think that's about all I've got in me for this evening. Cubbies are playing an afternoon game in Colorado that is just starting now. Think I'll watch a few innings of that on the web and then head to bed.

More to come soon.

Greg