In Sweden, 30 April is Valborg, the day when we celebrate Spring. However, the weather usually varies quite a lot from year to year, more often being more chilly than you would like, because you always put on too little clothes... This year it was cold and raining. Despite the weather we went for a walk during the day to check out the celebrations.

First we passed by Chalmers to take a look at the building of this year's Cortège, since we would miss the actual procession in the evening.

We then passed by the University just in time to catch the procession towards Trädgårdsföreningen where the students greet Spring with choirs singing, orchestras playing and dancing. They looked cold...

The two-headed dragon from Filosofspexet. It liked my camera =)

In Trädgårdsföreningen it was still raining, but nevertheless a crowd had gathered. But the usual pic-nics were missing...

We finished off with some more choir music - my parents joined in a temporary choir gathering to sing Spring hymns. Quite a nice tradition, maybe I'll join next year.

Today I have discovered a new part of my city - the Barracks of Kviberg, which is an old military regiment. Since 1994 it is an area of office buildings and sport events, but they are also building a lot of new flats here. Always nice to see new things!

Apparantly Blogger thinks my blog is spam... I have to enter word verification for each post now. That's what I wanted for my comments, they got it all wrong!

I usually don't put other things than photos here, but this was so funny I had to post it. I didn't know I was that obvious...

Btw, it seems I unintentionally disabled the comments function on my site when trying to prevent spam... Sorry about that, you should now be able to post comments again!

You Are 27 Years Old

Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe. 13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world. 20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences. 30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more! 40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

I have finally managed to work through my pictures from SAMA on Good Friday.

Iris. Their gig at Arvikafestivalen 2 years ago was legendary - you would think they never had a crowd before the way they acted! This time it was good but not as special.

Das Ich somehow put on the best show I must say, despite computer problems that finally drove them off stage. Anx and I decided the singer was a mix of Gollum and a side kick in a Disney movie, like Pain and Panic.

Strasse once again. I guess the best stage I've seen them on but unfortunately the crowd was busy elsewhere.

At least I was having a good time!

Ken Sandin

De/Vision. Not quite my cup of tea.

Anx and I were doing some PR for one of her friends... A great night it was!

Tonight I've been singing in a concert with a choir of 200 people, an orchestra and Lill Lindfors. A fun experience but I think my voice will be ruined for a couple of days since I have a cold that did not agree with me singing...
(Can you spot me in the back?)

If you look carefully, you can actually see (part of) me, my Mum and Dad in this picture. And part of the lovely interior in Vasakyrkan.

I'm sorry for the lack of posting lately, I've had a busy, shitty week. But now I have updated with pics from last weekend, and SAMA photos are coming up shortly!

eterisk and I went out for a walk and found this tree with hundreds of dummies hanging from it. At first I thought it was a memory tree, that I child had died there or something, but then we found notes that said "To Santa from M" etc., so I guess this is where kids come to put there dummies when they don't need them any more... You can see a picture of the whole tree here.

We went down by the see, and I realized I hadn't been close to it for a while. This is the harbour office in Långedrag.

Soul candy

Another game of hockey, this time the finals! Since Scandinavium was full of horses, us hockey freaks had to put up with Frölunda Borg for the most important games of the year... I had a standing ticket behind the net as you can probably tell.

The two captains exchanging civilties?

A good shot but no goal this time. Frölunda won the game, but eventually Färjestad stole the gold away (I can tell you this since I'm posting these pictures a few days late...). Damn, I would have lost the gold to any other team but them!

Z is checking out the ducks in our little pond. I think the grown-ups liked them more though, he quickly moved on to the swing =)

Maybe he liked the animals in the big park Slottskogen better.
(This one I stole from eterisk)

It felt like the first day of spring. eterisk and I were enjoying ourselves too.

In the evening we went to SAMA (of course Gnapp had to stay at home with Z!). I promise to post pics from there soon, but I need to work on them a bit.

This guy and his parents have been to visit us for a couple of days. We had a great time as usual, except that he kept being sick for some unknown reason!

We went to the Natural History Museum to check out all the stuffed animals. I haven't been there for 10 years or so, I quite enjoyed being back. My favourites are the elephant and of course the whale, "Malmska Valen". But apparantly this is the most dangerous creature on earth! *lol*

I've finally managed to clear my desk from the huge heaps of paper covering it. I feel so pleased! And now I'm off for 5 days for Easter. Wonderful! We're having friends from Stockholm over for a couple of days, so I might not have the time to post.

Happy Easter every one!

3 shots from our sunset walk last evening, close to my parents' home

Proof that spring is really on its way!
(If you look closely you can also see me in this picture. Can you spot it?)

The police were chasing around in our area earlier today. There was a shotgun shooting in this pizza restaurant close to where we live! Around noon on a Sunday, can you believe it?

We went to my parents' house to watch the hockey game (first final, we lost...) and I got to play some piano. I hardly ever play nowadays, but am strongly thinking about getting a piano myself to take it up again.

Tonight was a very exciting night! Frölunda have been playing the semi-finals lately, they won the first game, lost the next three, then won two and tonight was the 7th and last game. And I was there!

And so was the rest of my family (except Mum)!

Since it was actually an unexpectedly boring game, I won't give you a more extensive summary than this: We won!!! I can hardly believe it, from 1-3 games to 4-3! How often does that happen? (According to hockeyligan.se it has never happened in Sweden before!)

And this is our true hero Tommy Salo. Once celebrated, then laughed at by an entire nation, now back in business with a vengeance! Of course we all miss Henke, but bringing Salo back in the game turned out to be a lucky shot!

On Sunday the fun begins against Färjestad. "Silvret ska hem, silvret ska hem till Karlstad igen!"

This evening eterisk and I took a walk since he wanted to get out with his camera, it has been a while. Only he forgot to bring the batteries =) My camera was working quite well though!

We were walking along in a park that we never visited before, and stumbled on this building. It is Billdals Gård (Billdal's Mansion), built in the 1860's by one of Gothenburg's great men James Dickson. Apparantly it is now in the posession of the City and has been empty since 2001. What a waste!

The main entrance.

I bet this place looks great in the summer! Now everything is mostly wet and muddy after all the snow melted and the rain came...