Crazy weekend

A weekend at home, with invitations every day.  Sounds like a pleasant way to spend a cold weekend in January.  And it was, mostly, but also somewhat surreal.  First was an invitation to Sebastian, Karolina, Saskia and Francis on Friday.  They promised us a nice fish soup, so Bea and I baked a fish-shaped loaf to take with us.

On Saturday we were invited to Michaela and Giani and Maya and Zoe and Emil's for Swiss cheese fondue.   Another pleasant evening!  And we walked home afterwards but had a curious night with screaming girls, water balloons, and 3:30 AM calls to the police.  So were weren't exactly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for neighbor Isa's baptism on Sunday up at Masthuggskyrkan.

But it was a nice ceremony with music and coffee afterwards, and we walked home with the neighbors down the stairs to Bangatan.

This etching of our neighborhood I found at a flea market.

But in odd news, a wolf is roaming the streets.  It was first spotted in Särö, then killed some sheep in Billdal, and on Friday was spotted in Slottsskogen.  Then the other night it was caught on video by a local resident running by the tram stop at the grocery store and into the park behind the pirate house, pictured in the foreground of that etching.  That wolf's heading north apparently, but is going to have some trouble getting over the river, so I expect he'll be roaming Majorna for a few days now. A wolf. In Majorna.  Full moon tonight.

Bea's first song

Bea playing her first song on the guitar.

Weekend in Oslo

We took a weekend trip up to Oslo, since Hans's college buddy Luke and his wife Nikki just moved there for work, and are staying in a short-term rental in the center of town.  Despite the city being a relatively short drive from Göteborg (a little over 3 hours) we've rarely visited, and never together as a family.  It has a well-earned reputation for being very expensive (we stopped out of curiosity at the border shop, where Norwegians come to take advantage of Sweden's famous low-low prices), but it will be nice to have a chance to explore the city while visiting friends.

It was bitterly cold all of Saturday, -12 degrees C, but we took a walk around their temporary neighborhood anyway, and did some sledding.

Before piling in the car in the afternoon to drive up to the cool-looking ski jump, Holmenkollen.  It's the home of ski jumping, and has just been rebuilt, clad in expensive-looking woven stainless steel.

There was an XC ski race going on.  Norwegians are clearly born into this sport.

Luke and Nikki.

Hans and Luke played a bit with Luke's new toy, a 3D printer.  It still needed some calibration, so they weren't able to produce anything of significance, but it promises to be a fun gadget.

Hans and Luke joined the masses with their skis on the subway on Sunday and rode up to the same place again to try out the trails.  The train crawls out of the tunnels under the city and climbs nearly 500 m up to the  wilderness, where thousands of Norwegians were enjoying their national sport.  Pretty wild for a couple of Americans.  They even had a sledding hill, where you could rent pretty serious-looking toboggans and ride trails reportedly up to 2km long.

When we all gathered again in the afternoon we drove out to the Vigelund sculpture park to see one of Oslo's most famous attractions before heading home.

Bea's Lego treehouse

Bea was pretty proud of this Lego treehouse that the whole family helped put together.

Bea helps build a wheel

Hans is building a new set of wheels for his track bike before the trip up to the Falun velodrome in February.  Bea helped out with the lacing.

A Phil hub (USA), NOS Ambrosio rim (Italy), Sapim spokes (Belgium) and NOS Soviet tubular tires.

Lacing up the trailing spokes, Bea screws in the nipples.

All laced up and ready for tensioning and truing.

Photo Pearls

Madeleine got a "Photo Pearls" kit to convert photos into plastic bead mosaics, so she and Bea worked on one yesterday to hang on our door.  First we took a picture:

...and loaded it into the included software.  After a little tinkering, you can print out a pattern color-coded to the included beads...

...and when the mosaic is heated with an iron the beads get fused together into a solid sheet.

Moules Frites

Back home in Göteborg we had a full day of unpacking and cleaning and laundry and stowing away the Christmas ornaments, and celebrated the end of the holidays by opening the cards and packages that arrived during our absence.  We also prepared a fantastic batch of moules frites in honor of our Belgian holidays.

Day in Brussels

Our flight didn't leave Brussels until the evening, so we had a whole day in town to see the sights.  We started by taking a swing by the Atomium, a relic of a 1958 World's Fair.  Europe's Space Needle!

An Eddy Merckx displayed inside.  Bicycle racing is everywhere in Belgium.

We strolled around in town and found this amazing carousel.

Belgians love their comics.  Here's one about Beatrice.

And what would a visit to Brussels be without a stop at Manneken Pis?

Or a waffle?

And in the evening lights of Brussels with said goodbye to Belgium and a holiday season to remember.  Thanks Elizabeth and David for having us and being such great hosts!  

New Year's Day walk around Ghent

We took a walk around the University area on New Year's Day when everything was closed.  There were some interesting buildings to see.

Bicycle angels?

Frites!

Happy New Year!

New Year's Eve was a pretty quiet day at home.  Madeleine and Bea continued to experiment with these colorful origami shapes.

For dinner we had shrimp cocktails followed by a capon roasted on the oven rotisserie.

Toasting with Kriek.  Here's to a wonderful 2013.