Back & Blog is a'changin'

So I'm back Luleåland!

The trip home is over, and didn't involve talking rabbits or mushrooms like those above. It was strange to come back. My 16 days in Melbourne were a whirlwind, and it was weird knowing that it was only a temporary visit. I have never lived with my parents in their current house, except for the one night before I left last year, so it didn't feel exactly like coming 'home'. It was also strange to be sitting in my old house playing with Zara, but it being kinda my old house but kinda not - with a mix of mine and Alex's stuff filling up the living room and adorning the walls. It was unsettling.

But it was also great to catch up with everyone that I did, and especially to spend time with my family.

So what is going on up here? Well, I've settled back into life here pretty quickly. I'm enjoying the convenience of the 3 minute bike ride to work, I know a few people in my building, including my neighbour, unlike last year. I've joined the big band - on drums - but more about that later. There are badminton drop-in sessions running now so I don't have to rely on finding idle Indian exchange students to play with. My sporadic gym-going is a bit less sporadic. A group of us (3, with an after-dinner addition) get together and cook for each other once a week, which has lasted 4 weeks so far. At work I have more to do; in addition to my solo work figuring out what Thor's hammers are doing in my coatings, I am involved in some student supervision, a short course and some grant writing. And I have moved office, now sharing with a dart-crazed composites guy.

Future plans include the Umeå Jazz Festival, another visit from Japan after Christmas, and there is talk of a week in Rome with my cousin Chris from Sydney. Unfortunately my band committment means I miss out on a killer killer-whale watching safari. Other things I haven't done up here: pimpling (ice-fishing), snowmobiling, lots of x-country skiiing, m.m.)

So what about the weather? Now that I've been here for a year the massive novelty has just about worn off, so this will probalby be the last time I go on and on about it in such detail (though I should say yesterday was my first walk to work at minus temperatures for the autumn).

One day of summer was all that was left up here before autumn hit. Autumn here so far has been what Melbournites would describe as a cold winter - 3-10 degrees during the day, occasionally sub-zero at night, light rain for two weeks straight. Each week brings a noticeable change to the colour of the trees - the mass of gold when I got back is now withering and half gone. Sunset was about 7:30 three weeks ago, about 6 now. That was a big relief - coming back and being able to sleep until the alarm went off rather than when the sun came up at 4 am.I love sunsets, and there have still been some great ones, but when I'm in my pj's and horizontal indoors, I could care less.

Apparently last summer was the longest and driest on record - from what I read you (back home) are about the face the same thing. I was up here in June when summer started, but from July I was away for 7 of the 10 weeks of summer, so didn't experience much of it. Normally it reaches 30o at least once a summer, but this year not at all. So both the max and min temps I have experienced are both 29oC (+&-). I'm hoping break the minus record though this winter. (Yesterday was the first sub-zero walk to work).




So things are reasonably settled which is why the nature of the blog will probably change a little. New things are going to creep into the blog. There'll probably be less of the 'look at what I'm doing' kind of post, and maybe a bit more of a discussion about stuff happening in Sweden generally. Future topics may include: "TV taxes and why the Minister for TV doesn't have to pay, but I do" and "death and mayhem in Sweden" - yes, plenty goes on here. When was the last time you heard about a man walking down the street with a bomb strapped to his chest after being kidnapped for a week?

Also, through the wonder that is Youtube, I will link to some of the Swedish music that I've been getting into here. Not all of it is great, but like Stockholm Syndrome (not the Muse song) - if you can't escape eventually you succumb to its charms.

So to start, some good stuff:

I'm a bit of a sucker for electro-pop. One of my big faves here is The Knife, though the singing which for some reason always reminds of Japanese pop bands. Here is The Knife - Heartbeats.

Or Here. I am playing around with embedding videdo....



You may remember this track from such ads and blog posts as the Sony Bravia superball ad. Yes, this is the original song that spawned the loverly, genteel guitar work of Jose Gonzales (another swede with a great album). Compare versions:

Another track
The Knife - You Take My Breath Away