Halloween in Sweden

Outside of our house the Jack O'Lantern was grinning.

Inside, we were celebrating a 3 year anniversary since our first date.

Oktoberfest, part II

"The hills are alive, with the Sound of Music..." Tara is sporting her new Heidelberg look with her neatly arranged hair. The second day of our Oktoberfest celebration went on in the same fashion as day one - with plenty of Weissbier! In true Bavarian drinking style, Tara's glass holds 1/4 gallon of pure wheat beer!

Our drinkin songs of the day included some traditional German songs, like:

"Trink, trink Brüderlein trink,
laß doch die Sorgen zu Haus.
Trink, trink Brüderlein trink,
zieh doch die Stirn nicht so kraus.
Meide den Kummer und meide den Schmerz,

dann ist das Leben ein Scherz."


"99 bottles of beer on the wall..." Tara behind some of the brands we tried. After two days of beer testing we have now gone through 1,2 gallons of beer. And we feel a little bit bloated!

Two beer not two beer - that is the question. It's going to take a while before we can muster another drop of beer again.

Oktoberfest!

(Kim with his liter glass of Franziskaner Weissbier.)

Yes!!! It is Oktoberfest in Bavaria - the mayor of Münich just recently anounced the party for open, and we thought we should celebrate this too (especially since Tara has German ancestors although we haven't been able to trace them yet).

The Oktoberfest - a way to celebrate the harvest - consists of drinking pure wheat beer (Weissbier) brewed according to the old German reinheitsgebot (purity law). Three main versions are available and we only bought hefe (the unfiltered kind) and the dunkel (the dark brew). In the pic above, you can compare the looks of the kristallklar (filtered) and the hefe (unfiltered) wheat beer.

Our impression is that this year's production is very good - or so we thought after tonight's drinking of half a gallon of beer...
Tara said that this is probably the best beer she has ever tasted and pointed out that the sweetness of weissbier makes it easy to drink although it is very (!!!) filling.

Franziskaner Weissbier (the name stems from that it used to be an old monestary brewery) - now a part of the Spaten brewery was today's selection.
To get the German feeling going we had sausages and eggs with it - and it went just fine together.


Tomorrow we are going to try this year's production of Erdinger Weissbier with sauerkraut and bratwurst (sour cole slaw and hot dogs) and on Sunday we will go through our stock of the Weihenstephan weissbier (which by the way is the oldest brewery in the world - founded in 1040).
On Monday we will start working out ...

Honeymooners

What can be more romantic than this? The Kungsleden trail (maps and travel guide) in the utmost north of Sweden. A nice little definition of wilderness might be something like this: The road ends in Nikkaluokta - and it takes five days to walk there...


Martin and Ida at the start of their journey
(click on the images to enlarge).

They look pretty well prepared. And they will need to be, considering the heights they are about to climb.








To the right you find the heights of the Kungsleden trail between Abisko (starting point) and Nikkaloukta. (Scale in meters.)


Martin on the top at Tjäkta. A nice little downhill hike awaits him and Ida from here.

The innuit Sami people have set up their huts in the terrain. Notice the clowds licking the mountain ridge in the background.


Of course Martin and Ida also had to do some climbing... So they decided to climb Mount Kebnekaise - Sweden's highest mountain peak.
Ida is secured by her climbing gear and smiling for the camera while moving for the top. Martin seems to be in just as good a mood below.

More wedding pics

Martin and Ida with their siblings and close family: Zhiping, David, Daniel, Ida, Martin, Tara, Joakim.

The young couple cutting the cake at 1 AM. The wedding cake was complete with saxophone and banjo ornaments - to show that two musicians are joined together.

The waltz danced by Martin and Ida to the tunes from The ES orchestra.


The next day we met at Ida's parents' house to meet with some of the guests and have the couple go through their presents. Tara and Joakim went for the Swedish sandwich cake - guaranteed to include lots of cholesterol!

Wedding between Martin and Ida

12 August 2006 Martin and Ida getting married

Älmhult's church in Småland. Although a rainy day the service was memorable for a lot of reasons. The couple walked up the isle while the childhood friend of Ida played "The Final Countdown" on the church organ.
Bible readings were performed by the minister and Joakim who brought his Heavy Metal Bible for this special occasion.


The wedding reception was held at Möckelsnäs manor with a banquet that lasted from 6.30 PM until 11.30 PM. Then the EM brass band kept playing into the small hours.


Martin doing the ballet with the Alte Kamereren band behind him. And Martin still knew the moves ... As Ida's dad noticed in his speech: "The first time I saw my future son-in-law, he was wearing a skirt".

Bachelor Party II - Paintball

Paintball - it hurts to get hit! The toughest event during the bachelor party. We went to Paintball Gotcha outside of Halmstad for a few hours of sweat, bruises and fun!

Ready for combat. The Moose is loose.

Face off. The duel between the blue and the green team. The rules were easy: 10 steps in opposite directions and then - fire away!

Mattias shows off Martin in a stylish (and highly visible) costume.

Proud to be hit. Johan portrays his mask with a bull's eye splash.

The Moose hunt. Martin got a few seconds to run into the woods before we emptied our guns at him.

Standing: Mattias, Martin, Johan L, Johan B
Front row: Joakim, Peder, Tobias, Andreas

Bachelor Party I

Kidnapped!!! Martin lead into the van by Mattias. Together with Peder, Joakim and Johan L we surprised Martin in the morning. This would be a day full of events.... (click on the images to enlarge)


Swimming was first on the day's agenda, followed by ... cross-country skiing. Unfortunately Johan B could only spare his down-hill pair, and to top it off, we had not thought about the appropriate apparel so Martin had to startin skiing on the road in his wet underwear.

After these two events we dropped him off outside of the town of Laholm and let him run into the the central square, where...




Martin had to go on his old three-wheel bicycle around the central parts of Laholm. The day was hot (90-95F) and Martin was obviously working up a healthy sweat so we had to set up plenty of beer stations to quench his thirst.


Some great reward - Martin in his very precious t-shirt "I did a Bachelor Classic":


Martin dressed up as a rabbit outside of Per Gessle's house in Tylösand, Halmstad, where he played "Kung av sand" on a banjo.

We then went on to treat him to a paintball event (this will be covered in a later blog post - see Bachelor Party II above).


Martin the politician: "Sänk överklassen - höj båtskatten", "Bollkallar i alla länder förenen eder" and "Fler tunnlar i åsen" - Martin did his best to promote his new party "Arbetarpartiet Telianerna - vi har täckning för vad vi lovar" in the upper class coastal community of Båstad.


Båstad beach: Peder, Johan B, Andreas, Tobias and Johan L enjoying the view.

Kung av sand: The guys hanging out at the beach near our summer cottage in Skummeslöv at the end of a challenging day: Having a nice barbecue while watching the sunset and playing Gessle songs all evening.

Go Philly!?

At a parking lot in New Jersey!

The Real West Wing

 Tara and I were invited to an after hours tour of the West Wing and the Executive Office Building, thanks to our personal friend. Kim and his colleague try to imitate the usual banter pose while walking by the White House Rose Garden towards the Oval Office.

 Us - at the entrance of the West Wing.

Posing outside the Oval Office.

The Rose Garden at night outside the Oval Office.












Kim playing around in the pool room.