Stockholmies

The new sign obsession?

Seems that people got tired of vandalizing the pedestrian signs.

Blog posted here.

Signs of spring 2010

 We'll start with the daffodils, the spring time flower mascot, and then get back to the realities of the Stockholm spring situation, which I have been referring to as Thawcolypse.  (Note that these daffodils have been planted here...perhaps a false sense of spring).

We have been buried under snow for most of the winter with temperatures lower than they had been in decades.  The great spring thaw of 2010 seems to be starting, daily temperatures flirting with the positive end of the spectrum.  So far, though, each step towards thawing is followed by days below zero, and more things are buried in ice and the sidewalks look like ice-skating rinks in need of a zamboni. 

The past couple of weeks I have been collecting some photos over at Tumblr, but here are the ones that really capture the ice situation:

 

Zeke, however, does not mind this weather AT ALL

 

Semla v2.0

 
 Last year we had our first encounter with the semla. Oh how much we have learned with another year of life in Sverige.  There are two ways to enjoy a semla, well, there are probably an infinite number of ways, but two main approaches:

1. the cold semla

2. the semla in warm milk

 
 

Last year we had the semla with tea or coffee, eating it as a nice pastry.  This year, accompanied by a real Swede (thanks Marie!) I had the pleasure of enjoying a tasty lunch over semlas and coffee.  Armed with the first-hand experience and hand-me-down knowledge, I brought one home for Dave.

It was amazing.  Hands down my preferred way to devour one of these calorie packed goodies.

 

Don't drive this way on the sidewalk.

Blog posted here.

Still going...

I don't know where they have put all the snow, but it is still piling up. Snowing and -13 as I write this.

Sent from my iPhone

Darn you iPhone camera and poor lighting

Okay, maybe I should have taken a better picture but I did the best I could with what I had. There aren't many pimped out pedestrian signs that I haven't seen in my 'hood, but a while back I stumbled upon this one. If only the photo were better maybe we could easily read the speech bubble. Oh well. All the better to bring back signlations. What should this speech bubble say?

Our wintertime adventure

And we're off. Well, still off and on our way. 16 hours by train into the arctic circle. The sky is finally a little lighter and everything outside is white.

My B&W life

It still feels very surreal walking around the snow-covered city with a grey backdrop.

 

 
  

black/white/sepia

After weeks of snowfall and well below freezing temperatures, the city is blanketed in bright snow.  This morning's walk felt like I was walking through a black and white photo, or maybe sepia-toned with the chocolate-colored tree trunks.

It may be between -10 and -20, but it is pretty lovely.

 

Meanwhile, the weather widgets on my mac and iPhone are having issues.  For the past couple of weeks they don't seem to be properly updating the forecasts based on current temperatures.  I figured that for the first couple of days this was just because of an unusual cold front that was expected to come and go.  But this has been going on for a while now. Anyone else notice this? 

The good thing is that they've at least updated their predicted minimum temperature for today, so that it is identical to the actual observed temperature.  Better than last week's repeated -20 with the minimum for the day set to -8.  That was almost insulting.

Pegleg the Pirate wishes you all a great 2010.

Our second new year's eve celebration as Stockholmies has come and gone. One thing that won't be changing in 2010 is our discovery of great street signs.