Karl New York City, United States of America.

Sorry it’s been so long. I’ve been busy, stressed, and more stressed. My company took us out to the Stockholm Archipelago last week, it was breath taking.

More news in the next few days…

Looking lovely in the Swedish sunset.

Click the image for the large version.

This was supposed to be the “best day on the Swedish calendar”. Parties, people, sunshining and celebrating summer. But, look!

Hrmph.

Smashed it!

That was going to be an embedded map of my run, but MapMyFitness has let me down. I may have to write my own, damn it.

This is one side of Kungsholmen that I run down, lovely, hey?

I’ve been running in the mornings, and I’ve noticed that I’m much more alert for longer. My sleepiness is drowned out by the jog and by the time I get to work, I feel like a million bucks. I’ve been running around Kungsholmen which is about 9.5km’s long (even though Wikipedia say’s it’s 8.9km’s). I am planning to run the whole distance twice a week and half the distance in between. This means that I’m not riding to work as I will kill myself, but I’ve been using the weekends to do mega rides as I posted earlier.

Apart from my runs, I’ve also been exercising my mind with chess. I recently upgraded to a pre-paid mobile plan with mobile internet, so I have been spending my waiting periods playing chess with people on the internet, a really geeky thing to do but I enjoy it… there, I said it. I’ve got a battle with B.L.I.M happening at the moment, so results of that as time goes on.

This coming weekend is a long one with celebrations for Första Maj (1st of May, Labour Day). I’m not sure how many people will be celebrating though as I have heard it’s a time for protest and pagan tradition, I’m in two minds about taking a ride on Friday as I’m sure there’ll be lots of great photo opportunities as people fill the streets… I think I’ll ride on Sunday.

I’m also thinking about buying a small GPS unit for my bike so I can track my rides more accurately, as well as help me find out where I am. I tried to get an iPhone 3G however I need to be a Swedish resident for over 8 months before I can sign a contract, so I have to settle with “Locate Me” on Google Maps, if anyone feels generous enough to buy a GPS Unit, this is what I want…

Well, what a week. My first week back since Australia and I feel like it’s a whole new city. The weather has been hovering around 17ºc – 20ºc during the days and just below 10ºc at night, perfect.

I sit here in my kitchen, with a bottle of French riesling to help me reflect on the week and weekend just gone, and I must say that Stockholm is a place to visit when the sun is out. The trees have leafs, the rivers are flowing with boats & kiyaks, the parks are full of people and and the city is alive! The long dark winter is finally paying off, and everybody is making the most of it, including me.

Saturday I woke up early and took a walk through Östermalm in an attempt to get into some spring gear. I spent a fair amount of my time though taking photos of the beautiful cherry blossoms that line Kungsträgåden (King’s Garden). I will be uploading the rest of the blossom shots this week. It was really nice to be out taking photos again, headphones on (DJ Krush only with spiritual enlightenment thanks to DJ Krush – Zen). I sat and watched the people for a good while and realised that Spring has definitely landed.

Last night I caught up with NYC legend and fellow Fi employee Priscilla (Lil’ Pri, Ludapris, The Mexican) at Mosebacke, which lead us on to pizza and then a crazy apartment party, which while didn’t go late into the night (we packed it in at 1am), still managed to attract the attention of the Stockholm Polis who claimed they could hear us from 5 floors down on the street. We weren’t playing music loud, but because it’s spring, we have our windows open, and the sound echos across the area like nothing else. Oh well… they were cool with it.

As in my previous post, I woke up with an itch to get on the bike. After making a cracking breakfast with Canadian housemate Liam and Italian housemate Matteo, I jumped on the saddle and belted out 45kms. I decided to head south as far as I could go. I am so happy that Stockholm has such awesome bike paths. They’re wide, well directed and so smooth. It was like riding on a skating rink for 4 hours. I rode hard and fast for what felt like forever, there were a few moments when I realised I had been day dreaming and had to snap back to reality. It was that good.

I got as far as Skogår, which is about 20 km’s south of Stockholm. I know this because I managed to jack some unsecured wifi connection and Twittered about it. It was amazing. A rich area I would suspect, with houses raised high on cliffs overlooking peaceful lakes and amazing forests. It doesn’t take long out of Stockholm before you’re immersed in nature. The best way to see it is obviously on a fixed gear bike.

I arrived home exhausted and made up a nice plate of cheese and meat and am currently finishing off that bottle of riesling, almost topping off the perfect weekend, apart from the obvious.

I’m back to no drinking this week, and also running hopefully 4 of the 5 nights. I bought a great running jacket, and now that it’s warming up, the sun is out longer so I can run longer and avoid getting the flu.

Until next time… hej dåg!

Part 2, coming next!

I’m loving the weather at the moment. 11 degrees, riding around eveywhere, sun staying up late. Yesterday I ran 7.5km’s and I’ll do the same today. Summer is on the way!

… so are our moods. Here’s the beginning of our Monday morning Spotify playlist. Songs about the sun, or have ’sun’ in the title. It’s been over 2 weeks since we’ve had a proper sunny day, so what better way to get over the fact that you’re inside, than to play sunshine tunes.

So, sorry about the lame updates lately. I’ve been super super busy. I’m working until 9pm each night, getting home, cooking dinner, watching the Wire then passing out, ready to do it all again.

Last Friday we moved offices. Our last place is only 50 meters down the road, but boy what a difference that 50 meters makes. We’re smack bang in the center of town. Stureplan to be exact. There’s so much more action outside our door. It actually feels like I’m working in a city with people in it.

Now I know Stockholm isn’t the biggest city in the world (we’ll get to that, soon), but when you head out to lunch into a ghost town, it can be a little disheartening. Now I’m walking into people as soon as I step outside. The place has a lovely buzz about it.

The office is brand new, custom designed by Fi and built to our demands. It was an old attic, now it has 100mbit internet, a pool table, Rock Band, and 15 ratbags.

The above photo is my new workstation. We came up with the idea to put trees in between our desks. Seeing we are 5 stories above the city, this gives us a little piece of mind when we’re heads down. This is the 4th day since moving in, so when the office is set up again (pool table, XBox, Wii, trees, trees, trees), I’ll provide more flicks, but to give you an idea of the views we get…

This is from our “living area”, the place where we eat, drink and be merry. That circular object below the American flag is called “The Mushroom”. You can’t see from this picture, but the last flag flying high is a New Zealand flag. No love for the Aussies, not even on Australia day.

So, I do have some good news. The project I’ve been working on is taking me over to New York next Saturday. I’m over for a month living on Wall St with Matteo, Priscilla and Tom. I’m very much looking forward to seeing Matteo again, even though the little bugger has already put in his alcohol orders. I can’t wait to get back to the Big Apple. I’ll be teaming up with my mate Justin and coincidently a friend of mine from Stockholm will be in New York for a good part of my trip, look out Manhattan!

Expect lots of juice to be found here when I’m over in NYC. Until then, it’s back to the books.

Stay in touch, one love!