Train tickets are getting more expensive again. I almost never travel with the train, but still this news caught my attention. The main reason for that is the way the national railway (NS) wants to raise the prices. They wanne do that according to the principal: “The user pays”… In real life that means that the people who use the busy train lines, pay more… They call this “fair” I think it’s insane! And then I am expressing myself politely…

I just can’t believe it… In what other business would you make your best customers pay more?!?! Can you imagine that in a bar the regular customers pay more for the beer because they use the furniture the most and make more glasses dirty?!?! HELL NO!!! Of course not! You treasure your best customers, give them discounts, the best seats in the house and put their names in gold on the wall!! Ok, that might be a bit to much, but still… unbelievable… and they wonder why people don’t like taking the train… well…

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Fantastic Four the movie. The obvious comment: definitely not a fantastic movie. Entertainment? Oh yes, for sure, but that’s about it I would say. Didn’t really knew what to expect when I went into the cinema yesterday, but I wasn’t disappointed when I got out, so that seems to be good. To sum it up: Story wasn’t real spectacular, characters were quite good, plenty of moments to make you smile but an ending that was rather disappointing…

Remembering the Marvel comics from when I was a kid, Dr. Doom used to kick ass! Big time! But now the whole thing was round up in a matter of minutes… I guess he needs to get his revenge in the sequel… So don’t go running to the cinema’s to see this one, but I guess it will make an ok movie to watch on a rainy day at home…

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Well one kilo… it’s not polite to tell a girls weight, now is it? Or maybe guess low when you do… Half a kilo of cuteness then! :-)
What am I talking about? My parents new bunny! The cutest little thing. They should have had two female bunnies to start with, but one of the two turned out a be a male… A nasty male. Well nasty… dirty would suit him better. And the male bunny loved the female bunny. A lot. And often… How stupid I felt when I went to my mamma and asked her what the dirty sticky stuff on the back of the female bunny was, I don’t have to explain… :-)

So we didn’t really have an option then to let the male bunny go. The female bunny didn’t have a life… it was so scared and constantly hidden somewhere in the garden, afraid to go out… very sad, but not anymore! The male is gone and she is jumping happily around in the garden! She has all comforts of a posh bunny: plenty of space, fresh grass, carrots, food, water, bunny candy and … yes… marijuana! My dad is growing some plants in the back garden (please don’t ask why!) and the bunny seems to love to eat the marijuana leaves! And no, they don’t get high from it…

Only thing she probably worries about is the fact that just those few days with the male bunny could have been enough to get her pregnant… Well… could have gotten her pregnant 187 times… So that is just wait and see… I guess we will know in about 4 weeks… or sooner when the bunny starts to get bigger and bigger.

Just one thing missing… a name… So if anyone has a suggestion? Feel free!

All cute!		And curious…		Bunny & her cage

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Oh my! How fast two weeks can pass by. Just amazing. I got back last week from a wonderful holiday in Denmark and Sweden! Ok, it wasn’t that kind of holiday where you get totally relaxed from sitting at the waterside with a good book, working on a tan and where the hardest labor is zipping a fruity cocktail, but that wasn’t to be expected seeing the busy schedule.

It all started with a long but fast drive to København. With a two stop strategy, just about 1000km in 8 hours, was surprisingly fast to me as well. Could have been a bit faster if I wouldn’t have run out of gas just before the 2nd pit stop… There were some scary moments when the tank was almost empty and the promised petrol-station along the highway didn’t show up… I had no choise other then to take an exit into Germany to search for a gas-station in a tiny village. It got close, but luckily I made it! :-) Shouldn’t have been much further, seeing I put in over 39.5 liters where the gas tank of the car only holds 40… Pffff… :-)

København was as lovely as ever. It was great to see my roommate Kevin Arnold again, even though he has a habit of waking me up for some candy every day around 05.00 in the morning… But he is so sweet you forgive him very easily for that! :-)
Besides that the stay was quite relaxing. Cappo’s in the afternoon and a barbie in the park, drinking wine and beer and playing crocket in the evening. That must be what life is all about! ;-)

As I brought my bike, I also took it for a ride along the Danish coastline from København to Helsingør. A truely great fun ride! Beautiful scenery and with the road being rather flat with every now and then a short climb made it a bit challenging as well. Wasn’t to sure what to think about Danish cyclists when two people were drafting in my wheel for quite some time and not taking the lead… A bit frustrating and annoying, until the woman who we picked up last took the lead for a bit as well! Lovely! So instead of bad feelings towards Danish cyclists, an instant love for female Danish cyclists was born! Does anyone know if Rasmussen has a cute sister? ;-)

After København the trip took me to the beautiful little island of Hven (or Ven, but I go with the preferred old school spelling) just between Denmark and Sweden. Here I had to pick up the key to Jonas’ apartment I would be staying at in Stockholm and would combine that with the good fun of seeing Jonas again. We cycled a bit on the island, enjoyed the views of the pretty island and Denmark on the horizon, had a lovely dinner before I felt really old at some pre-party with only 18 year olds and more at place later, drinking at one of the few pubs on the island. I was a bit hang over and definitely not ready for the things that were about to happen the next morning… The short version would sound like: dehydration, fainting, busted eyebrow, boogie on the floor, island nurse and being stitched on the porch. Luckily I was only the frontrow slightly traumatized spectator in all that! :-) Either way all that excitement caused me not to take my planned picture taking trip along the island, so I will definitely have to visit the island again!

A 6 hour drive later I was back in Stockholm again. And being back in Stockholm felt like it always feels after having been there such a long time over the last couple of years. I felt like being home. And meeting up with all the special people just makes it such great fun to be there, and sad at the same time for not being there more often… If weeks can fly by, this one surely did! Lunch meetings, dinner meetings, picknick in the Archipelago, more lovely dinners… So much to do, and so little time…

Went cycling twice in and around Stockholm. One trip to Ösmo, on a to hot day, with a beautiful but to challenging ride back and the most horrible moment to run out of water… I have never in my life drank a can of coke quicker then when I finally found a place with some refreshments… But all in all it was a great ride! And the second ride was a mountainbike ride with Kim in and around Sollentuna which was just all fun!

On the way back the difference between driving alone and driving with someone next to you came chokingly clear… I could give Johanna a ride to her sister and sambo in Linköping and that was by far the fastest driving of the whole trip. Not measured by the number of km’s in time, but purely by how long the drive felt… The two hour drive almost felt like just 15 minutes… Amazing… what lovely company in the car can do! ;-)

After a very nice coffee break at Johanna’s sisters strawberry farm, where the coffee was served with strawberry cake and strawberry muffins, what else could I have expected?, the journey continued to Martin in Helsingborg down in the south of Sweden. Again to be surprised by the kindness of the people I was visiting. Martin’s parents were just the kindest and sweetest people you can imagine. Waiting for me with dinner when I arrived, eating early when I had to leave early and offering me a comfy bed to sleep in during the night… Just wonderful…

Got to see a bit of Helsingborg and had a nice walk with Martin and his family to the Ramlösa water spring, very close to his parents home. Walked through a lovely park, tasted some of the water (bit earthy taste) straight from the spring and met some very arrogant ducks. After a nice little cycling ride through the area it was time to continue the journey to København again. The boat from Helsingborg to Helsingør got me to København in just over 45 minutes. Impossible according to Martin’s dad, but I guess me just needing to go a little past Lyngby, instead of down town København saved me quite some time.

The stay in København was short this time, but therefore not less fun. Just one great disappointment this time… they don’t sell big “welcome home” balloons at Copenhagen airport… A big shame! Or a business opportunity? Well both, but it left me empty handed when welcoming Mette and her sister back from a R.E.M. concert in London.

After an always sad goodbye from København, the long drive home awaitened. Luckily it went without any problems and I was home 8 hours later. Home again. Praising myself to be very lucky to know so many fine and sweet people. I almost got to meet everyone I wanted to see. Some were occupied elsewhere and some I will definitely see soon!

Thank you all for a great time! :-)

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Holiday! Well… I have of course been having some holiday for some time now, but that was more about relaxing. Tomorrow it will be real holiday again! :-) Although… not tomorrow, as 10 hours of driving to København ain’t much of a holiday. But the days after that will definitely be! :-)

After a few days in København the journey will continue and take me to Stockholm. What happens there… don’t know yet. The plan was to cycle, still is, but my Swedish cycling buddy Peter unfortunately has other obligations, so the cycling won’t be as fun as I was hoping for, but cycle I will. Besides that it will be all about visiting dear friends, so how could that not be fun? :-)

I will probably won’t be home before the 18th, so it will probably be very quiet here until that day… and then I will have to write about the adventures that are now still yet to come! :-)

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Live8 yesterday. I couldn’t remember much from the last one, only the Queen performance looked familiar when I saw the highlights from the one 20 years ago. I hadn’t really follow the Live8 build up this time, just heard that many big names were participating, Michael Jackson would maybe appear as well and the Spice Girls were reunited for the occasion. So I was a bit surprised I didn’t see a bank number on the screen with big capital letters asking me to donate money. They didn’t want my money, just my support. Fair, but who wouldn’t support ending poverty in this world?!?! Well… apparently a lot of people, as we still have poverty in this world… So I think it’s great they did this.

But will it really help? I sure hope so, but am not to positive about it… I truely believe it’s fair to drop the debts, have better trade rules and give more and better aid. No discussion about that, again, who wouldn’t support that? But I do wonder… As long as African countries are “managed” in a wrong way by their governments, or have totally corrupt governments and governments that are treading their own people very badly, what will be achieved by all this? Will a global statement have direct effect on a local bad government? I fail to believe so. The future of Africa won’t be decided by rock concerts nor the G8, but by African politicians making the right decisions.

Still, the initiative needs to be praised. At least now there is global attention to the problems again and just that will hopefully bring a lot of good. Not just for the people in Africa, but for the poor people all around the world. As there is probably a lot of poor people in Asia, South America and even the western world as well who would love to see their debts cancelled! But I think they will have some problems convincing their local bank of that… “Yes, didn’t you see uncle Geldof on TV? I thought you dropped my debt?” :-)
Probably not…

The music was also something special. A great start with U2, a disappointing Coldplay trying out their new single, Elton John trying to promote one of his toy-boys, Björk… well… Björk…, Good Charlotte rocking in Tokyo, Dido clearly having a jour sans… Then I bailed out for the Tour de France (holy shit that Lance was fast!!!) and my brothers birthday party, only to return for what should have been the last hour… I was not so lucky… I only got the 2 last songs with Paul McCartney… But those were good! As well as some of the highlights I saw later on the BBC from Robbie Williams and Sting. I guess you can’t like every artist… but Bob… honestly… please ask everybody to just stick to their hits next time! :-)

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