Translating

I have recently tried my translating skills. Besides forgetting some really simple words, I succeed quite well. Now, I am afraid they will ask me to do it again.

PS. I am not Jesus

10000

My old camera slowly ceases to work. I have had it for almost 4 years now. I has survived a lot: Being drown in bear and water and falling on the ground lots of times. But now, its life time comes to an end. Shortly after making its 10000th picture, the camera stopped focusing while zooming. Returning from Prague, I noticed many of the pictures I made were insufficiently sharp. Its a pity: Some of this photos may have been very good. On the other hand, I now must buy a new better camera, which is good. And who knows, maybe I will need to return to Czech Republic very soon in order to remake the pictures. That's even better...

Prague

Prague turned out to be a really nice city. My first visit to the Czech Republic may become one of my best experiences of the year. But now I am back home: Full of impressions, but obliged to get back to normal life again as soon as possible...

Away

I am off for Prague, having extremely nice time. Will be back next week. It turned out, however, there is civilization and internet in the Czech Republic as well. At least I have a very strong feeling that of being online at the moment... If you can read this post, and you are not me, then I was right %))

Whatever

Usually, I go to the office by bike. It is not far. Takes me about 10 minutes to get there. But today was different. Today, I took the car. My official explanation to such an unusual behavior is simple: Every third Thursday of the month, parking is prohibited on our home street. The car needs to get removed, so why not park it at the office for the day?

Well, that's what I did. And it was really nice. Getting to work without any particular effort: Relaxed, dry, air conditioned... I can't help thinking that's the way you get spoiled, lazy and fat...

It is not that I am complaining. In contrary, I am quite happy about it. Against all the odds, the Swedish summer turn out warm. Apart from sweating in the office, I am trying to use this fact as much as I can. As spending the weekend at the cliffy sea shore.

Breakability

The bike I am currently using turned out to be highly breakable. During the first weeks, it needed repairing and adjusting almost every day. As the first major breakdown, one of the jockey wheels cracked. As a consequence, the chain got stuck and pulled the derailleur out of its place. While replacing it, I needed to break the chain. Since then, the gears worked, but the chain started to fall apart. I struggled a lot to make it work, I even removed one of the links. Finally, the chain got firm enough. But on the very next day, the chain guard could not stand the pressure. Last week, even this part got replaced.

At that point, I did not have much expectation on this bike anymore. But it did surprise me. Since then, I have rode over 50 km without breaking anything else. It seems like every breakable part has already been replaced. Well, that's not really true. The bike does not break down anymore, but neither does it brake. The pads are completely worn out. I hope that's gonna be the last problem...

Freedom

No football today. Nice. I have finally time to do something else...

Fitness

The Hagatoppen hill north of Stockholm is a place I like to visit. Beside its wonderful view on the city, where one can see the Globe right behind the City Hall, and its vicinity to the Haga palace where the new royal couple it about to live, it is a place I have many nice personal memories of.

I have a tradition since the second grade of high school. That year, our sport lessons stopped and the responsibility of keeping ourselves fit was laid upon our own shoulders. Then, I defined myself as fit if I was able to make it to the top of the Hagatoppen by bike, about 100 m above the ground level. Later, I even made the test harder. Now, before climbing the hill, I need to make it around the Brunnsviken lake, the distance of about 10 km. I usually test myself that way several times a year.

Today, I have found myself fit again. Feels good. But I also start to think it is not a challenge for me anymore. The test needs to be hardened again.

Midsummer

For the first time since 1995, the year we first moved to Sweden, I have had the opportunity to celebrate the Midsummer holiday here. I decided to experience one of the shortest nights of the year by watching the sunset and the sunrise from the same spot. For that purpose, I found a cape facing north some 150 km north of Stockholm.

The sun set at 22.45 and rose again at 3.15. I spent the time in between by gathering some wood, making a fire and taking a bath in the see. The night never got really dark and one could always see all the surrounding objects. The only place I needed to use the torch was inside an abandoned bunker, once probably an anti-air fire point, that I found near the cape edge.

Apart from failing to sleep in the night and being very tired, I am glad to have made such an experience.