Tasmania

Almost straight after returning to Australia I went to Tasmania to work. Based in Hobart me and two colleagues worked hard for a week and then got some spare time to look around the place. After 15 years in Australia I had never been to Tasmania until this year. And suddenly I was there for the second time within a couple of months time. The weather is cold and wet at this time of year but the landscape and the historical character of the island sucks you in somehow and I am beginning to really like it here.

They say that Tasmanians are a bit slow and in the most remote places you can sometimes even hear the sound of duelling banjos, but I don`t believe it. The folks up the mountains here don´t look like they could play any instrument at all... We walked down Elisabeth Street to the waterfront and turned right pass the yacht club and to the casino. The views are amazing, like one beautiful backdrop in front of the other. The bay, full of sails and the old houses by the waterfront. Behind is the silhouette of Hobart city surrounded by hills and behind that rises the steep mountains with the top covered by mist (I think King Kong lives there).

We had coffee at the casino and then took the water taxi back to the city. Then, lunch at one of the floating fish and chips shops lined up along the Constitution docks

There are a couple of research ships for arctic and marine research based here. Like some of the old sailing ships, they let normal people pay thousands of dollars to be part of the crew for a couple of weeks. It is the adventure of a lifetime to participate in scientific research of Antarctica and its surrounding waters.

We spend most of our time in Hobart, which is very nice except for that the pedestrian traffic lights seems to be designed by Usain Bolt, or at least by someone from Jamaica. The green man turns red long before any fit young person could possibly walk across the street. We have now tendered to the Tasmanian Traffic Authorities to manufacture a new type of lights using different silhouettes (where It says “Don´t Walk” or “Walk” we suggest a change to “Don´t Walk” and “Bolt”)

Here is a plug for the best fish-n-chips in the world for Swedes, who are thinking of visiting me.

The Last Ride

Sorry, I forgot to write about my last ride on Farao and his first official appearance.
After I had ridden him for two months the owner took Farao to a clinic at the former Cavalry school Strömsholm. It was a big outing but he did not put a foot wrong and proved his great attitude and temperament once again. My job was officially done and Farao was to be promoted by his owner and her coach, the prominent dressage judge and rider Ove Slöör. Mr Slöör has been around for a long time and has gained a somewhat master status, which will guarantee Farao´s future as a top dressage horse. Farao won´t be competing much or at all but he will give his rider much pleasure for many years to come.

He has the potential to develop extraordinary movements, so I put the pressure on and suggested that “now you have five years to prove it”.
After two weeks of not riding Farao I was offered to ride him in a local dressage event. I decided to try him the day before to see if he would be ready for it. Farao had been ridden less than normal the past weeks and I could feel it. He behaved well but lacked forwardness and I had to make clear that the competition the next day would be outdoors Otherwise I knew Farao would almost fall asleep on me. Earlier he had been extremely excited and a bit out of control when he was ridden on the outdoor arena. In the early days he took off as soon as he saw something move behind him. This had slowly improved to just reasonable excitement and in fairly good control. So my guess was that Farao would be quite hot the next day with all the other horses and people who were going to be around and that I would be able to control him enough to get around a dressage test at the lowest level.
The trick was position his head in front of the vertical though I most of the time had to pull the brakes. Well, the good thing with young horses, is they are not very smart yet. This means that many times, if they “take off” they don´t bother with what the rider is doing with the reins, they simply ignore it and that can be used to the riders advantage. If the rider dares to ease the reins often on what feels like a runaway train, the head moves forward to a “correct” position. I tried it which was fine and since the weather was very hot and humid, by time we were on, Farao had gone back to almost normal. He felt good but during the ride I made a couple of mistakes in preparing for some movements. Still, we ended up doing a good test. I think there were at least 12 competitors and Farao got a fourth place. Everybody seemed very happy, and salubrated it with a fantastic marzipan cake, so I was happy too. Farao has the personality of a cheeky teenager who still wants to please the rider, which I think is great, so I am very happy for him and it was a most enjoyable ride. During my two months riding Farao, it was a pleasure to work with his owner and to get advice from Mr Slöör. The video of it was awful due to technical problems but after tweaking some of the clips you can at least see something.

The Trip Home

My three months in Sweden have come to an end. It does not feel as if the time has passed quickly or so because I have been both working and experienced many great moments. It was hard to say goodbye to my mother and family and I already miss the old and new friends I met. One major reason for leaving home was to make some important decisions about my future, so I am quite exited to return and implement my new plans.
For me, it is basically a matter of focusing on one profession only, settling for max one hobby or project at the time and being free after office hours and during weekends, what we call a “normal life” I guess. In some ways, it is a matter of being strong enough to say no.
One reason for my need to make a change is mainly that almost half of my time spent on video productions and equestrian services has earlier been unpaid and left me almost without a social life. Nothing wrong with that since I had chosen it but in the long run I can't afford it and. It was time to get a life.

Two very dear friends dropped me off at Arlanda airport outside Stockholm. We passed the unique Jumbo Stay Hostel before arriving.


Then I spent one hour negotiating with the beautiful check in supervisor Anette about 6 Kg luggage overweight. This was the final confirmation that I have finally lost my looks completely. After running through my entire repertoire of charming jokes and compliments, the suitcase still ended up weighing the expected 20 Kg here I had 13 kg of things with me in the cabin instead. The fact that my bodyweight is half of any of the other passengers' had no effect at all on Anette (I bet she likes obese men). The bottom line is that they didn´t want to hear my jokes at the check in counter, still, the compliments went down well (trust women). I was supposed to have contacted the airline beforehand instead about bringing extra luggage. I left behind a lot of clothes and things in Sweden, so it won´t be a problem next time.
During my Sweden visit three of my friends and family members decided to come and visit me in January. The flight is minimum 20 hours in the air and normally it is impossible for me to sleep on planes. For anybody who is planning to make such a long flight, here are the aviators' advice on how to handle it:
-Exercise before going to the airport.("crew fitness level")
-Bring a warm sweater or jacket ("budget cabin air con. systems")
-Drink extra water ("check cooling system")
-Eat a bit less amount of food than normal during the flight ("avoid excess fuel")
-Bring a blow up collar pillow ("secondary life jacket")
-Take shoes off at the start (“Take Off”)
-If needed, take a sleeping pill for the night.(de-pressurise)
-Drink water instead of alcohol (depress-urise)
-Visit the toilet before meals (empty the fuel tanks)
-Exercise on board ("suspicious cabin activity")
Off course, the most effective way to manage such a trip is to follow the advice of a highly qualified nurse that I was seeing once. I had told her that I can´t sleep on planes and her advice was to follow the same routines as normal before bedtime as well as in bed when getting ready to sleep. -Brush the teeth, go to the toilet, watch a movie on TV or read a book etc. I thanked her and asked if she had practiced this often on her overseas trips.
She said “Not quite, I have been to France once and I got drunk from wine and took morphine and slept for 18 hours until the attendants got me back to life in Paris”. The warning bells should have rung already then and I should have known that I was wasting time dating her. As expected, she dumped me later with another lecture. This time she praised my personal potential and great personality for 20 minutes, and then she gave me the flick.
Apart from that, she was really nice [the picture is of another nurse]
The first leg took 6 hours to Qatar and went very well. Again, the Qatar Air service and food was better than on any other airline I have travelled with before. The food quality must have something to do with the Islamic preparations that they advertise before each meal. I have never seen Qantas or SAS mention anything about their Christian cooking or point out the direction to Jerusalem or Graceland or some place for those who want to pray. Probably because that kind of information is not really needed.
Next to me was a very young and very Christian woman on her way to Tanzania to do missionary work. In front of us was the most unreal couple I have ever seen. One 5 foot 1" (155 cm) native South American medicine-man and his 6 foot 7" (2 m) tall female model. I tried to get a good photo of them for this blog at the airport but it was a bit dangerous, so it did not come out very well, but you get the idea I think. Love is blind...though, in this case the woman did not even need to be blind since she could not see her boyfriend unless she looked straight down. Off course, being not much taller myself, than the medicine-man, I was a bit jealous.
The second leg from Qatar to Melbourne took 13 hours and was OK because I managed to do a short workout, take one sleeping tablet and get five hours sleep.
Melbourne was cold and humid and the spring will come later than I expected.

The bus trip

I´m on the bus back to Stockholm. The last 4 days have been great because I met my
old friend and also because she introduced me to really funny people on the South Swedish countryside.

They are farmers and horse breeders, with somewhat conservative ideas and great fun to be with. I heard all these local village anecdotes about the kind of characters that I thought did not exist anymore.
It was like listening to a comedy stage show from 1959 or so, and I loved it.

My clever host also arranged a couple of still photo jobs, which I enjoyed very much. Photographing horses is difficult and I am not mastering it in any way but it is a great challenge.
The catch is that you have to find the right light and background and then, if the horses get there, you can only shoot the pictures when their ears are pointed more or less forward.

In this bus, next to me is a 90 year old lady who spends every minute trying to figure out where we are. One minute she thinks she is on the way home and the other on the way to Stockholm. She also constantly asks who is singing in the bus. Her favourite song from the WW2 top charts is obviously running a loop in her head because the only sound here is from the tyres on the road.
Her son finally picked her up at the end station and I told him that this was not a very good idea. He was a left over hippie, approximately 5 years BW (Before Woodstock) and looks like he doesn´t know where he is either. So I leave them and remember what Dr Phil said about being there for people in need...”Do Not Help Them! (They only want you to listen)”.
Most people of the so called western world learn basic psychology through TV and Dr Phil.
Most things we do are directed by the North American culture so every other little country is slowly changing their language to English.
I have heard at least five new everyday words in Sweden this year:


Sale (Swe:Rea). Stalk (Swe:Stalka), Kids (Swe:Kidsen), Confront (Swe:Fronta), Implement (Swe:Implementera), Promote (Swe:Promota)




On top of that, some businesses are changing their names. One of the most stupid one is this pub in Stockholm...”Gastro Bar”. I don´t think they get many visitors from outside Sweden.
Young people have off course totally in sync with this lingo. This is the way language develops through history. The only problem is that now we lose important words that could describe things more precisely. So we can´t express exactly what we mean and what we feel, which is asking for conflict.
This is how many divorces begin and even wars.
So when some guy tells his more educated woman “stuff the chicken tonight” (when all he meant was “Let´s not have chicken tonight again”), he gets chicken for the fourth time that week, but this time a stuffed one. Then he complains to his friends later that his woman does not understand him.
I think this is what will happen to today’s children when they grow up.
Anyway, Kids, what is it with them?
The other day when I was having lunch with friends this little girl at the next table was twittering on her mobile, drinking from a straw, taking a nap with her head on the table and listening to music with her earphones –at the same time.
I did know that girls are multitasked but this was a world class performance!
Another time I saw a boy waiting in a staff room for his dad to quit work.
He was playing with his Nintendo as his father entered the room every minute and kept telling him to finish his food, four doughnuts and a soft drink.
The boy, who was not full or anything, just kept nagging his dad for doughnuts with a different icing on it. How long until his diabetes, asthma and knee ligaments will consume all the tax his father paid during the past 20 years?
Then there are all the new born Christians.
Millions of kids, mainly girls can be heard these days, calling for their lord and saviour almost every minute of the day. I know, because I hear it all the time. As soon as there is any excitement of any kind at any level, they call for him.
“...I can’t do this!!! Oh My God...My God...My nail broke...I hate you...I will never put the dishes away, ever, nevurr...My God!!!”
They say that if you tell a lie enough times, you believe it. So perhaps these girls, -this entire generation, will one day subconsciously adopt Christian values.
Anyway, history tells us clearly how even these young sexually frustrated walking loudspeakers will later grow to become great people.

Social life

Recently I was invited for dinner to my second cousin. She visited me two years ago and now lives in Uppsala.

She is the only tourist Australia ever had, who photographed Japanese tourists, cows and letterboxes. This is a very brave woman who climbs mountains, gallops horses and looks quite hot on her motorbike (800 cc Intruder).
It was great to see her again and we had a lot to talk about. After I had entered her apartment it took an hour before I realised that the cat in the sofa actually was alive. This pitch black cat had a shiny coat like a stuffed velvet animal, and it blended in perfectly with some of the black fabric in the room and it never moved, so I was confused.
A week after she also invited me to meet her sister who I had not seen for 25 years.
She lives with her family in the woods by the lake Mälaren where they run an Internet based business (http://www.informus.se/). This is exactly the kind of lifestyle I would like to have. -An Internet based business which you can theoretically run from a laptop. Not that their business is easy to run but it allows for a great lifestyle.

We walked through the wood to a small jetty where we took their motor boat out to a cliff by the water. A fantastic barbecued dinner was served by the husband. Australians know how to BBQ when they are born but this guy had made it an art.

It was a lot of fun to talk about our family and the memories we had. The water was absolutely calm and the surface was flat like a mirror. It was beautiful and the only sound you could hear was me, gobbling strawberries like a maniac. We waited for a long time to see the sunset but the problem is that even a bit south of the arctic circle, the sun does not go down quite.

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One Saturday evening, my friends gave me a great gift. They took me to an outdoor musical in the garden of one of the castles outside Stockholm (Ulriksdals Slott). The show was a rock version of the music and life of a famous Swedish composer (Bellman) of the 18th century. Since the cast was all professional and the script was very good, it was all fantastic. The thing that also made it great was the hot sum

mer weather. Before the musical we had dinner at a restaurant on a jetty nearby, fantastic off course.

Every summer in Sweden, hundreds of bridges and jetty's are converted to outdoor restaurants and cafes. It is standard that each chair always has an extra blanket on it. If the weather is warm, nothing beats going by boat to an island in Stockholm and stepping straight up to a nice cafe and to sit and watch the other boats and the life around the islands.

The weight

And then it was this thing about my diet and the gym etc...
After joining the gym here in Sweden and mixing my organic supplements, I soon learned it was almost impossible to stick to the regime that I had back home.
None of the people I stay with could possible be able to provide the food that I need. It would be like trying to supply meals to a diabetic allergic vegetarian or something.
There is also absolutely no time for me to cook and no space in their fridges to store my own food. I simply have to settle for what I get, which still is great food and since I don' t put much fat and sugary stuff on the plate, I´m doing OK. That together with a lot of water will keep me alive for a while.
It has been hard to focus on the exercises at the gym as well as I do when my PT "Kommendant Helen" is with me. Still, it all went well until I pulled some shoes of some horses and got myself a serious "golf elbow". Four weeks later, I now feel a bit deflated and have finally been able to try some exercises that does not hurt my arm.
The thing is, that pushing weights regularly makes you feel, and move around a bit like "Arrnolt" and it is good for the ego (of a man, that is). So, I may always look like a dehydrated prisoner of war, but now I also feel like I look like one, and this is not good for the ego (of a man, that is). I may need to get some treatment for the elbow when I get back. In the mean time I just have to improve my sun tan and keep from breathing out.

The weather

We have had several weeks in Sweden with hot summer days almost no rain. All my friends are complaining and at +28 one day, the all stoped functioning. I remembered that I do belong to a whingeing tribe with Serotonin deficiency and night sight from 9 months of darkness each year. Part of my own complaining personality comes from this femonenon.
As my friends on the farm, where I ride Farao, work hard and suffer under the sun, I am quite enjoying the heat myself as I also try to do some work around the place. Still my job is nowhere near the effort of even apart time job, so my days here are almost like holiday. The beauty of it is that when I get back home, it won´t be long until springtime in Langwarin.
I also hear as much complaining about the lack of rain as back home in Australia. And this is in a country with more water than almost any other place in the world.

I keep quiet because all my friends got tired long ago of all my stories about Australia. The Scandinavians have absolutely no idea of the fear of drought and fire that is almost a part of the genetic code of the Australians.

Here, the grass and plants stay green almost through the entire summer so the landscape is extremely beautiful. The best views are to be found in the north and in the archipelago of Stockholm.