Guided tower tour

One day we went on a guided tour up the two famous towers of the Skara Cathedral.
Even though I lived here in Skara my whole childhood, and have been inside the cathedral countless times, I can't remember I had ever actually been UP the towers before.

The history of this cathedral traces back to the 10th century (!) but its current Gothic appearance is from the 13th century. It has been damaged and restored on several occasions.
The towers reach a height of 63 metres.

First we climbed the northern tower, to see the peal of bells and the large main bell, cast in 1725.

This piece had broken off the bell when they hung it. I love how the word 'Hallelujah' is so clearly cut out! You can still see where it was chipped off since they never bothered to fix it, as it didn't affect the sound of the bell. 

The guides were the young teenage summer trainees the church take in each summer, so the guiding was not really "guiding", more a listing of facts... But, it was an interesting visit nevertheless.

It was a little bit claustrophobic climbing those narrow stone stairs, but fortunately they weren't too high. The scariest thing was actually crossing from the north to the left tower via a very small balcony *shudders*, I've realized I'm not that good with heights, at all. 

Do you see the window up the top of this photo? That's where we crossed over from one tower to the other..!

What a difference a year makes

We started the summer with a bit of a photo shoot, as the kids have changed and grown so much this year. Here is the goodbye photo from mid-August last year:

And this is how tall they are now:

No surprise Mormor was going to be the shortest eventually! I do think Lucas still has a cm or two to go before he passes Morfar though.

Hej hej från 🇸🇪

Summer holidays are ON!
We arrived safely in Stenum after a long day of traveling. First Nathan drove us to Dubai early in the morning, then the usual Emirates plane ride to Stockholm and finally we went and picked up our rental car to get from there all the way down to Skara.
This year I picked up a manual car, and as I grunted a bit about that leaving the rental car center Lucas worryingly asked me: -" Do you really know how to drive a car like this?!"
Ha ha, well yes, it had been a while for sure, and I have to admit the changing of the gears weren't so smooth to start with. But hey, we made it!

To keep up with my new summer challenge (to get a "Perfect Month"-award = when you close all three rings every day of a month) I went for a walk already on the first evening (and then either walked, jogged or biked every day after that too).

The weather was so good, absolutely perfect. I so enjoyed my daily me-times out and about, all the fresh air, all the greenery, the yellow fields, the blue skies, the white clouds - all the colours!

Aaahhh, chlorophyll!

Mission complete

It seems like every year before the summer holidays I take on a new challenge. I guess it's a combination of being incredibly bored from no work and being housebound due to the heat, and a desire to get off to a good start, before the summer gluttony...
A couple of years ago I did a sugar challenge and cut out ALL sugar, last year I did the Couch-To-5-km program and this year I bought myself a treadmill.

To make sure I'd use the treadmill I made a pledge to go on it for 5 km a day, every day from when I got it until the summer holidays.
Well, we are off to Sweden early tomorrow morning, and as of today I now count a solid 31/31 days streak, of 5 km a day! Well done me!

I have gone by the distance of my Apple Watch and not the treadmill itself, which means that I've probably gone further than the 5 km every day (since my watch isn't calibrated to my actual stride). Actually this last week, I've more or less run the first 5 km, and then walk another 5 km every day..!
So a grand total of 190 km means I've done 4,5 marathons over this month! How cool is that!?

Unfortunately (and surprisingly!) my efforts barely show on the scales. Even though I have been off both the wine, bread and desserts and very good with the rest of my food. Booo.

So I still haven't decided what my summer challenge should be. Keep doing daily workouts but aim for 30 minutes a day (to be real), or try with longer workouts but maybe just 3-4 a week? Or keep to a certain distance a day, or maybe a week? Set a total amount of kilometers to hit over the whole summer?
Anyways, while I think about that I've made sure I've packed my little train-at-home-kit of resistance bands, so that I can get some workouts in during the holidays as well.

Maybe I'll just stick with "closing my rings" on my Apple Watch? That should be spurring me on enough, but leave enough room for different activities. Any other ideas?!

Summer holidays coming up

Wi-hoo! It's summer holidays! No more alarm clocks or lunchboxes... which is what I'm actually most happy about right now, ha ha!
To be honest, it's not really as school goes full power all the way to the end unfortunately. On the contrary, it's been slowing down ever since Ramadan; especially since many students leave early throughout the last few weeks of the term. So it's not like they are going out with a bang. Actually, I've always found the lack of a "ceremonial last day" rather disappointing. It's certainly one of the things from my own upbringing that I'm most sad my children will never experience.

So, I've always made sure we celebrate anyway, so after picking the kids up from school yesterday we went to have some serious slices of cake! Om nom nom!

Well done kids on completing Grade 9 and Grade 7! Now let's enjoy those long summer holidays!

Zwifting

I've shown you the set up of my treadmill in the middle of the living room already, but since the first few sessions I've upped my game a bit. Or rather, Nathan has upped my game. That's what happens when you are married to Mr Gadget!

Yes have a look, I still have the fan going but also I have the Zwift on the big screen and the ironing board with my current tv-serie on the iPad next to me. It's all go go go! It's actually rather motivating to run around f.e New York, I keep thinking "let's keep going to that next light pole, let's keep going to that turn in the road" etc. (Zwift is a multiplayer online cycle and running program which enables users to train, compete and interact in a virtual world.)

To make it even better, while I was on my treadmill inside the other day, Nathan went on his trainer in the man cave outside. And for a short time (enough to grab this photo, ha ha!), we Zwifted together in the same world!

Zwift for the win!

Benorix Hur

Last night it was finally time for us to enjoy Linnea in her school play. This term she too wanted to try the drama production and signed up for the Grade 6-8 production of the original play 'Benorix Hur', written purposely for Raha International school.

The story, inspired by 'Ben Hur' and 'Asterix and Obelix', was about the girl Benorix, dreaming about becoming a chariot racer and defending her Gaul village against the Romans.

Linnea was one of the extras, first playing a villager, then a prisoner and finally a citizen.

 Here she is front right, as a prisoner rowing the boat:

Time for the chariot races! Linnea still on the far right, as a citizen in different parts of the play:

The curtain call - great job guys! A huge cast of over 70 performers!

I really enjoyed this play! The past few drama productions we've watched at school have been musicals and the music have been rather overpowering. Not only was this easier to hear, but the story was really fun. Well done all involved!

New smile!

After first six months of adjusting her cross-bite and then a year and a half of wearing braces, today was the day when all the contraptions finally came off and Linnea got a new smile!

For once she was actually very excited to go see the orthodontist!
Before going, one last look of the braceface:

And after:

She will still need to wear a loose retainer for quite sometime, but it's see-through so wont affect her looks. She's so happy now!

La Perle by Dragone

We decided to celebrate Midsommarafton itself up in Dubai this year. I had to go see my Goldman to pick some things up before the summer holidays, and then I had sourced a (fairly) new Scandinavian restaurant - Smørrebrød - not far from the Gold & Diamond Park, where we had a quick dinner.

It was hidden away in the Al Quoz area, and even though this restaurant mostly does catering they offered quite a big range of Scandinavian goodies. And, they even had a Midsummer pole!

Linnea and Nathan had pyttipanna, Lucas chose Swedish meatballs and I had a open prawn sandwich, yum! After having cinnamon rolls for dessert we continued in to Al Habtoor City. We were going to see the famous show 'La Perle by Dragone', the first permanent show in Dubai.

La Perle has been going now, daily, since August 2017, and the plan is that it will keep running for at least 10 years in this purpose-built aqua theater. This venue was absolutely stunning! It's a round, 1300-seater, 10-storey theater, where everything is a projection screen, the seats, the walls, the floor and the dome.

It was a massive production, over 65 performers from 23 countries.

The performers jumped into the pool from as high as 25 meters height. Most of the acts were indeed aerial, or aquatic. It was quite amazing to see the performers emerge from and disappear into that pool. 

The pool at the center of the stage has a capacity of 2,7 million liters of water, it can flood the rest of the stage up to 30 cm, and that area can be filled and emptied in 90 seconds. The pool in the middle is between 5-12 meters deep.
The water effects were super cool, they had waterfalls by the stage, and even made it "rain" inside the whole theater at one point!

The experience was completely all-enveloping, mainly thanks to the loudspeakers which were everywhere, apparently even under the water in the pool, to help the performers; and also thanks to the 270 degree seating configuration.

We admittedly didn't really grasp the entire idea of the story line, but enjoyed each part for what it was. We were rather disappointed as we could see the 'Globe of Death' suspended in the roof, and impatiently waited to see the motorcycle stunt I had seen advertised - but it never came. The show was also 15 minutes shorter than announced, so I guess something wasn't working with the globe. I don't know of course, but a shame missing out on what is supposed to be one of the biggest acts of the show.

I'm more of a classic circus fan, but for what this is - a more theatrical experience - it was amazing! The water and lighting effects are absolutely magical, and the way they used the pool was fascinating. I would go back again if I have visitors who want to see the show.

More Midsummer

Yesterday I went to a bring-a-plate-type breakfast with a few of the SWEA girls. Only the ones with school kids are left here in the heat now, most of the rest have already started their summer holidays back home.

We celebrated Midsummer, and that at least the end of the school year is only weeks away now. Spot the Midsummer pole and the dalecarlian horse:

We also did a bit of a book swap. I had done a huge clear out, but that was almost to no point, as I came back with nearly as many books as I had donated..! Ha ha!