Prabhu n Ferrari

Last weekend, we had been to this Island called Hönö very close to Göteborg. We had been to a colleagues place, and spent sometime at the sea shore.
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Last Sunday, I had been to this lake Delsjön near Göteborg since it was nice and sunny. Here are some photos from Delsjön.
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Yesterday, I had been to this island Donso near Göteborg along with my friends. Initially we had planned to visit the island in the morning, but thanks to the weather we could check it out only in the late afternoon. I got to see a gorgeous sunset after quite sometime. Here are some selected photographs from Donso
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You walk into a Men’s store called ‘Brothers’. You keep looking at all nice T Shirts and shirts. One look at the price tag, you realise its not worth it. You keep walking straight. And suddenly, you realise you are in the Lingerie section. How on earth does a mens store have a
lingerie section, you wonder. You turn back and struggle to find the way you came in. And its already few seconds since you have been in the lingerie section. There are lots of women. You try to run away, if only you can find the entrance. You encounter a saleswoman who asks
‘Yes sir, can you please let me know what are you looking for?’. You say ‘Err. The exit?. She giggles and points the way. When you walk out, you hear few girls giggle behind your back. Once you get out, you look at the shop name. It is ‘Sisters’. You realise Brothers and Sisters are connected, not only in real life, but also in the shop.

Life is cruel, I tell you!

No. I am not going to write about about any girl. But am going to mention about a group of girls Today evening I was going to a ilai thazhai party at my swedish friends place. Somewhere around Botaniska Garden a group of girls with Red Bull, got into the tram. No, they were not die hard fans of David Coulthard or Mark Webber. Four of them were wearing the satna claus cap and one of them was in white overall (I dont know what to call that dress. It looked like a white color paavadai sattai), and an electric candle(?) on her head. Then they started singing and dancing in the tram. And to my surprise, other people in the tram started clapping and cheering them. After a couple of stops, the girls got down and vanished. I really had no clue to what I witnessed.

Once I reached my friends place, I told him about this and he said it had to do something with the Lucia festival . It seems in early days, in every ciommunity, they celebarted Lucia festival by making a selected girl wear white overalls and a real candle sing ‘lucia lucia’ along with her friends and a young boy ‘ginger boy’ play along with them. And since the number of fire accidents due to the candle increased, they replaced the candle with electric candle. It is celebrated on 13h of december and is considered as a prelude to Christmas celebrations.

Sounds quite interesting. I wish Anna Adarsh girls sang, atleast, Surangani in 15F

Staying alone is not new for me. Initially I was supposed to stay in a hotel, since the trip is for just 2 weeks. But I requested my company to arrange a flat for me, so that I can cook my own food. And they had arranged a wonderful 3 bedroom apartment, which I was supposed to share with 2 other colleagues.
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On sunday, the 6th of August the 19th European Athletic Championships was inaugurated here. For the first time in Sweden, the opening ceremony wasnt held within a stadium but outside. Around 75000 people attended it(Including me). It was pretty good with singers like Ronan Keating etc, gracing the occasion. Here is the video of the final part of the programme, where in they officially inaugurated the championships. Instead of posting photos, thought of putting up video for a change

Yesterday, it was a bright and sunny day. Nowadays, the sun sets early(relatively) in sweden. By around 21.30. So some of us, friends, decided to venture out by evening. It was a hot(comparatively) day as well. So we thought of going to some lake, for a swim(standing in neck deep water for me), and then catch the sun set as well.

As always, we took a road less taken and reached a place called vattlefjall some 25-30 kms north of sweden. At this juncture, I would like to mention something. People here in Sweden are amazingly friendly. I always wanted to write about this. Here is one9of the many) example. We just knew the name of the place, and the bus to take. That is all we could gather from the city guide. Before getting in the bus, we asked the driver about this place and the stop to get down. When the stop arrived, we got down from the bus. With the city guide in hand, we looked around all directions not sure which way we should proceed. Looking at our confused state, the driver stopped the bus got down and guided us, by giving directions. WOW!

The place was beyond my expectations. Blue skies(Its so blue!), thick forest, and a clean lake. No wonder, we spent 4 hours there enjoying the sunset.

By the way, the roses in my garden are really beautiful. Here is one sample

As always, the entire set can be viewed here!

I went to an Indian Restaurant called Punjab over here, for dinner. There was a nice looking Indian girl there(Maybe the owners daughter, daughter in law or whatever. For my convenience sake lets say it is his daughter). She was wearing a traditional chudidhar, long hair in single plait(otha jadai eppadi paa solradhu?), kajal in eyes(kaNNukku mai azhaghu), bindi on the forehead(pottu vaitha oru vatta nila). She was very beautiful. Sigh! But I fail to understand why she was wearing a Nike shoe? Cha! avaLoda kaalum saamuthrika latchanam padi irukaa paakalam nenachen. sodhappitaaLe!

Yesterday while coming back from denmark by train I observed something interesting. There was a girl next to me(Yes yes, she was beautiful. But thats not the interesting thing). After a while another person came there and said that she was in his seat. After checking both the tickets, it was known that the girl had a ticket for the previous day and not for yesterday. She had committed a mistake while booking the ticket. I thought she will panic since the train had already started. She was cool and said she will wait in the ticketless lounge. The what? I became instantly curious and followed her. She went to the place near the door, where there were seats. Many people were there already.
Within 10 minutes the ticket checker arrived. This girl mentioned her situation to the ticket collector. The ticket collector looked at her old ticket and asked her to pay 200 SEK. Now came the interesting part. This girl didnt have that much money. Immediately she picked her credit card and gave to the checker. He just scanned it in his wireless device. Thats all. She had a ticket. The wireless credit card reader is really cool.
I came to know that in connex trains in sweden, you can buy the ticket after boarding the train. The difference in fare is 50 SEK only and they accept cards. And in case you dont get a seat, you can travel in the lounge till you get a seat. The lounge is not at all bad. Comfortable seats with cup holders, and you can take along your cycles/pets etc.
Lovely facility. So even in last minute if you wish to travel, you can just hop in the train, without any reservation or even an unreserved ticket. Every coach/wagon has a ticketless lounge. On both the sides. Good, no?
What facilities these people enjoy?

I have already mentioned about driving in right, in Sweden. One another thing I observed is, the way pedestrians are given the priority. Maybe it’s the same all over Europe and somewhere else. But whenever a pedestrian is about to cross the road, all vehicles come to a stop and allow the pedestrian to cross. And I have seen Swedish people nod at the driver and smile, everytime someone stops their vehicle. Being a good mannered person(Ahem), I tried to follow suit. But then old habits die hard. I look at the driver, and invariably end up looking at the co-passenger since the driver sits here on the left side of the car. And most of the times, it happens to be a girl. So it is like this. Driver stops the vehicle, I cross the road and then smile at the girl sitting next to the driver. Poor driver. What he must be thinking of me? ‘Saala! I stopped the vehicle for you and you smile at the girl next to me. Hmph!’

There are 25 of us from my company in Goteborg. Yesterday, we all went on an one day picnic to a place called Dalsland in west sweden. It was around 3 hrs from Goteborg. We left by around 7 in morning and returned by around 11 at night. We went to a camping spot and had good fun there. We played cricket, football and some other games for a while. Enjoyed the lake, and many many other lovely picnic spots. Water water everywhere.

In the middle we stopped at a place where the ferry, train route and roads meet. It was very scenic. And best part was the ferry route. Actually the ferry comes from a low lying area to a place of higher altitude. But the stretch is narrow too. Hence huge powerful ferries cannot climb. They have come up with a neat idea. Picture this. Level 1, level 2 and level 3. Equate them with ground first and second floor. When the ferry reaches level 1, they close a gate. And then flood that area with water. Slowly the ferry rises along with water level and reaches level 2 They repeat the same process and you reach level 3. And then the ferry goes farther. After that they release the water, and it is back to level 1,2 and 3 again Neat right?

It was a wonderful day. Just that am a bit stiff now after all the action :D. Will update the post sometime tomorrow with the links of the places I visited.