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Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Day 4: Stockholm

Hello World!

We have spent our first full day in Stockholm (we will be here until Tuesday morning). Unfortunately, we were not able to do much sightseeing today, as I (Jackie) was in a conference from 8:30 to 5:30.  The conference is Mobile HCI 2011, and so far it has been pretty interesting. It is being held in an old distillery on the water in Stockholm (many things are on the water here, as the city is spread over 14 islands on the south-eastern coast of Sweden), which is really cool inside. This evening, the conference reception was held in Stockholm City Hall, where they hold the Nobel Prize dinner every year in December. We took a boat across the lake to City Hall, which was arranged by the conference (see picture of us in front of City Hall). The reception was in the Gold Hall, which is covered in a gold mosaic depicting the history of Sweden (we calculated that the 10 Kg of gold covering the walls is worth more than $18 million USD). We have included pictures of the room below.




During the day, Daryl got some Kroners, checked out cell phone costs, and did a bit more sightseeing. He spent some time in Gamla Stan, the Old Town of Stockholm, and caught the changing of the guard at noon in front of the Royal Palace (see pic below). This is one of only two days (including tomorrow) that we will have to spend apart.


Tomorrow, I am making a presentation on my MIT/ABB work at the conference and then the true vacation begins. I will be happy to start relaxing fully, but I will miss my Swedish friends (who will head back to Vasteras tomorrow evening after the end of the conference). Maybe we will be back in January to start full time jobs :)

Anyway, till next time...

Day 3: Västerås to Stockholm

I guess I should begin by saying day 2 was an ABB day, both Jackie and I went to different ABB locations to meet with people, and in Jackie's case, give a presentation. It was not standard 'travel' so there were not many photos taken.

Day 3, however, provided us with some free time so we got to see some more of Vasteras before catching the afternoon train to Stockholm.

I have looked a little deeper into making the map on our page more interactive and allowing people to zoom out to see 'where in the world is Stockholm'. I have found that the google api I am using sends my page a static image, and not a java script enabled google map. I can spend the time finding a better pre-canned solution, or I can learn a bit of HTML and actually put an embedded map on the page. It doesn't sound too hard but will require a bit of time to implement, and currently I'm itching to get back out into the city so it will remain a problem for another day.

Below are some of the pictures we took:

This statue was in the centre of Vasteras, we were told it depicts ABB employees on their way to work back when ABB owned almost every industry in town. Spot the turtle catching a ride with them! Sweden seems about as bike friendly as the Netherlands, most roads have bike paths, and many people ride their bikes to work and around town.

We ordered salads for lunch. They go a little heavy handed on the toppings, notice the shrimp on Jackie's plate.

Here we are in Stockholm. We did some walking around through the old city centre and the waterfront. We will be here until Monday so there is still lots of time to see more once Jackie is done with her conference.

A 'craft' brewery... my ass.

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Day 1: Arrival in Vasteras, Sweden

 I (Jackie) am filling in for Daryl on the blog today. We have just arrived in Vasteras, Sweden (well, about an hour ago) and we are settling in at our hotel. The weather outside is unfortunately quite bleary...it almost looks like Hurricane Irene followed us all of the way across the Atlantic. Anyway, I am getting ahead of myself. Let me back up to the beginning.

I said my goodbyes to family on Saturday morning and the van Kampen's drove me, Daryl, and Jacq (who is currently on a plane to Sydney, Australia) to the Toronto Airport. We arrived in good time but quickly discovered that our flight was delayed and that we would miss our connection in Dusseldorf. The next flight we could get on would have us arrive in Stockholm at 7pm Sunday night. Not only would it suck to spend all day in the airport, but we also have a dinner scheduled for this evening with friends and colleagues that we really didn't want to miss. Luckily, Daryl is a Star Alliance Gold Member (thanks to all of his trips to China with Mimio), and we were easily able to switch to a flight through Frankfurt that had us arrive in Stockholm around noon (and upgrade our seats). Here is a picture of us at the "Preferred Guest" counter :)



We shared a smoothie with the van Kampen's and said our goodbyes. Then we hung out in the Priority Lounge until it was go time.


The flight was nice and smooth. We even got a bit of sleep on the plane. Once we deplaned and grabbed our bags, we got our first taste of Scandanavian food prices: $4 for a bottle of water. Ouch. We hope that those prices will not be reflected outside of the airport. Another point of interest was the currency itself. 10 Kroner (which is equivalent to $2-3 USD) is a coin a little larger than a dime, while 5 Kroner is a coin the size of a Toonie. I thought the cashier ripped me off before I more closely inspected the coinage.

Finally, we grabbed the bus to Vasteras, which took about 1.5 hours. The city seems nice, although we haven't really explored too much yet. Hopefully we will get the opportunity to do so in the next day or two. Tonight is dinner and tomorrow is a full day at ABB for meetings about a recent project I worked on at MIT. Then on Tuesday afternoon we are off to Stockholm so that I can attend the Mobile HCI Conference, which runs until Friday. After that, the sky's the limit. Stay tuned.

Friday, August 26, 2011

Last day in NA

Today started with a church ceremony. It was important for us to have the Catholics recognize our marriage even after they refused to do the ceremony at our cottage the week before. No hard feelings though, ultimately we have crossed that sacrament off our list. Thats 5/7 for anyone keeping score. We have included a picture from outside the church below.



The afternoon has been last minute packing and organizing but now we think we're all set. Below is an image of the stuff we'll be traveling with.



Not shown is a duffel containing our business/dress clothing which we need for a meeting with ABB in Stockholm. We plan on shipping that back after the first week.

On a final side note, I hope to try to include a map on the top of the page to show everyone where we are. A good friend of mine has successfully pulled it off in his blog about biking across the US. I have not committed the time to figuring that out yet.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Shipping out from Boston

I was told that writing a wedding blog is cliche, so this blog begins post wedding. Yesterday, my wife Jackie and I finished packing our apartment, said our goodbyes to Cambridge, and put Boston in the rear view mirror. As always, the drive was long and tedious, and unlike normal was fraught with difficulty at the Canadian border.
   The woman at the border gave us a card to take to the guy in the office who was a bit of a condescending prick. Ultimately we were let into the country alright, however I was very sternly warned that because I did not export my car from the US before entering Canada I may be in trouble with the US customs upon re-entry. A quick phone call this morning dispelled those fears as the American customs official I spoke to was quite pleasant and foresaw no problems.
   The plan for the next few days is to say our goodbyes to family, do a simple service to have our marriage recognized by the catholics, then we are bound for Stockholm.

Sorry this initial post is a little text-y, I will do my best to keep a bias towards photos and a map of our current location.
We are still waiting for the photos from our photographer, but between shoots our caterer (!) took this picture and e-mailed it to us later.