Danny’s Blog

The ten days we were in Sweden have gone by as fast as a galloping elk, but they’ve left an equally big impression. Looking back, we both liked Göteborg better than Stockholm, despite many warnings beforehand that it would be the other way around. Göteborg is smaller, therefore more accessible; and all the students make [...]

More things to see and do when you’re in Göteborg: visit the botanical gardens, the design museum and a collection of 19 ships floating in the harbour.
We really liked the gardens; the fact that, for the first time this vacation, the sun broke through may have had something to do with that. The Botaniska Trädgårdens [...]

Wifi on our trip to to Sweden is proving to be a mixed pleasure. In Stockholm, free wifi was abundant: in our shabby guest room (don’t know whose router that was, switched over to ssl to be on the safe side), at the Espresso Houses, in random shops; just not at Skansen and the [...]

I’m in ABBA country. So many Agnetha and Björn look-alikes have passed me by these last couple of days, I swear I wouldn’t have been surprised at all if someone had started singing in the street.
The first half of the trip took us to Stockholm. A wet city, as it’s built on islands, but also [...]

This plan was doomed from the start: leave from work at 4PM and try to reach Antwerp within two hours, so I could collect my badge and goody bag tonight instead of tomorrow morning (together with 2000 fellow JavaPolis visitors). It was worth a try, but I should have known you can’t beat the Dutch [...]

Just when I was about to drive off to Antwerp for this year’s JavaPolis, I learned that a fire has started in Antwerp’s nuclear plant ‘Doel’. Apparently the fire is located in a side building and there’s no immediate danger to the public. Which is exactly what I would say to prevent complete chaos from [...]

(This is part 3 of 3; part 1 is here, part 2 is here)
We returned from Paris late Sunday evening (March 25th).
What remained was images, shreds of memories, and many of them, in spite of the short time we were there:
The Nautilus-like decoration of the Arts & Métiers subway station.

The American girl in the brasserie [...]

(This is part 2 of 3; part 1 is here, part 3 is here)
There’s a lot in Paris to be seen besides museums. Unfortunately, most of these things are outdoors and can best be visited with a bit of sunshine and a pleasant spring temperature. As we had neither of these on our short trip, [...]

Even though Paris is only a 6 hour drive from where we live, we never actually go to the trouble of finding a hotel and driving up there. Until now. It’s been 27 years since I last spent some time in Paris–more time than the average hour it takes to drive through it when we’re [...]

After being completely flushed away by heavy rain last week, from the streets of Toulouse, M. and I now find ourselves in the city of Oslo. She has to work, I get to play. Or at least to wander around the city a little. Disappointed by the (walking) distance from the hotel to the [...]