NY, Halloween party and more in the US

We had to do it

In central park



I love NY

Kodak moment

out chillin' with Carl and Magnus


In the Garden cheering for NY Rangers with our Frölunda jerseys on

NY - just superb

You gotta love the Pinot

Roadtrip, on our way to Asheville, NC

Hooters is a must when being in the US

The crazy gorilla Federico is trying something he shouldn't on me.. Crazy gorilla, crazy Halloween

Just in time for Halloween last fall, me and Carl went to US for work but also some Halloween celebrations, a weekend in NY and some other really good stuff.

We started off in Greensboro, North Carolina where we arrived the day before Halloween. On Halloween we crashed a party at a friend and colleague's house. We hadn't annuounced our visit to him (our guess is he did know though) prior to our entrance and of course we were dressed up in a way noone could recognize us. We had loads of fun and at least all our colleagues (except three that did know for sure) seemed surprised not expecting us to be there. When the party slowed down we crashed another one (for real) across the street where we didn't know anyone. A gorilla entered the party not long after we got there and together with him we had lots of fun mingling around with all the Americans and drinking until dawn. No more details given.

After spending the weekend i G'boro we went with our rental Pontiac (not so very nice as it sounds but good enough) to Asheville on a road trip through North Carolina for a couple of working days there. We started off with a nice restaurant visit where we had some Pinot Noir to drink, superb. Then we went out in the night life of A'ville to check it out. Some Halloween celebrations were still taking place and some additional funny costumes were spotted. After a couple of working days in A'ville we went back to G'boro, this time we made the detour through Blue Ridge Mountains, b-e-a-utiful! However dusk came sooner than expected and the detour was also longer than expected. Not a big deal though but we almost felt trapped with no exits from the road we were driving.. We worked another couple of days in G'boro before coming to the climax of the US trip, New York.

NY was amazing. I fell in love with the city more of a sudden than I could've expected. We came in on a kind of late Saturday. On Sunday NY marathon took place. This was nothing we knew about but we kind of noticed quite quick.. The streets were crowded and lots of people were performing different stuff close to the competition to get spotted and fishing for a road to success I guess. Bands, dancers and all kind of performers. We were strolling through Central Park and ran into a ice-skating rink. That left us no other choice than to rent some skates and lace them up. That was one of the most exotic experiences I've ever had. So far at least. 'Cause the weather was really good even though it was mid fall and the ice-skating felt so misplaced in Central Park in the heart of NY with all the huge buildings in the surroundings. Misplaced in an extremely good sense though.

To tell the full story about NY would have taken days. But it was more fun than I can describe in words and one highlight was being in Madison Square Garden attending a NY Rangers game againgst Pittsburgh Penguins. We also had a real kodak moment in a crappy burger place, a good old whisky in Little Italy, some nice partying and great outdoor breakfasts on Lexington Avenue. Even work was really interesting with the only downside that the hours spent on this event would have been a lot more fun spending someplace else in NY.

Being in NY was a truly surrealistic experience, it was extravaganza, deluxe great!!

Rio and Buzios, Brazil

above: not Copacabana but could be

above: Rio by night

above: Jesus in Rio



above: Gustavo and Birgitte Bardot in Buzios

For the second time in 2005 I went to Brazil. First stop was the same as last time; work in Curitiba, Parana. One big difference this time was that a friend and colleague from work, Gustavo, was with me when working but we also spent more or less all our spare time togehter. Lucky shot for me since Gustavo is Brazilian and actually from Curitiba. I'm not a big talker in Portuguese so this time I had an interpreter for real not only being stuck with the thumbs up and hang loose language. Work went good and during evenings we planned lots of stuff to have fun. I also spent lots of time with Jonas, a Swedish colleague of mine working in Brazil. Nice company, good drinks and food. That's all you need. The caiprinha was superb everywhere, churrascarias were nice but believe it or not Brazilians are also great with sushi. So except from the amazing, truly delicate capraccio (both in terms of fish and meat) that I appreciate very much when being in Brazil, I had lots of sushi. Probably the best sushi I've ever had.

After a week of work Gustavo and I took a flight to...I don't remember the name of the place but I'll put it down as soon as it strucks my mind.. and from there we rented a car to start our trip towards Buzios. Buzios is known as a relax, surf and enjoy the sun paradise. Especially well known since the sixties when Birgitte Bardot and other celebrities went there to hang out and thereby drew the Worlds attention to this little, by then, unnoticed pearl. Except from a little incident, we had no problems on our way to Buzios. However, this small incident was all but nice. We were stopped by the cops, who somehow decided to search all our belongings through looking for drugs or something. Messing up our bags and so on was ok with me, but they also searched our bodies more than a little bit too much. Let me put it like this; no plastic gloves but still a lot more intimate than I was comfortable with. Obviously they didn't find anything suspicious and reliefed from being released and on our way from these nasty cops our trip towards Buzios continued. In Buzios we relaxed, went around checking out the different beaches, had many good meals and drinks and also some partying.

From Buzios we then went to Rio de Janeiro for a quick stay before going back home again. Our time in Rio was too short so we had to choose between experiencing the Jesus fundament and the Sugartop Mountain. We went for Jesus. But we also managed to in short time checkout the Copacabana and some other nice endless beaches, buying a surf board for Fred a nice meal and some last caiprinhas and beers before saying goodbye to Brazil for this time.

Brazil is fantastic, I have to go there again to get the opportunity to even more explore this huge country with great variety of adventures. Still haven't seen the Amazonas, all the renowned water falls and so on.

Tudo bem Brasil! (should be something like 'Brazil rocks!' or more simply and correctly put 'I like Brazil!' anyhow I prefer the first interpretation so let's stick with that)

Fred & Simon surf deluxe extravanganza tour Summer -05

Late last summer I got the opportunity to hang out with the surf tour boyz Fred and Simon.. I just got home after a quick trip to Singapore and Seoul and they made me an offer I couldn't refuse (among other things I got a sms from Simon that is impossible to translate.."heja Martin han är bra, kom och kröka varje dag."). After chasing good flights for a day or two I took off to Bilbao and from there by bus to San Sebastian where the surf boyz picked me up. We had a great time the six days I spent with them. First of all four nice days in Biarritz and Anglet in France.. bonjour baguette.. and then one night at a youth hostel in San Sebastian and one night in Bilbao before leaving early Sunday morning back home. In Bilbao we also took the opportunity to be a little sophisticated and cultivated by visting the Museum of Modern Art aka Guggenheim in Bilbao.

When not trying to stand up on the surf board we ate tapas and drank lots of rosé wine and light beers. It was really a blast and I guess we have to do it again the coming summer. It was great. We met a lot of nice people from different corners of the World, mostly Aussies and French people. "..I had some friends, some that I hardly know, we had some times, I wouldn't trade for the world.." Au revoír

Volvo Days, June 2005

Above: backseat boys inside the firetruck and below the exterior of the firetruck.



Well June last year was really a blast even though we had no vacation but were working more or less all the time. The initial three weeks were spent in Esklistuna at Volvo Days and then I went directly to Israel for four days before going to the southeast of Sweden for midsummer celebrations. Went to Jerusalem on the Wednesday prior to midsummer, then back to Tel Aviv and from there I took the flight back to Sweden to be home around midnight just before midsummer. Home was not the place to be last June so I took the morning train to Lund and from there I went with backseat boys in the firetruck Kurt to Aspö, an island just outside Karlskrona in southeast of Sweden. Midsummer celebrations were nice, except from all the mosquitos who really enjoyed partying on me..

Sitting behind the joysticks of a 70 ton excavator is quite of a feeling. It is more or less like a computer game to ride it and the enormous power of it really add a momentarily feeling of being huge. Surrealistic!

Out of cam

The last trip shown just below, to Mexico the country of the tequilas, was the end of an era in one sense. Just prior to that trip and since then I've been having no digital camera. For the ones I've got from Mexico City and its surroundings I'm thankful to Fausto, William and Rubén. At least I might have learned the lesson why you shouldn't buy stuff online, it's so hard for a lazy person like me to return the camera in a package and just a tricky process. So now instead I've been having no camera for 9 months, a whole pregnancy. The coming trip to Bangalore in India again, no big amount of photos were taken. But there will be some more to come thanks to Gustavo when we were in Brazil and Carl when we were in G'boro, A'ville and NY on the States trip. Prior to that I also have quite a few from the Extravaganza Deluxe Surf Tour with Fred and Simon. Unfortunately I don´t have a single picture from neither Singapore nor Seoul.. but the other ones mentioned might show up shortly.. not today though cause I'm pretty tired and feeling like crashing early after a hard weekend

Brazil, India & Mexico, March through May 2005

2005 in the rear window

Well 2005 is not here anymore. And after a quick run through of 2004 I will give quite a short summary of 2005 as well to get back on track and be in the present not trying to catch up anymore. Some images speaks for themselves.. well.. most of them actually and I will just let them sparkle as you scroll up. Enjoy!

New Year's 2005

As always the promises about a healthier living and so on tend to come in the shadow of champagne, cigars and when the alcohol gets hold of your brain the promises suddenly feels less important than before the party started . I don't really remember if I delivered any for last year.. time flies